Was there an ulterior motive for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle finally traveling to the UK to visit the Queen?!
As we previously reported, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a pit stop on their way to the Netherlands for this year’s Invictus Games to meet with Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday. Meghan and Harry even stayed overnight at their old stomping grounds, Frogmore Cottage, where they were also spotted by visitors for the annual Royal Maundy Service.
Meghan and Harry seemed to be extending an olive branch to Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles as they met up with the couple at one point on their brief trip! Certainly a huge step in finally making peace…
News of the informal visit came as quite a shock since the couple had not been in England together after they left their roles as senior members of the royal family more than two years ago. Prince Harry has made the trip a couple of times since then, including for his grandfather Prince Philip’s funeral last year. However, he recently grumbled over how unsafe it was to bring his family to the country and refused to bring them over until the government allowed him to pay for their own police protection. But we guess it was safe enough now? Maybe their security was the element of surprise??
While it seemed like Meghan and Harry had been trying to mend the fences, speculation has since come out that they may have had a completely different motivation behind hanging out with the fam! In fact, certain royal experts accused them of “exploiting the Queen for Netflix” and only trying to have peace talks with his father and grandmother in order to make their producers happy.
Wha??
See, Meghan and Harry are expected to bring along their camera crew while meeting the Ukraine team at the Invictus Games to grab footage for their documentary about the Paralympic-style events. However, critics believe they’ve also brought the cameras into their talks with the royals.
Royal biographer Tom Bower specifically claimed to Dailymail.com that the pair only made their top-secret visit to the UK “for their Netflix documentary.” He then called out Meghan and Harry for being “the Royal Family’s worst traducers,” saying:
“I have no doubt it was all done for their Netflix documentary. The Queen’s advisers failed to protect her from being exploited by the Royal Family’s worst traducers, while the Sussexes exploited an old, unwell woman to boost their credibility and coffers.”
Damn! (BTW, a “traducer” is way of calling someone a slanderer, in case you aren’t as old school as Bower!)
Obviously not everyone feels the same way about the trip. Editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine Ingrid Seward told The Sun that the face-to-face encounter with the Queen had been a great way to “clear the air” amid the tensions with the royal family following Meghan and Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey last year. She explained:
“It is a wonderful opportunity to clear the air and offer an olive branch. After everything that has gone on it must have taken a lot for Harry and Meghan to go to Windsor. Also Maundy Thursday is a very special day for the Queen as it is about forgiveness. She is not one to hold grudges and I think she would have happily welcomed them with open arms.”
Still, things aren’t exactly fixed between the family members. Royal correspondent Robert Jobson noted to The Mirror that it was “significant” that Prince William and Kate Middleton were not a part of these meetings during Meghan and Harry’s trip:
“Hopefully, in time the royal brothers too can break bread and end this new war of the Wales’s, which is in danger of turning into one of the fictional soap style dramas Meghan used to star in. For William to do that, however, Harry will have to show that he (and his team of PR image gurus and advisers) can keep their counsel at this early and delicate stage. If not, this promising development would all have been for nothing.”
It would pretty sad if this turns out to be true. Just when we thought the royal family’s relationship was finally on the mend! Reactions? Let us know in the comments (below).
[Image via WENN]
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