Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have officially vacated Frogmore Cottage.
Though we've known for months that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had been asked to leave their U.K. home base, and that they were making arrangements to move their belongings out of the Windsor house, Buckingham Palace has now made it extra official during this year's annual Sovereign Grant account briefing. This briefing reveals where taxpayer money has gone in terms of royal expenses over the past year.
"We can confirm that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have vacated Frogmore Cottage," Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Privy Purse, said (via the Independent). As a British person myself, I would like to pause here for us all to notice how fun a title "Keeper of the Privy Purse" is—like literally something out of Harry Potter.
Anyway, moving on, Sir Michael continued, "We will not be going into any detail on those arrangements here. Safe to say that, as has previously been stated, the duke and duchess have paid for the expenditure incurred by the Sovereign Grant in relation to the renovation of Frogmore Cottage, thus leaving the Crown with a greatly enhanced asset."
Indeed, after leaving their royal duties behind in 2020, the Sussexes paid back the £2.4 million in public funds that had been used for renovations on Frogmore.
Since then, the couple had been lending the home to Princess Eugenie and her family (who still live in Frogmore now), and used it as a base on the rare occasions they were in the U.K.
But earlier this year, not long after the release of Harry's explosive memoir Spare, it was reported that King Charles had straight-up "evicted" his youngest son and his family from Frogmore Cottage, a report which the Sussexes later confirmed.
