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Secrets of the Royals Births, Marriages and Deaths Season 1 Episode 3
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00:00...of kings, this scepter d'isle, this earth of majesty.
00:09When local newspapers were widely read, everybody first of all turned to the births, marriages and deaths columns.
00:16The royal family is that column writ large.
00:20It's about power, it's about position, and this power is passed down by line of succession.
00:36A royal birth is a sign of celebration.
00:40Henry was absolutely over the moon.
00:43Bonfires were lit, celebrations were had across the city.
00:48Finally, royal baby girls had the same rights to the throne as royal baby boys.
00:59There was a huge amount of excitement about the fact that he had chosen for his bride
01:03somebody who was from a totally different background to anyone who had married into the royal family before.
01:09Royal deaths are moments of change when the national story shifts and a new chapter begins.
01:19The blade comes and chops off her head in one fell swoop.
01:25Anne Boleyn, the Queen, is dead.
01:31Archives are so much more for historians than boxes of old papers.
01:35They're really a living theatre.
01:38You can watch the characters of the past, living, dying, falling in love, plotting.
01:46We can feel them come alive.
01:49This blessed plot.
01:52This earth.
01:55This realm.
01:56Everyone loves a royal wedding.
02:06The pomp, the pageantry, and of course, the dress.
02:10Because on your big day, what you wear isn't just important.
02:14It can define the entire occasion.
02:16On the 19th of May, 2018, the world watched as Prince Harry married Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle,
02:30uniting Britain's favourite prince with a rising Hollywood star.
02:35There was a huge amount of excitement about the fact that he had chosen for his bride
02:39somebody who was from a totally different background to anyone who had married into the royal family before.
02:44Meghan was mixed race.
02:46She was American.
02:47I think there was a real feeling that she brought something that allowed the royal family to speak to people in a totally different way.
02:56This was seen as the new-look Britain, the new-look monarchy.
03:01And it was a glorious day.
03:03The sun shone, the swans were on the River Thames.
03:08It was just idyllic.
03:10And you could see people and hear them cheering and talking, how wonderful everything was.
03:20As Meghan walked down the aisle, all eyes were on the dress.
03:24The fashion moment the world had been waiting for.
03:27Obviously, there was huge anticipation about her dress.
03:32Who would she choose as the designer?
03:34Because Kate had already had probably the obvious choice, being Alexander McQueen.
03:40She'd chosen Givanti, which is obviously a French fashion house, but Claire White-Keller is a British designer.
03:46It was possibly slightly controversial that Meghan decided to go with a French couture house rather than a British couture house.
03:53I was surprised by how clean and simple it was, because it was a royal wedding.
04:01But then it was very, very true to Meghan's style.
04:04I think a lot of people thought that she would go for something more decorative, or maybe something that felt more Hollywood.
04:12But this was almost the total opposite direction to that.
04:16The gown was a study in elegance and restraint, but it was through her accessories that Meghan made her boldest sartorial statement.
04:26All of the emphasis, really, went onto her beautiful five-metre veil, which was embroidered with all the flowers of all the countries of the Commonwealth.
04:38Who's that going to please? It's going to please the Queen, who has spent a lifetime helping to invigorate the Commonwealth.
04:50Meghan knew how to play the game.
04:52As well as the 53 symbols from the Commonwealth nations, there was the California poppy, which is the state flower of California, and winter sweet, which was a flower that grew outside their cottage in Kensington Palace at Nottingham Cottage.
05:12And so, lovely symbols of their origins, really.
05:16And when it came to the age-old bridal tradition, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, Meghan's choices were as thoughtful as they were symbolic.
05:29Meghan's something old was really, really gorgeous.
05:33It was a piece of fabric that had come out of the Princess of Wales.
05:37Diana's wedding dress was sewed into her dress.
05:42Her new was her bracelet and earrings.
05:46Her something borrowed was the beautiful Queen Mary tiara.
05:52And something blue was a little piece of the blue dress that she wore on her first date to Harry, and that was sewed into her dress.
06:08Just like the details of her dress, Meghan's decision to enter the chapel alone was another powerful statement.
06:15A quiet, graceful assertion that she was doing things her own way.
06:20Meghan walked down the aisle largely unaccompanied, and it was only like two-thirds of the way down the aisle that Prince Charles, now King Charles, offered his arm and took her to her future husband.
