As the statement continued: “Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her. It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms. Markle should be subjected to such a storm. He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game’. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game – it is her life and his.”

Friends of Knauf say he had no choice but to sign off the statement, even though it put him in an awkward position with the journalists he had to deal with on a daily basis. Not least when a rather “desperate” Harry appeared to intimate not putting it out might cost him his fledgling relationship with “The One”. 

The 403-word statement, which the Telegraph understands was drafted with both Harry and Meghan’s input, not only set a new precedent far removed from the Queen’s tried and tested “never complain, never explain” mantra. It also marked the Duchess’s first hands-on foray into royal media management, which would continue throughout her time in the Royal Family. 

Rather than picking their battles, the couple made it clear that they would be paying much closer attention to what had been written about them. Which left Knauf and the rest of the palace’s “Team Sussex” with their work cut out.  “It wasn’t just a problem that they read everything,” explained one former employee, “It was that they were both really thin-skinned.” 

A round-the-clock job

Following their engagement in November 2017 – exactly a year after Knauf had fired off his bombshell missive – the couple were given their own team of staff who learned quickly that it would be a 24/7 job.

“The last thing we’d do before going to sleep is reply to their messages and the first thing we’d do in the morning is reply to their messages,” said one former aide. “Weekends, holidays – there were no boundaries. They live on their phones all the time.” Rather than being abandoned by the palace machine, staff were actually working overtime to super-serve the couple. 

As arguably evidenced by Meghan’s 23-page response to Knauf’s witness statement, the Duchess was intent on being across the detail. She told Knauf when drafting the handwritten letter to her father: “Obviously everything I drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked so I have been meticulous in my word choice but please do let me know if anything stands out for you as a liability…(I) toiled over every detail which could be manipulated…”

In the end “The Duchess accepted one small drafting suggestion I made to mention her father’s health in the letter”, according to Knauf. Similarly, as his witness statement also explains, it was Meghan who wrote up “some background reminders” for his meeting with Scobie and Durand, as well as offering to “fill in any other blanks.”

Topic areas included information on how she had very minimal contact with her half-siblings throughout her childhood, that she had been “close [for] most of her life” with her father and she had supported him “…in spite of his reclusiveness” and the fact her half-sister Samantha had had three children with three different fathers. She even wanted to give her “perspective on the thinking behind a statement in November 2016 issued by Mr Knauf” as well as detailing how the tiara for her wedding had been selected. 

As one insider put it: “That’s vintage Meghan. She was a control freak throughout.”

To counter briefings suggesting the couple were demanding and difficult, a number of Meghan’s anonymous friends popped up in the press suggesting that palace employees “who preferred a more genteel pace” simply could not keep up with the Duchess’s “American work ethic”. 

Naturally the tempo picked up even more with the wedding fast approaching in the new year of 2018. “The wedding was hugely stressful for everyone involved in it,” said one former aide. 

When Markle pulled out of the wedding three days before the big day, the Royals rallied, with Prince Charles offering to walk Meghan down the aisle instead. The Most Rev Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who officiated the ceremony, is also understood to have been drafted in to provide “psychological as well as spiritual” support. 

Yet it is the timetable of events that have been laid bare in court this week that give the strongest indication of just how much help the couple received. In the autumn of 2018, after Meghan’s PA, Melissa Toubati, sensationally quit, the first of nine staff members to leave in the subsequent 18 months.  The couple were apparently “furious” about reports of their high staff turnover – piling more pressure on their PR people to “try to turn negative headlines into positives”.

We now know that Knauf continued to work tirelessly and intimately with Harry and Meghan even after he had submitted a bullying claim against them in October 2018.