Meghan Markle asked Queen Camilla for help dealing with press hostility and was met with a suggestion they move to Bermuda, according to ‘s book.
The Duchess of Sussex was at the center of a media storm in 2017 after being named Prince Harry’s girlfriend for the first time months before. Harry had been attempting to pressure his father , then the Prince of Wales, into going to war with the British tabloids without success.
“Meg, meanwhile, reached out to Camilla,” Harry wrote in his memoir Spare, “who tried to counsel her by saying this was just what the press always did to newcomers, that it would all pass in due time, that Camilla had been the bad guy once.
“The implication being what? Now it was Meg’s turn? As if it were apples to apples.
“Camilla also suggested to Meg that I become Governor General of Bermuda, which would solve all our problems by removing us from the red-hot center of the maelstrom.
“Right, right, I thought, and one added bonus of that plan would be to get us out of the picture.”
It’s not entirely clear from Harry’s book what prompted such a pivot after the initial advice to simply ignore the press.
In the 1970s, there had been talk of Charles becoming governor-general of Australia, but squashed the idea because she felt he would need to have already settled into married life.
Harry and Meghan were together at the time—whereas Charles had been single—but they were not yet married.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images/Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Camilla no doubt felt it would be convenient, as Bermuda, a British overseas territory, is off the East Coast of the United States, but an inauspicious history would have hung over such a move.
Edward VIII was made governor-general of The Bahamas, in a move viewed by historians as his exile from Britain, after he abdicated the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Comparisons would have been likely.
Needless to say, it represents one of the earliest known examples of active discussion in the monarchy of the possibility of Harry and Meghan living outside Britain and, if the book’s chronology is accurate, took place sometime before August 2017.
Harry and Meghan got engaged in November of that year and married in May 2018 before quitting their roles as active members of the royal family in January 2020.
Before Meghan approached Camilla, Harry described in the book his pleas for help from Charles: “Why have I got to beg you, Pa? Why is this not already a priority for you? Why is this not causing you anguish, keeping you up at night, that the press are treating Meg like this?
“You adore her, you told me so yourself. You bonded over your shared love of music, you think she’s funny and witty, and impeccably mannered, you told me—so why, Pa? Why?”
“I couldn’t get a straight answer,” Harry wrote. “The conversation went in circles and when we hung up I felt—abandoned.”
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Regalrumination.com, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly ) at and read his stories on Regalrumination.com‘s
Do you have a question about Charles, Camilla, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email Support@regalrumination.com. We’d love to hear from you.
