Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are preparing to return to the United Kingdom this month, marking a major move nearly six years after they stepped away from life in Britain for a new chapter in the United States.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be planning an extended stay in the UK, with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, expected to begin attending a British school.
The Sussex family will reportedly settle into a private, non-royal home, and the move will not signal a return to official royal duties.
King Charles is understood to have been told by Prince Harry only on Sunday that he intends to relocate back to the UK later this month.
Sources suggest the monarch welcomes the opportunity to spend time with Harry, Meghan and their children on a personal, private basis. However, the King is said to remain firm that there will be no change to the couple’s position as private citizens and non-working members of the Royal Family, in line with the arrangements and wishes made clear over recent years.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex last saw King Charles and Queen Camilla at Highgrove in Gloucestershire last month, but they are not believed to have shared their relocation plans during that meeting.
Harry, 41, had already been due to travel to the UK next month for the WellChild Awards, with plans in place for him to stay in a room at Buckingham Palace.
Those arrangements are now understood to be unnecessary, as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children are expected to return as a family within the next two weeks.
Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, are thought to have already enrolled at a British school – and the family are reportedly planning to stay until the children finish education.
Harry and Meghan are set to retain their £11million home in Monecito, California, which they have lived in since moving across the pond in 2020. They also still own a residence in Portugal.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are reportedly moving back to the United Kingdom this month – six years after leaving for the US
The surprise news comes six years after the couple left Britons in disbelief when they stepped down as working royals.
Harry and Meghan were blasted at the time for failing to consult Charles, Camilla or Prince William before announcing their exit.
Their dramatic decision was taken without the knowledge of their family, who learnt about the announcement as it broke on television news in February 13, 2020.
The couple were accused ‘press[ing] the nuclear button’ and made the bombshell announcement just days after returning from a six-week break in Canada. They later permanently moved to California in March, 2020 in a move that was widely dubbed ‘Megxit’.
More recently royal aides who accused Meghan Markle of bullying them said they were frightened of ‘what she would do to them’ after they spoke out, it was claimed today.
The Duchess of Sussex’s staff were left ‘in a psychologically delicate state’ and ‘viewed her capacity for revenge as infinite’, an expert has alleged.
Meghan, 43, has always denied the allegations of bullying while she was working as a royal, which she described as an orchestrated smear campaign against her.
Veteran royal correspondent Valentine Low broke the bullying story in May 2021, just before Harry and Meghan were to appear on screen with Oprah Winfrey to discuss Megxit.
He claims that some of the royal staff who had worked with the Sussexes were still in a ‘very fragile state’ more than two years later – and despite the royal couple having emigrated 5,000 miles away to the US.
‘They were very worried about what Meghan would do to them. They viewed her capacity for revenge as infinite’, Mr Low said.
‘They’d left the employ of the Royal Family and they still were in a psychologically delicate state as a result of what happened to them at that time’.
He added: ‘If they [the Sussexes] were difficult to work for then, they’re difficult to work for now’.
Mr Low was speaking to American royal commentator Kinsey Schofield’s Unfiltered YouTube show.
He told her that he believes that Harry and Meghan tried to stop and then discredit his story detailing allegations of bullying, adding that he believes that the fact they have lost 25 staff since 2017 shows they remain tough to work for.
‘‘It was a very important factor, the litigious nature of Harry and Meghan. I had sight of various bits of documentary evidence. I saw things which totally backed up the story. I had utter confidence’, he said.
‘Before publication we put the allegations to Harry and Meghan and we got a very very long letter from their lawyers. Sometime later we got another slightly less long letter from their lawyers. It was very very feisty, very strong, saying basically “watch out”.
‘Then we published and after that we didn’t hear a word from them’.
Valentine said the story had to be published before the Oprah interview.
This is a breaking news story, more to follow.
