Aug. 23, 2026

Harry and Meghan Are Moving Back to Britain, the Children Start School in September, and Nobody Will Say Who Pays for Security

Show Notes
Transcript

HARRY AND MEGHAN ARE MOVING BACK TO BRITAIN — AND NOBODY WILL SAY WHO PAYS FOR THE SECURITY

Mark Francis on the week the one fixed point in this whole saga stopped being fixed. The Sussexes will relocate from California later this month to a private, non-royal home outside London; Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, are enrolled at a British school starting in September. They are keeping Montecito. There is no return to royal duties and no royal residence. King Charles was told on Sunday — not during July's Highgrove visit — and welcomes seeing more of them privately. Plus: twenty-nine years since Paris, and Eugenie names her daughter.

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Palace Intrigue is a daily British royal family podcast covering King Charles, Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton and the House of Windsor. New episodes every day. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network.

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Calorougus Shark Media, how Lo and welcome to Pallace Weekly.

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I am your host and Mark Francis. It has been

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a week in which the single most reliable fact of

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this entire saga, that Harry and Meghan live in California

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and are not coming back, quietly stopped being true. The

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Sussexes are moving home to Britain with Archie and Littlebit,

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who start at a British school next month. A man

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who told the BBC barely a year ago that he

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couldn't see a world in which he'd bring his family

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back to the UK, has, it turns out, seen that

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world after all, and it's somewhere outside London with the

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boxes already being packed. So we'll give a good half

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of today to that because it reorders everything. Then, because

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next Sunday marks twenty nine years since Diana died in Paris,

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will spend real time there too, and you'll find that

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two stories are far more tangled together than they first appear.

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And then the rest, let's get into it. The story

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broke through the Telegraph's Victoria Ward was matched within hours

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by people in the BBC, and the shape of it

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is this Harry and Meghan are establishing a private, non

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royal home outside London. Archie seven and Lulib five are

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enrolled at a British school beginning in September. They are

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keeping the Montecito House in the place in Portugal. This

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is an extended relocation, not a bonfire of the old life.

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And crucially, per they Telegraph and the BBC alike, this

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is not a return as working royals. No court, circular assignments,

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no balcony. Harry keeps Invictus and well child Meghan keeps.

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As ever, they simply do it now from Britain, which

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is if you'll forgive the observation remarkably close to the

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half in half out arrangement. The Late Queen flatly refused

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them in twenty twenty, the one that produced the mortal

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Sussex line we can all live a life of service.

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Service is universal. Five years and a great deal of

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scorched earth. Later, people close to the couple reportedly believe

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they've proven the model works. After all, financially independent, no

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taxpayer money, their own home, their own causes are now

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a British base. You can call that vindication, or you

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can call it the long way round to precisely where

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they started. Both readings were on offer this week. The

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timing is dictated by one immovable object in any parent's life,

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the school calendar. New terms begin the second week of September,

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so the BBC's Danielle or Ralph expects the family back

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within ten days. Ralph's sourcing insists this isn't flight from America,

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but a pull toward Europe, toward Harry's family, toward educating

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the children in his own country, and the July visit

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when Archie and Litlabert met the King at Highgrove and

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just as importantly spent time with Diana's side of the

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family at Allthorpe was what turned a possible move into

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a firm one. Oh, that detail will come back to it.

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Not everyone bought the sunny version. Camilla Tommeny likened the

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Whiplash to Bobby Ewing stepping out of the shower in Dallas,

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and noted the couple are keeping the California pad just

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in case, half in, half out what they've always wanted.

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Others were blunter. Netflix and Spotify Gone One, Spotify executive

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having reportedly called them grifters the American dream, calling Tom

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Sykes suspected that if there were another hundred million dollar

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deal on the table, they would not be rushing home

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and hanging over all of it unresolved and unexplained. Is security,

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the very thing Harry has spent years in court over.

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He told the BBC last summer he couldn't picture bringing

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his family back without proper protection. He is now doing

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exactly that. The likeliest explanation floated by ITV's Chris Ship

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is quietly mechanical. The committee that assesses Royal Security had

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used the family's California residency is a reason to deny

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a taxpayer funded protection, and once they are UK residents,

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that particular door reopens. Nobody will say what has changed

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or who pays. Asked directly, Prime Minister Andy Burnham declined

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to engage, offering only that it's a matter for Harry

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and Meghan and wishing them well. And Sir Clive Orderton,

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one of the gray suited courtiers Harry clashed with and

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nicknamed the Wasp, is retiring one more obstacle, quietly gone

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more palace in just a moment. Here's the thing about

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a private house in London. It doesn't need a palace,

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apartment or a royal job to give the palace a headache.

