The Queen snubbing Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on their upcoming trip to the UK would be “abjectly humiliating” for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a royal expert has said.
Meghan and Harry are set to return to the UK in early September for charity events, a spokesperson for the pair confirmed on Monday.
The couple will travel to Manchester for the One Young World Summit on September 5, before heading to Germany for the Invictus Games Dusseldorf 2023 One Year to Go event, and then returning to the UK for the WellChild Awards on September 8.
The visit will be the first time they have been back in the country since the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in early June, to mark the Queen’s 70 years of reign.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry
Yui Mok
The Queen
Kirsty O'Connor
It remains to be seen whether Meghan and Harry will see the Queen during the trip.
But royal expert Daniela Elser believes it will be a “stinging PR blow” if the Sussexes were snubbed by Her Majesty.
Ms Elser said: “If the situation comes to pass that both the Queen and the Netflix Dabblers find themselves only minutes drive away from one another and the nonagenarian does not make any effort to see them, then it will be nothing short of abjectly humiliating for the duo.
“If the Duke and Duchess do fly 8500km around the globe only to be cold-shouldered by Her Majesty, it would be a stinging PR blow; a blow that is unlikely to impress their Netflix paymasters.
“After all, disaffected, self-exiled former HRHs who the amiable, widely-loved Queen won’t see make for a much harder sell to audiences,” she told news.com.au.
She added: “Really what this upcoming week in September boils down to is it will be a litmus test of how things stand between the former Army captain and his grandmother.
“Will we be looking at hands-across-the-aisle, peacemaking Queen offering finger sandwiches and unerring familial love or will Her Majesty instead bluntly reject the lippy Sussexes?
“The elephant in the room in all this mess is Harry’s memoir, which may come out only weeks after their British trip, with October previously having been mooted as a possible release date.
“Will any of Harry’s family be even remotely willing to spend time with him if they are about to face several hundred pages of score-settling”