Wedding disasters, secret dates, bullying claims and bizarre proposals – a new royal book gives fascinating insight into the lives of the women at the heart of the monarchy
The book takes a close look at the wives who married into the house of Windsor
Royal insiders have revealed what it’s really like to be a woman at the heart of the monarchy.
Marrying into royalty comes with unimaginable pressures, but Princess Kate, Princess Diana, Meghan Markle and Queen Camilla have all shaped the modern British monarchy in their own ways.
And now a new royal book takes a closer look at their astonishing lives, with fascinating insight. The Four Wives of Windsor by veteran royal correspondent Simon Vigar goes behind palace walls to document their shifting alliances, private tensions, and public struggles.
Ahead of its release today, The Mirror flicked through its pages to find some of the biggest revelations…
Charles and Diana’s strange proposal
Diana Spencer was just 19-years-old when she got engaged to then-Prince Charles in February 1981. At the time, the future King was 32, making for a notable 13-year age gap between the couple.
They had been dating for about six months and, according to Diana, had only met in person only about 13 times before he proposed. It was an unusual set-up, according to Vigar.
“The meal, in the middle of winter, was cold poached salmon; there was no Champagne and it was served in Charles’s old nursery at Windsor Castle,” he writes. “It was here, within the sparsely furnished room of his youth, that Charles asked Diana to marry him. ‘If I were to ask, what do you think you might say?’ Charles ventured. Diana recalled: ‘I remember thinking ‘This is a joke’, and I said ‘Yeah, OK’ and laughed.’
“The deed was done and a couple of weeks later, on 24 February 1981, their engagement was formally announced at a carefully staged wintry photocall in the garden of Buckingham Palace. Unnoticed at a window above, Her Majesty the Queen observed her son and heir secure the future. Even from that distance she may have been able to see the huge sapphire.”
Meghan’s ‘very cold’ move
Before meeting Prince Harry, Meghan was married to American film producer Trevor Engleson. The pair met in 2004 and dated for several years before tying the knot in August 2011 in an intimate beachfront ceremony at the Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
Shortly after, Meghan landed her breakout role as Rachel Zane on the legal drama Suits, requiring her to relocate for filming in Toronto, Canada, while Trevor remained based in Los Angeles. Their marriage broke down in 2013, reportedly due to long-distance strain, and in August that year, their divorce was finalised.
According to Vigar, it was Meghan who called time on the marriage. He writes: “She informed Trevor the marriage was over during a weekend visit to Toronto. ‘Once she decides you’re not part of her life, she can be very cold,’ agreed her old school friend Ninaki Priddy, who had been pictured with Meghan on the railings at Buckingham Palace. ‘It’s this shutdown mechanism she has. There’s nothing to negotiate.'”
Kate and William’s life-changing kiss
The start of Prince William’s romance with Princess Kate started after their paths crossed at St Andrews. The pair were already friends when Kate walked in a fashion show in a sheer black dress, with a black bandeau bikini underneath, prompting William to note, “Kate’s hot!”
And it was that same night that he decided to make his move, according to Vigar. The royal expert writes: “He was never going to do that in a public place; William is far too savvy for that. Instead they went on to a private house party where they chatted, William apparently telling her that she was a knockout.
“He leant in for a kiss – which friends have said surprised Kate. She reportedly pulled away at first but eventually went with it. The kiss proved pivotal, changing not only the lives of William and Kate but also the future of the monarchy.
“They went on to live together in the second year, at a two-storey flat, 13a Hope Street, a stone’s throw from the location of the after-show house party, sharing with two friends, Olivia Bleasdale and Fergus Boyd.
“Scotland Yard had to make the same kind of security improvements as had been necessary at St Salvator’s, installing laser sensors, bulletproof windows and a bomb-proof front door. William and Kate had separate bedrooms but no one was much fooled; they were a couple, albeit discreet.”
Meghan’s ‘tough streak’
It didn’t take long for Harry and Meghan’s struggles within palace walls to become clear. Bullying allegations came to light in March 2021, when the Times reported Meghan had bullied two staff members out of Kensington Palace.
The publication stated that a complaint was lodged against the Duchess in October 2018, five months after her wedding to Prince Harry. Jason Knauf, who worked as communications secretary to Harry and Meghan, is said to have claimed the Duchess “drove two personal assistants out of the household and was undermining the confidence of a third staff member”. Both Meghan and Harry have always denied the claims.
According to one of Vigar’s sources, who was close to the chaos, things were going wrong ‘long before the wedding’. “Nothing was good enough,” they claim. “Meghan has a very, very tough streak in her. It was a horrible time for staff at Kensington Palace.
