5 MINS AGO: Prince William’s Shocking Move Shows Just How ‘Furious’ He Reportedly Is as Harry and Meghan Plan a Non-Royal U.K. Home — With Archie and Lilibet Already Enrolled in British Schools.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will face an ‘apoplectic’ William, low favourability among the British public and an uncertain place in the royal pecking order when they start their new life in Britain within days.
Royal insiders say that the Prince of Wales will be angry at the surprise move and could feel he is being forced towards a reconciliation with his brother.
The King was taken totally by surprise about the announcement when he was told on Sunday, just three days in advance – while sources said that the terms of the Megxit deal under which the Sussexes are not ‘working royals‘ will be unchanged.
The Sussexes’ status will remain the same, with the couple not being offered a ‘half-in-half-out’ option when it comes to their roles. But many close to the royals fear that the pair are trying to create such an arrangement regarding their royal status.
Harry and Meghan will make their home in a non-royal residence outside of London and have already enrolled Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet in British schools.
But the move is likely to create an awkward situation with William and Kate, who were last seen together publicly with the Sussexes after Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022.
William is estranged from Harry, who has levelled a barrage of accusations against him, Kate, Charles and Camilla in the years since the couple departed Britain in 2020.
The Sussexes have also faced falling approval ratings in the UK ever since they left in acrimonious circumstances, amid a series of barbs directed towards the royal family.
A YouGov poll found last month that just 22 per cent of Britons see Meghan in a positive light, compared with 65 per cent who hold an unfavourable opinion of the former actress, with 33 per cent seeing Harry positively and 58 per cent negatively.
Harry and Meghan will retain their homes in California and Portugal, while the duchess will now run her lifestyle brand As Ever from their new base. It comes as:
Harry and Meghan will remain as private individuals and non-working royals;
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said security arrangements are a ‘private matter’;
The duke did not discuss his return when he met with the King six weeks ago;
One expert has warned of a ‘crisis for the monarchy’ and a ‘serious situation’;
Harry’s friend from Invictus said the move had ‘taken everybody by surprise’;
A royal insider said Harry’s return may have been inspired by his Althorp visit.
PR guru Mark Borkowski said Harry and Meghan will both have to eat ‘large slices of humble pie’ if they are to make a success of their return to the UK.
‘It’s clear they’ve run out of steam in the United States, so they now have to be very cautious in how they reintegrate themselves back into British society,’ he told the Daily Mail. The showbiz spin doctor said that the pair had to determine what exactly their ‘brand’ is and take ‘small cautious steps’ toward establishing it.
Former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said: ‘In the long term, the return of the Sussexes to the UK opens up the prospect of two rival courts, William’s and Harry’s. In the short term, Harry will be able to deepen his rapprochement with his father.
‘His presence back home will make it harder for his brother to duck a reconciliation. The surprise return of Harry and Meghan is likely to have left William apoplectic.’
There was allegedly no interaction between William and Harry when they are said to have last seen each other at the funeral of their uncle Lord Fellowes in August 2024. The brothers were last seen together publicly at their father’s coronation in 2023.
But Education Secretary Lucy Powell said today that she hopes Harry and Meghan’s move back to Britain will be ‘part of a bigger reconciliation’ for the royal family.
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The Princess of Wales, the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex walk to meet members of the public at Windsor Castle following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022
She told LBC: ‘I think that the vast majority of your listeners will welcome that news and – they obviously are not working royals anymore – and want to come back to this country.
‘I assume because we do have great schools, great education, that’s why many people do return to this country and choose this country to bring up their children in.
‘And I hope that this is all part of a bigger reconciliation for the family because you know the royal family is very important to this country and to our reputation around the world, and you know I for one think it’s great to have Harry and Meghan and their family back here.’
This afternoon, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the Sussexes’s security around their return to the UK was a ‘private matter.’
Asked by reporters on a visit to West Yorkshire whether the Government would establish and fund their security,he said: ‘Well, this is a private matter. It’s a matter for for Harry and for Megan, and we wish them well in the moves that they’re making.’
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POLL OF THE DAY: Are you pleased to see Harry and Meghan return to Britain?
But royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams warned: ‘It provokes a crisis for the monarchy because the monarchy’s responses are often poor when they don’t know what to expect.
‘With this, you certainly don’t know what to expect. All sorts of things may happen. It is utterly ruthless if he did tell the King of his plans to move on Sunday.’
