The Sussexes' Frogmore Cottage eviction has prompted much speculation. Photo / Netflix
OPINION:
Poor old Frogmore Cottage. It’s had a rough trot. It was built in 1792 by Queen Charlotte, so she could get away from her “mad” husband George III. (I suppose losing America took its toll.)
Then, towards the end of the 19th century, it became the go-to spot to tidy away people on the periphery of the royal orbit who needed homes, like relatives of the last Tsar who had escaped Russia before the Bolsheviks got them, and of course Abdul Karim, Queen Victoria’s adored Indian attendant.
Now the poor building is about to face its most unfortunate chapter yet – as a home for Prince Andrew and his vast collections of golf clubs, Bahraini trade delegation tote bags and all those military uniforms that will never see the light of day again.
This week, King Charles managed to shock the pants off much of the world with the revelation he had started proceedings to evict Frogmore’s current residents, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, only a scant 24 hours after his son’s devastating memoir Spare hit shelves in January.
Meanwhile, Prince non grata Andrew has been offered the cottage given that an imminent cut to his allowance from the sovereign will mean he can no longer afford the upkeep on his vast current residence, Royal Lodge.
Revenge, it would seem, is a dish best served via the Keeper of the Privy Purse.
However, the pro-Sussex side’s attempt at fighting back in the days since news of Charles’ hard line broke has hit quite the snag, thanks to… Harry and Meghan. Now, their Netflix documentary looks suspiciously like it might be about to bite them in their yoga-toned derrières.
Here’s what’s happened.
First The Sun revealed that “Frogxit” was underway (appropriate tittering here please), before, about a day later, a spokesperson for the Sussexes confirmed the report, saying the duo had been “requested to vacate” the property.
Then up popped Omid Scobie, the author of the hagiographic Finding Freedom and the Sussexes’ number one public cheerleader, who revealed that the move had “stunned” the Sussexes.
Scobie quoted a source saying of the blow: “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.”
It’s a heart-string-pulling image, a young family forced to hastily pack up their lives, shoving teething rings, Jubilee medals and all those Le Labo scented candles into boxes.
Except the Duke and Duchess themselves have only just finished presenting the world with a different view.
It is only three months since the couple’s Netflix share-a-thon Harry & Meghan landed on the streamer, hour after teeth-pulling hour of them eking out as much content as was humanly possible from a family bust-up. (We’re not exactly talking about the Borgias or the Medicis here.)
One of the most shocking parts of the series was the fact it looked like they had invited a professional photographer inside the royal inner sanctum, including inside Buckingham Palace (reportedly without the late Queen’s permission) and Frogmore Cottage.
In one episode, we see shots of the black and white images of a couple inside their Windsor home surrounded by boxes and in the midst of, would you believe it, packing.
We see Meghan and Harry staring at piles of books on the floor, the Duchess standing in front of what would appear to be the Instrument of Consent (the official document from the late Queen approving their marriage) and with various bubble-wrapped items behind them, and in another looking despondent with what appear to be moving boxes around them.
Then there was The Cut’s controversial Meghan cover story from August last year. Journalist Allison P. Davis writes that when the Sussexes returned to the UK in late May last year for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the Duchess had “quietly seen to… personal matters, slipping back into their former residence, Frogmore Cottage, to pack up their belongings.”
Does this tally with the notion that their drawers are still “full” and their closets “packed”?
(Scobie also quotes a friend having said that the duo “did so much to turn it back into a proper home, so many personal touches and so much of it on a tight budget.” That “tight budget”? About $4.3 million.)
The bigger question in all of this though is, did Harry and Meghan expect they could get away with their Netflix series and Spare without provoking any sort of reaction from Charles?
In the days since The Sun broke the story, there has been an ongoing debate going on in the UK: Does Frogxit translate to the King putting the monarchy ahead of his personal feelings and showing leadership? Or is this the act of a cruel father lashing out in retribution at the very couple who, only last year, he was busy telling the world he “loved” during a TV address?
Charles: Hero or hypocrite?
However, there is more to this mess of a situation because, well, there always is.
While the Duke and Duchess have been attempting to launch themselves professionally, putting her Spotify podcast, their Netflix show and his book back in the UK, the King has been on a cost-cutting spree since getting the top job.
Since acceding last September, the King has assiduously and regularly gone out of his way to demonstrate his awareness of the cost-of-living crisis that has the UK in its grip, a gimlet eye on the fact that a freshly-installed monarch swanning about the place would be a disastrous look.
His Majesty has reportedly gone further still, having meetings with Sir Michael Stevens, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, who is in charge of royal finances, and son Prince William about the royal family’s vast real estate holdings, according to the Daily Mail.
As a friend of the King’s told The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes: “Charles has made it quite clear he wants to reduce the size of the royal estate. It’s not a good look for a house to be sitting empty so it can accommodate Harry and Meghan once in a blue moon.”
(The Sussexes are not the only ones who face the King’s red pen, with the same source saying: “Andrew can’t continue living in a 30-room stately home at taxpayers’ expense. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the King is making changes.”)
And therein lies another piece of this all: it’s not as if Harry and Meghan have been making regular use of Frogmore is it? The Duke stayed there in 2021 when he was back in the UK for about four days for Prince Philip’s funeral and they stayed there for one night in April last year when the couple visited the Queen on their way to the Invictus Games. In September, they returned for five days of charity engagements, although that became about a two-week trip when the Queen died.
That adds up to no more than three weeks in the three years since Harry and Meghan officially left royal life, or Frogmore being Sussex-less for about 153 weeks. (Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksank also lived there for a spell.)
How much of a “real family home” does that sound like to you?
For now, Andrew is reportedly pushing back against his downgrading to Frogmore, which would seem a tad futile, and Harry and Meghan have not been offered an alternative royal property, which would seem a tad stingy. (The royal family would seem to have plenty of empty properties given that only recently it was revealed that Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have rented an apartment inside St James’s Palace.)
This story, though, is far from over.
Of that trip to pack up Frogmore last year, Meghan told Davis: “You go back and you open drawers and you’re like, Oh my gosh. This is what I was writing in my journal there? And here’s all my socks from this time?”
A journal you say? Full of details about one of the most convulsive periods in modern royal history? That sounds exactly like it would make for a bestseller, especially if a particular Duke and Duchess felt like they had run out of road in terms of a possible royal family rapprochement.
Telegraph: The good news is that most of these triggers can be managed.