“I think the penny did drop quite quickly for her how much hard work it is and there isn’t a lot of glamour. You don’t really get it until you are inside.’ Things were going wrong long before the wedding and every new misstep and mishap added to Harry and Meghan’s siege mentality. On the outside, Harry blamed a toxic media while, on the inside, he resented relatives who seemed to be determined that his new wife should know her place.”
A statement issued by Meghan’s spokesman at the time the bullying report became public said: “The duchess is saddened by this latest attack on her character, particularly as someone who has been the target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma.
“She is determined to continue her work building compassion around the world and will keep striving to set an example for doing what is right and doing what is good.”
Kate’s cheeky whisper
Princess Kate made her first high-profile public appearance alongside senior members of the royal family when she attended Prince William’s graduation from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on December 15, 2006. And she made her feelings about her boyfriend quite clear, according to Vigar.
“Kate sat in pride of place next to William’s closest friends Tom van Straubenzee and James Meade, and the press cooed over her scarlet coat and striking black Philip Treacy hat. As she spotted William in his dashing dark blue uniform, she whispered to a friend (as reported by a lip-reading expert): ‘I love the uniform. It’s so, so sexy.’
“The whole event turbo-charged engagement rumours, prompting the ‘feeding frenzy’ a few weeks later in January as Kate left her flat.”
Harry’s wedding gloom
Vigar writes: “In his book Spare, Harry suggests that he wanted to avoid a big UK wedding and dreamed of eloping to Botswana, although he also claimed he was hurt when William recommended the small church at Tetbury, close to Charles’s Highgrove.
“In the end Harry settled on St George’s Chapel in Windsor, which had hosted several smaller royal weddings, including those of his uncle Edward in 1999 and, in 2008, his cousin Peter Phillips.
“He gloomily concluded, ‘We were expected to share this moment with other people. It wasn’t up to us.’ Sometimes you just want to tell him to cheer up.”
Queen’s William intervention
William and Kate briefly split in April 2007 after dating for about five years, and, according to Vigar, it was the late Queen who helped reunite the couple.
Citing the Mirror’s Royal Editor Russell Myers’ recent book release, Vigar says: “William’s granny played a key role in getting the faltering romance back on track. Elizabeth II and William had become close following the death of Diana and, sensing trouble, she invited her grandson to lunch, according to a source in William & Catherine by Russell Myers.
“William was ‘completely broken’ and the Queen simply advised him to try again. There can be little doubt that, in Catherine Middleton, the Queen knew a good thing when she saw it.”
Meghan ‘s***torm’
Harry and Meghan made a number of extraordinary claims in their interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021. Meghan claimed that three days before their huge ceremony in St George’s Chapel, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby had secretly married the couple in their garden.
“No one knows that, but we called the archbishop and we just said, ‘Look, this thing, this spectacle, is for the world, but we want our union between us,'” she claimed.
Vigar writes: “One of the senior people in the organisation of the wedding told me this claim caused a ‘real s**torm because, if it had been true, it meant the archbishop actually broke ecclesiastical law on the day of the wedding’.
“Of course, it wasn’t true – there may have been a private moment between the couple where perhaps they exchanged some personal vows but, as Justin Welby clarified, the legal wedding was indeed at St George’s Chapel. My source sighed, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t see how she could have got confused.'”
Assassination fears
Queen Camilla’s popularity has seen a sharp increase since her marriage to Charles in 2005, but there was a time she was ‘the most hated woman in Britain’, Vigar writes.
Having been publicly condemned by Diana as the ‘third person’ in her marriage, Camilla was perceived by the British public as ‘the other woman’ – and the one responsible for breaking up the marriage.
And then tragedy struck when Princess Diana died. “In the febrile months after Diana’s death, Charles thought he might be assassinated and Camilla was forced to go to ground, as public anger was directed at her as the cause for Diana’s unhappiness and demise,” Vigar writes.
“How you get from being deemed to be ‘the most hated woman in Britain’ in 1997 to ‘Her Majesty Queen Camilla’ in 2023 is one hell of a journey and it is the greatest transformation of any of our Four Wives of Windsor.”
‘Egos got in the way’
Vigar recalls attending Harry and Meghan’s first public outing together after their engagement announcement, and the “transformative effect Meghan was having on the demographic of royal fans”.
He writes: “As the first person of mixed-race heritage to marry into the British Royal Family, the crowd was younger and certainly more diverse. People told me that it was the first time they had attended a royal event and the reason was simple: Meghan. She worked the crowd like a pro, making a fantastic double act with Harry.
