THE RIDDLE OF FROGMORE COTTAGE
Harry and Meghan will soon be calling in the removal vans and heading to Windsor. What does this tell us about Harry’s relationship with his brother and Meghan’s feelings for Kate?
SO THEY are off! And who can blame them? With their first child due in early spring and most likely more to follow, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have been looking for a bigger nest to start a family and it appears that the Queen has come up with the perfect solution.
They will move from Kensington Palace in London to Frogmore Cottage near Windsor.
“Windsor is a very special place for Their Royal Highnesses and they are grateful that their official residence will be on the estate,” confirmed a spokesman for the couple, adding, however, that the Duke and Duchess’s main office will continue to be based 20 miles away at Kensington Palace.
This will mark a considerable step up on the property ladder for the couple – from the two bedroom Nottingham Cottage (where Harry is reported to have proposed to his then-actress girlfriend in the kitchen over a roast chicken dinner) to a Grade II-listed house on the Windsor Estate, where the couple wed in May.
On the face of it the move seems sensible, given that Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland has moved to Britain and intends to be a hands-on granny – never mind the maternity nurse, nanny, live-in housekeeper, security and other assorted flunkies who may require on-site housing.
Frogmore Cottage – something of a misnomer really – is thought to have up to 10 potential bedrooms, although at present the house is sub-divided to accommodate staff working for the Crown Estate.
Like many couples, the race will be on to have the place shipshape by the time the baby arrives – or is it twins, as the bookies seem to think?
But unlike most other couples much of the hefty cost of revamping the white-painted property will be borne by we the taxpayers, though Harry and Meghan will be responsible for any interior decorating bills.
News of the move does, however, follow reports that William and Harry are keen to put more space between them and will soon be setting up separate courts.
Although the brothers remain close, living within a stone’s throw of each other cannot always be easy. And Kensington Palace has become something of a royal ghetto, with the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, the Duke of Kent and Duke and Duchess of Gloucester all in the ’hood.
A more incendiary reason for the move stems from rumours that Meghan and Kate have an increasingly strained and tricky relationship.
AS ONE royal expert put it: “Whereas in the old days Diana and Fergie got on famously, there is little common ground between Meghan and Kate. Both are fiercely protective of their husbands and their relationship is polite rather than close.”
Kate went to boarding schools in the UK and met her husband at university – therefore sharing mutual friends. But Meghan comes from an entirely different world with a background that is still shrouded in a certain amount of mystery.
No one is suggesting that Meghan and Kate have fallen out but, equally, there are no signs that they spend much time in each other’s company beyond official family gatherings. Indeed, the atmosphere between the Queen and Meghan seems warmer than the one between the Duchess of Cambridge and Duchess of Sussex.
What’s without doubt is that Kate has raised her game since the glamorous arrival on the royal scene of Meghan, the Hollywood star and UN ambassador with a track record of championing women’s rights. She has gone out of her way to appear more regal, more composed and less gushing than her Californian sister-in-law.
This is also reflected in her wardrobe. Not so long ago, Kate was happy to be seen in £39.99 dresses from Zara; now it’s Alexander McQueen, Emilia Wickstead, Dolce & Gabbana and Catherine Walker all the way.
And it should not be forgotten that Kate has always been ambitious, a trait she inherited from her thrusting mother. Whether on the hockey pitch at Marlborough College or appearing in amateur dramatics at university, she has never been backward in coming forward.
So it has not been plain sailing for Kate to see new kid on the block Meghan being catapulted into stardom, walking regally down the nave of St George’s Chapel and being greeted wherever she goes as the Royal Family’s golden girl. William, too, has signalled how he wants to forge a role for himself that is different to that of his father or brother. In the BBC documentary leading up to Prince Charles’s 70th birthday, he made a point of saying: “I want to be my own man and take my own style, my own passions and my own interests and do things slightly different.”
He may find it easier to do that once Harry and Meghan move out – while from Meghan’s point of view relocating to Frogmore means that both families will be living in substantial homes in London or nearby in Windsor.
Frogmore Cottage already has a whiff of controversy about it. It was once home to Queen Victoria’s Indian manservant Mohammed Abdul Karim, who, against the advice of courtiers, was given the title “Munshi” or teacher. The relationship between the Queen and Munshi is the subject of the recent movie Victoria & Abdul, starring Judi Dench and Ali Fazal.
The Mausoleum at Frogmore is where Victoria and her husband Prince Albert are buried and also where Harry’s great-great uncle, the former King Edward VIII, lies beside his American wife Wallis Simpson, for whose love Edward abdicated the throne.
IT is also possible, of course, that Meghan has her eye not just on Frogmore Cottage but eventually on Frogmore House, which also is unoccupied, although it is used by the Royal Family for private and official events.
Last year, the Queen described Frogmore as holding a “special place in her family’s affection”. It was where Meghan and Harry held their wedding reception and before them it played host to the reception of Peter Phillips and his wife Autumn Kelly.
The Grade I-listed Frogmore House was built between 1680-1684 – by, it is thought, Hugh May, Charles II’s architect – and was expanded in the late 18th century by James Wyatt. Its name is derived from the number of frogs that lived in the house’s marshy grounds near the River Thames.
Following the decommissioning of the Royal Yacht Britannia, the Duke of Edinburgh took it upon himself to furnish some of the rooms with items from the vessel and during the 1980s the house underwent an extensive £2.5million restoration. This led to the discovery of a lost early 18th-century wall painting by Louis Laguerre which now has pride of place in the drawing room.
Frogmore House is several sizes bigger than Frogmore Cottage and moving from the latter to the former at some point would be relatively painless for Harry and Meghan and their future children.
The youngsters would have hundreds of acres in which to play and Harry and Meghan would end up with a bigger house than Anmer Hall, William and Kate’s house in Norfolk.
What Kate might think of such an arrangement is another matter.