Prince Harry will reportedly take Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to see Princess Diana’s grave for the first time during a visit to the UK in July. According to The Sun, the visit to Althorp House in Northamptonshire will occur days after what would have been Diana’s 65th birthday.
UK Visit Details
The Sussexes are expected to travel from their home in California to the UK next month to attend celebrations marking the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games in Birmingham. The Duke of Sussex is also due to attend events with two charities he supports, WellChild and Scotty’s Little Soldiers.
This will be the first visit to the UK by the Sussex family since 2022, when they were in Britain to mark the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It is also the first time Harry has brought Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, to the UK since that occasion.
Security Arrangements
Harry has faced a protracted legal battle with the Home Office over security arrangements for him and his family while in the UK, after his level of protection changed when he stepped down as a working royal in 2020. Security worries for his family have been cited by the Duke as a reason he could not bring them to the UK, but it appears his concerns have been mitigated, with reports claiming the Sussexes have been given assurances. However, sources have stressed that all matters of security are issues for the Home Office to decide, and the King does not play a role in the process and has not made any private undertakings.
Royal Residence Stay
It emerged on Saturday that Harry and Meghan have accepted an offer from King Charles to stay at a royal residence during the trip. The BBC reported that it is not known where they will stay, but options might include Buckingham Palace and the King’s private Sandringham Estate. This comes after Harry met King Charles, who is still undergoing treatment for cancer, last September for the first time in 19 months.
Althorp House and Diana’s Grave
Althorp House was Diana’s home from her parents’ divorce until her marriage to Charles, the then Prince of Wales, in 1981. Diana died aged 36 as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash in Paris in August 1997, while Harry and his brother Prince William were children. After her death, Diana was laid to rest on a secluded, tree-covered island in the centre of the ornamental Round Oval lake on the Althorp Estate. It is believed that if the Sussexes visit the estate during their trip, it will be the first time Archie and Lilibet see their late grandmother’s grave.
It is four years since Archie and Lilibet last saw their grandfather the King in person, during Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022. Harry and Meghan do not have a permanent UK home after they were asked to vacate their Windsor residence Frogmore Cottage, a gift from the late Queen, in 2023, just weeks after the duke’s memoir Spare was released.
