When Prince Harry called his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, once during the Covid pandemic, there was reportedly a “stony silence,” said to be a direct result of tensions in the Royal Family

Prince Harry was said to have been very close with his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II(Image: Getty Images)

Details of a particularly memorable phone call between Prince Harry and Queen Elizabeth II have emerged today – and the chat is said to highlight tensions between the then monarch and Meghan Markle.

Harry is understood to have followed procedure, by calling Queen Elizabeth II’s private line and telling the telephonist who was on the line. The operator was then tasked with informing the Queen who was calling and then leaving them to their conversation. Yet when Harry rang from the US during the pandemic, the then Buckingham Palace telephonist informed the monarch – and was left with “a stony silence,” a moment which became particularly “uncomfortable”.

“When I announced to the Queen that Harry was her caller there was just a stony silence,” she said. “In fact, it was so uncomfortable that I filled the silence myself by saying ‘Thank you, your Majesty’ and then connected them.”
The operator recalled the conversation and, today, the Daily Mail published new details of this, in the wake of fresh memoirs which appear to lay bare the Queen’s opinion of Meghan. The newly released memoirs also highlight how the Queen became “very worried” for her grandson ahead of his wedding.

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and Queen Elizabeth II are pictured weeks after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding(Image: Getty Images)

This particular telephone call happened some years after the wedding, and after Meghan and Harry ditched royal duties for a new life in the US. The fallout from this move was, according to royal experts, still on Queen Elizabeth II’s mind, as was the declining health of her husband Prince Philip. The Duke of Edinburgh died aged 99 at Windsor Castle in April 2021.

Richard Kay, royal columnist with the Daily Mail, writes in today’s piece: “The telephonist has never forgotten the moment, telling me: ‘It was memorable because the Queen would never not acknowledge you.’

“To this longstanding and loyal servant, the absence of the usual courtesy was a direct result of the tensions and discord sewn by the prince and his wife.

“I was reminded of this highly unusual behaviour of a monarch who was rarely – if ever – abrupt with her staff by an extraordinary insight into the Queen’s attitude towards her grandson and the former Meghan Markle, which emerged this week from an American historian who befriended one of the Queen’s close confidantes.”

And it is this new insight – by Lady Elizabeth Anson, party-planner extraordinaire and a cousin to the Queen – which has caused controversy in the past week. She said the Queen Elizabeth II “was not at all content” with the “Megxit” debacle, and she alleges Prince Harry was “rude to her [the Queen] for ten minutes”.

But others point out Harry had a very close relationship with his grandmother, who died aged 86 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland in September 2022. The Duke of Sussex, one of her eight grandchildren, was frequently pictured smiling alongside the Queen at royal functions during the latter part of her reign.