Meghan emails her gravely ill father Thomas Markle in hospital

The Duchess of Susblock has insisted she has made contact with her estranged father after Thomas Markle pleaded with her to see him “one more time, before I die”.

Sources close to the duchess confirmed to The Sunday Times that she had emailed him on Friday, despite claims that Markle was “confused” by reports that his daughter had “reached out” to him.

On Wednesday Markle, 81, had emergency surgery in the Philippines to treat a blood clot. The operation is believed to have resulted in the amputation of his left leg.

Markle told The Mail on Sunday that he wanted to meet his grandchildren “before it’s too late” and said he had not changed his number so Meghan “could always get in touch with me”.

The newspaper said it had spoken to the hospital’s administration office, reception, intensive care unit and hospital staff attending to Markle, who all said they had not received contact from the duchess or her staff.

However, sources disputed this and said a message had been sent to her father and that the email did not appear to have bounced back. It is understood that the duchess will resend her message to a current, confirmed email address if it is provided.

Markle was said to have been in a stable condition on Friday after an operation. Reports, which have not been independently verified by The Sunday Times, said the surgery was to amputate one of his legs. A surgeon attending to him told The Mail on Sunday that there had been a “m***ive blood clot in his thigh that had stopped circulation” to his foot and lower leg. “It was life-or-death surgery. Had the infection in the foot moved to his heart, it would most likely have been fatal. He is doing well but he is not out of the woods yet.”

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Markle and his daughter have been estranged since the run-up to her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018. Meghan’s father had been due to walk her down the aisle at St George’s Chapel in Windsor but relations became strained when it emerged that he had staged pictures with a photographer. He then pulled out of attending the wedding, citing ill-health.

In his absence the King, then the Prince of Wales, gave Meghan away.

Sources close to the duchess insist that she has tried to reach out to her father several times since her wedding. He has never met Harry or the couple’s children, Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four.

One source accused The Mail on Sunday of “puppeteering this desperately sad situation”, saying: “The Mail made no attempt to contact the duchess’s team prior to publication to verify the claims in their report.

“Had they asked, particularly in light of the quotes they relied upon from Mr Markle and hospital staff, we would simply have told them to ask Mr Markle to check his email.

“We first saw the story only after it was published. We immediately informed the Mail that the duchess had, in fact, emailed her father — a detail we had deliberately chosen not to share in order to avoid further dragging this private matter into the public eye.”

This year Markle moved from his home in Mexico to the Philippines. He now lives with his son, Thomas Markle Jr, 59, who has urged his half-sister to contact their father.

Referring to her Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, which focuses on the importance of family relationships, he said: “I would ask Meg, on a week when she has released a TV show talking about the power of love and family, to reach out to our dad … she needs to start showing the comp***ion she preaches about.”

Meghan’s half-sister Samantha Markle, 61, said she felt the events of the past few years had taken their toll on their father. “He is a strong man, but he has been through so much. I am praying that he is strong enough to survive this,” she said.

“My father has been through two heart attacks, a stroke and an earthquake. I hope he can pull through this.”

On Saturday night Thomas Markle remained in a stable condition at the hospital in Cebu, an island in the centre of the Philippines. He is expected to be moved out of the intensive care unit as early as Sunday.