Harry ‘told not to bring Meghan to see Queen’

Prince Harry was not summoned to Balmoral and his father King Charles asked him not to bring his wife Meghan to see the Queen before she died, according to reports.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, boards a flight at Aberdeen Airport on September 9.

King Charles asked Prince Harry not to bring his wife Meghan Markle to see the Queen before she died, according to British news reports.

Harry travelled separately to Balmoral, the Queen’s residence in the Scottish Highlands, on Thursday evening, arriving 90 minutes after his grandmother’s death was officially announced.

King Charles and Princess Anne were reportedly the only two family members to arrive in time to be by the Queen’s bedside before she died.

Harry was then the first to leave Balmoral Castle after the Queen’s passing, departing on Friday morning. He is understood to have returned to his British residence, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, to be reunited with Meghan.

The couple, who left royal life in 2020, have been in the UK to attend the WellChild Awards and engagements for the Invictus Games.

As the Queen’s health deteriorated on Thursday, The Sun reports King Charles phoned his youngest son to say “it wasn’t right” for Meghan to come to Balmoral, with just a close circle to be in attendance.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph also reports that Harry was not summoned to Balmoral with his brother William or the rest of the royal inner-circle, but was instead “forced to charter a Cessna 560XL from Luton in the absence of any appropriate scheduled flights” to Scotland, soon after Palace officials announced the Queen was under medical supervision.

Meghan was first reported to be joining Harry, but the couple’s spokesman clarified she would remain in London.

William’s wife Kate, now the Princess of Wales, also remained behind in Windsor with their three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.

Both Harry and Meghan, are expected to stay in the UK to attend the Queen’s state funeral.

In his first official address to the Commonwealth, King Charles offered an olive branch to the couple, who have hit the headlines for their regular criticism of the royal family since their so-called Megxit to America. In pledging his service and announcing eldest son and heir William would succeed him as Prince of Wales, the new monarch on Saturday said: “I want also to express my love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas.”

The death of the Queen means Harry and Meghan’s son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor is now entitled to the title of prince and youngest daughter Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor, princess.

But Palace officials have said King Charles intends to rebuild the monarch around his immediate direct heirs and their spouses to reduce the cost of maintaining the royal family and keep the public at large behind the institution.

That means he may choose to issue new protocols, known as Letters Patent, limiting the number of people in the core royal family.

Last year, Meghan said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that she was surprised at being told that Archie wouldn’t be entitled to police protection because he didn’t have a royal title.

She suggested it might have been because of his mixed race, though he wasn’t automatically entitled to the designation of prince at the time.

Tensions between the US-based branch of the family and those in the direct line of succession have continued.

During the Jubilee celebrations in June, Harry and his immediate family weren’t invited for the key balcony photo opportunity at Buckingham Palace with the Queen and didn’t perform any major ceremonial duties during the four-day jubilee event, though they did attend the major church service at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Additional reporting by The Wall Street Journal.