Palace Set to Strip Frogmore Cottage of Sussex Traces as New Book Questions Whether Meghan Was Ever Given a Fair Chance

Buckingham Palace is understood to be planning a comprehensive overhaul of Frogmore Cottage, the Windsor home previously occupied by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, with the intention of reverting the property to its condition before Harry and Meghan's renovations. According to sources cited in recent reports, the works are intended to remove all personal and decorative changes the couple made during their time there — a move that will be difficult to read as anything other than a definitive statement about their standing within the institution.

The news arrives at a particularly sensitive moment. Prince Harry is expected to travel to the UK in July, and there had been cautious optimism in some quarters that the visit might contribute to a gradual improvement in relations with King Charles. The two are reported to have met last September in what was described as a tentative step towards some form of reconciliation. The Frogmore development, coming just weeks before Harry's planned return, does little to suggest the ground is being prepared for warmth.

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Life in Montecito — and What Has Been Left Behind

Harry and Meghan have been based in Montecito, California, since their departure from royal duties in 2020. They live with their two children — Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five — in a substantial property reported to have been purchased for $29 million. Their lives are largely conducted at a considerable remove from the British royal family, and the prospect of any meaningful return to that world has appeared increasingly remote with each passing year.

Frogmore Cottage was granted to the couple by the late Queen Elizabeth II and underwent significant renovation work funded by the Sovereign Grant before Harry and Meghan took up residence. The couple were subsequently asked to vacate the property following Harry's memoir and the couple's Netflix documentary, with Prince Andrew's family reported to have been considered as potential future occupants. The planned restoration to a pre-Sussex state signals a further, more visible severing of that particular chapter.

A New Book Asks Whether the System Was Ever Fair

As the Palace moves to reduce the Sussexes' visible footprint, a forthcoming publication is raising broader questions about the environment Meghan entered. In Divide and Rule: Royal Women and Their Battles, author Catherine Mayer examines what she characterises as a structural tendency within the monarchy to set women against one another. Her argument centres on the dynamic between the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Sussex, which she describes as an engineered opposition rather than a natural one — with Kate positioned as irreproachable and Meghan as flawed, in a framing she argues was damaging to both.

Mayer traces this pattern through royal history, drawing on examples ranging from Henry VIII's wives to the relationship between Diana and Camilla, and citing Princess Margaret's observation about her own position relative to Queen Elizabeth II. The book, due for publication on 17 June, presents the so-called Fab Four period of 2017 to mid-2018 — when William, Harry, Kate and Meghan were briefly celebrated as a unified royal quartet — as short-lived by design rather than by accident. Meghan made a similar point herself during her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, suggesting the media had required a clear hero and villain from the outset.

The Yorks and a Monarchy Still Finding Its Shape

Harry and Meghan are not the only figures whose position within the royal family remains unsettled. Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have occupied an ambiguous place under King Charles's reign, with a National Audit Office report last week revealing that the Crown has been subsidising rent for both princesses at royal residences — Beatrice at St James's Palace and Eugenie at Kensington Palace. The King's approach to his nieces has shifted between inclusion and distance: they were present at Sandringham for Christmas last year, their first appearance there since their father Prince Andrew lost his royal titles, yet they were absent from Ascot in May.

Both did attend the weekend wedding of Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling in the Cotswolds, alongside the Prince and Princess of Wales and King Charles and Queen Camilla. The occasion brought together a cross-section of the royal family at a moment when questions of belonging, estrangement and institutional memory are more present than usual. What Harry's July visit produces — if anything — remains to be seen. The gutting of Frogmore, however, suggests the Palace's intentions are already reasonably clear.