06:35Meghan's bold display of independence set a tone that echoed throughout the day, from the food to the music.
06:48Meghan is a big foodie, and so it was always going to be of real interest to her where the food from her wedding came from.
06:56Meghan's wedding came from. She went for a lemon and elderflower cake.
07:00Usually for the cake, you get four, five, six tiers, and it's fruitcake.
07:06But she didn't want that. She changed tradition, and the Queen was quite surprised about that.
07:13Harry and Meghan's wedding was definitely the most diverse wedding that we've seen in the royal family, both in terms of the congregation and in terms of the elements of the wedding.
07:22It really showcased diversity in Britain and around the world.
07:27There was a lot of very traditional music there, but they had a gospel choir.
07:32The sermon was different. Normally it's the Archbishop of Canterbury. Here was an Episcopalian bishop.
07:38You know, this was not something that St George's Windsor had seen before, and I think the fact that the royal family was prepared to adapt is a sign that they were open to change.
07:49On the surface, it was a fairytale wedding for the modern age. But...
07:59In a world where what you wear can make or break the day, we'll reveal how Meghan's choice of tiara is said to have sparked a royal clash behind the scenes.
08:10I believe that Meghan wanted the most expensive one, worth 10 million pounds. And the Queen said no. And she was absolutely furious.
08:22And the disturbing details of a royal doctor's deadly decision.
08:29These notes were stored away in the royal archives for half a century, until in 1986, Dawson's biographer, Francis Watson, revealed their contents of the world.
08:39And they are shocking.
08:41It is amazing, because it was against the law, as it is now. This was euthanasia, this was regicide.
09:00Despite the glare of publicity, the final days of a sovereign are often shrouded in secrecy.
09:06The official account doesn't always tally with the truth.
09:11And few tales are more chilling than what unfolded behind closed doors to the ailing King George V.
09:19George V was the monarch during the First World War.
09:23And he was a popular king. He steered the nation through the war and also through industrial unrest.
09:29By the beginning of 1936, George V was really in his twilight.
09:36He'd celebrated his Silver Jubilee, and that was a great success.
09:40But the following year, he's really very ill.
09:45George V was a long-term smoker, and his health suffered because of that.
09:50He developed COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.
09:55His condition in his lungs had got worse, and he was in his bed being looked after by his physician, Lord Dawson.
10:03And it didn't look like he was going to make it through.
10:06Lord Dawson of Penn, a highly respected British physician who served as royal doctor to several monarchs in the early 20th century,
10:18was responsible not only for the king's health, but for managing his public image during his illness.
10:25As George V faced his final hours at Sandringham House in Norfolk, the palace issued a statement.
10:32It was done very respectfully to the effect of the king's life is drawing peacefully to a close.
10:40So people knew that there was not long to go.
10:44When the end came, he still managed to hold a Privy Council meeting on his deathbed.
10:51And then a few hours later, died late at night.
10:53As dawn broke, so did the news of his death, plunging Britain into national mourning.
11:08The Royal Archives, based at Windsor, contain a wealth of documents dating back nearly 400 years, secret histories waiting to be uncovered.
11:18Historian Lisa Hilton is delving into royal records to examine the Times newspaper article published after George V's passing.
11:29A peaceful ending at midnight.
11:32The Times announced the death of the king on the 21st of January 1936.
11:35The page is packed with reactions to the king's death, including condolences from all around the world.
11:47We can see here from President Roosevelt, and here from Herr Hitler.
11:51But the phrase that keeps recurring is, death came peacefully to the king.
11:59Each of the bulletins emphasises that this was a calm and tranquil passing.
12:06And each of them is signed by Dawson of Penn.
12:08But fifty years after George V's death, came a shocking revelation from the pages of Dawson's diary.
12:19These notes were stored away in the Royal Archives for half a century, until in 1986, Dawson's biographer Francis Watson revealed their contents of the world.
12:29And they are shocking.
12:30At about eleven o'clock, it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the patient, but little comporting with that dignity and serenity which he so richly merited.
12:45I therefore decided to determine the end and injected myself, morphia, gram three quarters, and shortly afterwards cocaine, gram one, into the distended jugular vein.
13:00Here, Dawson is admitting that it wasn't illness which ended the life of King George V. It was his own actions.
13:07There was no contrition or regret from Dawson. He was absolutely convinced that he was doing the right thing.
