Victoria Ward
The Duchess of Sussex and her two children will come to Britain this week, the London Telegraph understands.
She will not take part in any public engagements and will no longer attend an Invictus Games event with Prince Harry in Birmingham on Friday as originally planned.
The duchess did not fly to London with her husband earlier this week because of security concerns after police denied them publicly funded protection during their UK visit.
It raises the prospect of a meeting with the King, which is expected to take place in private if it goes ahead.
The duke and duchess will be reunited for the first time since the duke lost a £50 million ($96.6 million) privacy claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail in the High Court.
The King refused a last-minute request from the duke to stay at Buckingham Palace earlier this week after his son’s plans for his UK visit were beset by indecision and delays.
There was also a desire to create distance between the duke’s litigation and the palace.
Harry has made no secret of his desire to reunite his children, who have not set foot in Britain since Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, with their grandfather.
The duke announced last month that he planned to bring his wife and children to Britain, but the plans were thrown into disarray when police protection was denied.
After days of indecision, he decided that the duchess and the children – who have been on holiday in Europe – should not travel to London over safety concerns.
Their private travel plans remained a subject of discussion as the duke sought to rearrange their schedule.
Princess Lilibet, who was born in California, met the King for the first time as she celebrated her first birthday during the 2022 Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Before his current visit, the duke was last in Britain in January, when he gave evidence at the High Court in his legal battle with the publisher of the Daily Mail.
Meghan’s last extended visit to Britain was in September 2022 for the late Queen’s funeral. She has landed at Heathrow for brief flight stopovers several times since then.
The King invited the Sussexes to stay at Buckingham Palace during their latest trip and gave a deadline for an answer of July 3.
The duke missed the deadline, and his team formally rejected it on Saturday, but he then changed his mind.
On Monday, it was announced that he would be staying at the palace.
However, palace sources said that this was not the case and that his acceptance had come too late, amid wider fears that the outcome of the duke’s privacy claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail could “compromise” the King.
The duke has instead been staying in private accommodation.
The Telegraph, London
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