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It just needs Harry and Meghan on British soil, and

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suddenly every school run is a potential photo call. Every

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Megan outfit competes with the Princess of Wales for column inches,

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and every family occasion carries the question of whether the

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Sussexes will be there. The most quoted framing came from

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former BBC mes and Peter Hunt, who raised the prospect

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of two rival courts, William's and Harry's, and predicted the

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surprise had left William apoplectic. Grunt Harold suggested Harry told

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his father only on Sunday, specifically so that William wouldn't

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find out sooner, which he called childish. Crisis expert Mark

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Borkowski expects William rattled and reached for the phrase everyone

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reaches for. Cain and Abel deep Crown, who has been

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talking to people actually near the Prince of Wales, pushed

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back on all of it. William, he told us, is

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not the apoplectic figure Summer, describing he has his own family,

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his own path, and a press corps that will now

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spend the autumn chasing the Sussexes rather than him on

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the persistent effort to cast Catherine as Meghan's rival for headlines.

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He was sharper still. The two women, he said, occupy

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entirely different categories of existence within the institution. Catherine will

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be Queen that it's not a public relations position Meghan

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can threaten with a good week of coverage, however many

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headlines she generates between now and Christmas and William and Catherine,

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he added, with some feeling, given what the past two

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years have cost them, have learned, at real personal expense,

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what is actually worth their attention. A media profile isn't

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on the list. The sharpest historical warning came from Sikes,

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who called the Return a ghastly rerun of the Andrew

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film for three years. He noted, Charles doggedly tried to

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rehabilitate his brother the Christmas Walk at Sandringham, Easter at

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Windsor a special dispensation to wear a uniform at their

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mother's vigil, until weakened by cancer, he had to bow

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to his heir, and Andrew was cast out. A source

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who knew the late Queen's mind put it this way.

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Elizabeth was head of the family, but she was also

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head of an institution, and when the two collided, the

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institution won every time. Even with Andrew, her favorite, the

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child whose entrance would make her face light up. She

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forbade the half in half out arrangement, Sykes argues, precisely

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to protect the future reign of King William from what

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Charles now seems to be enabling the rival court of Prince.

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How there was even a warning shot from abroad. The

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Sultan of BRUNEI stripped his own daughter in law of

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her royal titles this week for conduct deemed unbecoming, which

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was all some British commentators needed to restart the familiar

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chant of Charles. Pay attention for the record, a British

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ductdom granted by the late Queen is not something a

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monarch can revoke over breakfast. It would take an Act

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of Parliament. But the appetite is there, and it is

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telling that as Harry comes home, a portion of the

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country wants his title gone before he is unpacked. And

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Megan Jenny Bond urged everyone to beware a pylon, suggesting

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the Duchess who told The Cut in twenty twenty two

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that she couldn't imagine a British school run without a

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press pen of forty photographers, maybe taking one for the

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team on a move that isn't her heart's desire. Others

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saw a pure opportunity. Britain, with its country houses and

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roaring fire in kitchen gardens, is an esthetic gold mine

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for a lifestyle brand whose website traffic is down fifty

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three percent this year, and proximity to the Crown, as

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one columnist put it, is a currency money can't buy.

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The most useful advice came from Kinsey Schofield, and it

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was the one thing that Sussexes have never tried. Do

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less few announcements, one genuinely good project, and let success

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to the talking. Stop treating the celebrity as the product,

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more palasing just a moment which brings us as so much.

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This week does back to Diana because next Sunday marks

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twenty nine years since she died in the Pont de'lama tunnel,

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and because her shadow falls straight across the rest of

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the news. Start with the anniversary itself, which arrives alongside

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a new Fox special using virtual technology to reconstruct the

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crash and revisit the old conspiracy theories. So let's state

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the settled facts plainly, since a documentary is about to

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once settled them for ratings. Diana left the Ritz shortly

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after midnight with Dirty Fay ed driver on Ree Paul,

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and bodyguard Trevorice Jones. The Mercedes struck a pillar in

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the tunnel. Paul and Fayed were killed, and Reese Jones survived.

