Prince Harry and Meghan's Eviction Looks 'Petty' as Home Lies Empty

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle being evicted from their United Kingdom home only for it to stay empty with no rental income feels "petty," a royal expert told Newsweek.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were told to leave Frogmore Cottage just days after Harry's book Spare spilled royal secrets and framed Queen Camilla as a schemer with her eyes on the throne.

They were gone by summer, and King Charles III has since been trying to force Prince Andrew to move in, freeing up his 30-room mansion, Royal Lodge, which comes with expensive security requirements because it is outside the police perimeter protecting Windsor Castle.

However, the Duke of York refused, so the cottage that served as a safe haven in the U.K. for Harry and Meghan has been lying empty ever since.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson this week confirmed the cottage remains vacant and did not seem hopeful about Andrew backing down: "I think at this point I wouldn't speculate on who would be the future occupant of Frogmore Cottage."

Afua Hagan, a prominent British royal commentator, told Newsweek that leaving Frogmore vacant had robbed the government of the rental income Harry and Meghan had been paying.

"What was the point of fighting so hard to get Harry and Meghan out of Frogmore Cottage, when they were quite willing to pay the rent and have it as their U.K. house, and now it stays empty?" she said. "It just feels a bit silly and, for want of a better word, petty because Prince Andrew's not living there. Harry and Meghan now don't have a U.K. base when they come. What was the point?"

Frogmore is owned by The Crown Estate, a public asset whose profits are paid to the U.K. government. Each year, a percentage of those profits is given back to the monarchy as public funding.

That means any rent Harry and Meghan paid to The Crown Estate for their lease would have funded public service and the monarchy itself.

The cottage served as more than just a home for the Sussexes because, unlike Prince Andrew's current residence, it was within the police cordon around Windsor Castle. That meant they had de facto police protection while staying there even after their Metropolitan Police bodyguards were withdrawn.

The Home Office pulled the round-the-clock armed police detail that had protected the family after their decision to quit in 2020, and Harry has been fighting to have them reinstated ever since.

Two lawsuits Harry filed against the British government failed, meaning his main hope now rests with the U.K. Court of Appeal.

Prince Andrew was forced to retire from public life in November 2019 after a car crash interview with the BBC about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

He was later stripped of his honorary titles and patronages in 2022 as he prepared to fight a civil lawsuit against Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of raping her when she was 17 years old. He denied the allegations but settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Prince Harry, Meghan and Frogmore Cottage

The couple was given the lease for Grade II-listed Frogmore Cottage, located in the parkland around Windsor Castle, after their marriage in 2018.

The cottage, a gift from Queen Elizabeth II, required extensive renovations to transform it from staff quarters into a family home for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and, by May 2019, their newborn son, Archie.

"The house spoke to us both. Charming, full of potential," Harry wrote in Spare. "I rang Granny and said Frogmore Cottage would be a dream come true.

"I thanked her profusely. With her permission we began sitting down with builders, planning the minimum renovations, to make the place habitable—piping, heating, water."

Frogmore Cottage offered the family privacy, but the move was not without controversy after stories in the British media about the cost of renovations, initially at taxpayers' expense. The couple later reimbursed the public funds.

The house largely went unused when they moved to the United States in 2020, and the COVID pandemic made returning to Britain complicated.

They did stay there on visits to the U.K., however, including for the Platinum Jubilee in June 2022.

King Charles told Harry and Meghan they would be evicted from Frogmore shortly after Harry's memoir came out in January 2023, and by March, the couple confirmed the news publicly.

A statement at the time read: "We can confirm The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been requested to vacate their residence at Frogmore Cottage."

The move was seen as a sign that Spare went down poorly with the king, though it was only later that the plan to move Andrew into the cottage eventually emerged.

In June 2023, a palace spokesperson briefing journalists on that year's Sovereign Grant report said: "The Duke and Duchess have paid for the expenditure incurred by the Sovereign Grant in relation to the renovation of Frogmore Cottage, thus leaving the Crown with a greatly enhanced asset."

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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