Harry and Meghan are evicted, in moves Andrew - it’s royal Monopoly
As the Sussexes are ‘callously’ ejected from their former marital home, with no offer of another, we now learn where the Duke of York is headed. While it’s a big downsize, there’ll be many a scented candle.
And so the rolling news nightmare that is the Duke of York keeps on trucking. Last week we learnt that the King wants to boot him out of his home, Royal Lodge in Windsor, and now we know where he wants him to go. The short answer is “away”, but the longer one is Frogmore Cottage. According to The Sun, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are being evicted from Frogmore, their former marital home, and hats off to whoever came up with the headline Frogxit. Prince Andrew is said to be “resisting” the move and, if rumours are to be believed, which they are not because I’ve just invented them, he turned puce, threw his teddy across the room, changed the locks and told Charles: “If you think I’m swapping somewhere with royal in the name for a Froggy little cottage you’ve got another think coming.”
By strange coincidence, Buckingham Palace issued the eviction notice on Harry and Meghan years before the lease was due to expire, but days after the publication of Harry’s memoir, Spare. In it, if you are fortunate enough not to know, he detailed his loathing for anyone he’s related to and everyone he’s ever met except Meghan. And not only are they being ejected from the home where they once spent as many as ten happy minutes at a time, they haven’t been offered another in the UK. Into the fray wades Omid Scobie, the Sussexes’ favoured mouthpiece, quoting sources “close” to the couple. They are stunned, we learn, and in shock. “It feels like cruel and unusual punishment,” he says, and “at least” two members of the royal family are appalled at the Sussexes’ “callous” treatment. “It’s like the family want to cut them out of the picture for good,” says the source.
But for Andrew there might be reason to rejoice. Frogmore might be better than it sounds. It’s a cottage in name only, in the same way that Chatsworth is, technically, just a house. It has five bedrooms. H&M memorably spent $4.26 million doing it up, and you get a lot of doing up for $4.26 million. There is vegan paint a gogo and maybe even a yoga studio with a sprung floor - curb your imagination, Andrew, please - or maybe not. They denied it.
Recollections may vary. Do you care? There’s a smart, spotless farmhouse kitchen of the sort never seen in an actual farmhouse and painted in the Soho Farmhouse livery of dun, taupe and greige. For the famously litigious H&M, Dun, Taupe and Greige sounds comfortingly like a high-end law firm, whereas for Andrew that might be triggering. However, rumours that the couple installed a gigantic copper bathtub were apparently wide of the mark, which is a shame and no doubt a bitter disappointment for Andrew, who loves a bath. If he’s lucky, there might be a few half-burnt Diptyque candles left about the place by the previous tenants in their haste to leave their intolerable lives.
And now the remains of their belongings at Frogmore are being packed up and shipped out to California. Harry is said to be particularly keen to be reunited with an “ornate Ottoman bench and a chaise longue”, providing an interesting insight into how he now spends his days. Meghan may already be reunited with the diary she says she wrote while she was in the UK, a threat not so much veiled as “punch ‘em in the face until they beg for mercy”. Veiled isn’t really her thing, unless she’s the bride.
As for Andrew, he’s facing the challenge of having to downsize one ex-wife, and a lifetime’s collection of teddy bears, from a 30-room house to a five-bedroom cottage. Princess Eugenie and her husband lived there briefly, so she’ll at least be able to give her father the guided tour.
“This surely spells the end of Harry and Meghan’s time in the UK,” an “insider” told The Sun, and please God that is true. In his first speech as monarch the King made a point of expressing his love for his son and daughter-in-law “as they build their new life overseas”. At the time it was seen as a touching way of making a touchy couple feel included. With hindsight, perhaps it was an order. If he was hoping for a reconciliation before his coronation, an eviction order is a funny way of showing it. And Harry and Meghan, remember that if you want a home base in the UK, you don’t have to wait to be given one by Buckingham Palace. You could buy one. Radical, right? Who knew?
The Times
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