- Oliver Slough
- BBC News
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been asked to vacate their Frogmore Cottage in Britain, a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan has confirmed.
It was previously reported that the house, located in the grounds of Windsor Castle, had been offered to the Duke of York.
A spokesman for Prince Harry, his wife and Megan confirmed the news, while Buckingham Palace did not make any comment.
Harry and Meghan now live in California with their two children, Archie and Lilibet.
They left life as members of the royal family in 2020 and left the UK shortly thereafter.
The 10-bedroom Frogmore Cottage, in Berkshire, was a gift to the royal couple from the late Queen.
Harry and Meghan renovated the property, which is owned by the Crown Estate, at an estimated cost of £2.4m between 2018-2019. The cost was initially covered by the taxpayers through the Sovereign Grant before being paid in full by the Duke.
According to reports, Buckingham Palace asked them to leave the property in January, days after Harry published a controversial book of his memoirs.
The book, which was released in January and became the fastest-selling non-fiction book in the UK since the bookselling movement began in 1998, included allegations that Prince Harry was physically attacked by his brother William, Prince of Wales.
He also wrote that he and his brother begged their father not to marry Camilla, who was now queen consort.
Prince Andrew, the late Queen’s second son, lives at the nearby 31-bedroom Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire.
Prince Andrew stepped down from his royal duties in 2019 after a controversial interview with Newstight about allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman named Virginia Giuffre. He repeatedly denied these allegations.
image copyright Reuters
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex now live in the US with their two children
In February 2022, he paid an undisclosed amount to settle Giuffre’s civil sexual assault case in the United States.
Reports published in recent weeks, not confirmed by the BBC, suggested that the king would cut Andrew’s annual grant, which could make him unable to afford the costs of running his household.
Frogmore Cottage has a rich and varied history. It was built by Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III, in 1792 as a place for her and her daughters to escape from the royal court.
It was fashionable at the time for the wealthy to build large homes disguised as idyllic country cottages.
The surviving relatives of Tsar Nicholas II also lived there after fleeing to the United Kingdom, after other family members were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
It is believed that members of the royal family have used the cottage as a home since World War Two, before Prince Harry and Meghan moved in.
