Did she have the biggest impact on changing the royal family? She sort of blew the lid off everything, really, didn't she?

She did, yeah.

She absolutely did.

I mean, I'm biased.

I find it quite hard to be impartial on this one because it's a generational thing because of the age I am, because I remember Diana.

Because as a very young radio reporter in London, I got to report on one of her last engagements.

So I am biased.

Is that fair to say? And how the royals were perceived at that time as cold, detached, out of touch royals.

What is it, do you think, what are the biggest sacrifices that women make when they marry into the royal family?

Well, Diana's memory of her wedding day was not a happy one.

And in fact, when you read Harry's memoir, Spare, you know, they felt the whole thing was like a reality show.

The other two weddings were happier, happier affairs.

Yeah, they give up an awful lot.

I mean, Camilla obviously had decades leading up to that moment.

Diana had weeks.

But do you think it's harder for the women?

Can you talk us through that?

Yeah, well, that's a few months after they got married, so it was the first big tour, the joint tour for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and, uh, we, uh, Five News, we were the pool camera, which was the close-up camera for this particular event at the market.

So this day in the schedule, this big long tour, this one day was always earmarked as Meghan's day.

Girls' education, female empowerment, women, um, uh, business people, business women.

Um, and the, the market, okay, it was hot.

It wasn't chaotic.

They had just announced that Meghan was, uh, pregnant, of course, so it may have been a health issue.

[laughs]

It's fascinating, isn't it? What did you learn about some of these behind the scenes fallouts? Is there anything that would surprise us?

Uh, the...

Well, so Catherine and Meghan, you know, I don't think they were ever gonna be best mates, but it, it got off to a bad start.

I think it was just a culture clash of American overfamiliarity and British reserve.

So there was that little tension at the beginning.

Harry bristled when, you know, William obviously was concerned that it was going too quickly, the, the, the whole relationship.

Behind the scenes, there, there was only one Fab Four.

And do you think that's the sort of what we might expect of our modern royals?

Mm

... um, in the end, so that William and Catherine had their people, and Harry and Meghan had their people.

And that was, you know, that was the beginning of the end, really.

Um, I mean, I think Harry was always, he says, you know, he was annoyed, unhappy that people in the family were telling him, "You're rushing into this.

Take it easy."

Mm

... because it was such a horrible week.

And so, and y- at the end of it, of course, we saw Harry and William walking behind the, the, the funeral, uh, behind the, the coffin.

Of course

... arguably Prince Albert.

But we had to narrow it down.

So, um, these four women are all incredibly important and, you know, I think Catherine will...

You know, she's married to the next king and mother of the one after that.

I think she of...

Clearly she and the Middleton, uh, uh, um, family will have a huge impact on the future o- of the monarchy.

Yeah.

T- t- tell us, tell us what it's about.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, I mean, uh, Sarah Ferguson obviously could be, uh, on there, and you could, you could have other wives who, who've married in like, you know, Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, Duchess of Kent.

Uh, you, I mean, you could go back, Prince Philip, the Queen Mother.

What, you could, Wallis Simpson.

Um, so we had to narrow it down, and, uh, we narrowed it down to these, uh, four, uh, very interesting women.

So the idea was the, the, it's the people who marry in who affect change, either deliberately or, or often not.

in the royal family.

So what has Meghan's influence been? What has Queen Camilla's influence been? What is the Princess of Wales doing behind the scenes? Can you give us any insight?

Well, uh, uh, th- Meghan, some people paint her as Lady Macbeth, who's masterminding the whole thing.

I've never bought into that, and certainly the people I've spoken to, uh, you know, behind the scenes, uh, don't b-buy into that.

I, I believe, um, yeah, clearly she got fed up with royal life and felt that they weren't being listened to or tre- and treated well.

But I think Harry's was the main motivation.

He saw a way out.

He felt cornered at that Sandringham summit where he thought they could have a hybrid role, then that, that was taken away by Charles, um, the Queen, and William.

Carry on.

After all that has been said and done around a possible reunion between Harry and his father, what did you make of the way it played out?

I think Highgrove was an interesting choice, a very private location which, you know, unlike London or Windsor, you know, there weren't, there weren't media happened to be around there.

It just feels like two steps forward, one step back.

You know, that whole row at the start of the week about was he gonna stay at Buckingham Palace or not, or we, we were told we could stay, blah, blah, blah.

Um, but Highgrove, uh, great that they did it, great that Meghan and the children were there, you know, grandchildren that the King hasn't seen in four years.

That's the biggest sadness for me actually, you know.

They're her family and he doesn't know them.

Do you think he should have gone out any sooner?