Times Royals Supposedly Treated Their Employees Like Trash

Blame it on fairy tales but many people can't help but be fascinated by the royal family. It doesn't hurt that the British monarchy has managed to keep things very interesting over the years, thanks to their lavish weddings and headline-making scandals. In recent times, there have been some major shakeups at Buckingham Palace too, the most notable being Queen Elizabeth II's death and King Charles III's subsequent rise to the throne after his mother's 70-year reign.

Oh, and let us not forget about Prince Harry and  Meghan Markle leaving the royal family to move to California. If that wasn't shocking enough to royal watchers, the Sussexes later dropped some huge bombshells in a 2021 "Oprah" special before later doing it again in a 2022 Netflix documentary and in Harry's memoir, "Spare." That wasn't the only family controversy around then either, since Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages over sexual abuse allegations.

No matter what the royals go through, a staff team is seemingly there to support them. Working for the royal family can have some perks. Former Royal Protection Officer Simon Morgan once told Town & Country, "You are very fortunate to be in these positions, to travel by private charter ... or to be on super-yachts, or to eat in some of the nicest restaurants." Of course, there are some downsides that come with the gig. Without further ado, let's get into some moments when the royals supposedly treated their employees like trash.

The rumor mill hasn't exactly been kind to Meghan Markle over the years. According to "Courtiers: Intrigue, Ambition, and the Power Players Behind the House of Windsor" by Valentine Low, Markle supposedly once tore up some wedding plans and told a young staffer, "If there was literally anyone else I could ask to do this, I would be asking them instead of you." Other sources claimed the Duchess of Sussex made a number of royal employees cry and created a toxic work environment. 

Prince Harry was reportedly just as difficult as Markle. Another staffer told Low that the couple wouldn't stop calling her on her night off. She dished, "Every ten minutes, I had to go outside to be screamed at by her and Harry." Another source said, "Young women were broken by their behavior." On an episode of "The Palace Confidential," Low said former private secretary Samantha Cohen also struggled with the Sussexes. "She was said to have said that dealing with them was like dealing with a couple of teenagers," he shared.

The rumors got to be so serious that the palace investigated the allegations regarding Markle's conduct. A spokesperson for the duchess denied she was the offender, saying per ET, "Let's just call this what it is — a calculated smear campaign." Regardless, Low told Page Six that his sources were sticking by their stories.

King Charles III kicked off his reign by going viral for signing the proclamation of the accession. While that alone is a monumental moment — it marked him officially taking the throne — Charles motioning to employees to clear his desk got the public's attention. Some found it ridiculous that the royal wouldn't move the ink tray himself, calling his gestures dramatic and insulting. As one person wrote on Twitter, "The servant must clear my desk for me. I can't be expected to move things." Another tweeted, "Wonderful to be an eyewitness to history unfolding – including King Charles III's characteristic irritation over the ink wells on the table."

That wasn't the only time Charles had an ink-related issue. He seemed to get annoyed over a leaky pen he was given when later signing something in Ireland. He was even heard saying to an assistant, "I can't bear this bloody thing... it's what they do every stinking time." Of course, it makes sense that Charles didn't want to get ink all over his documents, but his frustration sure did catch the internet's attention.  

Charles has a bit of a reputation for being a tad difficult. For one thing, he has strict rules for how his tea is to be served. Oh, and let us not forget that his biscuits must be warmed up to a specific temperature too.

Many royal staffers were upset when they found out that they could lose their jobs after King Charles III moved his operations into Buckingham Palace. According to The Guardian, after Queen Elizabeth II died, over 100 of King Charles' employees at his former residence, Clarence House, were given notices of redundancies. Charles' top aide, Sir Clive Alderton, shared the news in an official letter: "It is...expected that the need for the posts principally based at Clarence House, whose work supports these areas will no longer be needed."

What's more, they were reportedly told while they were still mourning Queen Elizabeth. A source told The Guardian, "Everybody is absolutely livid, including private secretaries and the senior team." Many thought they'd continue to work with Charles in his new household and felt they weren't given enough notice that they could be let go during his transition to King. "All the staff have been working late every night since Thursday, to be met with this. People were visibly shaken by it," the insider added.

A former butler of King Charles explained to the BBC that those employees shouldn't have been shocked by this news because it comes with the job. Grant Harrold told the outlet, "When I joined, I was fully aware that if the Queen passed I would be redundant because my boss is no longer the Prince of Wales."

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moved to North America in early 2020, they said goodbye to their royal life and their royal team. According to ET, their UK-based employees were shocked by this turn of events, and a royal insider said many at the palace were simply saddened by how everything unfolded. "These have been incredibly trying circumstances for their team, who have experienced some very difficult times of late," they said. "They are all good people, very loyal and brilliant at their jobs, and everyone feels incredibly sorry for them."

