Harry & Meghan Chaos Deepens: Explosive Court Ruling and Surprise Highgrove Reconciliation Leave Royal Watchers Stunned
Could it have been the triumphant homecoming that Prince Harry had yearned for? Was there a world in which he hopped between jolly public engagements (protected by armed police) before returning to Buckingham Palace for tea and hugs with his children and the King? That was the dream. The reality, as it turned out, was more akin to a Benny Hill caper, a comedy of errors that saw the whole trip gradually unravel in a flood of bitter recriminations.
Eventually, of course, the unseemly public rows gave way to diplomacy and that longed-for reunion with the King took place behind closed doors.
Prince Harry’s public engagements ended on a high on Saturday when he joined bereaved military children for a summer festival complete with “goat yoga” and water bombs.
Earlier in the week, there were rows over accommodation and security that exposed the depth of mistrust on all sides. There were briefings and counter briefings, furious messages pinged back and forth, laden with expletives or smug one-upmanship. The cherry on the top was the excoriating High Court judgment in Prince Harry’s privacy claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail.
Tempers were frayed. The fragile peace process between father and son was inextricably tangled in complicated matters of state, legal rulings and government decisions. But the weary sighs were punctuated with moments of genuine joy and laughter: bear hugs with Alison Hammond, the aforementioned goat yoga and World Cup banter. The Duke was mobbed by nurses, made jokes about his rusty cake-cutting skills, bemoaned the lack of NHS funding and proudly saluted the sick and injured military personnel who define his Invictus Games.
Finally, on Friday afternoon, mobile phones pinged with the confirmation that despite it all, at least one thing had gone right. Harry, Meghan, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet had been hosted by the King and Queen at Highgrove.
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To understand why the visit descended into such disarray, we must cast our minds back a few weeks. In June, Team Sussex let it be known that Meghan and the children would join Prince Harry in the UK for the first time in four years. It would be quite the homecoming for this band of errant royals, whose lives tend to be charted via Instagram rather than official duties.
To top it all, they even planned to stay at a royal residence – a sign, if ever there was one, that the froideur between Windsor and Montecito was finally thawing. Or was it? They believed, rightly or wrongly, that some additional security measures would be in place to ensure safe passage in and out of palace gates. But wait! Buckingham Palace was out of the blocks, keen to correct some “misunderstandings”. Security matters were for the Home Office, not the palace. No such guarantees had been made.
There followed a stream of allegations from palace sources who claimed Prince Harry was using his children as “emotional blackmail”, that it was all a “trap” so that the Sussexes could cry foul when it all went wrong.
An apparent misunderstanding had turned nasty. The gloves were off. A week or so later, the Sussexes’ office released the couple’s itinerary, revealing that Meghan was due to join Harry at Invictus events in both London and Birmingham, her first official public engagements in the UK for four years. Just moments after it was sent, they were informed that their request for police protection had been denied.
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Cue panic. The plans were ripped up. For a full week, Prince Harry seethed, trying to work out what to do. He changed his mind almost hourly, torn between heart and head. He wanted his children to spend time with his father but had always vowed never to bring them over without taxpayer-funded security.
Eventually, he decided that Meghan and the children should not come to London. Whether they would come at all would be dealt with privately between father and son. Then, the fiasco over the Buckingham Palace accommodation. Harry was said to have been given until Friday, July 3 to formally accept an invitation to stay – a deadline of which he insisted he had no knowledge.
Emails between the two offices were exchanged in parallel with private conversations between father and son. On July 4, he turned it down in writing, only to change his mind and accept. It was too late. Moments after his plans were revealed, the palace reacted again: not true – he’d missed the deadline, the King had lost patience. The Duke’s dithering was considered discourteous, but there were other matters at play.
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The High Court had announced that it would hand down its long-awaited privacy ruling on Tuesday, July 7 – the very day that Harry had asked to stay at the palace. Alarm bells rang. Courtiers could not risk any kind of bombastic speech (victorious or otherwise) being delivered from a royal residence. The King’s constitutional position had to be protected. There was no room at the inn.
Again, the feeling in the Sussex camp was that the decision was made to cause maximum embarrassment. Royal aides insisted that notice was needed to provide the appropriate hospitality and staffing. What a circus, what a show.
While neither side covered itself in glory, they managed to pull it back and the visit ended on a high. As Prince Harry left the Scotty’s Little Soldiers summer festival at Maxstoke Castle in Warwickshire, The Final Countdown boomed from the speakers.
After a week of drama, it felt apt. Many at the palace will be relieved that the Sussex circus has finally left town. But all involved have plenty to think about ahead of his return in just two months’ time.
The Sussex Show
Highlights from a week of royal-adjacent dramas
Monday
Harry, who had been enjoying a holiday in Europe with his family, landed solo in London and headed straight into another controversy.
A photograph published on social media showed him at a London film premiere alongside his long-time friend, photographer Misan Harriman, who is embroiled in an anti-Semitism row.
Harriman, chairman of the Southbank Centre, has announced that he will step down later this year over remarks he made online.
The flurry of criticism though, was swiftly overshadowed.
Tuesday
The Prince versus Associated Newspapers Limited High Court judgment day.
While the two legal teams had been given the judgment a week earlier, strict legal rules prevented them telling their clients until 1pm – just an hour before it was made public.
