Harry and Meghan won't be getting a warm welcome from the rest of the royal family at Charles' coronation, it's been rumoured. Photo / AP
Harry and Meghan won't be getting a warm welcome from the rest of the royal family at Charles' coronation, it's been rumoured. Photo / AP
The royal family intend to give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle the “cold shoulder” during the King’s coronation, sources say.
If the Sussexes do return to the UK to attend the celebrations, some of the royals have their fingers crossed the couple will be “seated in Iceland”, according to The Sun.
The pair have been invited to the May 6 ceremony, and while it’s not confirmed whether they will attend, they are expected to make an appearance.
Prince William and Prince Harry will reunite at their father's coronation. Photo / AP
However, palace officials planning the celebrations consider their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet too young to attend.
It’s expected that the Sussexes will spend some of the day with their children, as Archie turns 4 on May 6. It’s also rumoured that the couple won’t be invited to take part in the traditional Buckingham Palace balcony appearance, and that several of their family members don’t want to socialise with them on the day.
A friend of the family reportedly said, “They will be given the cold shoulder by very many relatives. One said to me, ‘I hope they’ll be seated in Iceland.’
“Many of the family just want nothing more to do with them. If they have to see them at the coronation, then so be it, but they do not want to socialise with them.”
The family relationship has been strained since Megxit, when the pair left Britain for California. Prince Harry even describes his brother Prince William as his “arch-nemesis” in his memoir Spare.
Harry also revealed in a recent chat with “trauma expert” Dr Gabor Maté that he had “learned a new language of therapy” but his family “didn’t speak that language”.
Harry and Meghan are reportedly planning to stay at Frogmore Cottage during their UK visit, after it was revealed by The Sun earlier this month that they had been evicted from their former home. They have been allowed time to retrieve their belongings and ship them to their home in the US.
It comes after the Sussexes also revealed that their children would use the titles of Prince and Princess after Lilibet’s baptism in Montecito.
Harry and Meghan's children are entitled to the rank of Prince and Princess. Photo / Twitter
People reports that around 25 of their friends and family members gathered to celebrate Lilibet’s christening, but that invited members of the royal family chose not to attend - including Charles, Camilla, William and Kate.
They were joined instead by Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland, Lilibet’s godfather Tyler Perry and several of their close friends.
Two guests from Princess Diana’s side of the family did appear, however - Harry’s aunts Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, according to Marie Claire.
As the grandchildren of a reigning monarch, Archie and Lilibet are entitled to the rank of Prince and Princess. Buckingham Palace has added their royal titles to its official website.
