Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down as senior royals in January 2020. Their emancipation caused shockwaves through the United Kingdom as the couple moved to California. They are still called the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but they are no longer referred to as his and Her Royal Highnesses. The title shift seems to be one of the few clear-cut answers regarding this situation. Rather, many people want to know how emancipation affected the relationships within the royal family. Although the royals themselves give little comment on the matter, their actions indicate an unfortunately standoffish family dynamic.
Prince Harry’s Recent Visits to the U.K.
Prince Harry has visited the U.K. several times since his dramatic departure. In February 2024, he visited London to meet with his father for 45 minutes after the announcement of the king’s cancer treatment. He had also returned several times due to the open court cases he has against different newspaper publishers. In May 2023, Harry attended King Charles’ coronation without Meghan. However, the pair came together for the queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, and her funeral that September.
On May 8, Harry attended a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral celebrating the Invictus Games’ 10th anniversary, a sporting event he had helped found for injured veterans. During this brief visit, he didn’t see his brother Prince William or King Charles. Royal expert Emily Andrews reported that Charles’ packed schedule didn’t allow for a visit from his son.
Missing Trooping the Colour
However, that was far from the only “snub”. Harry was also missed on the guest list for Trooping the Colour, also known as the Sovereign’s Birthday Parade, for the second year in a row. He was also not invited to the wedding of Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminister, who is also the godfather to Harry’s son Prince Archie.
“It has been humiliation after humiliation for Prince Harry,” Andrews reports. “Harry has broken so many bonds of trust with so many people, it is difficult to see him ever attending a society wedding or Trooping the Colour again.” She adds that he won’t meet with the Prince and Princess of Wales because they are “still understandably too hurt” to see him.
“No longer part of the royal family…”
“The reality is he’s lost his place among Britain’s high society,” an insider source said. “There are some days when Harry says he can’t take it anymore — the slights, the coldness coming from the palace, it’s like he’s no longer a part of that family.”
The most recent snub regarded the royal family’s summer estate, Balmoral Castle. Reportedly, Harry and Meghan have never received an invitation to the family gathering in the Scottish Highlands although Harry has spent many childhood summers there.
Keeping his Loved Ones Safe
In any event, Prince Harry is reluctant to bring his wife and children to the U.K. due to safety concerns. Meghan received genuine threats while she lived in the U.K. according to Neil Basu, the former head of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police. So when the couple lost their police security after their emancipation, Harry worked to try to get security reinstated, although High Court Judge Peter Lane upheld the decision to reduce the security despite Harry’s offer to pay privately for it. Harry plans to appeal this case.
“The U.K. is my home. The U.K. is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the United States,” Harry said in a statement in 2022. “That cannot happen if there is no possibility to keep them safe when they are on U.K. soil. I can’t put my wife in danger like that, and given my experiences in life, I’m reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm’s way too.”
The Tabloids’ Actions Against the Royal Family
Harry’s fight against the tabloids continues after winning his phone hacking lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers in December 2023. Unfortunately, he believes that this mission is a “central piece” to his rift with the royal family, although it’s difficult to give a definite answer because “anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press,” he said. “I’ve made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we did it as a family. I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you’re in a public role, these are the things that we should be doing for the greater good. But I’m doing this for my reasons.”
However, he adds that the late queen supported his aspirations to confront the people who allegedly used unlawful methods to gather information about him and his family. “We had many conversations before she passed, this is very much something she supported, she knew how much this meant to me,” he said. “She is up there going, ‘See this through to the end,’ without question.“