Queen offered Meghan a choice of tiaras

[babsanderson]

Below is an extract that describes Meghan being given the tiara to wear for her wedding by the Queen. Another passage describes hoe Angela Levin would not allow Meghan to get access to the tiara before her wedding to practise it with her hairdresser.

"Next came the question of a tiara. My aunts asked if Meg would like to wear my mother’s. We were both touched. Meg then spent hours and hours with her dress designer, getting the veil to match the tiara, giving it a similar scalloped edge. Shortly before the wedding, however, Granny reached out. She offered us access to her collection of tiaras. She even invited us to Buckingham Palace to try them on. Do come over, I remember her saying.
Extraordinary morning. We walked into Granny’s private dressing room, right next to her bedroom, a space I’d never been in. Along with Granny was a jewelry expert, an eminent historian who knew the lineage of each stone in the royal collection. Also present was Granny’s dresser and confidante, Angela. Five tiaras were arrayed on a table, and Granny directed Meg to try on each one before a full-length mirror. I stood behind, watching.
One was all emeralds. One was aquamarines. Each was more dazzlingly stunning than the last. Each took my breath. I wasn’t the only one. Granny said to Meg quite tenderly: Tiaras suit you.
Meg melted. Thank you, Ma’am.
One of the five, however, stood out. Everyone agreed. It was beautiful, seemingly made for Meg. Granny said it would be placed in a safe directly and she looked forward to seeing it on Meg’s head come the Big Day. Make sure, she added, that you practice putting it on. With your hairdresser. It’s tricky and you don’t want to be doing it for the first time on the wedding day."

Spare, Harry

*william chose the ring and Harry chose a bracelet

The way the Queen is presented in the book is of a person who doesn't like physical contact and is very formal but she's also very kind.

If the Queen offered you a tiara it would be a massive snub to say no, would it not?

One thing very clear in the book is that people within the RF have to know their place within their HRH roles . Harry says that he and William were unable to do public engagements unless their dad was willing to pay for those engagements. There was also stress with Charles & Camilla not wanting to be overshadowed by William and Kate and William not wanting to be overshadowed by Harry.

The Queen was the person at the top of this hierarchy- you wouldn't say 'no thank you, I've already got one'

@Eyerollcentral you are wrong. Google it.

Can you imagine Harry's to do list if he'd had no staff?

1. Book Granny's church St George's Chapel
2. Close entire of Windsor to traffic. Lots of police. Ask RPO chaps.
3. Pick horses and landau
4. Arrange transportation of RF to venue (special attention that cars have bullet-proof glass and have been polished
5. Organise video will BBC do?
6. Flowers: pick self from garden note to self remind self what flowers look like
7. Suit. Don't need uniform will do I'm sure

8.organise reception, must be big

1. Caterers, don't worry have entire banquet staff on hand

10. Book car - special note to buy personalised plate

Lol then harry is wrong as it is what he says in the book!!!!

@Loveisloveis Diana did. She wore her family's. You don't imagine similar largesse was offered to the POW as was offered to MM?

@Vitriolinsanity i mean I wouldn’t even trust him to buy himself a new pair of pants for himself for the wedding!!! Some people on this thread are deranged

That's not how I read it? He does say that he never had it in his possession.

If he never chose it at all then why would he say he was happy to let it go?

Who knows? Diana was an aristocrat in her own right and her family is older than the Windsors. It was a different situation, entirely.

@Loveisloveis an not scrolling through the whole book for the quote, see below the report on the book. It’s totally unambiguous so no idea how you came up with your theory

Ok, I misinterpreted it then because all I remember was him saying that he never had it in his possession and that he was happy for William to have it because he wanted it.

Actually I am surprised that Diana's sisters were offering up the Spencer tiara as Celia McCorquindale got married just one month after H&M and she wore it. Prior to that the tiara hadn't been worn since Charles Spencer's first wife at their wedding.

Op, you haven’t read the book have you?

The stuff you are saying doesn’t make sense, even if you 100% believe Harry.

Someone on MN saying ‘the Queen wouldn’t allow her to wear the spencer tiara’ doesn’t make it true.

Try actually looking into things, before you claim it as fact ‘cause Mn said’.

I am not fan of Harry, but the story of him giving William their mum's ring for Kate was really heart warming. It's a bit well disappointing.

Exactly? He never owned it so he could never give it away?

I've just found the bit in the book and it says

I never gave Willy that ring because it wasn’t mine to give. He had already had it. He’d asked for it after Mummy died, and I’d been more than happy to let it go.

I mean maybe Angela did not like a black woman asking her when this could be arranged and she perceived as a black woman expecting her to be at her beck and call.

WTF? Why are you just making crap up?

She was on holiday. Just like everything else in that shambolic wedding, everything was left to the last minute. The two if them had six months to organise it, and 4 days before the wedding, they had to hire a tailor to remake all the bridesmaid dresses! Not to forget, she lost her father somewhere. And then they needed a tiara at 12 hours notice.
Had neither of them heard of advance planning? It reminds me of those photos they showed of her packing. A disorganised mess.

He never owned it but it had been intended for him by his mother originally. That's how I read it.

The stories that there was a tender moment between him and William as adults are what was untrue.

That's how I read it.

??? He never owned it. He didn’t object to William getting it and anyway how could he, he didn’t own it???

Where does it say his mother intended it for him?

When my mum died, me and dbro sorted her jewellery. I took some pieces so did he. neither of us owned the pieces. I might say ‘dbro wanted the diamond necklace, I was happy to let it go’ meaning ‘I was happy for him to have it’.

That doesn’t mean Mum intended it for me and gave it to him.

@Loveisloveis but you are just making it up that his mother intended him to have it. Even whinge bag harry hasn’t said that and let’s face it he would if there was even an iota of truth in it. You are spinning fantasies

I highly doubt if Meghan was told HM ‘did not want her to wear’ Diana’s tiara that Harry wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to put a line in his book like ‘we were told Meghan couldn’t wear my mothers tiara.’ Not naming HM of course as he knows she was well loved by the public but he’d get it in there to show just how controlled and imprisoned they were.

He said ‘Granny reached out’ and offered a tiara. I doubt HM would have reached out if she knew Meghan had a tiara sorted already and had toiled hour upon hour alongside the staff sewing her veil to match it.

Reading between the lines it definitely sounds like Harry had another tantrum when Diana’s brother told him to slow down with the wedding (perhaps after he’d heard about Meghan’s reported bad behaviour) so Harry told him to stuff his tiara. That’s why Granny reached out.

Thing is you can’t make statements or write books leaving out the other side of the story as you run the risk of people trying to find it.

@ancientgran it Is outrageous that @babsanderson is calling AK a racist with absolutely no basis for saying so. AK is from Liverpool and her father was a docker. People are deluded if they do not think she was familiar with mixed race people in Liverpool, which as a major port city had a wider mix of people historically than any other city in England outside London. If there is any prejudice at play here it will be Harry looking down his nose at AK for being a scouser from a working class background

Yes you'd think the OP, who posted a long excerpt from the book, and is putting across Harry's POV would have actually read the full book.

But that would be too rational. The facts tend to pop the bubbles of emotive rhetoric.