Will King Charles III Succeed in Rearranging the Royal Family’s Boarding House?

Within the framework of the comprehensive reform of the structure of the British royal family that King Charles III recently initiated, the king announced a set of decisions regarding his youngest son, Prince Harry, and his wife, the retired American artist Meghan Markle, in addition to his brother, Prince Andrew.

The king decided to deprive his brother, Prince Andrew, who was accused in sexual cases, of a large proportion of the financial support he was receiving from the royal family budget.

According to British press reports in early March, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan were expelled from their home in the Windsor House of the British royal family, which deprived them of any residence in Britain, and their home was given to Prince Andrew.

According to press information, Harry and Meghan, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, were asked to vacate the property last January.

These decisions come after Prince Harry issued his private book in January 2023, in which he revealed many royal secrets, in addition to their documentary series on the Netflix platform, which was shown in December 2022.

These developments come in light of a transitional phase that the British royal family is going through after Charles III ascended the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8 at the age of 96.

The coronation of the ruler of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth countries is scheduled for May 6, in a major event that will be broadcast around the world, amid speculation that Harry may not attend his father’s coronation.

 

Royal Decisions

King Charles decided to make a number of shocking changes related to his son, as he granted the home of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan in the Frogmore Cottage area to his brother, Prince Andrew, to live in.

A spokesman for Harry and Meghan said on March 1, 2023, that the couple had been asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage, a country home within the grounds of Windsor Castle where King Charles lives.

The spokesperson’s statement, published in People magazine, follows a report by The Sun newspaper that King Charles plans to move his brother, Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth’s second son, to the couple’s residence in Windsor.

With this confirmation, the couple lost their only residence in Britain, which was gifted to them by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2018, and they resided in 2019 before moving to California in 2020 after they gave up their role in the royal family.

According to People magazine, Prince Harry covered the costs of renovating the home in Windsor, which amounted to about $3 million from the UK fund allocated to the royal family.

The Daily Express confirmed, quoting sources in the palace, that the old suite of Prince Andrew in Buckingham Palace will be shown to Prince Harry and Meghan if they need it, and that they could also be offered accommodation at St. James’s Palace or Princess Diana’s former home in Kensington Palace, which is still empty and is currently being renovated.

Earlier this week, journalist Omid Scobie claimed that some members of the royal family were appalled by the decision to expel Harry and Meghan.

“It all feels very final and like a cruel punishment. It’s like [the family] want to cut them out of the picture for good. Harry and Meghan have until early summer to vacate,” the insider told Scobie.

The relationship between the couple and the royal family has witnessed tension recently after Harry and Meghan released a documentary on Netflix last December, and Prince Harry published his private memoirs last January; harsh criticism was directed at King Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, and Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton.

The Daily Mail said that the decision was apparently difficult for the king, especially as he was careful not to add fuel to the fire of the ongoing dispute with Harry, but it’s understandable that he got to a point where he thought Harry had crossed the line after the allegations made in the Netflix series and his memoirs.

Informed sources confirmed that King Charles’ relationship with his son, Prince Harry, was utterly broken after the latter’s statements and that he was very disappointed.

On the other hand, a number of Britons saw the decision to expel Prince Harry and his wife Meghan from their royal home as pure spite and racism.

Writer Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu said that this step was fraught with racism, as King Charles and Prince William attacked Prince Harry to punish Meghan, and she added: “I think they blame her for everything because of her black origin.”

Mos-Shogbamimu also wrote on her Twitter account, “King Charles evicting Harry and Meghan from Frogmore Cottage is pure spite. Like the Royal family don’t have other properties to house the disreputable Prince Andrew? A very unwise move that’ll backfire.”

On his part, British journalist Duncan Larcombe said: “It is revenge. This is a pathetic move. They have many mansions and possessions. But when you attack your family, you are considered unfaithful.”

 

Embarrassing Leaks

On January 10, 2023, the memoirs of Prince Harry Spare were released in the UK after months of an intense publicity campaign, causing more embarrassment to the royal family, especially for Prince William and Father King Charles.

In his memoirs, the 38-year-old Duke of Sussex accused his brother William of knocking him to the ground during the 2019 quarrel over Meghan, whom Harry had married a year earlier.

King Charles also appeared in leaked excerpts from the book Spare that he was a father who was unable to show feelings or sympathy. He did not embrace his two sons when he told them of the death of their mother, Diana, and married Camilla, despite their pleas to him not to marry again after their mother, for fear that she is an evil stepmother.

