The courtier told the authors of Finding Freedom that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex thought they would simply be able to inform Prince Charles of their decision and trigger an easy extrication from the Royal Family. They said the royal couple genuinely thought they could negotiate it all over email, give just three months notice and then fly off. The courtier told the authors: “They oversimplified what they were asking for.
“They thought they’d give Charles their rider, negotiate over email, rock up to London, give three months’ notice and fly back to Canada.”
This turned out to not be the case at all ‒ the Prince of Wales did not like their original proposal and it required certain adaptations.
They were instructed by the Queen not to announce anything until the deal had been hashed out.
However, the couple got impatient and announced their decision early, which left the Royal Family feeling “hurt”, according to reports.
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This all culminated in the Sandringham Summit where the Queen, Charles, William and Harry met in person to decide what would happen next.
After this, an official statement was released, in which the Queen gave her blessing to Harry and Meghan’s decision.
Soon after, the couple flew to Canada, where they stayed for a few weeks, before moving to California.
One of the biggest issues in the Megxit negotiations was, of course, about money.
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One exhausted aide complained that they had “created a complete headache for everyone”.
What’s more, there was “a lot of ill will” in the royal household and in the family over the way Harry and Meghan had kept them in the dark about their website.
A senior Buckingham Palace aide told Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, the authors of Finding Freedom, that if they had gone about it differently, there may have been a better outcome for them.
They said: “Harry and Meghan would have reached a more beneficial agreement to allow them to live the life they wanted if they had handled things in a private, dignified manner.”
Another source said: “The courtiers blame Meghan, and some family do.”
On the other hand, the Duke and Duchess felt like they were being “patronised” and that they knew better than courtiers what they themselves wanted.
They felt like for the past two years, people had merely humoured them when they brought up their grievances, but never actually doing anything about it because they did not think that they would do something so drastic as to leave, the book suggests.
Indeed, they felt like if the family and couriters had taken them seriously earlier, they wouldn’t be in this situation.
Finding Freedom was written by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand and published by HQ in August 2020. It is available here