“The fact that barely two years later they were retiring from royal life is a terrible indictment on them and the institution. In my view, both sides share the blame for this historic missed opportunity. It was all so avoidable but egos got in the way.”
Heartbreaking phone call
Vigar also notes warning signs in Charles and Diana’s relationship before they had even walked down the aisle. “Just a few weeks after the engagement announcement, in late March, Charles flew off on his own for a long-arranged royal tour of Australia and New Zealand. A tearful Diana was photographed at Heathrow and the world assumed she was sad because Charles was leaving,” he pens.
“In fact, Diana was distraught because just before leaving for the airport, he had taken a phone call from Camilla and she had left them alone to say goodbye. The episode, as she told her friends, ‘broke my heart’.
“In June, after a grand ball at Windsor held in honour of Andrew’s twenty-first birthday, Diana drove to Althorp in the early hours of Saturday morning. There, according to Ingrid Seward, she told her father she wanted to call off the engagement.
“The Earl Spencer, still recovering from a stroke, managed to assure his daughter that the pressure was likely getting to her and that things would improve after the marriage, and she returned to Buckingham Palace by the end of the weekend.”
Nightmare wedding clash
Charles and Camilla were married in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall, on 9 April 2005, less than two months after their engagement was announced on 10 February.
Given the fact they were both divorcees – and Charles’s future role as head of the Church of England – they tied the knot in a civil registry office, and that led to a royal first.
“The funniest part of Charles and Camilla’s short engagement was when courtiers realised they couldn’t have a civil service at Windsor Castle because if they held a wedding licence it would mean anyone could apply to get married there, which would never do,” Vigar writes.
“A swift U-turn meant Camilla would become the Royal Family’s first town-hall bride, signing the documents with the future king at Windsor Guildhall before heading back up the hill for a church blessing, attended by the Queen and Prince Philip, at St George’s Chapel.
“In a further development that would have enraged or possibly amused Henry VIII, the final obstacle was provided by the Roman Catholic church with the death of the Pope.
“Charles always represented the Queen at the most high-profile funerals and that of John Paul II was scheduled for the day of the royal wedding. There was nothing for it but a mass ring-around of all the guests and the wedding was pushed back twenty-four hours to 9 April.”
Backstage tensions
There was great excitement when the ‘Fab Four’ stepped out on stage together for the first annual Royal Foundation Forum in London on February 28, 2018. On the surface, everything seemed to go well, but behind the scenes there were issues, according to Vigar.
“Backstage I am told it was rather more tense with Meghan, the TV star and red carpet regular, not at all happy with her place in the running order and not comprehending why rules of precedence – which dictated who spoke first – mattered.
“Catherine, not a regular public speaker, was nervous, and amid this charged situation one can readily imagine the brothers sticking up for their partners.”
‘Princess Harry’
Plenty of issues arose in the build-up to Harry and Meghan’s wedding – most notably her falling out with Kate over the bridesmaid dresses. But there could have been another major problem, which the Queen, thankfully, managed to avoid.
Vigar writes: “The Queen was running out of royal dukedoms to hand out but on the morning of the wedding it was confirmed that Harry and Meghan had been made the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a title dormant since 1843. As with Catherine, if there had been no new title Meghan would have become Princess Harry of Wales and we can only imagine how that would have gone down.”
Princes ‘united against Andrew’
Before Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s very public fall from grace, he was already a decidedly unpopular figure amongst key members of the royal family, according to the author.
“One member of the family who was decidedly unhelpful when it came to welcoming Windsor Wives into the family was Prince Andrew,” Vigar writes.
“In fact the one thing that still unites William and Harry is the loathing they have for their uncle, not just for his association with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and various public matters, but also over his treatment of Catherine and Meghan when they joined the family firm.
“Once second in line to the throne, Andrew was of diminishing importance and relevance and he didn’t like it one bit. One can easily imagine him bristling at talk of a royal ‘brand’ and he was known for being a stickler for protocol, expecting curtsies to a prince ‘of the blood’ and indeed his daughters.
“The exact nature of Andrew’s remarks to Catherine is unclear, but William is said to share Harry’s view of their uncle and ‘tosser’ is one of their more printable nicknames for him.”
Diana baby scan secret
The arrival of Prince Harry came as something of a surprise for then-Prince Charles – but not to his mother, Diana.
Vigar writes: “His middle names are ‘Charles Albert David’, the first a reference to his father, who apparently wanted a girl. Diana already knew it was a boy because, while Charles had missed it, she had seen the evidence on the scan.”
The Four Wives of Windsor: The Inside Story of the Power Behind the Crown by Simon Vigar is available to buy from today, 30 July 2026
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