Mr Fitzwilliams also told the Daily Mail that the decision was evidence the Sussexes were a ‘disastrous failure in the US’, after relocating to North America six years ago.
He suggested Harry feared how William would receive him and his family when, or should, William takes the throne.
‘This is actually an extremely serious situation,’ Mr Fitzwilliams said. ‘What they have done is very clearly chosen King Charles’s reign to do this knowing their options might be very limited when, and if, William becomes king.
‘I strongly suspect that William would look very closely at their titles and possibly the titles of their children. William will see this as total proof they couldn’t be trusted for a single second.’
Harry’s friend David Wiseman, chief programmes and strategy officer at Invictus Games Foundation, said the move had ‘taken everybody by surprise’.
But he told the BBC that having the duke back in the UK in time for the competition’s next event in Birmingham in July 2027 was ‘excellent news’.
Mr Wiseman added: ‘I will be really pleased to have him back in the country. Moving is stressful for anyone so I hope it all goes well and the children settle well at school.’
Queen Elizabeth II’s former press secretary said the duke and duchess’s return to the UK will be for ‘longer than an extended period’.
Ailsa Anderson, who worked for the late Queen from 2001 to 2013, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘They do have two young children, they will be enrolling in school. You can’t flip-flop every two minutes and take them out of school and go back to the United States and then come back to the UK, so I can see that it’s going to be longer than an extended period.’
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Prince Harry speaks at a roundtable event about support for veterans in Washington last night
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Harry chats with fellow red-haired veteran William Bringer at last night’s event in Washington
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The Duke of Sussex in Washington yesterday during discussions about supporting veterans
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Harry in Washington yesterday with Sarah Verado from non-profit The Independence Fund
Should the royals welcome Harry home?
Ms Anderson also added that the ‘extraordinary surprise’ for Harry to return may have been inspired by his visit to his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales’s ancestral home Althorp earlier this summer.
She said: ‘We know there’s been an ongoing issue with security. He has said until this is rectified he won’t be coming back to the United Kingdom, but clearly now he’s had a change of heart and he wants to come back to his motherland.
‘And I wonder, because of the trip that he made earlier, and going back to his late mother’s ancestral home in Northamptonshire, whether that’s made a shift in his views, and he really wants to come back, because he’s missed his life here for the last six years.
‘There will be questions asked, here is a non-working member of the royal family back in the United Kingdom. Should the British taxpayer really have to foot the bill for security?’
Meanwhile former royal correspondent Jennie Bond said Meghan was ‘taking one for the team’ by moving back to the UK with Harry and their children.
Ms Bond, who covered the royal family for 14 years with the BBC, told Sky News: ‘I think we should beware a pile-on on Meghan in particular, and I can see that already happening. This is the decision they’ve made probably for the sake of their children, as much as for Harry.
‘Perhaps Meghan is taking one for the team here, because I’m not sure this is her life’s desire to live back in the UK.’
She added: ‘The only word we’re getting from the Palace is that Harry and Meghan are not going to be working royals at all, and certainly not whilst they carry on with their commercial activity, or particularly Meghan’s, which I completely see she needs to do, and why shouldn’t she? She’s an independent, relatively successful woman.
‘They’re not giving up their property in California. They’ve also got a property in Portugal. And that would suggest they are testing the water somewhat.
‘We have to remember that this is a woman who said that she was driven to suicidal thoughts by the way she felt she was treated when she lived here as a member of the royal family. And that’s why I say, we must beware a pile-on.’
The broadcaster, who said she thought Harry had fought his ‘final courtroom battle’, also said the way in which the announcement was made was particularly surprising.
She said: ‘If I was the King, I’d actually be thinking, ‘Hang on, you came to tea with me, and we sat down and we chatted, and you didn’t even mention this?’ I find it entirely odd.
‘I wish that they wouldn’t operate in this kind of secret way. Why didn’t they just put out a clear statement? Just tell us the facts, but we are left here just surmising and guessing at their reasons.’
PR expert Andy Barr, senior communications manager at Season One Communications, told the Daily Mail that Harry and Meghan would ‘need a Lazarus-esque PR reputational recovery’.
He said: ‘Whilst this appears seemingly out of the blue, we all know that nothing that the former royal couple does is unconsidered.
