Aug. 30, 2026

Harry and Meghan Landed in Britain on Wednesday, Archie and Lilibet Start School Next Week, and Nobody Will Say Who Pays for Security

Show Notes
Transcript

HARRY AND MEGHAN ARE HOME — AND THE WEEK EVERYONE TRIED TO SELL A PIECE OF DIANA

Mark Francis on the week the rumour became a runway. The Sussexes flew privately into Birmingham before midday Wednesday with Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, and their dogs; the chickens stayed in Montecito. They'll live at a private property in the Cotswolds as non-working royals, with the children starting British schools next week. There was no visible police presence at the airport, and nobody will say who is paying for protection. Plus: twenty-nine years since Paris, Earl Spencer's memoir, a Reagan Library exhibition, and the costs order in the Daily Mail case.

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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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Caloroga Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Palace Weekly. I

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am your host, Mark Francis. It's been a week in

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which the rumour became a runway. Harry, Meghan, Archie and

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Lilibet didn't merely decide to move to Britain, they landed

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in it, touching down at Birmingham Airport on Wednesday on

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a private jet. And by the weekend, the search parties

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of the British press had them pinned somewhere in the

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northern Cotswolds. After five years, a memoir, and a great

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deal of insisting he could not safely come back, Harry

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came back. And he did it. This is the part

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that matters. In the week, the country turns again to

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his mother. Tomorrow marks 29 years since Diana died in Paris,

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and the anniversary machine is in full swing. Her brother

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is publishing a book to rescue her from decades of untruths.

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A California museum is reuniting her Travolta gown with Nancy

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Reagan's dress. And somewhere in the mix, Harry and Meghan

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are reportedly making a Diana documentary of their own. So today,

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the homecoming, the mother it keeps leading back to, and

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what it means that half the world spent this week

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selling a piece of woman who's been gone almost 30 years.

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Let's get into it. The fact of the arrival first,

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the family flew privately, an aircraft from a company called

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Planet 9, 13 seats, a double bed, room for 15 suitcases.

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and an estimated price tag between Â£ 150, 000 and Â£ 200, 000 one way,

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which is a great deal of carbon for a man

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who called climate change one of the two most pressing

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issues we face. The plane doesn't burn more fuel because

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the Sussexes are aboard, but four passengers sharing emissions and

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airliner spreads across 300 is the whole problem in miniature.

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They landed at Birmingham, not London, which is a tell,

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with the BBC noted no visible police presence. The dogs,

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Pula and Mia, made the trip. The chickens did not.

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They're staying at Archie's Chick Inn in Montecito, under staff care.

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A decision the internet promptly christened Exit. The children are

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the engine of it. Both will attend the same private school.

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Archie starting year three as a day boarder. Lilibet in

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the pre-prep. Home each night rather than boarding. A friend

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of Harry's laid out the vision to the mail with

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startling specificity. Harry sees himself here 12 to 15 years minimum.

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A full-time father spending every Saturday watching Archie play rugby.

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The sort of parents who say, no tablets at the

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dining table, no hankering. The friend insisted, after royal status

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or engagements, this is about raising the children British in Britain.

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That's the romantic version. There's a ledger version too. Tax

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advisors noted the timing was, as one put it, immaculate.

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The Sussexes have now completed six full tax years as

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non-UK residents, clearing the temporary non-residence rules that can claw

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back capital gains tax from those who leave and return

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too quickly. And Page Six laid out a cash flow squeeze.

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Two mortgages on the Montecito house. Roughly $ 3 million a

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year in private security. A Netflix deal now said to

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have been worth closer to $ 60 million than the reported $ 100.

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Staff cut from around $ 18 to $ 4. And a looming

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legal bill from the Daily Mail case. Harry was ordered

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on Friday with six fellow claimants to make an initial Â£ 9. 5

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million payment toward the publisher's costs, his personal share possibly

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around $ 2. 5 million. America, as one male writer put it,

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hasn't turned hostile so much as bored. When South Park

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mocked you in 2023, you stopped being a royal drama

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and became fair game. And then the question that has

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shadowed every Harry trip, security. He reportedly told British officials

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before he told his own father, so preparations could begin.

