Royal family treated Prince Philip, Meghan Markle like ‘outsiders’

Meghan Markle has something in common with Prince Philip — they both felt disrespected and belittled by palace officials when they married their royal spouses.

The Prince felt he was treated as an “outsider” and “patronized” when he married then-Princess Elizabeth, just as Markle says she was treated when she wed Prince Harry.

“Life at court was very frustrating for him at first. It was very stuffy,” said Lord Brabourne, a relative of Philips, according to Ingrid Seward in her book, “My Husband and I: The Inside Story of the Royal Marriage.”

Courtiers were none too keen on Philip from the beginning. Despite the fact that he was distantly related to the Queen, they didn’t like that he was born in Greece and therefore foreign, Seward wrote.

“Tommy Lascelles (private secretary to the King) was impossible. They were bloody to him. They patronized him. They treated him as an outsider. It wasn’t much fun,” she noted.

“He laughed it off, of course, but it must have hurt. I’m not sure Princess Elizabeth noticed it. She probably didn’t see it.”

But the Queen, who had fallen in love with Philip as a 13-year-old, wasn’t interested in what Palace officials thought. The pair wed in 1947.

In those days courtiers and senior members of the royal household wielded enormous influence and power.

Prince Philip who famously spoke his mind and didn’t suffer fools gladly was resented by palace advisers who found him “abrasive and rude.”

“He knew he was going into the lions’ den. He was very conscious of the way he’d been treated and how hard he would have to fight for his position and his independence (against the Establishment). What he didn’t know was just how fearsome it was going to be,” Philip’s cousin, Lady Pamela Hicks, said, according to Seward’s book.

When Elizabeth’s father unexpectedly died in 1952, making her the sovereign ruler at age 25, it turned Philip’s world upside. He was forced to give up his career with the Navy and carve a new position for himself.

“Philip was constantly being squashed, snubbed, ticked off, rapped over the knuckles,” said the Duke’s former private secretary Mike Parker, according to the Express newspaper. ”It was intolerable. The problem was simply that Philip had energy, ideas, get-up-and-go, and that didn’t suit the Establishment, not one bit.”

And just like her grandfather-in-law, Meghan Markle’s problems with the Palace began almost immediately after her and Prince Harry wed in May 2018. 

There were rumblings that the former “Suits” star was emailing her staff at 5 a.m. with ideas on how to shape her role and was accused “of ripping up the royal playbook.”

And just as Philip was criticized for his lack of deference and non-British background so was Markle.

Royal expert Camilla Tominey told The New Yorker that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s nasty rift with the royal family was ignited by the California native’s “clashing” with palace staff who dislike her perceived lack of respect for palace traditions and they were suspicious of her Hollywood background.

“I’ve put it down to a clash of cultures, in the sense that she had come from a celebrity world, which is very fast-paced and quite demanding,” Tominey opined. “The royal world is very different – it’s must slower-paced and hugely hierarchical.”

Days before the now California-based couple’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, the palace claimed that Markle had bullied staff during her time as a working royal at Kensington Palace — something her office has strongly denied.