PRINCE Harry was “furious” when he and Meghan Markle were “shunted aside” at their final Royal event, a royal historian has claimed.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were “punished” joined senior royals at the Commonwealth Day service last March – in what marked their final public appearance as working royals.
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But while William, Kate, Charles and Camilla rallied behind the Queen in procession down the aisle of Westminster Abbey, Meghan and Harry were made to “shuffle to their seats” like any other member of the congregation.
Writing in an updated version of his book, Battle of Brothers, royal historian Robert Lacey said the pair, were made to “take their places on the sidelines” alongside fellow ‘juniors’, Edward and Sophie Wessex.
“They had been punished,” the author writes – because they had been “so hustling and aggressive” in their handling of Megxit.
Meghan and Harry, who had then only recently agreed to formally step down from their royal roles, were struck from the order of service – a “snub in black and white – plainly set out for all to see,” according to Lacey.
The pair would formally drop their royal titles and leave the Royal Family completely on March 31 – just two weeks later.
But Lacey believes it would have “cost nothing” to include them in the service one last time – as their “abrupt demotion was cruelly apparent”.
“When Harry heard that he and Meghan had been so graphically shunted aside on this final appearance, he was furious,” Lacey, who is a consultant on Netflix’s The Crown, says.
“The subservience of a ‘spare’ – one of the basic reasons for this very sad parting of the ways – could not have been more strikingly illustrated.”
Harry and Meghan sat together in the second row of seats behind the Queen, Charles, Camilla, William and Kate during the service.
But despite the snub, Meghan was seen waving and saying hello as Kate and William took their seats.
It came after Harry and Meghan caused a royal crisis by revealing they wanted to step back from their roles as senior Royals and become financially independent while still supporting the Queen.
But the plan was unworkable, with the former royals stepping away completely and forging a new life in the US.