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Diana did not die instantly, a detail often lost. She

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was alive when crews reached her, and died hours later

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at the Patissel Petriere. The French investigation in Britain's Operation

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Pegette both examined the assassination theories exhaustively, and the two

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thousand and eight inquests returned a verdict of unlawful killing

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through the gross negligence of a drunk driver and the

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pursuing paparazzi. No plot, and the largest story is as

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ever more interesting than the conspiracy. A woman who had

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left the institution but not the public's heart, whose death

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exposed how badly the old royal instinct stay quiet, observed, protocol,

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keep a motion private, misread a country in open mourning,

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the flag that wouldn't fly, the family kept at Balmoral.

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The Queen's eventual broadcast delivered as a grandmother and two

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boys fifteen and twelve, walking behind their mother's coffin in

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front of the entire world, an image we now, after

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everything Harry has since said, see very differently than we

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did in nineteen ninety seven, and that is the thread,

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because the reporting on the move keeps leading to the

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same place. It was July with Diana's family at Allthorpe

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that turned the idea into a decision. Two of the

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areas floated for the Sussex's new home are the Cottswalds,

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where Harry grew up in Northamptonshire, next to Allthorpe, where

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his mother is buried. Diana's old bodyguard, Ken Wharf, recalled

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her reading every unkind headline over the deep frieze each

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morning and then performing anyway because the Royal Family, he said,

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is a traveling theater, and the moment the door opens,

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you're on stage. Her two sons learned that lesson in

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opposite directions, William by keeping the door mostly shut, Harry

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by flinging it wide. The former royal chefs remember a

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different Diana entirely, one who patted into the Kensington Palace

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kitchen late at night for cold lamb cutlets in a chat,

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who kept things informal, who took her boys out for

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burghers and pizza. Most children take for granted to the

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visible bafflement of Charles, who once asked William why he'd

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eat that food when I had this marvelous army of chefs.

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It is not how to see which parent Harry is

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trying to be. And now he is bringing her grandchildren

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home to the country she loved and the family she

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is buried with, so quickly the rest bridge this week

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felt almost gentle by comparison. Princess Eugenie named her daughter

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Adelaide Elizabeth Anina Brooksbank, the Elizabeth, honoring her great grandmother,

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the name spanning English and Portuguese history, fifteenth in Lion,

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no title, and by all accounts, the object of two

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thoroughly smitten big brothers. Zara Tyndall won her first major

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individual eventing title in nearly twenty years, taking the British

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Open at Hartbury on her seventeen year old horse. One

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onlooker describing her grinning, kissing the horse actually going wee

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over the jumps. In a week of strategy in Green,

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it was the only story in which somebody simply uncomplicatedly

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won something, and Zara, not coincidentally, is also the one

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relative who can still fling her arms around the king

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in public, no title, no agenda, no drama. Elsewhere, Childs

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said goodbye to Bernie Flannery, his butler of more than

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forty years, and slipped out of his Scottish holiday just

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long enough to admire a herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle

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in Spayside, because being king means being genuinely, unironically thrilled

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about prize livestock. Camilla was photographed shopping in Genes in

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the Scottish village bookshop, being briefly a person, and Radar

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reported that Kate has quietly led her relationships with Beatrice

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and Eugenie Fade, unwilling to be pictured anywhere near the

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York Story while it still burns guilt by association applied

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by two women guilty of nothing but their parents, which

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is the note. The whole week resolves on seven days

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of people arguing about strategy, rival courts and templates and

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title stripping, Who's rattled and who's vindicated. Underneath the chessboard

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is something much plainer. A man is moving his two

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small children across an ocean, to be nearer his father,

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who is ill, and his mother's family, and his mother's

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grave in the country where he grew up. Diana wrote

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home from her honeymoon all those years ago that she

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adored being outside all day and hated London. Her younger

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son is bringing her grandchildren to the fields. She meant

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she won't get to see it, but next Sunday, when

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the flowers appear again at the gates. That, not the

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rival court, not the headlines, is the part worth holding

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on to. And there you have it. If you'd like

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to email us, who addresses the Palace Intriger Gmail at

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dot com. If you're on Spotify, please drop us a comment.

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If you're on Apple, hit that button up there that

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says listen uninterrupted and get the show for five bucks

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a month commercial free. I'm Mark Francis my thanks to

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John McDermott. This is Pallace Weekly and good Urns

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