Meghan Markle received same 'training' Kate Middleton did to help navigate royal life, expert says

Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle both married into the British Royal Family as commoners.

While their roles within The Firm were set to be very different in the years to come, royal commentator Katie Nicholl tells 9Honey they both received the same help before becoming royal wives.

"They both had a team of experienced aides to help them navigate their new royal life," Nicholl says, adding: "So it's not the case that Kate had training and Meghan didn't. "

"Both Meghan and Kate married into the royal family as commoners, albeit one as a well-known actress who was older and perhaps had more life experience, but they both married-in really not knowing the mechanisms of the royal family, protocols, everything that really needed to be learnt."

When Prince Harry and Meghan first announced their engagement in November 2017, everyone expected that the American-born Hollywood actress would fair better in the spotlight than "shy" Kate.

But as the world found out during the couple's tour documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, the Suits star was struggling to cope with the limelight.

"As an actress, she was used to being photographed - she was famous in her own right before marrying into The Royal Family - but she's said herself there was this suggestion that she would be able to handle the press attention and find her way in the spotlight because of her previous experience," Nicholl tells 9Honey.

"Whereas actually, I think what she encountered was almost impossible to prepare for and certainly her experience as a B-List actress wasn't going to stand her in [good] stead for suddenly becoming the most famous woman in the world.

"She became a global celebrity on a stage just incomparable to anything Hollywood was going to offer or the Hollywood stage that she experience before," Nicholl adds.

Nicholl points out it wasn't all smooth sailing for the Duchess of Cambridge at the beginning of her time as a royal wife either.

"I think it's fair to say Kate's had her own issues with the media, it's not always been a favourable spotlight on her.

"She did have a tough time with the press in the early days but I think in Meghan's case it does seem to be the case where she couldn't do anything right — from her colour of her nail varnish to how much she patted her bump, to the clothes that she wore to being overly hands-on and hugging people — she seemed to ruffle feather with whatever she was doing," Nicholl says.

While Kate kept her head down and carried on through the difficulties, Meghan refused to follow suit.

As the Duchess of Sussex famously said in the Africa documentary: "I've said for a long time to H—that's what I call him—it's not enough to just survive something, right?

"That's not the point of life. You've got to thrive, you've got to feel happy."

"Yes, she was older than Kate [when she married into The Royal Family] and had some experience of being in the spotlight but it became very apparent from that documentary in Africa, that perhaps while she made it look easy, it obviously wasn't easy," Nicholl says.

"They projected a very happy image of themselves — Meghan and Harry — but scratch beneath the surface and all wasn't what it seems. They were both unhappy, Meghan particularly, there were big parts of her new life that she was finding hard to adjust to."

So, while the two Duchesses prepared for royal life in the same way, both dealt with what came next very differently.

And with Kate set to become Future Queen while Meghan returns to Hollywood as a former-royal, the next stage is set to be even more contrasting.