Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been accused of snubbing the late Queen Elizabeth II in her final years before her 2022 death. In 2019, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were very much still working royals, however a royal author has suggested that they had begun to distance themselves from the Royal Family.
This is because the couple, who had their newborn son Prince Archie in 2019, declined two invites from the late Queen to join the Royal Family for special occasions that year, quitting royal life months later in early 2020. One of these occasions was the royal summer holidays in Balmoral, Scotland, and another was to spend Christmas at Sandringham. While Harry, 40, and Meghan, 44, had joined both events before, it seemed that they weren’t keen to do the same in 2019 with their newborn son, who is now six.
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As reported previously by The Mirror, royal expert Robert Lacey said that the Christmas invitation was declined as the couple instead wanted to spend the festive season – which became their last as working royals – in Canada.
Talking about these snubs in 2019, Mr Lacey previously said: “To compound it, as the Christmas holidays approached Harry and Meghan snubbed the Queen for a second time.
“They had not gone to stay at Balmoral with her in the summer, and they decided that they couldn’t join her at Sandringham for the New Year break either.”
This rejection of such invites may have been a sign of things to come, with the couple quitting working royal life for good in 2020.
Instead of staying in the UK, Harry and Meghan decided to instead move to Montecito in California, where they live on a sprawling estate.
A year after moving, they welcomed their daughter Princess Lilibet, now four, into the world.
It is widely reported that the late Queen only managed to see Lilibet – who was named after her – very few times before Her Majesty passed away in 2022.
