Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Prince Harry's formidable great-grandmother, would have had "sympathy" with Harry and his wife Meghan Markle over their treatment at the hands of the press, even if she wouldn't have "understood" their decision to leave Britain for the U.S, her biographer has told Newsweek.
Author Gareth Russell discussed the queen mother, who died in 2002 at the age of 101, ahead of the release of his new biography Do Let's Have Another Drink! The Dry Wit and Fizzy Life of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which is scheduled to be published on November 1.
Elizabeth was born a younger daughter of a wealthy Scottish peer in 1900 and in 1923 she married the second son of King George V and Queen Mary, Prince Albert, Duke of York.
Though she was thoroughly aristocratic, the marriage was popular for its being viewed as a love match between a member of the royal family and a commoner.
The couple had two children; Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.
In 1936, Prince Albert's elder brother King Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. This meant that Albert and Elizabeth became king and queen.
Albert reigned through World War II as King George VI and died in 1952. His widow lived for another 50 years as the matriarch of the royal family, well known for her eccentricities and formidability.
On what the queen mother, who some referred to during her lifetime as the "last Edwardian" for living in the grand style of pre-World War I Britain, would have made of younger generations of the royal family, Russell believes she would have been sympathetic to the problems that they face.
"In terms of the Sussexes, I think it's a generational thing," he told Newsweek.
"The queen mother thought that leaving Britain was never an option, she said she would rather die—she and her family had refused to leave even during the Nazi aerial bombing raids of the 1940s—so, she wouldn't have understood, at all, wanting to live abroad or leave royal duties."
Harry and Meghan stepped down from their official roles as working members of the royal family in 2020 following a tense period labeled by the press as "Megxit", a term the prince later called "misogynistic."
Since moving to the U.S., the Sussexes have spoken freely and openly about their lives within the monarchy including leveling a number of accusations against the institution such as failing to support the couple when they were being criticized by the press, during a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
On this front, Russell says that the queen mother in particular would have been sympathetic for she viewed the press with a cautious eye.
"I do think she would have had sympathy with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's worries regarding press intrusion into royal lives," he said.
"In the early 1990s, the queen mother was appalled by the way the press was behaving, so I think in that sense she absolutely would have empathised with Harry and Meghan's worries about the media.
"She was very firmly of the opinion that giving interviews was a bad idea, as what's said then can never be unsaid, but that again may be a generational trait. In 1923, her father-in-law King George V told Elizabeth that giving interviews to the press was a mistake and she stuck with that advice for the rest of her life."
In her later years, the author said that the queen mother enjoyed close relationships with her great-grandsons William and Harry, though on one occasion Princess Diana "had words" with the monarch because "she felt she was showing signs of favoritism to William."
"She loved William and Harry's sense of humor," said Russell, "especially when they were older, and the two princes used to teach her catchphrases from their favorite show.
"She threw a going-away party for Prince William just before he started studying at Saint Andrew's University and, bearing in mind she was 101 at this stage, she waved him off with the joke, 'Let me know if there are any good parties!'"
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Queen Mother's death.
Do Let's Have Another Drink! The Dry Wit and Fizzy Life of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by Gareth Russell is available in the United States on November 1, published by Atria Books/Simon & Schuster.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
