On July 10, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles and Queen Camilla had met with Prince Harry, Meghan and their children at Highgrove that afternoon, a Friday. Given everything that happened in the days and weeks beforehand, I immediately pointed out that Charles had basically only agreed to see his grandchildren because if he didn’t, every story would have been about how the Sussexes were staying at Althorp and spending time with the Spencer family. The Highgrove summit changed the narrative, and royal reporters dutifully harped on and on about the Sussexes’ obvious desperation to return to the royal fold. Then, last Thursday, Meghan dropped an Instagram carousel of her family’s summer vacation, and it was obvious that several photos were taken at Althorp. Suddenly, the British press remembered that the Spencers exist and that the Sussexes spent something like four or five days at Althorp.
Prince Harry’s decision to stay at Princess Diana’s ancestral stately home in the UK indicates that there is ‘no love lost between the Windsors and Spencers’, according to a royal expert. After being unable to stay at Buckingham Palace, Meghan Markle revealed to her 4.7million Instagram followers that the Sussex family stayed as guests of Harry’s uncle, Earl Spencer, at the sprawling Althorp Estate during their UK visit.
In one of a series of images shared by the Duchess of Sussex, Lilibet, five, is seen walking through the Northamptonshire estate’s famous avenue of trees, close to the private island on a lake where Diana is buried. Ahead of her are Harry and Archie, seven, with all three carrying large bouquets of flowers to lay at Princess Diana’s grave and the nearby memorial.
The Sussexes trip was said to have given Harry and Meghan’s children an ‘opportunity to spend time at a place so closely tied to their late grandmother, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997 when Harry was 12,’ People reported. Sources later confirmed to the Daily Mail that Meghan’s pictures were taken at Althorp.
Yet according to royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams, Harry’s decision to stay with his ‘ally’, Earl Spencer, serves as a powerfully poignant reminder of his frayed relationship with the Royal Family. He told The Daily Mail: ‘The Windsors and the Spencers have a superficially polite relationship. If you look deeper, there is clearly no love lost, memories of Diana will always influence relations between them. The relations between the Royal Family and the Spencers have been marked by politeness but not closeness. However, the Spencers definitely appear to be closer to Harry than William. The Sussexes have an ally in Britain which they can use as and when they choose to return. This almost certainly means that Harry can rely on a base at Althorp when he needs one and this would undoubtedly extend to Meghan and Archie and Lili.’
Mr Fitzwilliams claimed that Harry’s ‘closeness’ with the Spencers is ‘likely to cause concern for the Royal Family’. He added: ‘The Sussexes have been uncharacteristically silent since the meeting with King Charles and Queen Camilla. Harry is fully aware that whereas the King was undoubtedly pleased to see his grandchildren, Prince William ostentatiously played polo supported by Catherine on the day they met, which signalled strong disapproval of the King’s decision.’
During future visits, Mr Fitwilliams suspects that the Sussexes will likely opt to stay with the Spencers, rather than with the Royal Family. ‘Whatever reception they receive from the Royal Family, they can be assured of a warm welcome and moral support from the Spencer’s. The Spencers would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to see them again and they would undoubtedly be able to stay with them if they so wished.’
I have a for-real question: why are they acting like the Sussexes’ visit to Althorp is brand new information? We knew it at the time. We actually knew it before Harry landed in the UK – people had figured out that Althorp was closed to visitors that particular weekend, and it was widely reported. Photographers even got some shots of Harry exiting Althorp during his stay. My theory is that the palace successfully suppressed the Spencer-intensive storyline of the Sussexes’ visit. Like, the fact that the palace knew that the Sussexes were headed to Althorp was the impetus (more than anything else) for Charles arranging the Highgrove visit. The palace then dictated the narrative about Harry’s “misery” in California, he wants to come back and be a scapegoat, and on and on. All to distract from the Spencers welcoming Harry, Meghan and the children with open arms and zero leaks. All to distract from the king’s petty, juvenile and deadbeat behavior.
Anyway, it sounds like the palace and their royalists are extremely peeved that the Earl Spencer is so close to his ginger nephew. Oh well! I’ve theorized for years that Charles Spencer has visited Montecito several times post-pandemic. I also believe that Harry attended his uncle’s May wedding in Arizona too. It’s so “funny” that the British press refuses to follow those threads and speculate in any way which would lead people to believe that Prince Harry is still extremely close to the Spencers.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Meghan’s Instagram.
