Meghan Markle didn’t always follow protocol when she was a working member of the royal family. Some thought the duchess had a few fresh ideas and that perhaps the royals would break from tradition and do things a new way. But old habits die hard.
Here are four times Meghan broke protocol and one time the late Queen Elizabeth II broke it for her before she and Prince Harry were even married.
When Meghan signed an autograph
Meghan committed a royal no-no in 2018 when gave a handwritten note to a fan she met during a walkabout outside Cardiff Castle in Wales.
A 10-year-old girl asked for the former Suits star’s autograph. The problem is the royals are not permitted to sign autographs. That rule was said to be put in place to stop forgery. So when Meghan got the request she wrote a simple “hello” note to youngster who spoke to People after and said: “My heart is still racing. I’ve never got a royal autograph before. This is going to make everyone jealous.”
The only other time any royal is thought to have broken that rule is in 2010 when then-Prince Charles scribbled “Charles 2010” on a paper for a victim of a flood in Cornwall.
When Meghan chose not to wear pantyhose
One of the first royal rules Meghan broke was on Nov. 27, 2017, when she and Prince Harry attended an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace.
Members of the press who assembled to take photographs of the couple noted that Meghan wasn’t wearing pantyhose. While this was said to be one Queen Elizabeth II’s “hard, steadfast rules” the Princess of Wales (formerly known as Kate Middleton) has opted not to wear them either on a few occasions.
When the duchess voted in the 2020 election
Something Kate has not done since she became a member of the royal family that Meghan did was vote in an election.
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There’s no law that the monarch and their family can’t vote in elections but they voluntarily chose not to vote in order to remain politically neutral. Queen Elizabeth II never showed any political leaning, as historian Sarah Gristwood once told the BBC it was a “policy of [the] queen, since her early days as Head of State, to stay completely above the fray.”
However, Meghan broke that tradition in 2020 when she became the first member of the British royal family to ever vote in a presidential election. She even made a video calling for others to vote as part of the non-profit organization When We All Vote.
When she closed her own car door
In 2018, Meghan made her first solo visit as the Duchess of Sussex to the opening of Oceania at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. And she caused a stir when she exited a vehicle and shut the car door.
A number of royal watchers took to social media to declare that they never saw a royal close their own car door after arriving to an official engagement.
Many of Meghan’s fans praised the move and opined that it made her look “down to earth.”
Queen Elizabeth once broke protocol for Meghan, but not kate
One person who you may not have expected to ever broke a royal rule when she was alive was Queen Elizabeth, but she did in fact go against one of her rules in 2017 for Meghan.
A month after it was announced that Meghan and Harry were engaged, the prince’s fiancée joined his family for Christmas at Sandringham.
Staying at the Norfolk estate for the holiday before their wedding day is something the queen didn’t allow other royal fiancées, including Kate, to do. But Meghan was there with the rest of Harry’s relatives five months before they tied the knot.
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