The royal family feud, which has been an issue for over four years now, seems to have one event that may have started it all: the Sandringham Summit in January 2020. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had already decided to step away from the full-time palace roles and were looking for a hybrid option at the time. The then-Prince Charles, Prince William, and Queen Elizabeth II put their heads together to debate how the Sussexes could proceed as somewhat private citizens.
One that fateful day, Harry left the meeting believing that his “security would remain intact,” per People. As the Sussexes’ Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, chronicled, that promise was not delivered. Queen Elizabeth felt that it was “imperative” that the couple have “effective security” because she understood the dangers they faced. This was noted in court documents and a royal insider shared what happened next. “The Queen made it clear that effective security was necessary due to the threats against them, but somewhere along the line there was interference,” they said to the outlet. Their severity was yanked by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC), and that’s where Harry’s feud with his father ultimately lies.
“I think Harry needs to ask himself why Charles hasn’t overruled RAVEC, which, for all the insistence that he couldn’t, he could, being the king and all,” a palace source told The Daily Beast. The security threats that Harry and Meghan continue to face are real, and it was the former Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations for the Metropolitan Police, Neil Basu, who set off the alarms in 2022. He blamed the rise of right-wing extremists for the “disgusting and very real” threats that they faced. “Absolutely, and if you’d seen the stuff that was written and you were receiving it… the kind of rhetoric that’s online, if you don’t know what I know, you would feel under threat all of the time,” he told the U.K.’s Channel 4 News.
A royal source told People, “Working royal or not, this is the King’s son.” That is the belief held by many palace insiders because they understand that the threats do not change whether Harry and Meghan are in a working royal role or not. In fact, the negativity has only been amplified by their departure, thanks to the criticism of the British tabloids. The royal family’s refusal to show a united front in stopping phone hacking and misinformation only fractured their relationship with Prince Harry even more. “I think that’s certainly a central piece to it,” the Duke of Sussex said in an ITV interview for the documentary, Tabloids on Trial. “That’s a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press.”
Every moment in the feud leads back to the Sandringham Summit and what Harry, Queen Elizabeth, Charles, and William agreed upon that day. The decision to backtrack on those promises eventually resulted in the Sussexes having to navigate their own way to safety in the middle of a global pandemic. The timing couldn’t have been worse, and the royal family refuses to look back at their own missteps in a battle that should have never happened in the first place.
Click here to see a complete timeline of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s feud with the royal family.
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