REVEALED: Meghan’s diplomat ‘Markle’ uncle – the one you’ve never heard of – and how he launched her humanitarian career

To the world – for a time, at least – they appeared to be the perfect happy family. At its head, Doris Markle, hardworking former shop girl from New Hampshire.

Then came her three sons – Mike, Fred, and Tom – with their children. And, as a final addition to her brood, the young, beautiful and promising Meghan, offspring of her son Tom’s second marriage to Doria Ragland.

But even as Meghan was starting to make her way into the spotlight, there was a secret shame that Doris desperately wanted the world never know about.

It’s remained a secret to this day.

But now Mail Online can reveal for the first time the sad tale of Meghan’s granny Doris.

Her eldest son Michael – known to the world as Mike Markle, the diplomat who launched Meghan on her way to stardom – was not a Markle at all, but the product of a teenage slip-up which culminated in Doris giving birth to him, as a single mum.

Doris was born and brought up in Alton, a small town in New Hampshire – so small that tongues would wag ferociously if a girl got pregnant out of wedlock. Doris’ mother had died when she was 17, and she took solace in the company of chauffeur’s son Bob Cassier, three years older, who lived nearby.

Soon Doris found she was expecting, so in the summer of 1939 she fled to Laconia, 25 miles away, to have her baby in secret. 

Meghan with her uncle, Mike Markle (centre) and with her grandmother Doris and father Thomas behind

The US Embassy in Buenos Aires where Meghan’s uncle Mike organised an internship in the Press Office for her, writing personally to the Ambassador himself

Her big break came when Meghan played para-legal, Rachel Zane in Suits  

The father, a labourer and odd-job man, stayed living with his parents – and whatever romance there’d been between the couple, was over.

With no mother to help out and with her father, Fred Sanders, working full-time as a carpenter, Doris had no choice but to farm her baby out. Having found a suitable home for him, she escaped her small-town existence and took a bus to York, Pennsylvania – 500 miles away.

There, Doris met railway worker Gordon Markle and they settled into a relationship. Somewhere along the line she confessed she was a single mom and, along with his proposal of marriage in 1941, Gordon agreed to take in the baby Mike – now aged two.

Mike was not to become a Markle just yet, however. In her newly-married state Doris gave birth, first to Frederick in 1942, then to Tom – Meghan’s father – in 1945. All during this period Mike continued to be known as Michael Cassier – even though he had no contact with his biological father.

At the age of ten in 1949 he changed his surname to Sanders – his mother’s maiden name – but not until late in his teens did he finally adopt the name Markle.

To the outside world, however, this was just another happy family where everyone was known by first names only. Fred grew up to become, oddly, the creator of his own Florida church – the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church in America – in which he pronounced himself bishop, though his congregations rarely rose above 40.

Tom, three years younger, started out working as a television technician before heading for Hollywood and ending up as an award-winning lighting director, marrying as his second wife makeup girl Doria Ragland. Together they produced Meghan in 1981.

Meanwhile Mike had opted for a career in the US foreign service – and when Meghan reached university age he says he got her an intern’s job working in the press office of the US Embassy in Buenos Aires, writing personally to the Ambassador to secure the post.

Magnificent in its own right, the maroon-coloured Phantom IV transporting Meghan and her mother Doria Ragland from the Cliveden House Hotel to St George’s Chapel had a rather unique history. Forty six years earlier, it had been used to convey another American divorcee, the Duchess of Windsor, to the funeral of her husband, the Duke, in 1972

Meghan walked the first part of the aisle by herself as her father was too sick to travel and then the King met her halfway and walked her to the altar

Prince Harry’s father was incredibly kind and attentive towards the only member of Meghan’s family to attend the royal wedding and made sure she was never on her own

From what she saw and heard during these early beginnings in diplomacy, Meghan developed a driving ambition to find a role in politics – something which some believe is still her ultimate goal.

Doris was spared the inevitable searching questions about the birth of her three sons – and especially Mike – because she died in 2011, following husband Gordon who’d died in 1979.

 But it’s known she remained forever painfully shy on the topic of her out-of-wedlock son and would have been mortified if the facts came out while she lived.

To begin with he felt sympathy for his niece.

She was, he said, from an ‘underclass’ and she needed time to readjust to life among royalty.

Meghan’s family were largely absent from the royal wedding at Windsor Castle in May 2018

Mike became critical of Meghan’s behaviour in an interview in in 2019 and branded her a ‘prima donna’. He claimed she had a ‘chip on her shoulder’ which he said could be the reason for her problem with Kate, then Duchess of Cambridge

Meghan’s Uncle Mike would have liked to have spoken to her but he never made contact with his niece again as he died in Florida in 2021

But later, as he reflected on the damage the breach had wreaked on the Markle family, he became more critical.

In a 2019 interview he branded her a ‘prima donna’ and claimed she had a ‘chip on her shoulder’, which he said could be the reason for her problem with Kate, then Duchess of Cambridge.

‘I’ve probably done more for her than most,’ he said. ‘I personally talked to the ambassador in Argentina for her. I helped her out and I didn’t ask for anything in return.

‘She is the one that has thrown up the boundaries, not me – I don’t understand her, the way she’s treated her family. I’m not very fond of it.’

He went on, ‘I doubt I’ll hear from her again… even though I would like to.’

Alas, he was right. Mike died in Florida in 2021, a victim of Parkinson’s disease, without his royal niece ever making contact again.