The royal household was left stunned and blindsided when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle decided to step back from their official duties and relocate to California four years ago

Meghan Markle had a ‘odd ritual’ when coming face-to-face with Prince William and Kate Middleton after her their departure from the Royal family with Prince Harry.

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they were leaving the Firm in 2020, their last official royal duty was agreed to be on Commonwealth Day, where it was spotted that Meghan had a strange interaction with Kate. The royal household has been fraught with agitation since they decided to step back from their official duties and relocate to California and you could cut tension with a knife soon after. The couple’s numerous explosive revelations about the monarchy in high-profile interviews seemed to make any reconciliation unlikely.

It seemed even less so back then. The annual event, normally a highlight in the royal calendar, was always going to be a tense one with tensions still running high between Palace walls but a body language expert claimed the meeting between Princess Kate and actress Meghan was particularly awkward.

In line with tradition, Meghan and Harry arrived at Westminster Abbey before Prince William and Kate as they are less senior. They took their seats in the second row and waited for the senior royals to arrive. Meghan beamed as the rest of the family walked in, including her father-in-law King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, before doing a small awkward wave in Kate’s direction.

Speaking at the time, Judi James described the wave as a “rather odd greeting ritual”. She told The Mirror : “It wasn’t the warm reunion that we were all hoping for. The tension in Harry’s body language especially was palpable. When he arrived, the minute he and Meghan had to drop hands, he immediately reached for his wedding ring which is a self comfort.

“Even when she was beside him after they had stopped holding hands, he was missing her, needing her support. As Harry walked up the aisle, they both waved at the children, but his face otherwise was quite tense and unsmiling.” Harry and Meghan looked a lot more genuinely cheerful, and Harry especially, through a really affectionate smile at Kate.

“But when it was William, you could see Harry was slightly more rigid and his lips were closed.” It’s no secret that Meghan failed to bond with her in-laws – including Kate. And there was a telling sign that illustrated just how different the pair were, right from the very outset.

Experts have pointed to Kate and Meghan’s very different demeanours in their engagement interviews, noting that Meghan cut a far more confident figure than other women who have married into the Royal Family. Princess Diana was incredibly shy when she appeared next to then-Prince Charles following their engagement announcement in 1981. Similarly, Princess Kate seemed nervous when she and William spoke to ITV’s Tom Bradby in November 2010, looking to her future husband to take the lead when presented with questions.

Not so Meghan. In contrast, she seemed more confident than Prince Harry during their engagement interview with Mishal Husain in 2017, writes the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden, adding: “She was, after all, an experienced actress. Her body language, which saw her lean across her fiancé at times, made her seem the dominant half of the partnership.”

The royal expert also revealed that sources who worked for the Royal Household at the time of Mishal’s interview in 2017 said the duchess’s ‘performance’ should have raised more concerns than it did. “At the time, there was so much excitement about the engagement that no one really questioned some of Meghan’s comments,” one insider is quoted as saying. “But, if you watch it again now, some of her responses seem insincere and her body language is telling.”