Meghan 'set alarm bells ringing' at the Palace from the start. As their star wanes, there are two mistakes from those days she and Harry must fix, writes RICHARD EDEN

There will be mixed emotions when Thomas Markle wakes up at his cliff-side home in Rosarito, Mexico, today.

This is his 80th birthday. Yet amid the many cards and presents waiting to be unwrapped, there will likely be nothing from his famous daughter, Meghan.

Tom Markle is not expecting so much as a phone call. Not even an email.

'I've never been one for birthdays, but I know the one person I most want to hear from, Meghan, won't be in touch,' he lamented to my colleague Caroline Graham in The Mail on Sunday.

'I would love to meet my grandchildren, but I would be happy with a photograph at this stage.'

Mr Markle has never met five-year-old Prince Archie or Princess Lilibet, who turned three last month.

Nor has he ever met his son-in-law, the Duke of Sussex, although the two were introduced on the phone by an excited Meghan when her romance first began.

Mr Markle became estranged from his daughter in 2018. Having posed for pictures in controversial circumstances he was then unable to walk her down the aisle. The former Hollywood lighting director had suffered two heart attacks on the eve of Harry and Meghan's wedding. The couple have not spoken to him since.

Queen Elizabeth was so alarmed by Meghan's estrangement from her father that the late monarch suggested Meghan write to him.

In her Netflix docu-series, Harry & Meghan, the duchess confirmed she had sought the Queen's advice.

As she put it: 'I reached out to Her Majesty and was, like, 'This is what's going on. What do you want me to do? I want...whatever advice you have.'

'Ultimately, it was suggested by the Queen and the Prince of Wales [now King Charles] that I write my dad a letter.'

Which she did – although not with the results that Queen Elizabeth had perhaps intended.

Speaking later about the lengthy letter he received, Mr Markle said: 'I thought it would be an olive branch. Instead, it was a dagger to the heart.'

The late Queen had realised the significance of Meghan's estrangement from her father.

'Meghan's public disagreements with her father set alarm bells ringing at the time,' a royal source tells me. 'Her Majesty realised the potential damage they could do to the Royal Family in general.

'Looking back, the Queen might have had an inkling of what was to come,' says the source.

Since then, of course, Meghan has not only become estranged from Mr Markle, his other children and her half-brother and sister but from the wider Royal Family, also – as another birthday reminded us this week.

Queen Camilla, who turned 77 yesterday, was so shocked by Harry's attacks on her in his memoir, Spare, that one of her closest friends, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, took the highly unusual step of speaking out in public to defend her.

In the book Harry described his stepmother as 'dangerous' and a 'villain' who had sacrificed him 'on her personal PR altar'.

According to Lady Lansdowne, the Queen was hurt by such a personal attack: 'It bothers her.'

In recent months, Harry and Meghan have given the impression they are keen to mend fences with the Royal Family.

They appeared eager to let it be known that they had enjoyed a friendly phone conversation with King Charles on his birthday last autumn.

Harry certainly rushed to see his father, flying more than 5,000 miles across the Atlantic after the King's cancer diagnosis was made public.

Yet still the Sussexes seem determined to risk conflict.

Harry's decision to go ahead and collect the Pat Tillman award last week – despite protests from thousands of people including the late American hero's own mother, Mary – was a sign of the couple's stubborn refusal to heed criticism.

With their popularity seemingly on the wane in the US, perhaps it's time to mend a few fences back in Britain. 

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