The Reason Meghan Markle Didn’t Stand With The Queen And Kate Middleton At Remembrance Ceremony

On Sunday, we saw them at the Remembrance Day Service - where the women all stood on the balcony to watch the procession below. Meghan Markle watched from the balcony of another window outside the Cenotaph war memorial in London.

While Queen Elizabeth II, Kate Middleton and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall all stood together at one balcony.

The reason is actually quite simple.

The balconies of each window are small, it’s nearly impossible to fit more than three or four women on each — and although Meghan didn’t join her family members, she was given a very important position of her own.

During the ceremony, which honours those who lost their lives in World War I, she watched with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s wife Elke Budenbender.

During official events, the royal family also arranges themselves according to a royal “pecking order.”

Many will note when Meghan made her official Trooping the Colour debut in June, she wasn’t front and center on the palace balcony, and instead stood behind Kate and Prince William.

“She was not as prominent perhaps as some people might have expected, but there’s a pecking order,” Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, told People.

“There was no slight intended, but William being the older, more senior brother would go out [first] with his wife.”

A palace source said that Meghan’s balcony position “would have come from her. There’s no one laying this out, telling her where to stand. And there were a lot of kids who everyone would want at the front.”

This article originally appeared on Who.