Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have decided to return to the United Kingdom, but they won’t resume their roles as working members of the royal family, British news media reported late Wednesday.
The couple's children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, have already enrolled at British schools and will start classes in September, according to the Daily Telegraph, which broke the story. The family plans to live at a private, non-royal residence outside of London, the newspaper said.
Harry and Meghan gave up their royal duties and moved to California more than six years ago to earn their living through lucrative contracts with Netflix and Spotify.
Although relations with the rest of the royal family have soured since then, Harry has recently expressed an interest in reconciliation so he could spend more time with his father, King Charles III, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer.
Charles was informed of the couple's plans on Sunday and wasn’t told about them during Harry and Meghan’s visit to the UK last month.
Buckingham Palace has a policy of not commenting on speculation about non-working members of the royal family. A representative for Harry and Meghan declined to comment.
Harry and Meghan have had a stormy relationship with the royal family ever since they decamped to a mansion in the exclusive Southern California enclave of Montecito.
In a series of interviews and Harry's memoir Spare, the couple said they left Britain to escape the restrictions of royal life and criticised palace officials for being insensitive to Meghan's mental health while alleging that at least one member of the royal family had expressed racist views when she was pregnant with their first child. Meghan describes herself as biracial.
Those tensions were exacerbated by Harry's long-running legal battle with Britain's tabloid newspapers, which he alleges illegally hacked his phones and invaded his privacy when he was younger.
The prince has lost a series of lawsuits against the media, including one against the publisher of the Daily Mail, which concluded last month.
The latest trial has left Harry facing a potential bill for millions of pounds after the court ruled he and other plaintiffs in the case were liable for the publisher's legal fees. Associated Newspapers has filed documents showing that its legal costs amounted to £34.5mil (US$47mil).
Harry has also been embroiled in a legal wrangle with the British government after a government committee refused to authorise police protection for the prince and his family when they are in the UK.
The prince says he and his family need armed police protection because they are at risk simply because they are members of the royal family, regardless of whether or not they are working royals.
After losing a court battle over the security issue last year, Harry said he hoped to rebuild relations with his family.
"I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. "I don’t know how much longer my father has.”
A tentative step toward that reconciliation came last month when Harry returned to the UK for a series of charity engagements. Meghan and the children joined Harry for part of the visit and they spent time with the king at his Highgrove estate in western England.
It was the first time Archie and Lilibet had seen their grandfather since the late Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee in 2022.
While Harry has recently met with his father, there are no signs of a warming of relations with his brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne.
Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said the surprise announcement would make William "apoplectic.”
"In the short term, Harry will be able to deepen his rapprochement with his father," Hunt told Britain's Press Association. "And his presence back home will make it harder for his brother to duck a reconciliation." – AP