‘Meghan and her team will be taking a long, hard look at the comms recovery playbook that Queen Camilla used to restore her own reputation after a torrid time with the media earlier in her life and hoping that she can replicate this turnaround.
‘We can expect a few ‘surprise’ media cameos and candid high-profile public appearances as their team begin to test the water of public reaction.’
He pointed out that the couple ‘ run an expensive household and need to earn money to fund their lifestyle and high cost security bills’, adding: ‘This means they will be trying to fast track their reputation repair campaign.’
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visit the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne in April
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at a World Health Organisation event in Jordan in February
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Harry and Meghan with their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet in December 2025
Mr Barr continued: ‘Only the family know the real reason why they are returning and we have to hope it’s because they want to repair their family bonds and make up for lost time in terms of family unity.
‘One tip I would give them as a crisis comms specialist is to ditch their American comms and PR team. They have unsuccessfully tried to win the UK media and population over by using a US-based team and it just doesn’t work.
‘We are a rare breed in the UK and we can smell the whiff of an American glam and gloss PR campaign a mile off. What we all want to see is meaningful actions.’
Mr Borkowski, who has worked for Joan Rivers, Sir Cliff Richard and Graham Norton, believes Harry’s return is due in part to his ‘deep conditioning’ as a life-long royal.
He said: ‘This guy has been brought up to be part of the establishment, born into the royal family, then gone to the Army, with the values of church, state and whatever. It’s been embedded in him from an early age, and no amount of Californian sun could remove that.
‘I know loads of people who have gone off to the States, then returned for the sake of their children’s education, but in this case, it’s a bit more complex, because their particular version of the American dream seemed to have run out of steam after their Netflix deal was cancelled.
‘Harry still has a lot going for him and there will be a lot of interest from charities and others to get him on board, but that’s where he will have to be careful about choosing only stuff that won’t put noses out of joint over at Clarence House.’
But quite apart from their business strategy, the return of the Sussexes will also require a lot of broken bridges to be mended, Mr Borkowski said.
‘First and foremost, Harry will have to try and mend his relationship with his brother and that will require eating an enormous amount of humble pie, both for him and Meghan. He’s got to win back William and his father’
Meghan’s staggering ‘churn’ rate of key aides and PR advisors while she was in the US suggests that she’s unwilling to listen to those around her, he added, saying that ‘she always thought she knew best, and that was clearly not the case’.
Mr Borkowski said: ‘Coming back here she’s a fish out of water. So the one thing she needs above all else is a trusted advisor who can be a critical friend, whose advice she actually takes on board as she navigates the British landscape.
‘What is next for Meghan is the biggest question out of all of this. She still has huge value as a ‘brand’, but she has to be careful how she pitches that.
‘She will now be under huge media scrutiny, even if she should choose to go down the shops, and this move will be expensive for them in terms of maintaining their security and their privacy.’
Tom Garcia-Bridgeman, PR consultant at Rhizome Media Group, said the couple would require a ‘rethink’ to their strategy of establishing a global brand independent of the royals.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘Britain may not offer them as much vitamin D as California, but a UK return immediately puts them at the centre of a story, rather than competing for attention among LA’s crowded celebrity class.
‘The American dream promised an opportunity to forge an entirely new identity outside the Royal Family, yet years later it is still their connection to the monarchy that generates the greatest global interest.
‘Meghan still needs to use her Duchess of Sussex branding to sell blackberry jam and candles.’
But he added that Brits will ‘likely welcome them back with open arms’, explaining: ‘The two camps of royalists see Harry as either the ill-treated son of Princess Diana, or the wayward son of the King that may finally be seeing sense.
‘The real PR test won’t be whether they come back, but what they do when they get here. They are essentially building a brand from the ground up. The good news is that the reputation of ‘The Firm’ has taken a beating in recent years, so they have a real chance at redemption here.
‘The biggest PR risk is appearing to want the benefits of royalty without the sacrifices. If they lean on royal associations heavily while remaining commercially independent, critics will revive the ‘half-in, half-out’ argument.
‘There’s plenty of cheap royal merch standing in the souvenir shops of Oxford Street, the British public will expect a bit more than that.’
Sean O’Meara, managing director of the PR and content consultancy Essential Content, said the Sussexes’ move would ‘attract attention and speculation’ which is ‘very thing they won’t want’.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘People will naturally be curious about the motivation and timing of what appears to be a major and quite sudden change of heart. Just last year Harry said he couldn’t see a world in which he would bring his family back to the UK.
