Thursday night’s Invictus Spirit Awards carried an air of warmth and normality, as Prince Harry reaffirmed his support for military veterans and the Invictus Games, which are due to be held in Birmingham next summer.
The Irish Guards provided music at the event at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The regiment is associated with Harry’s sister-in-law, Catherine, while its commander is the King.
Their presence gave the quasi-royal occasion the appearance of having some degree of royal approval.
Yet one question remained unspoken: where will Harry and his family be living when the Invictus Games begin next July?
Amid the continuing farce, crisis and drama surrounding the Sussexes, well-placed sources have told me that an eventual return to Montecito, California, has not been ruled out. In fact, it could happen within weeks.
The family is reportedly ‘likely’ to leave the UK again if Harry fails to secure the enhanced taxpayer-funded protection he has sought for years. An online petition opposing that arrangement has attracted more than 53,000 signatures, with the number continuing to rise.
People close to the Duke of Sussex say a decision from the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, known as Ravec, on security arrangements for Harry, Meghan and their children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, is expected ‘within days’. It was confirmed only on Monday that a fresh security assessment is being conducted while the couple are staying in the UK.
Harry and Meghan have been asked to provide details of their ‘pattern of life’, including the school run for Archie and Lilibet.
Prince Harry renewed his commitment to military veterans on Thursday night at the Invictus Spirit Awards at the Royal Naval Academy in Greenwich
The Sussexes are reportedly ‘likely’ to leave the UK again if Harry fails to obtain enhanced taxpayer-funded security, writes Alison Boshoff
Harry apparently believes his case is beyond dispute, both in terms of the danger he faces and his entitlement to protection, and expects the decision to go in his favour.
A source close to the duke told me: ‘It feels inevitable that Ravec will do something. That is what H [Harry] thinks.
‘He is a target not because of a lifestyle choice he made, but because of who he was born as. He believes a decision will come imminently, this week or next, and that it will represent a Ravec U-turn.
‘The expectation is that the Home Office will try to play it down and keep it as quiet as possible to save face, but it is coming.’
However, the duke’s friend added: ‘If he does not get [security], then I believe he will return to Montecito for good, and that could happen as soon as half-term.
‘The view is that if they are refused security, it must mean Ravec has been nobbled. The need is so obvious—what other explanation could there be?
‘So if he does not receive it, he will see that as evidence of deeper forces at work. In that situation, he will believe he is safer in the United States than in the UK and will return.’
As ever, Prince Harry and his former actress wife Meghan appear to be surrounded by intense emotion and high drama. The couple married on a spectacular spring day in 2018 before leaving the UK in considerably less celebratory circumstances two years later.
Their California venture initially brought major financial rewards, including lucrative agreements with Netflix and Spotify, as well as earnings from the publishers of Harry’s memoir, Spare. But that money has since diminished. With their deals reportedly scaled back and their Archewell charity effectively closed, the couple arrived in the UK by private jet on August 27, with friends saying the move was intended to allow their children to attend British schools.
Meanwhile, American associates were said to be quietly claiming that the couple were ‘broke’.
I was told that they intend to stay in Britain until Archie and Lilibet have completed their schooling, so 13 years give or take. A serious commitment, then.
Harry certainly voiced his delight at being back in the UK this week, telling reporters at the Invictus Spirit Awards: ‘It’s wonderful to be back on British soil and really nice to see so many old faces and friends.
‘It’s been eventful, but we’re getting stuck into the work. The kids are in school. We’re happy.’
For now they are staying in a house on the estate of a wealthy friend in the Cotswolds. They think it is ‘ideal’ and apparently love it there.
Harry has said that they will be staying in the house (rent-free) until at least Christmas and despite molten torrents of estate-agent gossip, he and Meghan haven’t started house-hunting yet, which lends credence to the idea that the move isn’t absolutely inked in at this point.
The plan for their new life in the Cotswolds was apparently hastily made following an encouraging visit to Europe in July which included tea with the King and a number of days in Portugal where they have bought a holiday home.
Their British adventure has not got off to a great start, to put it mildly.
This week’s drama was the announcement on Tuesday that Archie and Lilibet had been removed from the prep school which they were enrolled in after only two days’ attendance the previous week, and were instead going to another school in a different part of the Cotswolds.
They’ve just completed their first full week there now.
The explanation for the flit from school given by Team Sussex to sympathetic media was couched in terms of advice from their security detail, and concerns over the ‘operational safety’ of a school run undertaken in the teeth of notoriously bad local traffic.
