Queen’s touching Christmas gift to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

The looming Christmas season might offer an opportunity for Harry and Meghan to start healing the rift with the rest of the royal family.

Queen’s touching Christmas gift to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle revealed. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.

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It seems a safe bet that the Queen will not be eagerly queuing up to see the new Diana, Princess of Wales biopic Spencer.

Early reviews of the Kristen Stewart vehicle suggest the royal family is portrayed as “frigid”, Diana “effectively imprisoned” and that the Christmas period at Sandringham which is the focus of the film is depicted as a “full-blown Gothic nightmare”.

Still, if there is a shining co-star in this feature-length outing, based on what we know so far, it is Sandringham. The red brick Jacobean pile was bought by Queen Victoria in 1863 and is where the royal family religiously spends the holiday season, Teutonic trimmings and all.

It was there, in January last year, that the Queen, Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry hashed out the details of “Megxit” and, it might be there, according to a new report, that Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s stage their return to royal life.

No, I haven’t been at the festive schnapps; rather, there are tentative clues that raise the possibility that the Sussexes might make their first trip back to the UK as a family to join Her Majesty for the holidays at Sandringham.

It’s thought Meghan and Harry will be making a UK return at Christmas. Picture: Adrian DENNIS / AFP.

Royal biographer Katie Nicholl said during an interview in the UK earlier this week, “Christmas is being looked at as an opportunity. There may be a softening, which could pave the way for a healing of the family rift.”

(Given it is solely up to Her Majesty who celebrates at Sandringham, the Sussexes attending would therefore be at her instigation.)

There is a lot about the idea of Harry and Meghan (with their baby daughter Lilibet who will, by then, be about six-months-old and two-and-a-half-year-old son Archie in tow) making the trip back across the pond in mid-to-late December which would make sense.

It would give them the chance to introduce their new bub to his family and the large family gathering, which usually sees the Queen’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gather en very-well-bred-masse, would be a less pressured way for the Sussexes’ to re-enter the royal orbit.

Think of it as a savvy re-entry plan with the added benefit they could also use this trip as a chance to christen their daughter too.

Like many people, Christmas is a family affair for the royals, complete with inappropriate uncle. Picture: Adrian DENNIS / AFP.

Earlier this month veteran royal observer Robert Jobson reported that the Montecito-based duo have “have put in a formal request to visit the Queen to introduce her to her 11th great-grandchild”.

Writing in the Mirror, he also reported that “there is talk” they want Lili’s ceremony to take place back in the UK and “that they are pushing for a ceremony in the private chapel at Windsor Castle”.

(Not everyone is reportedly quite so keen on this possible turn of events, with Jobson quoting well-placed royal sources that if Harry and Meghan did instead decide to hold the ceremony in the US, that Her Majesty, among others, would breathe “a sigh of relief”.)

However, this possible Christmas miracle is not the only tantalising clue we have.

The state of the trans-Atlantic Windsor relationship also got a boost this week with the screening of Prince Philip: The Royal Family Remembers. The hour-long show featured the late Duke of Edinburgh’s family painting a touching picture of the Queen’s husband of 73 years, including moving memories and tributes from Harry.

This week Prince Phlilip was remembered in a touching royal documentary. Picture: Adrian DENNIS / AFP.

The interviews were originally filmed earlier this year for what was meant to be a celebration of his 100th birthday in June. However it was reworked after he passed away in April.

Even if Harry’s interview was done before the couple’s bombshell Oprah interview, that still means that the reactionary royal was included after having walked away from royal life and signed a controversial deal with Netflix. And after he and Meghan had staged their own quasi-official Remembrance Day, visiting Commonwealth war graves when Harry’s request to have a wreath laid on his behalf at the Cenotaph in London was denied.

Even before we get to the cataclysmic detonation under the monarchy which was the Sussexes’ Oprah appearance, Harry and Meghan were hardly toeing the line. And yet still, the sixth in line to the throne, who had not seen his grandfather since 2019, was involved in this family project.

(OK, there is every possibility that what also factored into this calculus was that Harry being excluded would have only been taken by critics as further proof of the royal family’s dismal treatment of the Sussexes. The brouhaha over his exclusion would also have likely overshadowed what was a truly touching insight into a little-understood man. You can watch it here on YouTube if you fancy.)

The Queen has a soft spot for Prince Harry. Picture: SANG TAN / POOL / AFP.

Still, time and again the Queen has made a point of reaffirming her affection for her grandson. In the wake of last January’s Sandringham Summit, she put out a rare personal statement saying “Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family,” while in February this year, in a statement confirming that the couple were being forced to relinquish their remaining official roles said “The Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family.”

The lengths to which the monarch has gone to include Harry when it comes to Christmas were revealed last year when the Daily Mail’s royal editor Rebecca English reported that in the lead up to Christmas in 2019, the monarch had ultimately been forced to call him to find out if he and his family would joining the rest of them at Sandringham. As English writes,

“It is important to stress from the start … that the monarch doesn’t just call anyone, not even her own family. They call her.”

Ultimately, in a move which should have, in hindsight, been foretelling, the Sussexes celebrated that year in the borrowed $20 million mansion they were staying in on Vancouver Island. (Only two weeks after Christmas they would shock the palace and the world by abruptly announcing they had had enough of the full-time working royal caper and planned to “carve out a progressive new role.” The sticking point here was, they hadn’t, reportedly, actually worked out what this new role would look like with Buckingham Palace, ultimately, leading to them quitting wholesale.)

But if they do make the trip, it won’t be all mistletoe, roast goose and Princess Anne trying to dragoon people into playing Scattergories. As the Queen’s great-great-grandfather Prince Albert put it in a letter to his wife Queen Victoria (part of a tranche of which were only made public this week), “It is not possible to be on happy, friendly terms with people you have just been scolding, for it upsets scolder and scolded alike.”

And if there is one thing that Harry and Meghan have been up to this year it is scolding the royal house. There are still a lot of bridges to be mended and wounds to be healed. If this does come to pass, a surfeit of crystals, plenty of sage, a shaman and a full-brace of blue beret-wearing UN peacekeepers would not go astray.

Still, getting Harry and Meghan in the same room as his family would be a good start. And if things get really rocky? Just bring out the schnapps.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.