July 12, 2026

Harry and Meghan Bring Archie and Lilibet to Meet King Charles — His First Time Seeing His Grandchildren in Four Years

Show Notes
Transcript

HARRY, MEGHAN AND THE CHILDREN MEET KING CHARLES AT HIGHGROVE — HIS FIRST SIGHT OF HIS GRANDCHILDREN IN FOUR YEARS.

After a week in which the question of whether the Sussexes would bring Archie and Lilibet to see the King was asked constantly and answered wrongly, Buckingham Palace confirmed a private Highgrove gathering on Friday — no cameras, no images released. It was Charles's first time seeing his grandchildren since the 2022 Platinum Jubilee. Mark Francis on the reunion, Harry's decisive loss to the Daily Mail in the High Court, William and Kate at the polo, and Andy Burnham's path to becoming the King's fourth Prime Minister.

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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A Calorougus Shark Media.

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Hello and welcome through Palace Weekly, and I am your host,

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Mark Francis. It has been a week in which the

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question that has hung over the entire British summer, whether

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Harry and Megan would bring their children to see the

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King was asked roughly one hundred times, answered incorrectly on

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most of those occasions, and then quietly, on Friday afternoon

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in the garden in Gloucestershire, answered for real. Harry lost

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a court case, William played polo, Britain finalized its next

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prime minister without a single vote being cast against him,

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and the heat once again refused to break. Let's get

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into it. We begin as the week itself dead with Harry,

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because from the moment he landed, everything else was arranged

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around him, whether it wanted to be. He arrived in

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Britain on Monday evening ahead of the Invictus Games event

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marking one year until the twenty twenty seven Games Birmingham.

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That much had been expected. What followed was not so

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much a plan as a series of contradictions issued at speed.

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The King had reportedly offered Harry accommodation at Buckingham Palace,

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The Sussex side reportedly declined the offer in writing on

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Saturday morning, then attempted to accept it, at which point

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they were told it was too late to arrange the

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necessary staffing and the offer was withdrawn. Both signs briefed

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their version. Harry's camp expressed frustration at the reasons given.

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The Palace expressed nothing, which is its preferred setting. Laid

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on top of this was the genuine mystery of who

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exactly was even in the country. For most of the week,

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it was not publicly known whether Megan and the children

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had traveled with Harry at all. Reports placed the family

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on a European holiday. Speculation pointed, as it always does,

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in several directions at once. The one firm fact was

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Harry himself in Birmingham, and everything else was inference, dressed

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as reporting. Then on Tuesday came the setback that had

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nothing to do with his family and the everything to

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do with the other long war of his life. The

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High Court dismissed Harry's privacy claims against Associated Newspapers, publisher

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of The Daily Mail. Mister Justice Nicklin ruled that the

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claimants Harry among them, alongside Elton John David Furnish Elizabeth

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Hurley Dorrey and Lawrence Sadie Frost and Simon Hughes had

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suspected unlawful information gathering, but had not proved it. Suspicion,

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the judge held, was not enough. Harry called the ruling

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a complete and obvious whitewash, though he conceded it was

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not altogether unexpected. Associated newspapers called it an overwhelming victory

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for its journalists. The reported legal costs somewhere between forty

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and fifty million pounds, mean that whatever else this case was,

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it was not cheap. It was Harry's third major action

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against the British press, and the first he has decisively lost.

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So by midweek the picture was this, a man in

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his home country, unable to guarantee it as safe for

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his family, having just lost in the courts, with an

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offer of a bad with drawn, and no public confirmation

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that his wife and children were anywhere on the island.

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It was, by any measure a low ebb, and it

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made what happened on Friday all the more striking. Friday,

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July tenth began with the two brothers doing roughly one

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hundred miles apart versions of the same thing they once

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did together. In Birmingham at the National Exhibition Center, Harry

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launched a one year countdown to the twenty twenty seven Games,

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an event that will bring more than five hundred and

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fifty wounded and injured surface personnel from twenty six nations

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to the city. Next summer, he played wiel chair rugby.

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He tried pickleball. He completed eight laser run. He gave

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an interview to the BBC in which he spoke warmly

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of his wife and children and returned as he always does,

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to reconciliation, saying there's no point in continuing to fight

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anymore and that life is precious. He noted pointedly that

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his father would not speak to him while security dispute

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remained unresolved. Reception in the hall was, by all accounts rapturous.

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At the same hour in Windsor, William was at the

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Guard's Pole Club for the Royal Charity Polo Cup, his

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fifteenth appearance, playing his usual position at number four in

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a heat that the commentator noted he braved like a professional.

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Kate was at a watch in a black and white

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Gingham dress and sunglasses, her first appearance at the match

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since twenty twenty three, having missed it during her cancer treatment.

