Prince Harry’s trial against The Sun and News Group Newspapers starts next week. In a recent Vanity Fair article, I was able to get a better idea of how this trial will go down and the legal strategies at play. I’m not sure anyone expects Harry to be in London for the whole trial, which could take well over a month. Harry has the Invictus Games starting on February 6th, so I would assume that Harry’s presence in London, in court, will be timed specifically around that. Meaning, I sort of expect Harry to come to London in late January, and he’ll probably stay for a week or maybe just shy of a week. A lot depends on when he testifies or gives evidence or whatever it’s called in the UK. NGN’s lawyers have threatened to cross-examine Harry for days. All of which to say, Harry will be in London on business, not to see his family and not to bring his children to the UK and put them in danger.
Prince Harry may well be set to return to the UK in the coming months, as his legal battles grind through the law courts. His wife, Meghan Markle, has plenty on her plate at the moment, with the delayed release of her Netflix show, With Love, Meghan looming in March – but could we see the couple’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, join the Duke of Sussex for a visit home? Unlikely, say sources close to the Sussexes. For one, if Prince Harry were to come to London, it would be to give evidence in front of the High Court in his case against News Group Newspapers – hardly the most child-friendly of holidays for the young royals.
More pressingly, though, a friend of the family has revealed that the Duke won’t be bringing Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to his home country due to his concern for their safety. ‘Safe visits would enable his children to know his home country and enable him to better support his charities,’ an insider told Hello!
The Sussexes’ right to a security detail while in the UK has long been at the centre of Prince Harry’s feud with the House of Windsor. The British government saw fit to withdraw Harry and Meghan’s round-the-clock Metropolitan Police security when on British soil after the couple moved to Montecito, a move that Harry has contested.
Explaining why he felt it necessary for his family to receive such protection, Prince Harry spoke candidly about perceived threats to his wife’s life as a result of inflammatory stories in the British press. ‘All it takes is one lone actor, one person who read this stuff, to act on what they have read,’ Harry explained in the ITV documentary Tabloids on Trial,, ‘and whether that is a knife or acid … they are genuine concerns for me, they are one of the reasons I won’t bring my wife back to this country.’
“Join the Duke of Sussex for a visit home?” Archie and Lili’s home is Montecito, not London.. Lili was born in California, and Archie has lived in America since before his first birthday. Plus, I’m sure both the kids have school/nursery school. Why in the world would Harry bring his kids to London in the dead of winter? And even if he did, the story would be “King Charles REFUSES to meet with Archie and Lili in a HUMILIATING SNUB to Harry!” At this point, I really do hope that Harry understands that Charles is profoundly committed to being a dogsh-t father and dogsh-t grandfather. Anyway, it doesn’t sound like “bringing the kids over” was ever going to be an option. We can expect more of these stories in the coming days and weeks – they’re going to make a meal out of it when Harry stays in a hotel again and Charles “snubs” him for this or that.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Avalon Red.
