LONDON — More than six years ago, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, shocked royal watchers with their decision to step back from official duties and move to California. Now, in another surprise move, the couple are expected to return to Britain.
Having long been at odds with Britain’s tabloids — and, in recent years, with Harry’s brother, Prince William — the pair chose to step down as senior members of the royal family in 2020. Their announcement reportedly took the royal family by surprise.
Here is a timeline of the key moments leading up to their move to the United States and the aftermath.
2018: The wedding
Harry and Meghan became the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on the day of their wedding at Windsor Castle, during which William served as Harry’s best man and then-Prince Charles walked Meghan down the aisle. She wore a dress by a British designer. He wore a uniform matching his brother’s.
It wasn’t long before British tabloids were reporting a rift emerging between Meghan and William’s wife, Catherine, Princess of Wales. The reports suggested Catherine was jealous of Meghan’s popularity with the family and the public.
In an interview later with ITV News, Harry admitted “tensions were high” after the wedding and said the four held a meeting to resolve their grievances.
2019: ‘Different paths’
Meghan and Harry welcomed their first child, Archie, in the spring, and a few months later, the family took a trip to South Africa. Afterward, a documentary, “Harry & Meghan: An African Journey,” aired on ITV News. In it, Harry and Meghan discussed the impact the relentless press coverage was having on their mental health.
Harry acknowledged he was no longer as close with William as he once was, saying the pair would “always be brothers” but were on “different paths.”
2020: A ‘step back’ from royal duties
In January, the duke and duchess announced they were stepping down as senior royals and would split their time between the United Kingdom and North America. British media speculated that Queen Elizabeth II may have not have gotten a heads-up: “They didn’t even tell the Queen,” the front page of the Daily Mirror read.
Harry and Meghan’s last engagement as senior royals was at the annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in London in March. In the months after, the couple relocated to California and founded Archewell, a production company named after their son.
2021: The Oprah interview
Just months after losing their top titles — no longer being known as “royal highnesses” — the couple did a sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey in March in which they made several shocking allegations.
Meghan revealed that when she was pregnant with Archie, the palace held “conversations” about “how dark his skin might be,” without naming the people involved.
In June, Meghan gave birth to their second child, Lilibet.
2022: Death of the queen
Elizabeth died Sept. 8 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Harry was in London at the time, he would later tell Anderson Cooper, but was not included in plans to fly to Balmoral with other family members. He arrived later on his own, but the queen had already died.
Harry and Meghan attended the monarch’s funeral on Sept. 19 at London’s Westminster Abbey. In a solemn procession, the duke and duchess followed William and Catherine into the church.
The four were pictured together at various points throughout the day, prompting body-language experts to speculate on relations between them.
2022: The Netflix series
The duke and duchess released a six-episode documentary series, “Harry & Meghan,” on Netflix as part of a reported multimillion-dollar deal with the streaming service. The couple discussed their relationship with the British press and the wedge negative media coverage drove between them and their relatives.
“There’s a hierarchy of the family,” Harry said. “There’s leaking, but there’s also the planting of stories. … It’s a dirty game.”
2023: Harry’s explosive memoir
Harry’s much-awaited memoir, “Spare,” set British tabloids afire, exposing the inner workings of the House of Windsor as — in his telling — a dysfunctional, competitive and backstabbing institution that left him and the Meghan fleeing for California “in fear for our sanity and physical safety.”
The book portrayed William as an overbearing brother with a temper and revealed how Charles implored his sons to stop arguing, asking: “Please, boys. … Don’t make my final years a misery.”
Buckingham Palace did not comment on the allegations contained within it, in line with royal protocol, but the book was widely reported to have sent Harry’s relations with his family to a new low.
The publication came just months before Charles’s coronation in May, which Meghan and the couple’s two children did not attend. Harry sat two rows from his brother and left swiftly after the service concluded.
2024: Charles’s cancer diagnosis and Harry’s security battle
After King Charles III announced he had been diagnosed with cancer and would postpone public duties, Harry flew to London to see his father, but their meeting was reportedly brief.
The same month, Harry’s quest for the same level of publicly funded security protection he had as a “working royal” was rejected by a U.K. court, which ruled that the government didn’t act irrationally when stripping him of security privileges after he gave up his royal duties and moved to the United States. Publicly funded protection is still available to him and his family when they visit Britain, but the Home Office said at the time that his level of security would be decided on a case-by-case basis.
2025: Harry wishes for reconciliation
In a May interview with the BBC, Harry said he “would love reconciliation” with the royal family but said that his father refused to speak to him amid the dispute over his personal protection and that “some members” of his family would not forgive him following the publication of his book.
“There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore. Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has,” he said.
He also said that, given his current security arrangements, he “can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.”
2026: Charles and Camilla host
Last month, King Charles and Queen Camilla met with the couple and their two children at Highgrove House. The much-speculated-over visit had an awkward beginning, when royal officials invited Harry to stay at Buckingham Palace but rescinded the offer because the prince didn’t respond in time, the Associated Press reported.
Just over a month later, the news came: Harry and Meghan would return to the United Kingdom.
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