The Sussexes are set to visit the UK next month for the first time since Her Majesty the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. The couple will be travelling to Manchester for the One Young World Summit - an event which brings together young leaders from more than 190 countries - on September 5, before they head to Germany for the Invictus Games Dusseldorf 2023 One Year to Go event.
Then, they will attend the WellChild Awards on September 8. WellChild is a charity based here in the South West, of which Prince Harry is a patron.
And Meghan Markle is a counsellor for the One Young World Summit, alongside Justin Trudeau, Sir Richard Branson and Jamie Oliver, to name a few. It is not yet known if their three-year-old son Archie, or daughter Lilibet (one) will join them on their trip, which sees the pair visit the UK for the first time since early June.
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According to the Daily Mail, it follows reports just a month ago that the Queen had invited the couple to Balmoral during the summer, however it is not yet clear if they will visit the monarch during this trip. A spokesman for the couple said: 'Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are delighted to visit with several charities close to their hearts in early September.'
The announcement comes just weeks after it emerged that Prince Harry had filed a second lawsuit against the government and Scotland Yard over the decision not to allow him to pay for police protection when he visits from California. He is already suing the Home Office over its decision in 2020 to remove his taxpayer-funded protection, the Daily Mail reports, which he says makes it unsafe for him to come to Britain with his wife and children.
Furthermore, the Queen's diary seems pretty busy over the next month which could make it difficult for her grandson to pay her a visit during his trip. And personal meetings between Harry and other senior royals also might be overshadowed by a memoir that is set to be released later this year.
Their visit coincides with a new Prime Minister announced
On September 5, when Harry and Meghan are due to visit Manchester, the Conservative Party will announce the next Prime Minister, an event which normally sees the Queen meeting with the new PM soon after. Though the couple will likely want to pay Her Majesty a visit, after a palace insider said they barely spent any time with her during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations earlier this summer.
The couple made only one appearance in public over the celebratory weekend, despite travelling all the way from the United States with their two children and they didn't appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony during the Trooping of the Colour. Reports suggest that palace aides had to choreograph timing for the Jubilee service to ensure that William and Kate didn't bump into Harry and Meghan.
And the couple sat apart from Prince William, Kate, Prince Charles and Camilla in the church after royal aides reportedly ensured they sat on separate sides of the aisle. Departure and arrival times were also allegedly carefully considered by Palace aides, so as to avoid the brothers and their spouses bumping into each other.
Harry and William's 'feud' is said to have been ongoing since Harry accused his father of cutting him off financially and Meghan claimed an unnamed member of the royal family made a comment about son Archie's skin colour before he was born - a revelation that was shared during their interview with Oprah Winfrey last year.
Legal case reported to cost more than £90,000
Harry's new legal case against the Home Office is understood to still be at an early phase, with no hearings yet scheduled. It will focus on a decision in January by the Royalty and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC), which concluded that private individuals should not be allowed to pay for police to protect them.
The revelation of a second court case - which emerged on Meghan's birthday - threatens to raise tensions with the Royal Family due to claims that the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Edward Young, was involved in the decision to deny Harry protection. 'Significant tensions' are said to have existed between the Duke of Sussex and Sir Edward, according to the prince's legal team.
The Duke has been taking legal action against the department after being told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of personal protective security when visiting from the US. His representatives are reported to have previously told of how he wants to bring his family to visit from the US, but that they are 'unable to return to his home' because it is too dangerous.
The Sun reports that the case is understood to have cost the Home Office £90,094.79 from September 2021 and May earlier this year. That sum is understood to include £55,254 on the government's Legal Department, £34,824 on counsel and £16.55 on couriers.
New royal biography author admits book is full of 'people who don't like Meghan'
News of the Sussex's return to the UK comes as a new royal biography made a number of claims about Meghan Markle. Tom Bower, author of a new insider's account of the royal couple, titled 'Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors', said the Duchess 'thought the royal family would be like Hollywood.'
Speaking to Ben Shephard and Charlotte Hawkins on Good Morning Britain he claimed that once Meghan realised the royal family was 'lots of work and little reward', she didn't like it anymore. The author said: "It's wrong to say she was a famous actress, she wasn't, she was a third rate actress, Suits was only watched by a million people."
During the interview, the author admitted he got a lot of his information for the book from people who don't like Meghan because she had 'warned the people closest to her not to speak to him'. He said: "She made it pretty clear to all her friends and people who work for her not to talk to me, so it was quite an uphill struggle but I got enough people to speak to me, more than enough, I got about 80 people."
Shephard asked Bower how the book could be an unbiased account if readers know the people interviewed already don't like Meghan. The author said: "Because I sifted through, I never put in stuff that isn't true and can't be checked.
"You know I have some admiration for how Meghan succeeded quite well in her life with her ambitions and I was able to balance it all."
Shephard said to Bower: "She was a very famous actress. She had a high profile in Hollywood and Suits is a series that was streamed all over the world, so people knew who she was."
Bower disagreed with the host, referring to Meghan's cover story with Vanity Fair while she was dating Prince Harry. "Well we won't argue but I disagree with you," he said. "The point is, until she met Harry, even Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair who commissioned the article, never heard of her and never heard of Suits.
"He was just told that anyone who marries Harry is going to be famous and she indeed was. She said to her father ''I want to be famous, I want to walk down the red carpet'' and by marrying Harry she achieved exactly that ambition."
The biographer went on to say he believes the royal family tried very hard to accommodate Meghan and include her in the family. He claimed: "People were very excited by the fact that there was a mixed race girl coming," adding: "It was going to be a great development for the royal family."
However, he said 'it went wrong' and he said he has 'explained fully' why it went wrong in his new book. "Both sides are to blame but I believe the blame lies mostly with Meghan, who I don't think understood the monarchy," he claimed.
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