Yes, Prince Harry did take the first official step to leave the Royal family behind — even though King Charles and Prince William continued to prove he made the right decision — it was his father who made sure to hurt his youngest so badly that he won’t ever let the mere thought of returning make home in his mind. And guess what? The King, for better or worse, won.
Though Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals in 2020, it wasn’t until 2023 that every tangible connection they had to England was cut down.
After their departure from the palace, whenever the couple arrived in the U.K., they would stay in their house, the Frogmore Cottage, gifted to them by the late Queen as a wedding gift. But even though the Sussexs wanted to continue leasing it and even proposed to pay for it, Charles, either lost in his power as the king or furious at his son for outing the secrets of the royals in his book (or both), demanded that he vacated the house he worked so hard to make his home.
Apart from providing Harry and Meghan the security that they were stripped of elsewhere in the United Kingdom — since they were not working royals and Frogmore Cottage enjoyed the same security because of its presence on royal grounds — the house was where Prince Archie grew up and where Princess Lilibet celebrated her first birthday.
While Charles never personally addressed the issue, the reports and rumors were all there. How Harry and Meghan received an eviction notice, how they merely got weeks to pack their belongings, and how their requests to rethink the decision were shut down. As per royal author and expert Phil Dampier’s chat with The Sun, his father’s actions hurt Harry “deeply,” to the point that he decided to accept that America is his home now.
“As always with Harry a lot can be read into his actions. Being ousted from Frogmore Cottage wounded him deeply. Charles and William knew it had to be done to emphasize Harry and Meghan were outside The Firm but he probably still thought he could keep a base here. Now he’s shown he accepts his life is in the US.”
So, when Harry’s sustainable travel organization, Travalyst, filed company returns, the Duke of Sussex declared the U.S. as his “new country/state usually resident,” in place of what the document previously detailed — that he was a resident of Blighty.
While royal experts and insiders keep theorizing and stressing about Harry’s so-called desperation to return to the U.K., his actions say otherwise. There is also the fact that so far, Charles has shown no signs of wanting any sort of reconciliation — even his 40th birthday wish for Harry was a calculated move — but the king can’t avoid acknowledging the truth that he is running out of time to keep his son in his life. It took Harry three years to accept that the U.K. is no longer his home, how much longer does Charles think the Duke needs to completely give up on the Royal family?