It transpired that their privately paid protection officers had done a dummy run in July, when schools were out and everyone was away on holiday, and had thus come back with a false view of the state of play.
Naturally, in the context of Prince Harry’s lengthy battle to get taxpayer-funded protection, commentators have been lining up to accuse him and Meghan of using his children as ‘exhibits in his safety battle’. It’s said that some parents at both the school his children were at and the one they are now attending suspect the very same thing – that the issues with traffic and security have neatly made Harry’s argument for him. Bluntly, it’s helped him make his point.
The context of the dropping out of school also matters – because it happened just as Meghan released a video on Instagram of the family’s initial days in the UK, on Sunday. Geographical features included in the video made it easy for online sleuths to confirm where they are staying.
Our News Outlet is choosing not to name any of the areas or the schools where the Sussexes are, but online the information is now circulating freely, surely adding to the security risk. And she did this on the eve of the children starting at a new school.
A friend of Harry’s reveals the full details of the ‘untenable’ school run which the Sussexes essayed twice. I hear the journey, of 30-plus miles, took two hours there and back.
The Sussexes apparently can’t believe that they weren’t even able to so much as use a bus lane to cut through the snarl-ups.
As the friend said: ‘At the moment the fact is that they continue to be seen as private citizens to the point where they can’t even drive in a bus lane.’ What’s worse – and surely embarrassing for Meghan, who likes to boast that she has a ‘freakish attention to detail’ – is that they had failed to realise when planning the daily routine that Archie finishes at 4.15pm and Lili – in pre-prep – needs to be collected at 3pm.
It’s an oversight almost as large as Meghan holding her jam tongs upside down.
A friend says: ‘They did the initial trip on a weekday lunchtime during their July visit and it felt like a long school run but a doable one.
‘But when they did it at the start of term they had rather a shock. They realised that it was going to be four hours a day minimum in the car every day. They quickly said no, that’s not sustainable.
‘What really made it untenable was that Lili and Archie had different timetables at the school. So on top of it taking hours, there was also over an hour between pick ups.’
In the context of Prince Harry’s battle to get taxpayer-funded protection, commentators have been lining up to accuse him and Meghan of using his children as ‘exhibits in his safety battle’
The family had left the house at 6.45am, and the return from school journey began shortly after lunchtime.
The friend says: ‘They are quite unfazed about it to be honest. They tried it, it didn’t work, but it’s early days of schooling for the kids and early in the term and they’ve now found another school. This is a long-term plan for them, they are in it for the long haul.’
The friend adds: ‘The issue was more about traffic logistics than security, and they were stuck between the two schools anyway.
‘They went for the bigger one initially as they felt it might have more facilities and more opportunities but they were always weighing up between the two choices.
‘The one which they chose initially was further away and that looks like an error.
‘They have been taken unawares by the difficulties. They never planned to move the kids after such a short time. In the end they judged it all poorly.
‘Harry takes full responsibility for coming back to the UK without security. You know that he wants security and he feels that he needs it but this is not a sub-plot about security.
‘They came into this with their eyes wide open. It was not going to be easy – ever – as a transition. But they believe that they are doing the right thing for the children.’
Royal biographer Robert Jobson also takes the view that the security concerns and traffic issues have bolstered Harry’s continuing battle for security.
He said: ‘Harry failed at the High Court, now he is trying to strong-arm Ravec and the Home Office into giving him what he wants.
‘I suggest they buy themselves an alarm clock, set it three-quarters of an hour early and join the real world.
‘Nobody asked him to come with his family to a country he deemed unsafe. Round-the-clock security for the non-working royals will cost a small fortune.’
Dai Davies, an ex-head of royal protection, was also critical. He said: ‘The preparation for coming to this country would appear to be lax.
‘The risk historically to children, even of the monarch, has been low. Do they really have to go in a convoy to school? The whole situation beggars belief. Just because Harry’s got the arrogance to waltz back in because they couldn’t make it where they were.’
As things stand, I am told that the family will ‘definitely’ go back to their idyllic Tuscan-style, 16-bedroom home in Montecito at half-term and at Christmas.
The children will no doubt be thrilled to be back under blue skies – October temperatures are around 25 degrees – and they will be reunited with their chickens and swimming pool.
The neighbours may have sighed ‘good riddance’ – but were they just a little premature?
