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Prince Harry was excited-maybe even hopeful-when he introduced Meghan Markle to his late mother's family. After all, Meghan reminded him of Diana. She was empathetic, warm, confident-everything Harry believed his mother would have adored. But when that meeting finally happened, it didn't go as he had imagined.
In a 2017 BBC interview, just before marrying Meghan, Harry shared his belief that Diana would have been "over the moon" about the woman he chose. But according to royal biographer Tom Bower, not everyone close to Diana shared the same enthusiasm.
In his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors, Bower claims that Diana's sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, didn't see Meghan as a reflection of their late sister at all. Instead of feeling a connection, they reportedly believed Meghan wouldn't blend well with the royal fold.
The meeting meant a lot to Harry-he saw it as a bridge between past and present
Harry had hoped that Meghan's presence might resonate with Diana's siblings, even offer some sense of continuation. But according to Bower, their response was tepid. "Harry assumed that Diana's family and friends would see a similarity between Diana and his fiancée... No one agreed," he wrote.
The book also claims that Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, offered Harry a word of caution ahead of the 2018 wedding-an act that reportedly led to "a bitter reaction." Looking back, Harry is said to have reflected that "this was going to be really hard," referring to the challenge of fitting Meghan into a royal system he was already struggling with himself.
Despite the doubts, Harry has remained firm in his view. In the couple's 2022 Netflix docies, Harry & Meghan, he once again drew comparisons between Meghan and Diana: "She has the same comion, the same empathy, the same confidence. She has this warmth about her."
Other royal authors, like Tina Brown in The Palace Papers, have noted that Meghan's independence and American directness clashed with the expectations of the monarchy-especially among those with long memories of Diana's quiet strength and deeply British reserve.
What began as a symbolic introduction soon became a quiet reflection of the larger conflict Harry and Meghan would face with the institution-and perhaps, with family loyalty too.