Prince Harry received a phone call from his father Charles telling him not to bring Meghan with him as the royal family rushed to Balmoral on the last day of the Queen’s life
Prince Harry reacted with anger when he was told that Meghan Markle was not welcome to join the royal family at Balmoral following the death of Her Majesty the Queen.
Harry received an urgent request to travel to Scotland on the last day of the monarch’s life, and prepared to travel from London with his wife by his side. However, his father King Charles put his foot down. The Duke recalled the incident in his tell-all book Spare, writing: “He said I was welcome at Balmoral, but he didn’t want… her. He started to lay out his reason, which was nonsensical, and disrespectful, and I wasn’t having it.”
Harry said he retorted firmly to his father’s comments about Meghan, saying: “Don’t ever speak about my wife that way… He stammered, apologetic, saying he simply didn’t want a lot of people around. No other wives were coming, Kate wasn’t coming, he said, therefore Meg shouldn’t. Then that’s all you needed to say.”
Indeed, Prince William travelled to Balmoral with his uncles Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, and Duchess Sophie. Princess Kate made the difficult decision to stay at home with the couple’s three children, George, Charlotte, and Louis. The royal youngsters had their first day at their new school, Lambrook, on September 8, and Kate thought it was important for her to be there to support them.
The Queen peacefully passed away at 15:10 on 8 September. Of her family members, only Charles, Camilla and Princess Anne were able to see her before she died; by chance the siblings were already in Scotland for prior engagements. William, Andrew, Edward and Sophie landed at 3:50pm, 40 minutes after her death. And with the new Prince of Wales at the wheel, they drove to Balmoral, arriving at 5.06pm. Harry, meanwhile, left Luton airport onboard a private jet at about 5.30pm. He was still in the air when the announcement of the queen’s death was made at 6.30pm.
The Duke has since claimed he only found out his grandmother had died after checking the internet while on the plane. Harry wrote in his book that he had been thinking on the plane about the last time he was with the Queen and what they had been talking about, when he then got a notification on his phone.
“When the plane started to descend I saw that my phone lit up,” he said. “It was a message from Meg: ‘Call me when you get this.’ I looked at the BBC website. My grandmother had died. My father was King.” Harry further went on to reveal how when he finally did make it to Balmoral, his aunt Princess Anne led him upstairs to “Granny’s bedroom” so he could pay his respects.
