Meghan Markle apparently raised eyebrows during her outing with the Queen

Meghan and the Queen in Chester (Getty)
Meghan and the Queen in Chester (Getty)

Meghan Markle faced her first test as a new royal less than a month after her wedding day – a solo engagement with the Queen.

The Duchess of Sussex accompanied Her Majesty to Chester to open the Mersey Gateway Bridge and the Storehouse Theatre.

The pair were seen laughing together and despite a slightly awkward moment about who should get into the car first, Meghan sailed through her first solo trip without her husband Harry by her side.

However, Meghan’s decision not to wear a hat apparently caused a stir in the royal household at the time.

The claim was made in a new book, Charles At Seventy by Robert Jobson, which celebrates Prince Charles’s upcoming 70th birthday.

The pair were spotted laughing together at the event in Chester (Getty)
The pair were spotted laughing together at the event in Chester (Getty)

The Queen’s advisors had told the Duchess that Her Majesty would be wearing a green hat to match her outfit. It was seen as effectively an advisory notice to Meghan that she would be expected to comply.

One senior figure close to the Queen said: “I don’t think the duchess fully understood.

“This was not a request. They are for others to make, not the Queen.”

The book claims the duchess was “showing the stubborn streak her father had claimed in one of his many newspaper rants that she had inherited from her mother,” after she decided not to wear a hat. The Queen was reportedly left “a little baffled” by it.

Meghan was dubbed ‘inappropriately dressed’ by some, for her off-the-shoulder Carolina Herrera co-ord at the Queen’s birthday parade (Getty)
Meghan was dubbed ‘inappropriately dressed’ by some, for her off-the-shoulder Carolina Herrera co-ord at the Queen’s birthday parade (Getty)

But it also adds that she had been keen not to be criticised again, opting to wear a cream over-the-shoulder Givenchy sheath dress for the outing, after being dubbed ‘inappropriately dressed’ for wearing a bardot-style outfit for the Queen’s birthday parade a few days before.

However, when Meghan and Harry announced their engagement in November 2017, they described the moment she first met the Queen and won over her beloved corgis in their interview.

“I’ve spent the last 33 years being barked at—this one walks in, absolutely nothing,” Harry said of his grandmother’s dogs.

Meghan added that they were “just laying on my feet during tea. It was very sweet.”


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