How the Frogmore Cottage Story Exploded
What’s True and What’s Tantrum in Royal Real Estate News
Was anyone expecting dramatic Royal Real Estate News this week?
Just before midnight Tuesday, Matt Wilkinson, Royal correspondent for The Sun, broke an exclusive Royal scoop: “FROGXIT — Harry and Meghan have been evicted from Frogmore Cottage.”
Wilkinson wrote that Buckingham Palace had issued a written eviction notice to the California couple in January, just days after Harry’s memoir, Spare, was released. He added that the cottage was now being offered to Prince Andrew, as negotiations are underway to get the disgraced Duke to relinquish the much grander Royal Lodge.
By mid-morning Wednesday, Team Sussex fired back via Omid Scobie, who added more detail from “sources” close to the Sussexes, though their fingerprints were obvious.
Scobie wrote:
Prince Harry has been dealt a crushing blow after his father, King Charles, announced he is evicting the family from their Windsor property — At a time when communication between Harry and his family has reached an all-time low, further details provided to the couple by the institution have been scant. The property, they were told, is needed for someone else. It’s news, sources tell me, that has left Harry and Meghan stunned, and at least two members of the Royal Family “appalled”.
How he knows that members of the Royal Family are “appalled” seems to be a stretch, likely a talking point from the Sussex camp, but back to his article…
He wrote that a source told him Harry and Meghan were initially given just weeks to vacate the cottage but have now been told they have until “early summer”.
The couple are clearly not happy, and their familiar indignation leaps off the pages of Scobie’s article, with a “source” telling him:
“This is not just some random rental they keep for convenience. Every drawer is full, every closet is packed… It’s a real family home.”
Err… actually… it’s not. A “random rental” is precisely what it is.
The Sussexes left the UK in the winter of 2019, and announced they were leaving for good in January 2020, before the pandemic. They purchased a multi-million-dollar mansion in Montecito, where they’ve been living since.
It’s now three years later, and they’ve been back to the UK not even a handful of times. The house has sat mostly empty and unused, except for a time when Harry reportedly let it to his cousin, Princess Eugenie and her family. (Which also indicates it wasn’t quite packed with personal items…)
The Sussexes also made quite a show of packing up the cottage and all their belongings in their Netflix series, watched by millions. Seems hard to believe anything important was left behind, or that they considered the cottage much more than a hotel room.
Royal commentator Emily Andrews tweeted the same point, with images from the Netflix series.
Then we have Harry’s own words! In Spare, Harry wrote that the Frogmore Cottage home had “proved to be just another brief stop” in his life. That seems to make it quite clear, straight from Harry, that the Sussexes had moved on from Frogmore some time ago.
Scobie also spent most of his article on what appears to be the couple’s main argument, that this presents another “security threat” — again, the Sussex indignation instantly recognisable and familiar:
The “home has become their only sufficiently secure refuge in the country since their access to armed police protection was taken away in 2020.”
Again, hate to keep pointing out the obvious, but there isn’t a pressing need to provide a “secure refuge” for people in the UK, if they are never actually in the UK!
Some people have asked, if Harry paid for the renovations, why doesn’t he get to keep it?
Because there are two separate issues: the cost of renovations and the lease
It’s important to remember how they came to live in the cottage in the first place.
Senior members of the Royal Family work on behalf of the monarch, they have an official job and public role. The titles and perks are given in return for that support.
From their own words, we know that the Sussexes initially told the late Queen, before they were married, that they wanted to support her with Royal work, and not private employment.
The Queen believed them, and gave Harry the Dukedom, and the cottage in anticipation of the public role they would assume within the family.
Millions in public money was also spent on the cottage with the expectation that Harry would hold a public role.
We all know how that ended.
Harry offered to repay that money, since he was no longer keeping up his end of the bargain. The family accepted.
Separate from repaying that cost, Harry signed a lease on the property, reportedly for one or two years. (Andrew and Edward also have leases on their homes, they are not privately owned.)
It seems, according to Wilkinson, that the palace notified Harry in writing at the start of the year that renewing that lease would no longer be an option.
(update: A Sussex spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that they had been asked “to vacate” Frogmore Cottage)
What happens to Frogmore Cottage next is still under consideration. Whether Andrew can be forced out of Royal Lodge is a separate issue. Whether or not he then moves into the cottage is also speculation.
I personally think the real reason behind this move, is that nobody in the family feels they can trust Harry and Meghan anymore. At all. I can’t imagine it went over well, when footage of private family homes, that other members of the family use and have used, were aired for the world to see on Netflix.
The most famous family in the world almost certainly saw that as a massive violation and invasion of their privacy.
I can’t imagine Prince William appreciated the footage of Nottingham Cottage being broadcast, the same cottage where he lived with his wife, and where he brought home his first child and heir, George, after he was born.
How can Harry and Meghan be allowed to return to the private sanctum of Windsor Castle, where other Royals, and their children, relax and play?
I wouldn’t expect anyone to deal with the constant worry of being watched and recorded.
As usual, the Sussexes brought this on themselves.
The Sussexes will eventually learn that they are not entitled to anything simply by being.
If Prince Harry had remained the senior Royal known as HRH The Duke of Sussex, working on behalf of The King, we wouldn’t be here.
But Harry chose a very different path and has been violating his family’s confidences from that path ever since.
Harry made his choices.
Now The King must make decisions that are best for the rest of the family, and the monarchy, in return.
