The Royalist has a tasty exclusive for you going live shortly on our YouTube channel.
I’ve been speaking to sources close to Prince Harry and Meghan, and they are furious, yay verily spitting hairs I tell you, about Frogmore Cottage.
You’ll remember it was reported recently that the £2.4 million renovation of the property (originally paid for by the taxpayer, as it was going to be the official home of working royals, but repaid by the Sussexes after Megxit) is being stripped out, and the house converted back into staff flats.
The Sussex side have now broken their silence to me on the saga.
Frogmore Cottage sits in the heart of the Windsor estate, not far from Adelaide Cottage, where William and Kate live. It is, by any measure, an incredibly sensitive piece of royal real estate. It was renovated ahead of Archie’s birth in 2019, and the Sussexes say the late Queen gave it to them as a wedding present, and wanted them to keep it, a fact they say she personally confirmed at the Sandringham Summit in January 2020.
After Harry and Meghan moved to California, the couple continued to pay full market rent (unlike Uncle Andrew). They understood they would be able to use the place when they came back to Britain as a foothold in the country.
Then they were kicked out.
The Sussex side are now making a series of bitter new claims about the timing of the eviction, one which directly challenges the accepted narrative that they lost the house in revenge for the publication of Spare.
They’re also making what I suspect will be a deeply wounding allegation about the role the late Queen’s death played in Charles’s decision to evict them, and why they believe she would have blocked it.
I make the point in the video that Harry and Meghan are playing a bit dumb here: the idea that they would have been allowed to keep a home in the heart of the Windsor estate while waging a very public war against the institution is, to put it politely, incredibly naive.
Even by the terms of the Sussexes’ new claims, it seems the first rumblings about the eviction came after the Oprah interview had already blown up family relations with its allegations about what the queen called “issues…of race”.
The Netflix deal was well known, and the direction of travel was, therefore, abundantly clear.
The palace’s argument—how could we have people who had sold us out on global television, who were planning to sell us out again on a streaming platform, living in our back garden?—is, therefore, not an unreasonable one.
I think there is also no doubt that by then the Sussexes had comprehensively reneged on their side of the Sandringham Summit, which was, in summary, to uphold the values of the Queen.
However, they do have some cards to play, principally by seeking to harness public astonishment at the scandalous fact that the property has now sat completely empty for three years at a cost of over half a million pounds to the public purse.
But I suspect most people will conclude it’s just more sour grapes from the Sussex whinge machine, and that them complaining about Frogmore costing the taxpayers money, while looking for the taxpayers to fund their family security, is a supreme irony.
You’re going to want to hear all of it!
Head over to The Royalist on YouTube tonight at 5pm Eastern /10pm London to watch the full exclusive. As always, I’ll be in the comments. I’ll also be publishing a written version of the full story tomorrow as well for those who prefer.
I also have some exciting news that I hope to announce properly in the next week or two.
I have a book deal!
A real, major book about the royal family. I am incredibly grateful, and I want you to know that this Substack community is part of the reason it happened. The publishers saw what we’ve built here (the readership, the engagement, the appetite for serious, independent royal journalism) and it made them excited to commission me.
It means a great deal, because it was less than a year ago that the king’s press secretary, Tobyn Andreae, tried to end my 30-year career and intimidate other journalists (all too easily cowed, I’m afraid) by kicking me out of the international press rota for daring to tell the truth about the King’s health.
For more than a hot minute, the future looked bleak. The fact that I’m now in a position to be announcing a book deal is down, in no small part, to the confidence that every one of you has shown in me and in The Royalist.
Practically, this means I am heading into a hectic month, as I have to complete the manuscript by the last day of June, so that’s why I’ve not been posting here with quite the same frequency you’ve been used to. Normal service will resume, but finishing the book has to take priority for the next few weeks!
This also explains the arrival of Wiktoria Gucia on my Substack. Basically, Vicky is going to help keep with daily royal news while I’m putting the finishing touches to my manuscript. I’m editing her copy, hence the joint byline, and the buck stops with me.
Finally, a quick word on the YouTube membership program. If you are a paid Substack subscriber, please do NOT subscribe to the YouTube channel! The YouTube membership is for people who primarily use YouTube and want to show their support for The Royalist there.
Any benefits we offer to YouTube members (and it looks like that will be things like Q&As and similar content) will automatically be available to Substack subscribers too. Substack subscribers will get everything. The YouTube membership is simply a way for viewers who aren’t on Substack to support what I’m doing.
I hope that makes sense, and nobody feels short-changed or confused!
And please watch tonight’s video. You won’t be disappointed. I’ll be in the comments. Oh, and we also have Alison Boshoff (Bosh) on!
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source theroyalist.substack.com ’
