It’s safe to say that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are not on the best terms with King Charles and the rest of the Royal Family. The many interviews, the Netflix series, and the Duke’s memoir left a good deal of royalists seething. For his part, it was claimed that Charles had finally had enough. In January last year, he evicted Harry and Meghan from their UK base of Frogmore Cottage.
At the time, the couple were said to have been shocked by the now-monarch’s decision. New details have arisen, however, and one report suggests Harry even asked King Charles one baffling question when they got the news.
After their royal marriage in 2018, Harry and Meghan lived at Kensington Palace briefly. However, that residence was Prince William and Kate Middleton’s home. The new couple then moved into Nottingham Cottage, and after a short stay, they took their belongings and moved to Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor Cottage grounds. It was a wedding gift they received from the late Queen Elizabeth.
Frogmore Cottage
Frogmore Cottage has been a royal residence since 1792. Built in the 1680s, the name was taken from the many frogs in the area. Since then, many members of the Royal Family have called it home. Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, first purchased Frogmore Cottage as a country home for her family, and later, it became the home for the Duchess of Kent. Queen Victoria’s mother was laid to rest in a mausoleum on its grounds.
In the 1980s, Frogmore was repaired and redecorated. And about 40 years later, it got two new tenants: Harry and Meghan.
The couple renovated the royal estate at a cost of around $3 million. When they stepped down from their royal roles, Harry and Meghan agreed to pay back the entire price tag to UK taxpayers. However, they still were allowed to keep Frogmore Cottage as their UK base when visiting.
It was reported that the royal estate had been the “only sufficiently secure refuge in the country” for Harry and Meghan since they stepped down from their royal duties, as they lost the benefit of police protection in the country.
Then things took a rather different turn. Just days after Harry’s book Spare was released, last January, King Charles made his mind up about the future of the property.
A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan later confirmed that they had been evicted from Frogmore Cottage.
“We can confirm the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been requested to vacate their residence at Frogmore Cottage,” the spokesperson told Vanity Fair.
Harry and Meghan were evicted
After Harry and Meghan were served the eviction notice from Buckingham Palace, The Sun reports that Prince Andrew was offered the option to move into Frogmore. The disgraced prince currently resides in a 30-room Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, where he has lived since 2003.
According to The Sun, Andrew was actively “resisting” the King’s wish for him to move into Frogmore Cottage.
“This surely spells the end of Harry and Meghan’s time in the UK,” a royal source told The Sun.
There was no doubt Charles and the other senior royals weren’t happy about Harry’s memoir and its content. Since its release, together with the other interviews and the Netflix series released in December 2022, the relationship between Harry and Meghan and the Firm has been icy. Even so, Harry and Meghan attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022, and last spring, Harry was in attendance when his father was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
That said, the coronation didn’t quite serve as an opportunity to make amends.
As per reports, neither King Charles nor Prince William have read Spare, but it can be assumed that they know all about its contents. As a result, Harry’s relationships with his brother and father are naturally at an all-time low, and there was no sign of the trio reconciling while Harry was in the UK for last year’s coronation.
Speaking with The Sun, lip-reading expert Jerey Freeman picked up several things Harry is said to have told Jack Brooksbank, Princess Eugenie’s husband, whom he sat beside at Westminster Abbey, before the coronation ceremony began. According to him, the Duke was moaning, muttering: “I’m fed up with the way they treat me.”
“They don’t care”
Freeman caught Harry saying: “It’s not an ideal situation,” to which Jack Brooksbank replied: “If I can make you feel any better, and even I can do it. It’s not the quiet life, is it?”
“They don’t care,” Harry answered.
Jack Brooksbank added: “I haven’t time for that, not if it’s over…”
“It’s an eventuality,” Harry concluded.
Prince Harry didn’t directly interact with his brother or King Charles during the big day. According to the PA News agency, Harry got in a car outside Westminster Abbey immediately after the coronation service. He then boarded a British Airways flight and was back in Los Angeles at 19:30 local time.
The fact that he did not stay in the UK for the private lunch reportedly left Charles “genuinely disappointed,” the source told Daily Mail. However, other Royal Family members “breathed a sigh of relief” that Harry had left.
Irrespective of what has happened up until this day, what is set in stone is that King Charles decided to evict his son and daughter-in-law just one day after Spare was released (coincidentally just months prior to his coronation).
According to royal expert and author Omad Scobie, Charles was “spitting mad” with Harry’s book, which undoubtedly played a role in his son’s eviction.
Harry and Meghan were “stunned” by King Charles’ eviction decision
Sources close to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the time claimed the couple was “stunned” by the decision.
“Harry and Meghan have until early summer to vacate,” a source told Scobie, reporting for Yahoo. “Initially, they were given just weeks, but now they have at least until after the coronation.
“It all feels very final and like a cruel punishment,” a friend of Harry and Meghan’s added. “It’s like [the family] wants to cut them out of the picture for good.”
“Harry and Meghan have until early summer to vacate,” a source told Scobie, reporting for Yahoo. “Initially, they were given just weeks, but now they have at least until after the coronation.”
“It all feels very final and like a cruel punishment,” a friend of Harry and Meghan’s added. “It’s like [the family] wants to cut them out of the picture for good.”
Now, new details about what really happened come to light. Royal author Omid Scobie, also said to have been friends with Harry and Meghan, wrote in his latest book, Endgame, that King Charles wanted to punish the Sussexes. He also called it a “cheap shot..”
The author’s sources confirmed a “significant” part of evicting Harry and Meghan was “undoubtedly” a punishment for them releasing their Netflix series just weeks earlier.
“Do you want to see your grandchildren?”
Omid Scobie claims Frogmore was Harry and Meghan’s” ‘only safe place to stay when visiting the UK, as armed guards surround its grounds.”
Harry was shocked about King Charles’s decision to evict them, and days later, Scobie writes, he spoke to his father about what he had done.
“Do you want to see your grandchildren?” Harry was said to have told King Charles over the phone.
Charles then made a “half-hearted declaration that they would always have ‘somewhere to stay.’”
However, the author said it “didn’t give Harry much hope.”
The final blow, Scobie added, was when the disgraced Prince Andrew was offered Frogmore Cottage instead.
“For Charles, the issue of Frogmore Cottage wasn’t just about punishing his son, though sources say that ‘undoubtedly’ played a significant role,” Scobie wrote in Endgame.
“It was also part of the effort to streamline the portfolio of properties being used by members of the family.”
Omid Scobie added: “Staying mum about Harry’s accusations and remaining publicly unconcerned for his son’s wellbeing while ending his family’s lease on a safe UK residence was not a decisive action by a resolute King.”
Harry and Meghan thought Frogmore Cottage was “so small”
When the Netflix series was released, Harry and Meghan had already bought their house in Montecito, California. While they, at the time, had Frogmore Cottage as their UK base, they expressed their true feelings about their former royal house.
Harry and Meghan described Frogmore Cottage as “so small.”
“The whole thing is on a slight lean, [with] really low ceilings. So I don’t know who was there before, but they must have been very short,” Harry said, with Meghan laughing, revealing Harry would “hit his head constantly because he is so tall.”
