Palace sources deny that Royal Family is ‘snubbing’ Harry and Meghan

Palace sources today denied that the Royal Family is ‘snubbing’ Harry and Meghan on the anniversary of the Queen’s death – as King Charles prepared to spend the day in quiet reflection at Balmoral. 

The Daily Mail revealed last week there were no plans to mark the occasion publicly involving members of the family and that His Majesty would spend the day quietly reflecting on the moment at Birkhall, his home on the Balmoral estate. 

Following claims in The Sun that the Sussexes had been left out of commemorations, a source said it was ‘simply untrue’ to that they had been subbed and there are no plans for any public event or for any private family gathering to mark the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s demise.

While various members of the family will have come and gone from Balmoral for summer hols in the usual way, Their Majesties will be spending Sep 8 ‘quietly and privately’, as Queen Elizabeth used to do on anniversary of her father’s death, they stressed.

Queen Elizabeth would always spend the anniversary of her late father King George VI’s death privately at Sandringham.

Harry and Meghan walking behind Charles and Camilla as Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin was transferred from the gun carriage to the hearse at Wellington Arch on September 19, 2022

William, Kate, Harry and Meghan meeting members of the public on the long Walk at Windsor Castle on September 10, 2022

Among the extended Windsor clan who are due to stay at Balmoral this year are the Prince and Princess of Wales with George, Charlotte and Louis; the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and their teenage children, Louise and James; Princess Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, along with her son Peter Phillips and daughter Zara Tindall, both with their broods; and Charles’s cousin, Lady Sarah Chatto.

The beleaguered Duke of York will also be spending time up there with his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Eugenie, and their young families.

Charles will spend the first week of August at the Castle of Mey in Caithness, the former home of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, before being joined at Birkhall by his wife.

But there are practical difficulties to admitting the public. Balmoral is a fairly ‘fragile’ building despite its solid appearance, with little in the way of public conveniences and it needs updating.

 As one source says: ‘You can’t just throw open the doors and say, ‘Come in chaps’.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are expected to mark the poignant one-year anniversary on September 8 at Balmoral Castle (pictured)

‘Quite a lot of things have stayed the way they are because Her late Majesty was in the last years of her life and it was entirely right that she had peace, quiet, comfort and familiarity.

‘Between that and Covid, a lot of building projects have been put off. Ways are being looked at of increasing [public] access but those are still being sketched out.

‘People like the fact that the castle is an authentic royal residence that the family still use.’

Despite decades of planning for the late Queen’s death, sources say it actually happened ‘so quickly’ that courtiers and royals were, inevitably, caught on the hop.

‘It really did,’ they insist. Only a day or two earlier, after all, we had that extraordinary and moving final photograph of Queen Elizabeth greeting then prime minister Liz Truss in her private apartments.

The result was that the monarchy had to ‘build the plane while flying it’, to borrow a palace colloquialism, ripping up existing diaries, long-planned foreign visits and domestic commitments, as well as merging two large, well-established households.