Harry did not hesitate to admit a number of secrets related to him personally, including his admission to using cocaine, and that he killed 25 enemy combatants during his participation in military missions in Afghanistan, and even how he dealt with losing his virginity.

The royal family still fears other embarrassing parts of the book, which includes more than 500 pages, as the British press is keen to pick Harry’s claims with great precision.

Buckingham Palace has so far declined to comment, while The Sun newspaper quoted sources close to Charles III and William that they were saddened by what Harry mentioned in the book.

Harry’s memoirs came after the Harry & Meghan documentary series was shown on Netflix in December 2022, in which the couple touched on their problems with the royal family and the British media.

In March 2021, Harry and Meghan conducted an interview with the media, Oprah Winfrey, in which they confirmed the existence of racism within the royal family, which caused a sensation.

Prince Harry admitted during the interview with ETV that he may have been a bigot before he met Meghan, and accused William and his wife Kate of never giving Meghan a chance.

Harry confirmed his desire to be close to his father and brother, even though his communication with them was cut off, indicating that the responsibility rests with them, and refusing to confirm whether he would attend the coronation of King Charles next May.

On March 5, 2023, British press reports revealed that the royal palace had taken a step towards calming tensions with Prince Harry and his wife by inviting them, through an email, to attend the king’s coronation ceremony.

In any case, opinion polls indicate that many Britons are fed up with the entire royal family melodrama and that revealing more surprises will not change their opinions, whether sympathetic to Harry and his wife Meghan or those critical of them.

 

Outcast Prince

Prince Andrew (the king’s brother) will have no better luck than Harry, as he too has received a decision from Charles that he will not receive any additional funding from the royal palace by next April.

Andrew was receiving £249,000 annually from the income of the Duchy of Lancaster, which is considered one of the most important sources of income for the British royal family.

He will not be able to manage the costs of living in his palace, especially since his annual costs amount to £400,000 per year, so he will have to move to the smaller residence within the royal complex in Windsor Castle immediately after it was emptied by Harry this summer.

Andrew’s financial situation was damaged due to the exorbitant costs of paying the costs of defending himself against charges of sexual assault that were pursuing him in the United States before he reached an understanding with the complainant (American Virginia Giuffre) and paid about $12 million in her favor, which made his financial situation more difficult, with the late Queen refusing to finance anything related to this issue, according to allegations.

Since 2019, Andrew has announced his abandonment of all his princely positions and withdrawal from public life, but he is looking to return again after obtaining an acquittal of the charges against him, but it appears that the king is not enthusiastic about this idea.

In January 2022, Queen Elizabeth, encouraged by Charles and his son William, announced that Prince Andrew would be stripped of his military affiliations and royal patronages in an attempt to distance the royal family from the scandal of Andrew, who was ninth in line to the throne.

At the time, royal sources said the decision to strip Andrew of his military titles and royal duties was encouraged by Charles and his son William.

In September 2022, a new book revealed that Andrew pressured his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, to prevent his brother Charles from becoming King of England.

The author of the book, Angela Levine, claimed that Andrew conspired with Princess Diana and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, to prevent Charles from being crowned king before Elizabeth died.

“When Diana was alive, through her friendship with Sarah (Duke of York), she conspired with Andrew to try to push Prince Charles aside so that Andrew could become guardian of Prince William, who was then a teenager,” the source told the author.

The book also stated that Andrew had persistently tried to prevent Charles and Camilla from marrying.

The measures taken by Charles III against his son and brother are consistent with what he announced, immediately after assuming power in the country, regarding the restructuring of the royal family.

King Charles had decided to entrust his brothers with some royal duties, which means excluding his son Harry permanently from his accounts.

Charles also froze his brother Andrew after asking the British Parliament to amend the law to allow his sister Anne and younger brother Edward to act on his behalf if he fell ill or traveled.

The king, on his 74th birthday, increased the list of his advisors who could act on his behalf in his absence to carry out all his duties.

This means that the turn of the two princes, Harry and Andrew, is over, because it is likely that they will no longer be called upon to carry out royal duties, even after the departure of Charles and the arrival of others.

Thus, the circle of princes who have official duties is defined by the king and his wife, the crown prince and his wife, Princess Anne (the king’s sister), Prince Edward (the king’s younger brother) and his wife, which means that the members of the royal family who are entitled to appear on the scene are seven, with a focus on Prince William (Crown Prince) and his wife, Princess Kate.