13:17And he clarifies that he'd administered the injection himself, myself, because it was obvious that Sister B was disturbed by this procedure.
13:27Clearly, Sister B was disturbed because she knew where it would end in the King's death.
13:32But there was another dark truth behind this death.
13:39During his medical career, Lord Dawson was a well-known advocate of assisted dying.
13:48He had stood up in the House of Lords and talked about how doctors should be able to end suffering at the end of life.
13:55He had said that that should be done at the discretion of the doctors and that he was in a position to make that decision.
14:02It is amazing because it was against the law as it is now. This was euthanasia, this was regicide.
14:08Ninety years on, we're still having these discussions about end of life care and what we should do with people in pain, people suffering.
14:15Another note in Dawson's diary makes it clear that his decision to hasten the King's death wasn't just about easing the suffering of his final hours.
14:29The notes also explain Dawson's timing of the fatal injections.
14:34The importance of the death receiving its first announcement in the morning papers rather than the less appropriate field of the evening journals.
14:41Dawson was keen for this to be announced properly in what he regarded as the respectable papers, notably the Times.
14:51He is orchestrating not only the manner of the King's death, but the moment at which it occurred.
15:04But the calculated death of King George V was far from an isolated incident.
15:09Lord Dawson of Penn was known for assisting some of his patients in their final hours.
15:16There was even a ditty that went about. People would sing, Lord Dawson of Penn killed many men and that's why we sing, God save the King.
15:26But he was one of the great establishment figures and he got a peerage for his services to the monarch.
15:32In royal lives, marriage, birth and death are inextricably linked and nowhere was that more evident than in the court of Henry VIII.
15:54Where these three milestones were bound together by the brutal method he used to secure his grip on power.
16:05None more brutal than the way he dispatched wife number two, Anne Boleyn.
16:12At the beginning of 1536, Anne Boleyn is riding high. She is the Queen. She has the Princess Elizabeth with Henry.
16:21Henry VIII adores her. She is pregnant. And then Catherine of Aragon dies, Anne's great rival, the first wife of Henry VIII.
16:30Wife of Henry VIII. Nothing could be better. Anne and Henry are delighted. But at the end of January, on the day that Catherine of Aragon is buried, Anne Boleyn miscarries her pregnancy.
16:42And it was known to be a boy. Anne is heartbroken. And Henry is angry. He says, I see God will give me no male children.
16:58Henry VIII. Henry is beginning to think that his relationship with Anne is cursed.
17:09He is already falling in love with Anne's lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. And Anne, with the end of this pregnancy, she is vulnerable and her enemies move to strike.
17:22Because in the less than three years that Anne has been Queen, she has created enemies. Enemies in the court, enemies even among her relations.
17:31And Thomas Cromwell, Henry's most senior adviser, understands that Henry wants to get rid of Anne.
17:37He sets about gathering evidence against the Queen.
17:40On the 1st of May, 1536, Anne is watching the May Day jousts with Henry.
17:52Halfway through, a messenger comes to Henry and whispers in his ear.
17:56He gets up. And he leaves the jousts. Anne is in shock.
18:00She knows something bad is happening, but she has no idea what.
18:06Next morning, her uncle and men of the court come to her and tell her that she is accused of adultery.
18:15With one of her musicians, Mark Smeaton.
18:19The messenger to Henry's ear, he said to him that Mark Smeaton had confessed.
18:24Anne can't believe it. She's accused of adultery. She must go straight to the tower.
18:33Anne arrives at the tower. She is overwhelmed. She's in shock. Her trial will be in a matter of days.
18:43Will Anne have justice? With the force of the state stacked against her, can Anne defend herself?
18:49As Anne Boleyn's failure to produce a royal son left her facing death.
19:06Hundreds of years later, another longed-for royal son would be born.
19:12At shocking speed, on the island of Corfu.
19:15Prince Philip entered the world in June 1921, when his father was at the heart of one of Europe's more unusual royal arrangements.
19:27Prince Andrew of Greece, who's actually a member of the Danish royal family rather confusingly,
19:33because the Greeks needed a king and they imported the son of the king of Denmark.
19:37People often made the mistake of referring to the Duke of Edinburgh as Greek.
19:44I once asked him how Greek he felt, and he replied, well, actually, I'm Danish.
19:49But Philip wasn't just Danish royalty. He had British royal blood too.
