A royal expert has claimed that Queen Camilla previously used subtle ‘coded’ gestures to show her feelings for Meghan Markle after she married Prince Harry in 2018

Prince Harry hit the headlines over his Netflix series, Heart of Invictus, where he made what some believe to be a fresh dig at the Royal Family. The Duke of Sussex said he had no support when he returned from Afghanistan, and it comes after years of swipes at the Firm, such as in his tell-all memoir, Spare, where he claimed he’d had rows with his brother William and felt his father was ‘conspiring against him’.

However, despite the bad blood, experts insist that things weren’t always so dire. In fact, one book claimed that Queen Camilla previously used secret codes and subtle signals to show how much affection she had for Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle. In Andrew Morton’s book, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess, the author claims that Camilla would extend gestures to the Duchess of Sussex to show she had been ‘accepted’ in the family.

These ‘coded’ gestures were said to include Camilla allegedly breaking typical royal protocol to hold hands with Meghan and kiss her goodbye at a public event to honour King Charles’ 70th birthday in 2018. Mr Morton said: “This rare royal gesture was a sign of how quickly the American actor had been accepted and treated with genuine affection by the Royal Family.

“On that day, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who had previously advised Kate Middleton on the finer points of protocol during her royal apprenticeship, was, without saying a word, signalling to the watching world that Meghan was now ‘one of us’.”

However, these gestures clearly weren’t enough to forge a close bond between the two couples, with Harry and Meghan stepping down as senior royals in January 2020. Meghan also went on to claim that she hadn’t “fit in” with the royals, despite trying “so hard”. Speaking in their Netflix documentary she told how upon landing in Canada after the couple’s final week of royal engagements in the UK in March 2020, she broke down in tears in the arms of one of their security staff.

“We landed in Canada and one of our security guards who had been with H for so long, and these guys were so wonderful, I just collapsed in his arms crying. I was like: ‘I tried so hard’, and he was like: ‘I know you did. I know you did ma’am, I know you did’,” she said. “Like I tried so hard. And that’s the piece that’s really triggering because you go: ‘And it still wasn’t good enough. And you still don’t fit in.'”

The pair relocated to Montecito, California, and now have children Archie and Lilibet who they claim can enjoy much more freedom. Meghan added: “A part of what’s beautiful here is the freedom to have family moments out in the world. And I want our kids to be able to do that and to be able to travel and to fall in love. I just want them to be happy.” Harry agreed, saying: “The world that they see is how I would love the world to be. They don’t worry about, they don’t need to worry about the things that we worry about.”