Prince Harry and Meghan Markle book will ‘settle scores’

A biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex dubbed by Palace insiders ‘the gospel according to Harry and Meghan’ is set to plunge relations with the Royal Family to a new low.

Sources believe the ‘resentful’ couple will use the book – extracts from which will be seen for the first time this weekend – to ‘settle scores’.

Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, has been written by royal watchers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, described as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s ‘cheerleaders’.

The authors boast the book published next month has been written ‘with the participation of those closest to the couple’. 

There have been reports that Harry and Meghan have spoken to the authors personally, although this has not been confirmed.

The issue of how far the couple have co-operated with the authors is interesting given the backdrop of Meghan’s legal battle with The Mail on Sunday over its publication of a letter she wrote to her father.

Thomas Markle says he only made the letter public after its existence was revealed by some of her closest friends to a US magazine. Meghan claims she had no idea they were going to do this and that the letter should have remained private.

Intriguingly, sources have told the Mail that Harry and Meghan had initially been worried when they heard about plans for the biography and ordered their staff to speak to the authors to find out what was going to be in it.

A number of meetings and dinners were subsequently held, it is believed. ‘When they realised that it was likely to be quite the hagiography anyway, it seems the Sussexes decided to kill it with kindness,’ one insider said.

Pictured: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Prince William and Kate at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in March last year

Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, has been written by royal watchers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand

Sources have told the Mail that the biography will lay bare the ‘pressure cooker’ of anger and resentment the couple felt as working royals.

Harry and Meghan claim they were ‘spectacularly unsupported’ by what they have described as the ‘institution of the monarchy’, and it is expected that senior staff will be in their firing line.

‘Regardless of the truth, it will make headlines worldwide and give a fulsome airing to the Sussexes’ long list of grievances, yet again,’ one well-placed figure said.

Another source told the Mail that they had been warned to expect a ‘revisionist’ version of events concerning their engagement, marriage and brief spell as working royals. 

‘It’s going to be the gospel according to Meghan and Harry, so to speak,’ they said. ‘Everything that has happened in terms of Megxit will be seen through the prism of their take on events.

‘What it’s unlikely to reveal, however, is how it subsequently emerged that Harry and Meghan had been quietly plotting their ‘exit’ from the Royal Family for at least nine months before they finally announced their decision to quit in January this year.

‘That hurt a lot of people who had bent over backwards to protect them.’ Members of the couple’s circle say that Harry, while loyal to Meghan, was very torn about how to resolve the situation. ‘But Meghan was extremely vocal about how unhappy she was and Harry, who had always hated the media and the so-called ‘men in grey suits’ [at the palace], eventually saw this as a way out too,’ they said.

The Mail understands that Buckingham Palace fear the book will destroy any hope of Harry and Meghan repairing their relationships with the rest of the Royal Family.

Sources say the Sussexes are ‘still somewhat shell-shocked’ about recent events. 

‘Truthfully, they didn’t think things would end up the way they did,’ said one. ‘But they are stubborn and have firmly convinced themselves that they have done the right thing, regardless of the consequences.’