Prince Harry Probably Doesn’t Have to Worry About Another Incident With Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Troublemaker’ Aide Thanks to King Charles — Book
It seems Prince Harry can say he has one less enemy at Buckingham Palace. An updated version of a royal biography claims one of Queen Elizabeth II’s closest former staff members, Angela Kelly, signed a “deal” with “strings” after the late monarch’s death making it less likely they’ll ever speak out about the Duke of Sussex and the drama surrounding Meghan Markle’s royal wedding tiara.
Prince Harry detailed what happened with the queen’s aide regarding Meghan Markle’s royal wedding tiara in ‘Spare’
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Among the questions Harry answered in Spare was what happened with his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, and Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau tiara she wore for their May 2018 royal wedding. Reports in the months after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s nuptials claimed Harry argued with his grandmother about which tiara Meghan would wear.
Meanwhile, Harry wrote in his memoir Kelly had caused friction regarding the tiara, not him or his then-fiancée.
“When we finally reached her, she said the tiara would require an orderly and a police escort to leave the Palace,” Harry said, recalling how it had been difficult to schedule a hair trial prior to the wedding. “That sounded … a bit much. But all right, I said, if that’s protocol, let’s find an orderly and a police officer and get the ball rolling. Time was running out.”
Kelly, Harry continued, responded it couldn’t “be done” because “her schedule was too busy.” At this, Harry asked: “She was being obstructive, obviously, but for what reason? To my mind, Angela was a troublemaker, and I didn’t need her as an enemy.”
Harry went on to say Kelly unexpectedly showed up at Kensington Palace, where he met her in the Audience Room. “She put before me a release, which I signed, and then she handed me the tiara,” Harry recalled.
“I thanked her, though I added that it would’ve made our lives so much easier to have had it sooner,” he continued. “Her eyes were fire. She started having a go at me.”
“Angela, you really want to do this now? Really? Now?” he recalled asking. To which she shot him a “look that made me shiver.”
“I could read in her face a clear warning,” Harry wrote. “This isn’t over.”
Angela Kelly likely signed an ‘enhanced confidentiality agreement’ after Queen Elizabeth’s death and the 2018 argument with Prince Harry
It seems the tiara drama may be over. After the queen died, per Valentine Low’s updated version of Courtiers, Kelly signed a “deal” with the royal family that would prevent her from speaking candidly about the royal family.
Kelly, the author explained, lost her Windsor Great Park grace and favor home after the queen died. However, Kelly received another home. This time from the new leader of the royal family, the queen’s oldest son, King Charles III.
The king, Low noted, gave Kelly a home in the Peak District, some 200 miles away from Windsor, England. Low, who is also a royal correspondent for the U.K.’s The Times, explained the “deal” could’ve come with “strings.”
“The deal may, however, have come with strings attached,” he wrote (via Newsweek). “It was always regarded as surprising that Kelly was allowed to publish two books about her life with the Queen: no other member of the palace staff has ever been given such freedom.”
Kelly released two books on the queen: 2012’s Dressing the Queen and 2019’s The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe.
“It was a reflection of the closeness of her relationship with the Queen,” Low continued. “But after the death of her boss, it is possible that King Charles had a less generous approach to such matters.”
“Was the house purchase made in return for an undertaking not to publish any more books?” Low asked. “That sounds likely: according to one source, before leaving her job Kelly signed an ‘enhanced confidentiality agreement’ with the palace.”
If the report is indeed true then Harry’s not likely to see Kelly respond to his claims about her in his 2023 Spare memoir.
Angela Kelly had become ‘so much more’ than Queen Elizabeth’s ‘dresser’ in the years before the Prince Harry tiara incident
By the time Kelly and Harry were having what the latter described as TK, Kelly had long since become an integral member of Queen Elizabeth’s staff.
According to Low, Kelly became especially close to the late monarch. “During the queen’s last years, there was no one outside her immediate family who was closer to her than Angela Kelly,” he said. “Originally Elizabeth’s dresser, Kelly had, over the years, become so much more than that.”
“Her official title was Personal Assistant, Adviser and Curator to Her Majesty the Queen (Jewellery, Insignias and Wardrobe),” Low continued. “But she was also her confidante, her friend and the person who looked after her more than anyone else.”
“As Kelly would tell friends, she was effectively the queen’s carer,” the author added.
Following the queen’s death, Kelly attended the monarch’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey on Sept. 18, 2022.