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A former protection chief warned the review will be enormous

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and expensive, armoured cars at half a million pounds apiece,

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safe rooms, offices stationed at the school, and that Harry's

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profile is genuinely singular. A war veteran, a lightning rod,

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a man with, in the officer's words, fixated people trained

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on him. The likely mechanism, quietly, is that UK residency...

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removes the very argument once used to deny him taxpayer protection.

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Asked directly, Prime Minister Andy Burnham declined to engage. A

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matter for Harry and Meghan, he said, and wished them well.

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More palace in just a moment. The other thing almost

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nobody around him quite believes that the King only found

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out last Sunday. Jenny Bond spoke for many when she

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said that if she were Charles... She'd be thinking, you

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came to tea, we sat and chatted, and you didn't

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mention you were moving your entire family to my country.

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The Mail's Rebecca English reported that Meghan had quietly toured

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to Cotswold's schools during the July visit, and that the

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couple had eyed a home belonging to a celebrity, though

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she couldn't independently verify it. A friend of Harry's insisted

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the opposite, that the king had known his son's wishes

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for some time, that William had known for six months.

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and that there is no question of anyone being blindsided.

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Both cannot be true. Welcome, as ever, to the Sussex

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information ecosystem where every fact arrives with its own equal

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and opposite anonymous source. The family, meanwhile, gathered at Balmoral

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for what the Mail called a Sussex summit. William and

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Kate photographed leaving in a Land Rover, the wider clan

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reportedly off grouse shooting, and a source stating flatly that

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William has no desire whatsoever to reconcile with his brother

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as it stands. The Mirror reported Charles and William in

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complete lockstep. On the one point that matters, there will

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be no half-in, half-out arrangement. The same model the late

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Queen killed in 2020. Kate is cast, as she usually is,

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as the pragmatist. One source called her a chess player

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who doesn't need Harry to love William, only to stop

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fighting him. Underneath all of it ran a darker whisper,

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and it's worth flagging clearly as a whisper. The gossip

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columnist Rob Shooter claimed the marriage is under real strain.

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that Meghan didn't want to come, that Harry has been

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miserable in Montecito, that they are not in a good place.

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There is no confirmation of any of that from the couple,

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and it deserves to be held at arm's length. But

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it did rhyme with a sharper line from Tom Sykes, who,

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reading the Times description of the Sussexes as an international couple,

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suspected it might really be an international person. And the

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international person is Meghan. Because the other half of the week,

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Meghan's news was a job. Reports had her circling a

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role in Guy Ritchie's Netflix series The Gentleman. Until Tina

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Brown reported the casting had been withdrawn, the backlash untenable,

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and several PR professionals suggested the whole thing was a float,

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a pseudo-event, bearing the fingerprints of a media-savvy team signalling

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she's available. The BBC, with exquisite timing, is meanwhile casting

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a brassy new EastEnders barmaid named, I promise you, Megan.

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Purely coincidental, they insist. and the mockery machine ran hot

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because it always does. There was the charcuterie board that

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contained no charcuterie, only fruit and cheese, prompting the internet

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to observe that you cannot spread runny jam on a

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walnut and call it hosting. There was an apple butter

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teaser that turned out to be recycled footage from last October.

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There was a blackberry loaf. The critics swore was lifted

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from a Martha Stewart cake. And there was the spiced

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apple butter, a staple of the rural American South, launched

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with catastrophic timing, four hours after the rural South's patron saint,

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Dolly Parton, died. Through all of it, the recurring observation

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was that the real subject of every video was the jewellery.

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This week, Diana's own Cartier tank watch, glinting on Megan's

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wrist as she arranged the cheese. A fairer voice cut through.

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And again, it was Jenny Bond's. But we're a pile on, Megan.

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This is a woman Bond reminds everyone who has said

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the treatment she received in Britain drove her to suicidal

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thoughts and who may well be, in Bond's phrase, taking

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one for the team on a move that was never

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her heart's desire. Whatever you make of the jam, that's

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worth holding on to. More Palace in just a moment.

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Which brings us, in Anniversary Week, back to Diana, and

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to the strange spectacle of half the world reaching to

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claim her at once. Her brother went first. Earl Spencer

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is publishing a memoir on the 22nd of September. Swansong Diana,

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my sister. His stated aim to rescue her from what

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he calls untruths that have become accepted over time. To

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speak for her, he says, as he did at her funeral.

