Inside Meghan Markle and Princess Margaret’s harsh treatment of royal servants: Dubbed ‘Duchess Difficult’ and ‘Her Rude Highness’ respectively, both women left a trail of alleged tears in their wake due to endless demands

Although they were immersed in the glamour of royal life, Meghan Markle and Princess Margaret were two women who found it to be extremely difficult.

Both believed they were destined for a greater role in the institution – but felt sidelined when they were kept on the periphery. 

And perhaps due to their frustrations at their circumstances, it seems they often took out their ill feelings on their team of servants. 

Staff dubbed Margaret ‘Her Rude Highness’ due to their hatred of dealing with her endless demands and brutal comments.

Whereas Meghan was reportedly given the moniker ‘Duchess Difficult’ for her own allegedly brash way of dealing with staff.

In Buckingham Palace, waspish below-stairs staff jokingly referred to Meghan and Harry as ‘Monica and Chandler’ after two of the characters in the long-running American sitcom Friends. 

In the series, control freak Monica is played by Courteney Cox and amiable but weak Chandler by Matthew Perry.

Over time, the rumours about Meghan’s behaviour towards staff began to appear in the Press more frequently. 

Buckingham Palace launched its own investigation in 2021 after bullying allegations were made public, but it refused to reveal the findings.

The Mail revealed that former staff had dubbed themselves the ‘Sussex Survivors Club’ and some were even suffering from the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

While details of the report were never revealed, the allegations have always been strongly denied by the Duchess, whose lawyers described them at the time as a ‘calculated smear campaign’.

In Harry’s bombshell memoir Spare in 2023, he directly addressed the claims, writing: ‘Meg was apparently a bully – that was the latest vicious campaign they’d [his father and brother’s office] helped orchestrate.

‘It was so shocking, so egregious, that even after Meg and I demolished their lie with a 25-page, evidence-filled report to human resources, I was going to have trouble simply shrugging that one off.’

Despite the rows over how she treated servants, Meghan became a style icon while she was a royal.

But she was in many ways only following in the footsteps of Margaret, who was the first royal to become both a celebrity and a royal – which has since been inherited by the likes of Princess Diana and Kate Middleton.

Behind the scenes, however, Margaret could be demanding and cruel with her staff.

Many of them found her demands to be ludicrous, with author Anne de Courcy writing that she treated ‘those who looked after her inconsiderately and with maddening demands that often caused endless extra work’. 

Princess Diana’s butler, Paul Burrell, claims that, on returning from an engagement, Margaret would touch the TV, testing it for warmth in case the servants had been watching it while her back was turned. 

And her bad habits were broadcasted in a Royal Servants documentary, with a former palace aide, Peter Russell, revealing just how difficult the princess was to deal with.

He said her chain-smoking habit was so severe that she would often demand a staff member stand next to her with an ashtray. 

Some attribute Margaret’s poor treatment of staff to the times in which they lived. 

One former maid at Kensington Palace in the 1950s explained to royal author Tom Quinn that she was told not to look at Margaret or to speak to her unless spoken to. If she met the princess in a corridor, she was told to move aside and look down.

The source said: ‘She bit my head off once – I can’t remember why, but I had muddled something. 

‘Anyway, I was very young at the time and felt instantly tearful. She must have noticed because she said: “Take no notice of me. I’m just a bad-tempered old devil who can’t help it.” 

‘I’ve never forgotten that because it was the only time I saw her more vulnerable side.’ 

Often described as a ‘moderniser’ of The Firm, Margaret’s marriage to (and subsequent messy divorce from) Antony Armstrong-Jones – a man of non-aristocratic blood – paved the way for a future generations of royals (like Harry) to do similarly.

However, Margaret’s most famous love affair was with the Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorcee who was seen by many as an unsuitable match.

At the time of their relationship, the Church of England opposed divorce. As a consequence, Margaret had to give up the romance.

But her tortured love life often bled into her treatment of servants, with one of her former workers telling Mr Quinn that she did not want her staff to notice her problems, according to his new book Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life Of Royal Servants. 

If her and her husband ever started to row and there were servants present, she would almost run towards them shouting ‘Shoo! Shoo!’. She even once said to one of the cleaners: ‘Go on, bugger off!’, the book claims.