19:57Princess Alice, his mother, is in fact the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria,
20:02and had in fact been born at Windsor Castle in 1885, the same room where her own mother was born.
20:08In 1902, Philip's parents met at Buckingham Palace during Edward VII's coronation, and soon after settled on Corfu in a former Greek royal retreat.
20:22Mon Repos was, by any standards, a very charming residence.
20:29I mean, it wasn't vast, it wasn't palatial, it wasn't like Versailles.
20:33Andrew and Alice were not the senior members of the royal family,
20:38and so they were at this villa with quite a small staff for royals.
20:43Mon Repos literally means my rest.
20:46But for Alice and Andrew and their growing family, rest was in short supply.
20:52They have four daughters, and Philip is a much long-for son, born much later than his siblings.
21:00But his arrival came at a time of deep uncertainty.
21:05A struggle between Greece and Turkey reached its climax, with the Greek army in full retreat through Asia Minor.
21:10In 1921, Greece was locked in a bitter war with Turkey, and edging towards national collapse.
21:19Prince Andrew of Greece, who was a military officer, he'd been called back to duties the day before the birth,
21:27so Prince Andrew was not present at the birth of Prince Philip.
21:31But an absent father wasn't going to get in the way of the birth of the future husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
21:41Princess Alice was very famed for being tough and resourceful.
21:46She'd already had four daughters. Prince Philip was her fifth child.
21:51She just got on with it.
21:53This was an age of still quite rudimentary medical practice,
21:57and a lot of operations were conducted at home.
22:02Princess Alice had gone into labor.
22:04The doctors said,
22:05Oh my goodness, it's an emergency, the baby's coming.
22:08And so Prince Philip was born on the kitchen table.
22:14Which is just so Prince Philip.
22:16He's always been a member of the awkward squad, evidently from the very day he was born.
22:20And so Prince Philip entered the world not in royal luxury, but on a table.
22:35Coming up, Meghan's dress dazzles the world.
22:39But behind palace walls, a battle rages over the choice of tiara.
22:43I think there was this feeling that Meghan felt that she was entitled to the tiara.
22:49They kind of forgot that this was a loan from the Queen done, you know, as a favor.
22:55And deep inside Westminster Abbey, a macabre funeral effigy created for one of Britain's longest reigning kings.
23:04For the public to see the dead king, they created this body and dressed it up.
23:10So this is the closest you get to being in the presence of Edward III.
23:15Westminster Abbey has witnessed centuries of royal births, deaths and marriages.
23:34Princely grooms, coffins bearing monarchs and countless blushing royal brides have all crossed its threshold.
23:41But at the heart of this iconic building lies a rather less well-known collection of strange royal objects.
23:51Objects which give us a fascinating and extraordinarily intimate insight into the exact moment of a monarch's death.
23:59The earliest dates back to King Edward III, a monarch who ruled England over 650 years ago.
24:06This is a unique object. There was only one King Edward III.
24:11And when he died, they created this figure to represent his body.
24:16So it stood in for the king.
24:18So when he died, his real body was disemboweled, his heart was taken out.
24:25His body was wrapped in a wax cloth and put in a coffin.
24:28And so for the public to see the dead king, they created this body and dressed it up like the king.
24:37Edward died in 1377 in the Palace of Sheen in Richmond at the age of 64.
24:43And as preparations for his funeral got underway, the making of his effigy was one of the most important tasks.
24:52It would have been made relatively quickly.
24:54If you're a carver, you'd have knocked it out soon after the king died because you wouldn't have pre-prepared it.
25:01That would have been considered bad form, like predicting the death of the king.
25:05And you can actually still see the chisel marks, which would have never been visible because the whole thing would have been clothed.
25:12And of course, the carvers, the courtiers, all knew what he looked like.
25:16We don't now because there were no portraits of him.
25:18So it's the earliest surviving image of a king in three dimensions, which is incredibly important.
25:24And the whole idea of it was it was as close in looks to him as possible.
25:30So this is the closest you get to being in the presence of Edward III.
25:37The effigy was damaged in World War II, and Edward's hands and feet have been lost.
25:44But originally, this sculpture would have been a work of art, created to be both accurate and to reflect the majesty of the king.
25:51He was called Edward Longshanks. He was tall. He was five foot ten.
25:57And this reflects that they picked a very big piece of walnut. This is carved from one piece of walnut.
26:04The head would have been the only thing that was visible because the rest would have been covered in clothing.
