Revealed: How Prince Harry 'defied the Queen' by announcing plans for him and Meghan Markle to quit as senior royals

Evening Standard
Prince Harry defied clear instructions from the Queen not to announce that he and Meghan are to quit as “senior” royals, the Evening Standard has been told.
The Queen made it clear to her grandson that he should not proceed with any announcement this week about his future after he requested a meeting with her at Sandringham, according to senior sources.

The Duke of Sussex’s apparent refusal to comply with an explicit request from the head of the royal family will help to explain the unprecedented expressions of “hurt” and “disappointment” from the palace over last night’s statement.    .......
Another member of the royal household told the Standard: “This hasn’t been properly thought through.
"It is an incredibly self-indulgent and the way they made this announcement showed little or no respect to the Queen or the Prince of Wales who have been given a lifetime of service to the Crown. It is shocking, just shocking behaviour.”

A right royal cash in! How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle trademarked over 100 items from hoodies to socks SIX MONTHS before split with monarchy - with new empire worth up to £400m

Daily Mail

Nicole Murdoch, a trademark lawyer based in Brisbane, Australia, said the signs that the Sussexes were leaving the Royal Family were emerging last summer.

She said: 'This could be because they may lose their titles as part of leaving the Royal Family. So this is a defensive move to allow them to continue using the titles or a name that alludes to the titles.

'Their Royal Titles are gifted by the Queen – will they lose their Royal Titles when they step back from Royal duties.

'Legally there also must be an intention to use the trade mark on the goods/services of the application at the time of the application. Unless it is a defensive mark (which requires a prior registration).

'When the trademark move was publicised in December there was a lot of uncertainty over why they were doing it."

Why the Queen must FIRE Their Royal Hustlers: Deluded Meghan and Harry should be stripped of their titles

Daily Mail

I've seen some disgraceful royal antics in my time, but for pure arrogance, entitlement, greed, and wilful disrespect, nothing has ever quite matched the behaviour of the 'Duke and Duchess of Sussex.'

I put inverted commas around those titles because I sincerely hope they won't exist much longer.

These two deluded clowns announced yesterday they were quitting life as senior royals.

In a series of staggeringly pompous statements on their gleaming new Hollywood-style website, they laid down the law to the Queen and to the rest of us about exactly how things are supposedly going to work from this moment on. To summarise, they want to stop being 'senior royals' with all the tedious duty that entails.

And instead, they now want to be a 'progressive' force within 'the institution'.

In other words, they want to be super-woke celebrities (with all the outrageous 'Do as we say not as we do' hectoring hypocrisy they've already brought to that status) who get to keep all the trappings of royal life without any of the hard, boring bits and the right to cash in on their status however they choose. So, they want the glitz, the glamour, the splendour and the stupendous wealth….they just don't want to have to actually earn it.

What a pathetic joke.

It's only when you read the details of this 'independence' that you realise what it actually means is they want to live off Harry's dad's money, from Prince Charles and his Duchy of Cornwall – which he only possesses by right of being the Queen's heir. They have also informed us they intend to continue living for free, when they grace the UK with their esteemed presence, at Frogmore Cottage, their palatial home in Windsor that was gifted to them by the Queen and which has been refurbished to their specifications at a cost to the taxpayer of millions of pounds. Oh, and they expect to continue having royal protection too wherever they choose to live and travel – at further vast expense to the taxpayer.

And they'll want all the other stuff that goes with that like VIP royal travel.

How the hell has it come to this less than two years after a wedding that was greeted with global excitement and praise?

Two words: Meghan Markle.

To put it bluntly, she's an unsavoury manipulative social-climbing piece of work who has inveigled her way into Prince Harry's heart and used his blind love as a platform to now destroy everything he once held so dear."

Harry and Meghan set to make MILLIONS: Couple complain that their Royal roles mean they can't make their own money - despite being worth £34m (and they will still get a huge cash injection from Charles' estate)

Daily Mail

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex last night revealed they plan to relaunch their careers – potentially earning millions of pounds a year. In an astonishing statement on their new website, they complained they had been unable to earn their own money as senior royals. They will give up their income from the Sovereign Grant – the money taxpayers give to the Queen every year – and launch themselves onto the international celebrity circuit.   .....While the statement on the couple’s website makes great play of the fact they are giving up the money from the Sovereign Grant, it does not say whether they will be making do without the cash they get from Prince Charles via his private £1.2billion Duchy of Cornwall estate – which some argue should be regarded as a public asset.    .....

Charles paid £4.9million to his sons from his duchy income last year, of which slightly less than half is believed to have gone to Harry. Yesterday the Sussexes said the money from Charles amounted to 95 per cent of their office expenditure. They added: ‘The remaining 5 per cent of funding for the Office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, covering costs associated with employing members of their official office, is received through the Sovereign Grant.’   Harry’s other wealth comes from his estimated £20million inheritance from his mother Princess Diana. He also banked around £7million from his great-grandmother the Queen Mother, who paid it into a trust fund in 1994.

Whatever happened to the enchanting Prince Harry and Meghan Markle we all fell in love with?