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And to help a generation who know her only from

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the crown... understand who she actually was, a one-off full

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of love, charisma, and self-doubt who gave life a hell

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of a go. Tom Bauer, never knowingly diplomatic, characterized Spencer

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as furious with Charles, no admirer of William, and firmly pro-Harry, which,

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if true, makes the book's timing its own quiet act

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of positioning. It may also, as Kevin O'Sullivan gleefully noted,

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steal a march on Harry and Meghan's own reported Archwell

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documentary about Diana. Two Diana projects, then two. competing to

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be the authoritative one. She might have found that familiar.

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Hollywood is claiming her too. In November, the Ronald Reagan

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Library opens a Major Diana exhibition. Its centerpiece, the midnight

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blue velvet gown she wore to dance with John Travolta

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at the White House in 1985. Reunited for the first

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time with Nancy Reagan's dress from that same evening. But

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the affecting pieces are the small ones. The Sloan Ranger years.

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The Laura Ashley dresses with hand-sewn labels. The baby shoes

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in the detail that stops you. Her own copy of

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Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, on which the young

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Diana had drawn three little hearts beside his photograph, years

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before Elton would rewrite Candle in the Wind and sing

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it at her funeral. Hal, the curator, asked, do you

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make that up? And Fox is claiming her in the

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least edifying fashion, with a new special using virtual technology

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to walk viewers back into the Ponte dei Lama tunnel

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and rerun the old conspiracy theories We went through the

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settled facts last week, so only briefly, two investigations, an

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eight-year inquest, a verdict of unlawful killing through a drunk

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driver and a pursuing paparazzi and no plot. The larger

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truth remains more interesting than any conspiracy. A woman who

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had left the institution but not the public's heart, dead

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at 36 in a monarchy that nearly lost the country

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by misreading how much it grieved. Everyone, in other words,

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had a Diana to sell this week, which is what

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makes the quietest tribute the truest. In the middle of

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the books and the gowns and the crash reconstructions, her

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younger son moved her grandchildren to the green corner of England,

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where she once took him for forbidden burgers and walked

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him around the lawn on a Shetland pony, to be,

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in his friend's words, the father on the touchline every Saturday.

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That one isn't for sale. So quickly, the rest, which

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was mercifully gentler, the clearest sign King Charles is genuinely well,

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whatever the conspiracists whisper about Harry knowing something, is that

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Buckingham Palace announced a Caribbean tour in Tigua, the Bahamas,

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and Guyana in late October. His first trip to the

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region as king, a man planning a transatlantic autumn, is

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not a man being quietly written off. On a far

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more sombre note, Charles and Camilla sent heartfelt condolences after

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catastrophic flooding on the Nepal-China border has left hundreds dead

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and hundreds missing, among them dozens of British nationals, a

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reminder that some royal words this week concerned real grief,

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not gossip. At Balmoral, the family settled in for the

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Highland summer, greeted on arrival by Corporal Kroshan IV, the

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regimental Shetland pony who once memorably relieved himself in front

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of the late Queen. He behaved this time. Former chef

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Darren McGrady painted the domestic scene behind the castle walls.

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Prince Philip commandeering the barbecue. Princess Anne volunteering to make

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the starter. Prince Edward demanding pancake batter so he could

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fill it with his own garden raspberries. And the royal

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week ended well. fittingly for anniversary season, on a note

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of mourning for someone else entirely. Dolly Parton died at 80,

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the royal family posted We Will Always Love You, and

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the band at the Changing of the Guard played 9

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to 5 outside Buckingham Palace, which is about as warm

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as that grey building gets. Because that is the thread

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running under all of it. Tomorrow the flowers will appear

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again at Kensington's gates, 29 years on. There will be

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a book, an exhibition, a documentary, a television special. a

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whole marketplace of Diana. But the version worth remembering isn't

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the one on the auction block or the streaming queue.

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It's the young woman who wrote home from her honeymoon

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that she adored being outside all day and hated London,

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who took her boys for the burgers her husband couldn't fathom,

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who wanted more than the crown for her children to

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have something like an ordinary life. This week, 29 years

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too late for her to see it, one of them

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tried to hand that down. Everything else is just merchandise.

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There you have it. If you'd like to email us,

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our address is thepalaceintrigue at gmail.com. If you're on Spotify,

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This is Palace Weekly. Good times.

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