26:09It's painted. There's a plaster layer on, which may have been taken from a death mask of the king.
26:16And to be as true a likeness to the real king as possible, the craftsmen were meticulous in their detail.
26:23They've painted in the eyebrows and they added little dog hairs for the eyebrows.
26:30And there's some evidence of a beard that was sort of stuck on.
26:34He has no ears because he would have been wearing a wig and therefore the ears wouldn't have been visible.
26:39And they hired hair. So the whole thing would have looked very regal.
26:46Once the carvers had finished, this lifelike effigy was clothed in Edward's own sumptuous royal robes.
26:53And in his hands were placed the royal regalia.
26:55The effigy was placed on top of the coffin carrying Edward's mortal remains.
27:01And only then was it ready to begin its final journey from Sheen Palace to the king's resting place at the abbey.
27:09The whole funeral chariot would have been magnificent.
27:14A big, big cart surrounded by eight or twelve horses, horses all dressed up with plumes, knights on armour.
27:23It would have been accompanied in a very aristocratic procession all the way through to celebrate the life and to mark the death.
27:32Edward's effigy and funeral set the precedent for royal funerals to come.
27:39For the next 300 years or so, every monarch would have their own carved likeness made.
27:46And yet, when the funeral procession arrived at Westminster Abbey and Edward's body was entombed,
27:52these majestic figures were stripped of their royal robes and became once more simply blocks of carved wood.
28:00The story of the monarchy is one of births, marriages and deaths.
28:18Where love and loss play out under the same crown.
28:22600 years after Edward III's passing came a moment of celebration.
28:27When Prince Harry married Meghan Markle in 2018, their wedding had all the makings of a royal fairy tale.
28:38And at first, it would seem that this union would give strength to a troubled prince and to the monarchy itself.
28:45Harry was somebody who the public had adored for so long, had really taken to their hearts, followed his story, watched him grow up and also watched him sort of in the shadow of his older brother.
29:02His brother, Prince William, was the heir to the throne, while Harry took on the role of so-called spare.
29:08He's always felt uncomfortable with that position. He was a sort of lost soul.
29:15He talked to me about having been depressed. He didn't feel that he was relevant and that, you know, nobody sort of wanted him.
29:24He had suffered very much from the loss of his mother at a very vulnerable age, had mental health problems and, you know, in some ways, Meghan was his saviour.
29:34If Prince Harry felt rudderless, Meghan was the opposite. Focused, energetic and driven.
29:43She was in her mid-30s when she met Harry. She was very independent. She had cultivated a very strong sense of herself.
29:50He fell in love with her straight away, he told me, instant. I think there was a real feeling that this is fantastic.
29:59Harry's going to be happy and he wants to be married. He wants to have children. And now he's met the woman that he adores.
30:09In November 2017, Harry proposed to his Hollywood princess.
30:15But as the couple began preparations for their wedding, and in particular, their wardrobe, behind the scenes, cracks soon started to show.
30:24It soon became apparent that there were a lot of personality clashes in the run-up to the big day.
30:30Most notably, it was something called Tiara Gate, where Meghan was invited by the Queen to look at the various tiaras that she had at Buckingham Palace.
30:42Meghan wanted the most expensive one, which had a green jewel in the front, and that was the one that was worth ten million pounds.
30:55And the Queen said no, and she was absolutely furious.
31:01Royal insiders claim that Meghan set her heart on the Greville Emerald Kokoschnik tiara, gifted to the Queen Mother in 1942 by Dame Margaret Greville.
31:11It was one which the Queen herself had used at state functions on several occasions.
31:18I think there was this feeling that Meghan felt that she was entitled to the tiara.
31:23They kind of forgot that this was a loan from the Queen done, you know, as a favour.
31:28But it wasn't just the bridal accessories that ruffled royal feathers.
31:35The Queen, in a slightly old-fashioned way, didn't feel that it was right for a woman who'd been married already to wear this virgin-type outfit.
31:46It was perhaps a little bit controversial to wear white, as she was a divorcee.
31:55And if we think back to when Camilla married Prince Charles, she chose to wear a beautiful silver grey.
32:02But Meghan chose to wear what she wore.
32:08Soon, the love story that began with such promise would open one of the most divisive chapters in modern royal history.
32:16The honeymoon period for Harry and Meghan didn't last that long.