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As such, the Duke’s team, still wholly in the dark, made tentative plans for Harry to broadcast a victory statement on camera. His claim comprised 14 articles and they made clear that he only needed to win one to prove that his nemesis, Associated Newspapers Limited, had been up to no good.
As per instructions, the Duke and his fellow claimants – who were scattered all over the world, some on planes, some in bed – were informed of the ruling at 1pm.
Less than 30 minutes later, Harry emerged on cue from his car at Chatham House… for, wait… a panel discussion about the Invictus Games.
He put on a good show, striding inside with not one but two quick waves for the cameras. His face was inscrutable. Inside, however, his guard slipped. By the time he took to the stage at the exact moment the ruling was published, he looked distracted and uncertain.
He gamely delivered his planned six-minute opening speech, jokes and all, while nervously touching his tie and his jacket. Inside the room, and around the globe, news alerts pinged. The Duke and his fellow claimants had suffered an extraordinary defeat. Every claim, comprising a total of 55 stories, was dismissed by Mr Justice Nicklin, who calmly declared that there was simply no evidence.
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The planned victory statement was off the table. Instead, aides scrambled to catch up.
A few hours later, Harry’s fury dripped from every word of a public statement which branded the ruling a “complete and obvious whitewash” and attacked the trial judge.
Over at Buckingham Palace, aides breathed a sigh of relief. Their decision not to allow Harry to stay had been vindicated. This was exactly the sort of vitriol they had feared and something they needed to steer well clear of.
Wednesday
Prince Harry managed to dust himself off, telling his team that the show must go on.
For now, he insisted, it was time to bring the focus back to the charity work. On Tuesday, it had been announced that Wednesday’s Invictus engagement at the Royal Hospital Chelsea would now take place behind closed doors. The media was uninvited.
Was it a sign of things to come? Sussex aides later insisted that the decision was made because the extreme heat meant the Duke could no longer meet the Chelsea pensioners.
Certainly, the photographs that emerged from his appearance at the Royal Hospital Chelsea bore no hint of the previous day’s dramas.There he was, holding court in the middle of a group hanging onto his every word.
Beaming, in an open-necked shirt, he would have presented no clue to a casual observer about the battering he’d taken in the past 24 hours.
He had performed, one aide proudly noted, a remarkable pivot.
Thursday
The Duke was given a warm welcome at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, where he was mobbed by excitable nurses and appeared in his element. This was the kind of job at which Prince Harry excels. There was a warm hug for a medic, selfies and a joke about hospital meals.
Staff, the young patients and their families lapped it up. They didn’t care where he was staying, whether he would meet the King or how he might pay his legal bills.
There was some chat about England’s chances against Norway, a comment about Prince Archie’s obsession with Lego and even a reference to Harry’s brother being an Aston Villa supporter. But wait. Was there more trouble brewing behind the scenes? Would Meghan join Harry as billed at the Invictus event on Friday? After being bombarded with endless questions from all sides, Harry’s spokesman referred this line of enquiry to Meghan’s LA-based PR team Sunshine Sachs. And, yes, Meghan still planned to bring the children to the UK, but would not be joining Harry for any public appearances.
Friday
No Meghan sighted at Birmingham NEC, but no matter, we had Alison Hammond! Speculation about the Duchess’s imminent UK arrival was temporarily silenced as we watched the Brummie This Morning presenter lifted off her feet by an excitable Harry.
The unlikely pair capered about the Birmingham NEC trying their hand at a Laser Run, which involved running around an indoor track before shooting targets with laser pistols. It was unclear who won – or indeed what this was in aid of exactly – but nobody cared.
The Duke also took to the courts for a game of pickleball followed by a rather ferocious wheelchair basketball match.
He later gave a speech joking about his rapid hair loss while also paying tribute to the Invictus competitors and their families whose company he clearly adores.
Then, a surprise development that caught everyone unawares. At 6.40pm, Buckingham Palace revealed that the Sussexes had outsmarted the photographers. The critical reunion that at times last week had seemed a distant dream had finally taken place.
The King and Queen had hosted Harry, Meghan and their children at Highgrove.
It may be a fragile peace, but it was the private family reunion with his “pa” that the Duke had longed for. Surely, all involved in this messy saga breathed a sigh of relief?
Saturday
There was little wonder that Harry arrived at Maxstoke Castle with a spring in his step.
He had seen his wife and children, he had enjoyed afternoon tea with the King, perhaps even shown his children the treehouse he had so loved as a child.
It was hardly surprising that the Duke threw himself into the event with gusto, taking part in a session of “goat yoga”, being pelted with water bombs and sitting down for a candid Q&A session that took in everything from his chosen superpower to how best to deal with grief. In the end, Prince Harry pulled it back. The chaos and rancour were replaced by laughter and hugs.
He finished the week on a high, doing what he does best, cavorting with children, and wearing his heart on his sleeve.
It was yet another glimpse into how his life might have looked – the version of Harry that the public loves.
The legal defeat, which was parked to focus on his charity work, will loom large on his return.
There will be meetings with lawyers, decisions about whether to appeal, the sticky issue of costs. The fight for police protection also continues and he has no intention of backing down.
Elsewhere, he will be looking forward, to a planned UK return this September which he will surely hope is less dramatic, to Invictus 2027 which he fervently hopes his father will attend.
With his career as a “professional litigant” all but over, his charity work largely in the UK, what is next?
