As soon as the Duke of Sussex lost a legal challenge over his taxpayer-funded security in Britain back in May, he rushed to give a BBC interview in which he admitted to being ‘devastated’ and declared, emotionally: ‘I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point.’
Surely, then, I wasn’t the only one surprised to learn that his wife, Meghan, was in Paris last weekend?
The French capital was, of course, the place where Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, was killed in a car crash after she voluntarily gave up her official Metropolitan Police protection officers.
So you might have thought Paris would be the last place the Duke would want his wife to be, particularly as he was not with her.
Instead, she was accompanied to Paris Fashion Week by loyal friend Markus Anderson. He’s the ‘chief relationship officer’ at the Soho House global chain of private members’ clubs, whose relationship with the Duchess of Sussex is so close that he’s been described as her ‘second husband’.
Given Harry’s security concerns for his family – which were sufficiently deep that he was prepared to sue his father’s Government at great personal expense – questions have been asked about the real reason for the Duchess of Sussex’s first visit to Europe since she attended the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf more than two years ago.
Now, I can provide some answers.
Meghan’s French sojourn was part of the ‘Establishment plot’ – backed by some senior politicians and courtiers – that I have written about here in previous weeks. And I’ve even discovered its name.
It’s known as ‘Project Thaw’ because the aim is to ‘warm up’ the Duke’s and Duchess’s frosty relationships with the rest of the Royal Family and with the British people.
And what could be better than pictures of her being greeted with kisses by the European fashion pack as well as Vogue supremo Dame Anna Wintour?
‘This trip is all part of the “thaw” process,’ a friend of the California-based couple tells me.
Things had once been very different of course.
Just as Harry fell head over heels for Meghan, who played a seductive paralegal in cable television drama Suits, the British public embraced the American actress after she moved to London in 2017 and the couple announced their engagement.
On that sunny spring day day when they were married the following year, thousands of well-wishers flocked to Windsor to celebrate the royal wedding, with tens of thousands more glued to their TVs.
The Sussexes’ relations with the rest of Harry’s family soon started to cool, however – and the British public was not far behind.
After the couple quit royal duties and moved to North America in 2020, attitudes hardened further.
And when Harry and Meghan voiced their public criticism of the Royal Family to Oprah Winfrey, to viewers of their Netflix series and in Harry’s tawdry memoir, Spare, their relationship with Britain iced over completely.
‘Project Thaw’ aims to melt that hostility, building on the perceived success of the duke’s visit to Britain last month when he carried out charity engagements and, crucially, was invited to Clarence House for tea with King Charles.
It was the first face-to-face meeting between father and son in 19 months.
That was followed by a visit to Kyiv, where Harry just happened to arrive on the same train to the war-torn Ukrainian capital as the newly appointed Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper.
I understand that Ms Cooper is among the Establishment figures who admire the duke and want him to play a bigger part in public life.
While in Kyiv, Harry told anti-monarchy newspaper The Guardian that he hoped to return to Britain with Meghan and their children, Prince Archie, aged six, and Princess Lilibet, four.
‘This week has definitely brought that closer,’ he claimed.
I can disclose that the next planned move in the plot – or ‘process’ as their pals prefer to put it, suggesting a natural progression – is the couple’s first joint visit to Britain since they attended a charity engagement in September 2022, then stayed on for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
‘Meghan will return to Britain before the year is out,’ the friend tells me, adding jokingly that she will be ‘bearing humble pie’.
It remains to be seen whether ‘bearing humble pie’ – and eating it, presumably – is sufficient to placate the Royal Family or the British people.
I, for one, won’t be tasting a slice until she apologises to senior royals including the Prince and Princess of Wales for the profound hurt that she and her husband have caused.
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