According to a royal author, Prince Harry was left deeply let down when his late mother Princess Diana’s sisters failed to embrace Meghan Markle as he had hoped.

When Harry introduced Meghan to Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, he had expected them to see reflections of their sister in his then-fiancée. He believed Diana would have warmly welcomed Meghan and thought her sisters might feel the same. However, the meeting didn’t go as he imagined.

Rather than recognizing familiar traits between Meghan and Diana, Lady Sarah and Lady Jane reportedly didn’t share Harry’s view. Their reaction, according to royal biographer Tom Bower, left Harry “so disappointed.” The sisters were said to have felt that Meghan wouldn’t be a good fit within the royal family.

Despite their reservations, Harry and Meghan went on to marry in 2018. They have since started a family and now have two children.

The claims are detailed in Bower’s book Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors, where he writes, “Harry assumed that Diana’s family and friends would see a similarity between Diana and his fiancée. Both, he said, shared the same problems. He was so disappointed.” Bower adds, “No one agreed that his vulnerable mother had anything in common with his girlfriend. More discomforting for him, they thought Meghan would not fit in with the royal family.”