‘Perhaps they’ve identified new career opportunities that weren’t available a few years ago. Perhaps Harry’s fears about his security have lessened, or he’s had assurances about his security arrangements.
‘The decision to return makes sense on a basic level. They’re not the first wealthy people to start a glamorous new life abroad only to realise they miss their home and family.
‘King Charles has reportedly welcomed this decision because it means the family will get to spend more time together. It could be that the family has patched up their differences.’
But Mr O’Meara also said ‘people may wonder if there’s another reason they decided to move back to the UK after six full years of non-UK residency’, adding: ‘Their advisors will no doubt be aware that the timing of their return will cause speculation.’
Harry and former Suits star Meghan, who married at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle in May 2018, were once dubbed part of the ‘Fab Four’ with the then-Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
But in March 2019, Buckingham Palace announced Harry and Meghan would set up their own household, breaking from the joint operation they had with William and Kate, amid reports of rifts between the two couples.
The fallout is said to have begun before Harry’s wedding to Meghan, with the duke accusing William of being snobbish to his bride.
But it worsened after the accusations Harry publicly levelled at his brother in double tell-alls: his memoir, Spare, and his Netflix documentary.
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Harry and Meghan were once dubbed part of the ‘Fab Four’ with the then-Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. They are pictured at the first Royal Foundation Forum event in London in 2018
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William, Harry, Meghan and Charles at a Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey in 2019
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Prince Harry with his best man William at Windsor Castle for his wedding to Meghan in 2018
In his autobiography, released just months after Queen Elizabeth II died, Harry claimed his ‘archnemesis’ brother ‘Willy’ physically attacked him and knocked him to the floor into a dog bowl in a row over Meghan’s alleged rude behaviour.
He also alleged it was William and Kate who encouraged him to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005 and ‘howled’ with laughter when they saw it.
Harry and Meghan, in their Netflix series two months after the Queen’s death, claimed Kensington Palace lied to protect William when it issued a statement denying a story he had bullied Harry out of the royal family.
Harry also wrote of how Charles pleaded with his two sons during a tense meeting at Windsor just after the funeral of Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, saying: ‘Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery’.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan described how Kate made her cry ahead of the wedding – the opposite of reports circulating ahead of the nuptials that Meghan had left Kate in tears at Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress fitting.
Reports of a fractious friendship between the two women were furthered in Spare, when he claimed Kate, pregnant at the time with Prince Louis, said she was owed an apology from Meghan for comments she was suffering from ‘baby brain’ due to her ‘hormones’.
Harry also shed further light on the row over Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress, claiming in his book the incident left Meghan ‘sobbing on the floor’.
William likely would have taken Harry’s disparaging accusations about Kate closer to heart than any criticism of himself, given how protective he is of his family.
Dominic Patten, executive editor of Hollywood publication Deadline.com, said he believed the couple ‘didn’t achieve the superstar status they wanted.’
He added that they did however keep the public interested in their story in an area full of big-name celebrities.
‘He and Meghan have kept that flame aflutter,’ Mr Patten said. ‘If you look at how quickly Hollywood careers can burn out, on that level, by that metric, they’ve been successful.’
But the late Queen’s former assistant press secretary Dickie Arbiter wrote on X: ‘Call me a cynic – my views about the Sussexes are well known – but nowhere have I seen an announcement nor a well-placed authorised leak to their favoured media outlet to the effect of their intent to relocate to the UK.
‘Having rubbished his family and called the UK unsafe, isn’t a return hypocritical?’
Relations between William and Harry have long been strained despite their closeness in their younger years.
Following Harry and Meghan’s return to the UK, it is understood there will be no change to their role and status as private individuals and non-working members of the royal family.
The King is understood to welcome the opportunity to see more of the family both in a private and personal capacity.
The couple’s children Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, are expected to start at their new schools next month.
In January 2020, the duke and duchess announced they intended to step back as ‘senior’ members of the royal family, become financially independent, still support Elizabeth II, but split their time between the UK and North America.
The late Queen ruled at the Sandringham Summit, which was convened to resolve the crisis, that the couple could not be half in and half out.
By March 2020, they had set up a permanent home in California, officially stepped down as senior royals and stopped using their HRH styles.