That wasn't the first time Harry and Markle made headlines for firing their employees. The couple let one of their son's nannies go before she barely started the job. According to the book "Finding Freedom" (via People), "Meghan and Harry felt they were forced to let the nurse go in the middle of her second night of work for being unprofessional and irresponsible." And according to Express, over a dozen of key staffers have parted ways with their company, Archwell.  

It's no secret that there's tension between Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton. According to one rumor, however, it may have started when Markle was supposedly rude to one of the Duchess of Cambridge's employees. As royal expert Tom Quinn wrote in "Kensington Palace: An Intimate Memoir From Queen Mary To Meghan Markle," the incident in question went down when they both lived at Kensington Palace. He dished, "Famously, Kate was horrified when Meghan shouted at a member of Kate's staff – that was definitely the beginning of discussions about leaving Kensington Palace."

Quinn went into more detail when speaking with the Daily Star: "I was told by someone who was actually there, who said it was really uncomfortable because Meghan just lost it with this person." He did explain why the former "Suits" star had gotten so angry, adding, "The reason she lost it with Kate's member of staff was that she, Meghan, didn't feel that this person was giving her the sort of attention she deserved." The couple reportedly fled to Windsor because of it.

According to Quinn, Markle could supposedly be a bit off-putting when interacting with staff. He claimed, "Meghan overdoes the imperiousness...she wants people to stand to attention when she clicks her fingers." Yet in Markle's defense, an insider told Daily Mail that she was treated unfairly. They dished, "There are the more reactionary elements in the Royal Family who do look down on her, and she knows it...This makes her overreact sometimes."

There are many reasons why Prince Andrew doesn't have the best reputation and one is how he allegedly treats his staff. Charlotte Briggs, one of his former maids, provided an example of how difficult he could be to The Sun. She claimed that he would call for a servant just to close the curtains. "I'd have to get on my evening dress, run up four flights of stairs and he'd be sitting there at his desk right next to them," she said. Briggs also detailed a particular incident where she said he chewed her out. She recalled, "He came out screaming, 'Can't you f***ing do anything right?' I'd left a little gap where they met but they were extremely heavy."

That ordeal not only left Briggs in tears but she says it ruined her whole experience of working at the palace because of how he had embarrassed her. She added, "Everything had to be immaculate...I often tried to hide." According to a 2022 ITV documentary (via Daily Mail), Andrew's teddy bear collection had to be especially precise. Former royal protection officer Paul Page explained, "​​If those bears weren't put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream."

Things were so bad that Page said the royal family should look into his conduct. Per The Mirror, he dished, "An investigation should be started to confirm whether or not Andrew is guilty of being a bully and of intimidating staff."

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Princess Anne was said to have once treated an employee pretty harshly, considering that she was given the nickname "Her Royal Rudeness" by the British press and. In the documentary "Royal Servants," Mirror reporter Ryan Parry shared one staffer's particularly salty experience with the royal. Per Express, when a royal footman didn't complete a task to her liking, Anne apparently lost her cool. No, she didn't throw a fit or create a scene. Rather, she supposedly said some unkind words. Parry recounted, "Now, as he was leaving the room, he heard her mutter under her breath, 'you f***ing incompetent t***.'" Ouch.

This story more or less falls in line with Princess Anne's reputation. As the 2002 documentary "The Real Princess Anne" (via Express) put it, "She has been accused of being rude, sulky and difficult." Some have come to Anne's defense though, like Erin Doherty, who plays her on "The Crown." She told Vanity Fair, "I don't think she's trying to be mean. She's just kind of like, 'No, I'm going to tell you what I really think of this and you're going to have to handle it.'"

Princess Diana was known as the People's Princess but had apparently struggled a great deal with life in thep royal family. And according to reports, every now and then she'd end up venting at her staff. As Howard Hodgson wrote in "Charles — The man who will be King" (via Express), she apparently even went so far as to snap at her dresser, Evelyn Dagley. According to Dagley, Diana once said, "Look at this f****** shirt, Evelyn, look at it you idiot, it's rubbish...Get out of my sight." Because of that, Hodgson added, "Staff came to expect this treatment when the Princess 'wasn't quite herself.'"

In "Diana — Her True Story," writer Andrew Morton noted that Diana didn't get along with her husband, King Charles III's staff in particular, nicknaming them the "men in grey suits." She reportedly once said, "The enemy was my husband's department, because I always got more publicity." Because of that, she trusted her friends outside the palace over their staff. Her friend James Gilbey explained, "She gets on much better with them than the men in grey because they are tied up with preserving a system which she feels is outdated."

Royals may seem like larger-than-life figures, but at the end of the day, they are still fallible human beings. And it sounds like the royal staff members know this all too well.