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Peter Phillips and his wife Harriet joined her. The day's

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fundraising was set to push the cup's total passed fifteen

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million pounds. The commentator reminded the crowd with a certain

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gentleness that Willniam and Harry used to play this game

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side by side, a line that landed differently this year

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than it might have in any other. Two brothers too

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charitable causes one hundred miles and several years of silence

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between them. If the symbolism was accidental, it was nonetheless

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complete More Pallas in just a moment, and then in

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the afternoon on Friday, the question was answered. Buckingham Palace

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confirmed that the King and Queen had hosted Harry Magan

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and their children Archie now SA seven, Littlebit now five,

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and High Grove House in Gloucestershire. It was the first

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time Charles had seen his grandchildren in four years since

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the Platinum Jubilee in the summer of twenty twenty two.

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The children, it emerged, had traveled from that European holiday

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to be there. High Grove sits conveniently near Birmingham, which

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is to say the whole day had as shaped to

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with it that only became visible once it was over.

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The Palace confirmed the meeting only after it had happened,

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and described it as a private family occasion with no

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images to be released. That last detail was one worth

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sitting with. Sources had suggested beforehand that the King made

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a single condition, unmistakably clear. No cameras, no drama, no

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hint that the visit was being used for personal gain, or,

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as one put it, that would be the end of things,

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whether that was ever said in those words, the outcome

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matched it exactly. There were no photographs, there was no

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Netflix crew. There was for once nothing to see, which,

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given the last six years, is its own kind of headline.

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It would be a mistake to call this reconciliation. Harry

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himself was careful not to, said, the security question remains

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the sticking point and the only thing left, and nothing

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this week changed the government's position or restore the protection

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he lost. A single afternoon at Highgrove does not undo

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five years, and everyone involved seem to understand that. But

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a grandfather who was undergoing cancer treatments tore two grandchildren

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he had not laid his eyes on since they were

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Toddlers on the available evidence. That was just the point,

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not strategy, not a structural realignment of the Sussexes into

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royal life, just that the commentary inevitably reached for larger frames, surrender, softening,

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the first crack, and a long frieze. Some of that

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may prove true in time, but the simplest breeding of

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Friday is also the most human one, and this week,

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unusually the simplest reading appears to be correct. Britain now

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knows who its next Prime Minister will be. Andy Burnham

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clear the final hurdle to succeed Kiir Starmer, having secured

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nominations from three hundred and twenty two of Labours four

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hundred and three MP's enough that no rival can mathematically

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enter the race. Senior figures, once loyal to Starmer, moved

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quickly behind him. Burnham is expected to be confirmed as

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Labour leader around July the seventeenth, and traveled to the

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king to form a government honor about July the twentieth

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that will make him Charles fourth Prime minister in under

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four years of his reign. Burnham is promising what he

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calls a break with two decades of low growth and

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approach his allies of branded Manchesterism, and which remains ten

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days out somewhat short on detail. Charles, who has now

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had rather a lot of practice at the constitutional handshake,

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will manage. The King himself had a steady working, weak

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treatment and heat notwithstanding, he attended a Buckingham Palace engagement

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in support of cancer awareness, a cause he now speaks

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about from experience rather than patronage. He hosted a reception

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at Windsor Castle for the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association,

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where he was in good humor, and he planted a

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Swedish oak alongside the visiting King and Queen of Sweden,

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which is a sort of engagement that sounds like a

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metaphor and is in fact simply a man putting a

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tree in the ground. The heat, meanwhile held Southern England,

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continued to bake. The Changing of the Guard remained disrupted

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as it had been through this spell, and Buckingham Palace,

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seven hundred and seventy five rooms, no air conditioning, ventilated

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by the ancient logic of warm air rising and cooler

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air drawn in below, continued to do what it always

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has done, which is cope. So did the staff who

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by now must regard the portable fan as a permanent

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member of the household. Andrew remains where he has been,

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out of the spotlight on the Sandringham estate under investigation,

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and conspicuously absent from a week that had quite enough

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family drama without him. He continues, by all accounts to

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see his position as a matter of birthright rather than grace.

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The public continues to disagree. Neither position moved this week,

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and Kate beyond the Polo closed out a run of

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appearances that would have flattened most people overseas, visits trooping

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the Garter Ascot three mountains a fortnight ago, and now

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winds are in a heat wave to watch her husband

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player sports. She is, by her own admission, allergic to

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the annimal of that last detail. In its way is

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the whole marriage and miniature she turned up anyway. It

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was a week that spent five days asking a question

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with confidence and no answer, and then supplied the answer

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in a single afternoon without a photograph, in a garden quietly.

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The British monarchy does not often do quiet. When it

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manages it, the quiet tends to be the story, and

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there you have it, if you'd like to email us

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thanks to John McDermott. This says Palace Weekly and good terms.

Harry and Meghan Bring Archie and Lilibet to Meet King Charles — His First Time Seeing His Grandchildren in Four Years

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