The shock announcement comes less than two months after the duke was trying to find a way to safely bring his wife and children to the UK to mark the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games in Birmingham.
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William and Harry leave church at the Sandringham royal estate in Norfolk in December 2003
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Princess Diana with Harry, William and Charles at William’s first day at Eton in September 1995
Harry has faced a protracted legal battle with the Home Office over the security arrangements for him and his family while in the UK, after his level of protection changed when he stepped down as a working royal in 2020.
Individual decisions on protective security for key public figures – including members of the royal family – are made by experts at the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec).
At the end of June, he was still waiting for a review by the Risk Management Board (RMB), part of the process by which Ravec rules on his security requirements – and he and his security detail were working behind the scenes to try to ensure the visit could take place safely.
Ravec’s membership includes the Home Office, Metropolitan Police and Royal Household, who advise an independent chair when it comes to decision-making. But it is understood Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood does not contribute to individual Ravec decisions.
Meghan was able to travel to the UK in July with Archie and Lilibet to join Harry when he came to the end of a week-long series of events promoting the games.
During the visit, the duke and duchess took their children to see the King for the first time in four years at his Highgrove home, but are not thought to have raised the prospect of a return to the UK at that meeting.
The Invictus Games take place from July 10 to 17 next year, with Birmingham expected to welcome around 550 wounded, injured and sick service personnel and veterans, and their families, from 25 nations.
Former royal protection officer Dai Davies said he would advise Harry and Meghan to ‘keep a much lower profile than you have so far’ to stay safe.
He told Sky News: ‘I’m sad to say that if they continue with their high profile media, then keeping them safe from either terrorism or fixated individuals raises the pressure quite considerably.’
Mr Davis explained that keeping a lower profile would be an answer, but moving into a non-royal residence raised further problems.
He said: ‘If they go somewhere new, that place would have to be reconnoitred. It would have to have technical support, a whole manner of things, including potentially a safe room – hugely expensive and would take time.’
Yesterday, Harry was in Washington where he told US veterans he was looking into launching a commercial scheme to help former military personnel.
Harry spoke to the former service members and defence officials, saying the ‘world needs more heroes’.
‘It’s not about creating more heroes because they already live among us,’ he said at the event organised by The Independence Fund, a US organisation which helps severely wounded veterans. ‘It’s about being able to really value their expertise, their experiences.’
The duke, who served in the Army, said military skills were not being utilised in civilian life and he was looking at a ‘commercial’ solution which he said would value ‘those who served rather than expect them to volunteer’.
In an interview with a reporter, he said there was a need for ‘moral leadership’ and expressed concerns about politics and technology, where he said a ‘very, very small group of people are making decisions that are impacting the entire world’.
‘What we need is the younger generation coming into leadership who perhaps see the world slightly differently,’ he said.
‘And I think a little less testosterone might do as well.’
Meanwhile financial expert Nimesh Shah, chief executive of Blick Rothenberg, analysed the tax implications of the couple’s move back to Britain.
He wrote on X: ‘Good to see Harry and Meghan achieve six full tax years of non-UK residency to manage the ‘temporary non-resident’ rules for capital gains tax.
‘They have clearly had some good tax advice and the timing of their move back to the UK is immaculate.
‘But if they could have stuck it out for a few more years, they should have been able to access the ‘Foreign Income and Gains’ regime – four-year tax holiday on overseas sources and ten-year protection for inheritance tax on overseas assets. Was this bit of advice missing?’
Last September, singer Joss Stone revealed Harry had asked her about moving from America back to Britain – praising UK schools and ‘how important community is for children’.
They chatted at the WellChild Awards in London, and Stone later explained that Harry asked about her family’s recent transition back to life in the UK after living in Nashville.
She told Hello! at the time: ‘He also asked about how we were settling back in and was genuinely interested in our move home. He’s just very warm and down to earth, as always.
‘Maybe Harry will move back too. That would be nice. He was saying how wonderful the schools are here and how important community is for children.
‘It was nice to share that with him because it’s exactly why we felt drawn to come back – for the kids to grow up surrounded by family, friends and a strong sense of belonging and most importantly in a safe environment.’
The Daily Mail’s Richard Eden had revealed just days earlier that Harry wanted to educate Archie and Lilibet in the UK.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘The UK Government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate.
‘It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals’ security.’
A spokesman for the duke and duchess has been contacted for comment today.
