Real reason Kate didn't go to Balmoral while Harry fumed as Queen lay dying

12 January 2024 , 18:45

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Meghan Markle did not attend Balmoral at the time of the Queen's death, nor did Kate Middleton (Image: Getty Images)

The reason why Kate didn't go to Balmoral with her husband Prince William when the late Queen Elizabeth died has finally been revealed.

At the time in 2022, it was widely reported how Meghan Markle was asked to stay behind when Prince Harry headed to Scotland to see his grandmother and was under the impression Kate was left behind for the same reason.

Royal biographer Robert Hardman has revealed the decision was not King Charles' but that of Kate's. The Princess of Wales deemed it necessary to stay behind and prepare her three children for their new school start rather than travel up to Scotland to be with the late Queen.

Prince William had raced up to Scotland to see his grandmother in her final moments, though the Princess of Wales stayed behind and watched over the kids. An insider at the time has since claimed it was "luck" which made the judgement from King Charles on his decision to bar Meghan from the death bed more palatable for the Duke of Sussex.

The Princess of Wales had chosen to stay behind to prepare her children for the new term at school (Getty Images)

The stunning revelation comes in a new biography called "Charles III: New King, New Court. The Inside Story", by the Daily Mail's esteemed royal expert, Robert Hardman. The paper will be serialising the book over the coming days.

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The unnamed insider, reported by the Daily Mail, alleged: "It was by luck rather than judgement, but it made it a lot easier to tell Harry that he was coming alone." Harry had been in the UK with Meghan at the time, and alleged in his biography he texted Prince William about travel arrangements, to which his brother did not reply.

Mr Hardman wrote: "'Clearly, Prince William did not regard this as the appropriate moment for the intensely difficult conversation he needed to have with his brother." Kensington Palace has since said the Duke of Sussex's team had "all the numbers" to make for travel arrangements, with Charles calling his youngest son to tell him to travel without Meghan.

"We can easily image the dread with which the [then] Prince of Wales approached that call. The Sussexes' capacity for taking offence was well known and everyone was conscious that any conversation could end up in the public domain - as, indeed, this one did three months later," Hardman wrote.

Harry is believed to have fumed at the decision, writing in Spare: "I wasn't having it. Don't ever speak about my wife that way."

But Charles placated the Duke of Sussex at the time, telling his youngest son Kate would not be attending, with the Prince mollified and confirming it was "all you needed to say" to get him up to Scotland without Meghan in attendance. Hardman revealed: "She had certainly not been asked to stay away. Rather, it was the start of a new term at a new school for George, Charlotte and Louis, and she had decided that one parent should be with them on such an important day."

Ewan Gleadow