Daily Mail

I suppose there is a kind of courage in knowing when you’ve had enough, and in that respect Harry has been clear enough. But in truth it’s not entirely obvious what has driven him to such a conclusion: was the £2.4 million taxpayer-funded refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage not lavish enough? The outpouring of affection at their multi-million-pound wedding insufficiently fawning? The Queen’s repeated invitations to stay - rebuffed more than once - not hospitable enough?

It’s almost as though nothing matters to this couple apart from their own immediate happiness and gratification, as though they are incapable of seeing beyond their own little bubble of privilege. It has often been speculated as to whether they might end up walking away from Britain. But the timing of this announcement could hardly be more insensitive, or more indicative of the how little either seems to understand the true nature of their roles as Royals."

'It's a masterclass in wanting to have your cake and eat it’:

Daily Mail

Harry and Meghan have today been blasted by aides who claim the royal family 'bent over backwards for them' since they got together in 2016 only for the rebel couple to quit anyway without consulting the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William.       .......One exasperated aide said: 'People had bent over backwards for them. They were given the wedding they wanted, the house they wanted, the office they wanted, the money they wanted, the staff they wanted, the tours they wanted and had the backing of their family. What more did they want?'

Another royal source said: 'It's deeply unfair to the Queen who doesn't deserve to be treated this way. It is a shoddy way to treat her. The family understands that they want to do something different and is perfectly willing to help them. People are just devastated.' A senior royal source said the Queen and her family were 'deeply disappointed'. Another said the royals were 'shocked, saddened and downright furious' at the couple. "

Where it all went wrong for Prince Harry and Meghan

Daily Mail

Tragically, the shared happiness was misplaced. Harry and Meghan were not just a couple who wanted to embrace both modernity and tradition; they were bent on re-writing the rule book of what being a member of the Royal Family actually means. We should perhaps have realised; after all, the manner in which the duchess's father was ruthlessly excluded from the ceremony went beyond mere discourtesy. .......Their preaching to ordinary people about how they should lead their lives — particularly about climate change — and what has come to be seen as a drip, drip, drip of complaints about how they are treated, has led to a real disconnect. Who would have thought that in recent times the mere mention of Harry and Meghan's names at Buckingham Palace would lead some of the Queen's most loyal courtiers to wrinkle their noses and pull a face." 

History is repeating itself with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Daily Mail

This can only be described as an abdication. Meghan and Harry have in effect withdrawn from their royal duties and will spend a large part of their future lives in North America.

Yet there seems little doubt that their decision has shocked Buckingham Palace and the wider Royal Family as it has shocked the country.It has been suggested that Meghan and Harry made their bombshell announcement without consulting the Queen. If true, that is, in my view, an atrocious lapse of judgment. The wording from the Palace last night, that 'these are complicated issues that will take time to work through', hints that the decision to abandon their royal duties is perhaps not as final as Meghan and Harry might wish it to be."

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle want to STAY at Frogmore Cottage after taxpayer-funded £2.4m renovation (but could have to pay RENT) and they want to KEEP £650k-a-year security

Daily Mail

Despite stepping back as frontline royals, Harry and Meghan have decided to keep Frogmore Cottage.

The public paid £2.4million to fund a renovation of the Grade II-listed property near Windsor Castle. And the couple announced last night they wanted to keep it so they would have 'a place to call home in the United Kingdom'. The phrasing raised the prospect that their main home will come to be regarded as being elsewhere, perhaps Canada.  It was decided taxpayers would help Harry and Meghan pay for Frogmore after the newlyweds eschewed their home in the grounds of Kensington Palace, wanting a place of their own.

This was a shoddy way to treat the Queen

Daily Mail

The sixth-in-line to the throne and his wife have decided to declare unilateral independence from a thousand-year-old institution on their own terms.

Coming just a month after another second son — Prince Andrew — inflicted a very different sort of damage on the institution, it is going to require some hard talking and painful home truths.

Just as the Queen and the Prince of Wales had to join forces to deal with the crisis created by the Duke of York following his disastrous interview to Newsnight, so there will need to be a joint approach in their handling of this predicament."

'I'll just simply say I'm disappointed': Meghan's estranged father Thomas Markle reacts to bombshell revelations his daughter and Prince Harry are quitting the royal family

Daily Mail

Meghan's estranged father spoke out just hours later, telling Us Weekly: 'I'll just simply say I'm disappointed.' Markle, a 74-year-old retiring lighting director, did not elaborate on the cause of his disappointment. He has not had contact with his daughter since before her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry and hasn't met his eight-month-old grandson Archie. "

Multi-millionaire couple seek "financial independence"

'So long peasants!' Social media explodes after Meghan and Harry say they are stepping down from royal roles (Daily Mail)

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex last night 'pressed the nuclear button' on their royal careers by announcing they are quitting their frontline roles.

Their dramatic decision was taken without the knowledge of the Queen, Prince Charles or Prince William, who learnt about the announcement via news channels.

The news was shared on the Sussexes' social media channels, causing a flood of reaction from Twitter and Instagram users. The couple, who plan to split their time between Britain and North America, made the bombshell announcement days after returning from a six-week break in Canada.