‘Wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours,’ read a post shared by the Sussexes in November 2019.

It seemed inconspicuous enough given the fact that Meghan Markle is American and celebrates the US holiday.   

But the emoji included in the caption, a red maple leaf, was the first sign that the royal couple could be in Canada.

During their six-week hiatus from royal duties, both the Sussexes and the Palace remained silent about Meghan and Harry’s travel destinations.

All that was known was that the couple and baby Archie would be spending time with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland. 

Speculation arose that the couple might have visited Toronto, where Meghan had lived while working on Suits and where her close friend, Jessica Mulroney, resided. This led some royal watchers to wonder if Toronto was their chosen locale.

Earlier in November, Buckingham Palace revealed the couple would be skipping Christmas with the Royal Family.

The announcement stirred rumors of discord within the royal family, which Harry seemed to acknowledge in their much-discussed documentary about the South African tour.

And it seems that it wasn’t just the public who were left in the dark about where the Sussexes were headed.  

Valentine Low, a journalist, wrote in “Courtiers” that when the couple headed to Canada, the trip was shrouded in secrecy.

The Palace described the trip as “family time,” not a vacation, and Meghan was so intent on keeping their location confidential that even their nanny, Lorren, was left in the dark about their plans.

‘”What sort of weather should I pack for?” she asked. 

‘According to one source, she did not know where they were going until the plane – a private jet, not Air Canada, as claimed by Finding Freedom – was in the air.

‘Meanwhile, staff had been growing increasingly suspicious about the couple’s long-term intentions.

‘It had already occurred to them that the Sussexes might go and live in America. The fact that they had taken all their personal belongings with them to Canada, and their two dogs, seemed quite a big hint.

‘However, nothing was confirmed until Meghan confided towards the end of the year in a member of her personal staff that they were not coming back.

‘The rest of the team did not find out until the couple held a meeting at Buckingham Palace at the beginning of January. They found it hard to accept they were being dumped like that. Some were in tears.’

Many observers view this trip as the catalyst for Megxit and the chain of events that followed. 

Shortly before their return in January 2020, Harry reportedly sent an email to his father saying that the couple were not happy; the current setup was not working for them and they wanted to live in North America.

As Low wrote, Harry was of the impression that they could just sort it out by email before he and Meghan got back to London on January 6.

But instead, the Sussexes were met with the response that this would require a proper family conversation on the next available date, January 29. 

‘From the Sussex point of view, this went down incredibly badly,’ wrote Low.

‘It fed into the narrative that they were not being taken seriously by the Palace machinery, or by the rest of the family.’

Harry tried to speed things along by arranging a meeting with his grandmother, the Queen, alone. 

But before he left Canada, he was told the Queen had got her diary confused and was no longer available.

‘Harry was incensed,’ wrote Low. ‘The courtiers saw the meeting with the Queen for what it was: an attempt to pick the Queen off before Harry started talks with the rest of the family.’

As one source put it: ‘There was a danger that a private conversation could be interpreted very differently by two people.’

The Queen’s famous response to Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview comes to mind: ‘Recollections may vary’. 

Low wrote that the Queen’s sudden diary clash made Harry so cross that for a while he considered driving straight from the airport to Sandringham to drop in on his grandmother unannounced.

On their return to London, the couple visited Canada House to thank officials for their country’s hospitality. The royal couple met with Janice Charette, high commissioner in Canada to the UK, and then visited an exhibition by an indigenous Canadian artist, Skawennati.

Just days after returning from Canada, on January 8, 2020, the Sussexes announced on Instagram their decision to ‘step back’ as senior working royals and split their time between North America and the UK.

Meghan returned to Canada on January 10, allowing Harry to face his family at their Norfolk estate alone to pitch his idea of himself and Meghan having ‘half-in, half-out’ roles.

Low added: ‘Given the Royal Family met to discuss it all five days later on January 13 it seems the family diary was rather more flexible than originally appeared.

‘Harry and Meghan felt cornered, misunderstood and deeply unhappy.

‘If the rest of the institution failed to appreciate that, even if their demands were unreasonable, the departure negotiations were never going to end happily.’ 

The 90 minute meeting between the royals and their closest aides discussed a number of possible futures for Harry and Meghan. 

It was quickly dubbed ‘The Sandringham Summit’ by the press as media vans with satellite dishes descended on the outskirts of the estate to cover the monumental moment.

Due to the deep privacy of the occasion, details of the intense family chat initially remained private.

According to informed sources at the time, the mood of the meeting was calm and there were no reports of shouting or blistering exchanges.

But in the years since, recollections have once again begun to vary as Harry has come forward with more details that seem to contradict those accounts.

In his and Meghan’s 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry alleged William left him ‘terrified’ during the summit after he ‘screamed and shouted’ at him, while also accusing Charles of telling untruths to his face – as the Queen quietly sat there and ‘took it all in’.

And in his 2023 memoir Spare, he claimed the summit was ‘just for show’ as the outcome had already been ‘fixed’ by the Queen’s aides.

He wrote that he arrived at Sandringham with the impression that the summit would consider five options for how the Sussexes would exit royal life – ranging from maintaining the status quo (option one), to full departure (option five).

The Duke claims that the rest of the royals pressured him and his wife to stay, but barring that, the only other solution they would accept was option five: departure.

The stunned Harry wrote: ‘Wait. I’m confused. You’ve already drafted a statement? Before any discussion? Announcing Option 5?

‘In other words, the fix was in, this whole time? This summit was just for show? No answer.

‘I asked if there were drafts of other statements. Announcing the other options. Oh yes, of course, the Bee assured me.

‘Can I see them? Alas, his printer had gone on the blink, he said. The odds! At the very moment he was about to print out those other drafts!

‘I started laughing. Is this some kind of joke? Everyone was staring away or down at their shoes.’

Following the meeting Harry then wrote he asked the Queen’s friendliest page, ‘who’d always liked him’, for directions to the printer which he found was working fine ‘churning out documents’.

When he asked an assistant if it was working properly he wrote, he was told it was ‘indestructible’, and when he asked if the printer in ‘the Bee’s’ office worked too he was told yes.

A few moments later ‘the Bee’ appeared and ‘looked extremely sheepish’ as he ‘knew he was busted’ – but brushed off the Prince and told him ‘not to worry’ about the printer.

Other details in Harry’s account of the summit include that when he arrived early to chat with the Queen, Charles’ private secretary ‘reacted with alarm’ and went ‘buzzing off’ to fetch him.

He also claimed his brother William ‘looked at me as if he planned to murder me’ when he first sat down at the table for the meeting.

Meghan also spoke about her outrage that she was not able to attend the summit as she was still in Canada with baby Archie.

She said in her and Harry’s Netflix show: ‘Imagine a conversation, a roundtable discussion about the future of your life.

‘When the stakes are this high. And you as the mom and the wife and the target, in many regards, aren’t invited to have a seat at the table.’

Harry added: ‘It was clear to me that they planned out so that you weren’t in the room.’

None of the other royal spouses, Philip, Camilla, or Kate, attended the meeting either.

In recent months, rumours of peace talks have led some observers to believe that reconciliation between Charles, Harry and William is on the horizon.

In May, Harry in his tell-all BBC interview: ‘I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious.’ 

Earlier this month, Harry and his father met for the first time in 19 months for 54 minutes – and one cup of tea.

Many questioned why the 76-year-old monarch even agreed to meet his estranged son, whom he hasn’t spoken to for months, given the truly unforgivable things he has said and written about both himself and the rest of the Royal Family.

But insiders said it could be the first tentative step on the road to reconciliation – at least between father and son.