Prince William and Prince Harry and their families are now estranged but when the future King of England met his younger brother’s wife, they had a more promising start

When it came to meeting her royal boyfriend’s big brother, Meghan Markle wasn’t sure what to expect.

She thought he would grill her and ask her lots of questions about herself and her intentitions – but she was completely wrong.

In fact, Prince William was very relaxed and his opening line was just about as welcoming as you could expect when meeting your future in-laws.

In his book Finding Freedom, royal biographers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand reveal that William’s first line when Prince Harry introduced him to Meghan was: “I was looking forward to meeting the girl who has put that silly grin on my brother’s face.”

While the first meeting went well, things didn’t continue quite so smoothly.

In their Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, the Duchess recalls a slightly awkward early meeting with Kate.

She said: “When Will and Kate came over and I met her for the first time they came over for dinner. I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot. I’ve always been a hugger, I didn’t realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.

The royal couples are now sadly estranged, with no end in sight

“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside. There is a forward-facing way of being, and then you close the door and go ‘You can relax now’, but that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”

Harry detailed more about the women’s relationship in his memoir Spare, saying they had a row over bridesmaid dresses in the lead-up to his wedding that left Meghan in tears. He said Kate ‘grimaced’ when the duchess borrowed her lip gloss and wrote how Kate asked for an apology from Meghan when she accused her of having ‘baby brain’ following the birth of Prince Louis.

William and Harry are now famously estranged, reportedly first falling out around Christmas 2018 when Harry felt William wasn’t doing enough to include his wife in the family. Royal author Katie Nicholl said: “Harry felt William wasn’t rolling out the red carpet for Meghan and told him so.”

When Meghan and William first met, she was impressed by her future brother-in-law

Fellow royal expert Tom Quinn claimed William and Kate had later reached out to Meghan and Harry once they had moved to California, urging them to bring their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to the UK. He said Meghan refused.

Sadly, the fallout doesn’t show any signs of abating – the author told the Mirror earlier this year: “The fallout has gone on far too long but both men are notoriously stubborn,” he said. “William feels that the Royal family has been badly damaged by his brother and Harry feels that William has always treated him as an irrelevance.”