Prince Harry was allegedly left “infuriated” after his father, King Charles, refused to pay for his then-future wife, Meghan Markle, according to a royal book. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex married in 2018, but they began their courtship sometime in 2016.
Harry and Meghan got engaged in November 2017, and according to Robert Jobson’s book, Our King: Charles III — The Man and the Monarch Revealed, it was shortly before that time that tension first appeared between father and son.
The duke allegedly had a meeting with his father and his older brother, Prince William, was present. Mr Jobson’s book, first serialised by the Mail, claimed that after Harry informed them of his plan to marry the former Suits actress, William asked him: “Are you sure, Harold?” to which Harry said he was.
But it was his father’s response that reportedly left him “furious”.
The author claimed that the monarch told his younger son that he “couldn’t afford to pay” for Meghan in the future, on top of paying for Queen Camilla, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their young family.
Mr Jobson’s book claimed: “This infuriated Harry.”
It was one of the many factors which contributed to the Royal Family ongoing feud, which eventually resulted in Harry and Meghan stepping down as senior royals, two years after their marriage, in 2020 and moving to the US.
Since then, the couple have settled in Montecito, California, where they are raising their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Around the same time as their move to the US, the Firm cut off financial support something which Harry talked about in his memoir, Spare.
Harry wrote: “I recognised the absurdity, a man in his mid-thirties being financially cut off by his father.
“But Pa wasn’t merely my father, he was my boss, my banker, my comptroller, keeper of the purse strings throughout my adult life. Cutting me off, therefore, meant firing me, without redundancy pay, and casting me into the void.”
He added: “I felt fatted for the slaughter. Suckled like a veal calf. I’d never asked to be financially dependent on Pa […] There’s a big difference between being a sponge and being prohibited from learning independence.”