However, other servants report a whole other, more sympathetic, side to Margaret. 

One claimed that when she heard a servant was going through a divorce, she gave her two weeks off and said if it wasn’t enough to take more. 

Mr Quinn explains in his book that Margaret’s treatment of her staff had a great deal of her ancestors’ tendency to treat their workers as objects, while only occasionally seeing their humanity.

The royal expert claims that when she got angry with her staff, it was often because she was angry with her life and especially with her relationship with her philandering husband, Lord Snowdon. 

Of course, even the nicest royals become irritated with their staff occasionally, but Mr Quinn believes the royals on the periphery tend to be imperious with their staff in proportion to their own relative lack of status.

But, in fairness to Meghan, she had no status at all until she married Harry, and was therefore unaccustomed to ordering staff around. 

Unlike birth Princess Margaret, she had to transition from Hollywood showbiz to the almost 18th-century life of the Royal Family – which was difficult for her to manage. 

Meghan joined The Firm at the age of 36, and she seemed to want to seize her big break with both hands.

But blood royals had grown up having staff to attend to their whims, and knew how to do it properly, but for newcomer Meghan, there were problems.

One former staffer told Mr Quinn that Meghan would alternate between being overfriendly and hugging staff to appearing irritated when they didn’t instantly respond. 

Meghan reportedly felt that Harry was too deferential to both his family and the staff.

Mr Quinn believes she didn’t like the fact that Harry tended to ask staff if they would mind tidying up or bringing something to him.

But even after leaving royal life, the accusations followed Meghan to her and Harry’s new life in California.

A report in September 2024 by US publication The Hollywood Reporter claimed that Meghan ‘belittles’ people and ‘marches around like a dictator in high heels, fuming and barking orders’.

The publication has also reported allegations that Meghan is ‘absolutely relentless’ towards her employees, with one source saying: ‘I’ve watched her reduce grown men to tears.’

The couple’s alleged poor treatment of staff also appeared to cause them personnel difficulties, as they have been facing a well-documented revolving door of employees.

The most recent salvo against their treatment of staff came in a blockbuster cover story in the previously pro-Sussex magazine Vanity Fair in January.

According to two unnamed sources, one colleague took a leave of absence following a three-episode stint on Meghan’s podcast Archetypes.

It’s claimed others described ‘taking extended breaks from work to escape scrutiny, exiting their job or undergoing long-term therapy after working with Meghan’.

The source told the writer she felt that if Meghan chose to ‘acknowledge her own shortcomings or personal contributions to situations rather than staying trapped in a victim narrative, her perception might be better’.

Meghan and Harry refused to comment on the Vanity Fair story.

As a result of Meghan and Margaret’s similarities, Mr Quinn has claimed that the Queen’s sister would have loved Harry’s wife.

Speaking during an episode of the ‘To Di For Daily’ podcast in February 2022, he said: ‘She would have [loved Meghan]. They were both from the same mould completely.

‘And, in fact, I think Margaret would have thought that she had helped move the royal family forward to a position where they were prepared to allow Meghan to marry into the family.’

As well as their alleged treatment of staff, Margaret and Meghan also had similarities when it came to their love of acting.

Meghan shot to fame as one of the stars of legal drama Suits but Margaret also dabbled in the craft when she starred in pantomimes at Windsor Castle with her sister during the Second World War.

Harry seems to have agreed that the two royal women were more similar than most people realised.  

Although the Prince hardly knew Margaret, it struck him – as he wrote in his autobiography – that they should have been friends. 

Royal expert Ingrid Seward told OK! Magazine in February 2022: ‘Perhaps Harry has something of his rebel great aunt about him, because he walked away.’

After Margaret passed away in 2002, her memory seemed to be fading from the cultural consciousness, but thanks to The Crown, a whole new generation of royal-watchers were recently captivated by the Princess’ glamorous ways. 

Perhaps they would not be so admiring of her if they had seen her deal with the staff.

As for Meghan, she seems to be removing herself more and more from the life of a royal, as she continues to build her life in California.

Although one suspects that for the staff at the Palace, the thought might give them a sigh of relief.