Meghan Markle and Prince Harry shocked the world last year when they stepped down as senior members of the British royal family. Now, a royal expert is speaking out to reveal what the final straw was for the couple.

Former royal correspondent Camilla Tominey explained that Meghan and Harry had asked that they be allowed to create their own royal household like William and Kate Middleton’s, but their requests were denied by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles

“At that point, Harry and Meghan want their own office like the Cambridges have. They wanted their own office to run out of Windsor, out of Frogmore Cottage, where they were living at the time,” Tominey said, according to Newsweek. “And it’s at that point, the Queen and Prince Charles then sweep in and say ‘no, we will manage your affairs’ and in a way that’s the final straw because once again the Sussexes are saying ‘why can’t we have what the Cambridges are having? We should be on an equal footing.'”

“Finding Freedom” author Omid Scobie, who is also friends with Meghan, spoke out to say that there was conflict between her and the palace from the beginning.

“Meghan came in driven and ready to work and that immediately ruffled feathers,” he explained. “She’s a woman well into her 30s. I think she’s proven to herself and the people she’s worked with up until that point that she knows what she’s doing.”

“She was certainly not someone who was going to change herself just to please the people around her,” Scobie added. “I felt they also had to be reminded: ‘You’re not the stars of the show here. There is a hierarchy and you don’t come very high in it.'”

Royal biographer Robert Lacey agreed, saying, “Someone close to William told me William felt from an early stage that Meghan had an agenda.”

“I was hearing very bad stories from early on that Meghan was upsetting people,” royal expert Penny Junor said, according to Page Six. She added that Meghan’s “showbiz-y approach” to royalty ruffled feathers, going on to say that the American actress was “not as charming as she seemed.”

“Our Royal Family are not celebrities. They are working members of a public institution,” Junor explained. “I was appalled by the Oprah interview. These are not statements that should be made for public consumption. This is the sort of thing that should happen in the privacy of a psychiatrist’s couch.”