A sweet photo featuring Prince George reportedly convinced Prince Harry and Meghan Markle that they needed to get out of the Royal Family, an author has claimed.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to have already believed the Firm was “conspiring against them” before an official snap was released of the Queen and her heirs. It showed the late Elizabeth II with the now-King Charles, Prince William and his son, who was six at the time, in the throne room at Buckingham Palace. 

It was released at the beginning of 2020, days before Harry and Meghan first confirmed they planned to step down as working royals. Author Andrew Morton claims this was a “wake up call” for the couple and the final push they needed to get out.

On the face of it, the picture simply lined up the future of the monarchy and mirrored many historic portraits. But it is alleged to have caused upset behind the scenes. In his book Meghan: A Hollywood Princess, Morton wrote: “The royal couple suspected that the entire institution was conspiring against them. As they saw it, the evidence was all around them. The unspoken code was straightforward: the future of the monarchy was assured, with or without Meghan and Harry.”

These fears were later said to be confirmed when Harry cancelled a meeting with the Queen, in which he’d wanted to discuss his royal future, Morton claimed. “This sense that, despite their international popularity, they were low down the royal totem pole was confirmed when Harry arranged to meet the Queen for a grandson-to-grandmother chat in early January. At the last minute the meeting was postponed. Charles suspected classic internal politics, his family concerned that anything the Queen agreed during informal conversations would be used by Harry as a negotiating tactic.”

Speaking to The Mirror’s podcast Pod Save The King, Morton revealed that Harry and Meghan had started to think about leaving The Firm far earlier than the public thought and said talks began just six months after their wedding. Morton said: “Harry was having conversations in a London hotel with Oprah Winfrey back in November 2018, just six months after they’d been married “So they were thinking about a different direction of travel pretty early on. The irony is they had been given the keys to the first class lounge when Prince Harry was given the position of Youth Ambassador to William and Catherine.

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