32:21It was only a matter of a few months after the wedding that the various rumbles in the royal jungle came out.
32:29And you could see the wheels starting to come off.
32:31Later, we'll learn how what went on behind the scenes at Harry and Meghan's wedding would rock the monarchy to the core.
32:52Rewind 500 years, and being an out-of-favour royal wife could cost you your head.
32:58Just ask Anne Boleyn.
33:04Once the Queen of Henry's heart, she had failed to deliver a male heir and was now on trial, fighting for her life.
33:15On the 15th of May, 1536, Anne Boleyn's trial began in the Great Hall at the Tower of London.
33:23Anne is like an animal in the zoo, watched by everyone.
33:26She is accused of adultery with five men, including her brother.
33:31Anne is accused of plotting against the King's life, that she wanted to kill the King, marry one of these men, and occupy the throne.
33:40These are shocking allegations.
33:43Surrounded by all these hostile men, all her enemies, Anne is brave and courageous.
33:50After each allegation, she raises her hand, she says not guilty, and she also gives a powerful defence of her innocence.
33:59What she says was she was always a pure wife to the King.
34:04She was guilty of jealous fancies, but nothing else.
34:07These accusations of adultery are made-up charges, but she's being condemned for the fact she doesn't have a son.
34:16Anne was found guilty of adultery, of treason, of plotting against the King, of incest.
34:25And she's told by her uncle, who's presiding over the trial, that she will be burned at the stake, or executed, and the King will decide which.
34:36Even her enemies in the crowd say it is not a fair trial.
34:39It's a set-up. It's a political assassination.
34:43And the proof of this, before the trial even began.
34:47A French swordsman had been ordered to come over from Calais to execute Anne Boleyn.
34:54Was this a kind gesture from Henry VIII, ordering a swordsman to execute his wife as opposed to an axeman?
35:01Because normally an axe would cut your head off at a few blows, and it could be grisly, and bloody, and very painful.
35:07I don't think Henry's being kind.
35:10I think it's a PR move.
35:12Henry's trying to say, look at me, the merciful King.
35:16She has had adultery with all these people.
35:19She tried to kill me, but how nice am I going to cut off her head with one little sword?
35:27In the Tower of London, Anne Boleyn was heard to joke that she'd heard her executioner was very good,
35:33and she only had a little neck, i.e. quite easy to chop off.
35:40Even in the Tower, Anne Boleyn's famous sense of humour didn't leave her.
35:44And then, on the 19th of May, 1536, Anne is taken to the scaffold, and it's heartbreaking, because Anne apparently is looking over her shoulder.
35:58I think she's looking for a last-minute reprieve, but that doesn't come.
36:02She speaks to the crowd there, who are mainly hostile, and she says,
36:09good Christian people, I am come hither to die according to the law.
36:14She doesn't confess. She doesn't beg forgiveness for her sins.
36:18Anne is making it clear, I am executed because Henry VIII wants it.
36:23I am an innocent going to the block.
36:27She is courageous, she is brave, and the last thing she says is commending her soul to God.
36:33She knows she is about to die.
36:35A sound is made. She moves her head that way, and the blade comes and chops off her head in one fell swoop.
36:44A sound is made.
36:46A sound is made.
36:47A sound is made.
36:51She was 35, less than three years after her coronation.
36:56Anne Boleyn, the queen who had changed everything,
36:59and for whom Henry VIII had turned the world upside down, was gone.
37:05A sound is made.
37:08Coming up, Harry and Meghan's fairy tale turns into a total nightmare for the royal family.
37:20The story started to come out that there had been tension between the royal brothers,
37:26and The Sun ran a front page story saying Meghan made Kate cry.
37:32Leading to explosive claims on Oprah.
37:35In my view, in this interview, they ruined everything, really.
37:40They absolutely ruined everything.
37:55When it comes to royal weddings, what you wear can make or break the day.
38:00And for Meghan Markle, the ambition was sky high.
38:03Every element of their day was curated with couture precision.
38:10From Meghan's minimalist Givenchy masterpiece,
38:14to Harry's crisp military blues,
38:19right down to the six bridesmaids in bespoke ivory frocks.
38:24It wasn't just a wedding, it was a masterclass in modern royal style.
38:32But it was the bride's look that really stole the show.
38:35It had this lovely contrast between this very clean, simple dress, and then this very decorative, beautiful, fragile silk tulle veil.
