Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are reportedly 'spitting with fury' over plans to subdivide Frogmore Cottage, with their supporters now making fresh claims about the late Queen Elizabeth II and the circumstances surrounding their eviction from the Windsor property.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were gifted the Grade II-listed home by the late Queen following their 2018 wedding and spent millions renovating it before stepping back from royal duties and relocating to California just 10 months later. Although the couple later repaid the taxpayer-funded renovation costs in full, they were asked to vacate the property in 2023 following the release of Prince Harry's bombshell memoir Spare.
Now, amid reports the long-vacant cottage could be converted back into staff accommodation, royal journalist Tom Sykes says the Sussex camp believes Queen Elizabeth would never have allowed them to lose the home in the first place.
'The Sussexes are spitting with fury over the fate of Frogmore Cottage,' Sykes said on The Royalist podcast. 'What the Sussexes' side is telling me now is that King Charles waited until after the Queen had died to kick Harry out. And they say that the Queen would have blocked it because it was her wedding gift to them.'
According to Sykes, the claim is plausible because the late monarch was famously reluctant to engage in family conflict. 'Now, it may surprise you to hear that I actually think that Harry and Meghan are right about this, because if there was one thing that the Queen hated, it was confrontation,' he said.
Sykes argued the Queen often struggled to challenge family members directly and suggested she would have found it difficult to remove Harry and Meghan from a home she had personally gifted them. 'And that was arguably one of her greatest weaknesses - look, her inability to stand up to family members who played the family card to get what they wanted is well known - we saw it with Prince Andrew for decades. The Queen was very susceptible to that kind of emotional leverage, and I actually think that the Sussexes are absolutely right in saying that she would never have allowed them to be kicked out of Frogmore because she just wouldn't have had the stomach for that particular fight, I don't think.'
However, Sykes said Harry was 'incredibly naive' if he believed the Royal Family would continue to provide him with a prime Windsor residence while he and Meghan publicly criticised the institution. 'Had they (the Sussexes) left and not then spent the next five years chucking rocks at the institution, trying to smash, burn everything down, burn every bridge - I think they would probably have been allowed to keep Frogmore Cottage. I think if they had just left and been respectful - as they promised the Queen that they would at the Sandringham Summit - I think they may well still be there. I think they were incredibly foolish to expect to keep a privileged residential location on the Windsor estate while waging a very public war against the institution.'
Even so, Sykes questioned why Frogmore Cottage has remained vacant for so long. He described it as a 'disgrace' that the property has sat empty for the past three years, arguing no value has been generated from the taxpayer-funded asset.
The dispute remains particularly sensitive because the Sussexes have long maintained that losing Frogmore made it significantly harder for the 77-year-old monarch, who is battling cancer, to build a relationship with Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five. 'Here's where it gets really messy and really nasty,' Sykes said. 'The Sussexes have always said that by Charles kicking them out of the house made it impossible for them to come back and made it impossible for his grandchildren to get to know him. This claim is very resented by the Palace, which saw it as a form of emotional blackmail.'
Sykes said the timing of the eviction has now become a key point of contention. 'Well, if the decision (to evict the Sussexes) was made after the Queen's death... Then that means it was still made after the Oprah interview - the one in which Meghan and Harry said the royals had asked prejudiced, bigoted questions about their unborn children's potential skin colour.'