38:49And let's not forget that beautiful Queen Mary bandeau tiara that she was wearing.
38:54So it was very Meghan.
38:58The wedding at Windsor Castle was watched by two billion people.
39:04And to most looking on, seemed to go off without a hitch.
39:08The atmosphere was absolutely wonderful.
39:10And there were little boats there with all the flags flying.
39:16And everyone was so happy.
39:18But behind the scenes, drama over the bridesmaid's dresses had been brewing for months.
39:28It soon became apparent that there were a lot of tensions and a lot of personality clashes in the run-up to the big day.
39:35And you could see the wheels starting to come off at Remembrance Sunday, when the stories were beginning to eclipse those of the traditional royal service.
39:50One such story reported furious words between Meghan and Kate over the French-made bridesmaid's dresses.
39:58Charlotte's dress was much too big and baggy.
40:00Catherine felt that the dress wasn't properly made.
40:07And she asked for it to be altered.
40:10And she refused.
40:12And it was a huge row about it.
40:17With just days until the wedding, all the frocks needed refitting.
40:21There was no time to send them back to Paris.
40:24In the end, all six were radically altered at a specialist tailor in London.
40:28The Sun ran a front page story saying Meghan made Kate cry.
40:35Meghan spoke about this and she said actually it was the other way around.
40:39That she had been crying.
40:41I can only go on my instinct, but I would have thought Catherine would be pretty amenable.
40:44That clash has now gone down in history as lighting the touch paper, blue touch paper, for the squabbles that ended up with Meghan and Harry leaving the royal family.
40:59In January 2020, Harry and Meghan stepped down as senior working royals, leaving Britain with their young son Archie to set up home in California.
41:12Before you could say, where are you? They were on a plane, but they didn't tell the queen. And that's what really upset her.
41:22A year on, the couple sat down with Oprah Winfrey for an exclusive television interview that lifted the lid on their experience of life within the royal family.
41:35The Oprah interview, we thought we'd all fall asleep because it would be so boring. But overnight we were, you know, eyes open, mouth open. It was just absolutely unbelievable.
41:47I think they wanted to get their own back at the royal family, saying that they were trapped, that William married Catherine because she fitted the mold of the royal family, whereas he married for love.
42:06I can't think of anything worse to say. And I think that was a big shock.
42:11The Harry and Meghan TV interview was so against the usual culture of the British royal family that I don't think anyone quite knew how to react to it.
42:25Their interview didn't just expose deep fractures within the royal family.
42:30Meghan also claimed there had been a private wedding ceremony held three days before the public event.
42:37She said that Harry and I wanted it to be intimate and lovely and the Archbishop of Canterbury came along and married us.
42:49Well, that created the most amazing bomb because the Archbishop of Canterbury had to make an announcement that he didn't do that at all.
43:00He gave them a blessing. You can't get married twice in the same week.
43:05In my view, they ruined everything, really. They absolutely ruined everything.
43:14Increasingly, people began to see a slightly different side to Meghan.
43:18The fact that she didn't always tell the truth.
43:20I think it's the disloyalty to the family. All those things, I think, have played against Harry and Meghan.
43:26What began as a fairytale wedding had unraveled into a storm of scrutiny, isolation and tension behind palace walls.
43:37Polls consistently show that now in favourability trackers that William and Kate are very, very popular.
43:43Harry and Meghan has totally plummeted and stayed low.
43:46So, looking at that, you'd think, well, they're the ones who've lost as a result of this.
43:51But I don't really see how anyone can look at them leaving and think that it's anything other than a massive, massive loss for the monarchy.
44:01Because this was a couple that was really exciting people globally.
44:05And it just feels like such a missed opportunity.
44:08There was just this optics of the fact that the first mixed-race person who had joined the royal family didn't want to stay.
44:15Monumental changes have been ushered in by royal births, marriages and deaths.
44:26From the brutal execution of Anne Boleyn to fairytale weddings that have ultimately shaken the monarchy to its foundation.
44:34These are the defining moments for every family and for the royals they have shaped its destiny for over a thousand years
44:42and altered the course of British history.
44:48If Royal Palace walls could talk, what would they say?
44:51Discover Secrets of the Royal Palaces, stream now on 5.
44:56Coming up, Jeremy Vine reveals his favourites, so what were yours?
45:00The Christmas TV we loved and lost is brand new next.
45:12The Christmas TV is numerous.
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