On Friday, the palace – which palace? – suddenly announced that Prince Harry’s work trip to the Netherlands was being shortened from two days to one. The trip was only announced last week, to a resounding cry of “WTF?” as the best case scenario would have had Harry leaving his postpartum wife and newborn infant for two whole days. The announcement of trip and the trip itself made zero sense. Weirder still was the way the trip was shortened:
Prince Harry is shortening his time away from home as Meghan Markle prepares to welcome their first child. Harry’s trip to the Netherlands on May 8 and 9 was announced this week – and it has now been changed to a one-day visit. The royal was set to undertake an official engagement in Amsterdam before traveling to The Hague, where he will officially launch the one-year countdown to the 2020 Invictus Games being held there. Now, he will only be visiting The Hague, which is just a short hour-long flight from London.
“Due to the logistical planning for the traveling press to cover visits and engagements by The Royal Family, we have taken the decision to postpone The Duke of Sussex’s scheduled visit to Amsterdam on Wednesday 8th May 2019,” a spokesperson for the couple tells PEOPLE. “The Duke is currently scheduled to travel to The Hague on Thursday 9th May for the launch of the Invictus Games The Hague 2020 as planned.”
Royal sources tell PEOPLE the change was primarily driven by the fact that other members of the royal family have several engagements next week (Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall will be in Germany, while Prince William and Kate Middleton will be in North Wales), so there were challenges for the media organizations to cover them all.
Basically, Clarence House and Kensington Palace both told the Sussex team that Harry wouldn’t be allowed to make a two-day trip when William, Kate, Charles and Camilla all had events scheduled, and they were all terrified that Harry would pull focus from them. Think about that – the two heirs to the throne were mad because they both know in their hearts that Harry would of course get more attention, and that the media would be more interested in following HIM. Vanity Fair made it sound like Charles was mostly to blame because his trip to Germany is super-important, but I think William had a hand in it too. Also: I fully expect for the entire trip to be postponed at any moment. It was dumb to announce it anyway.
If you want to read an interesting thread about the shenanigans about the cancelation of the Amsterdam leg of the trip, follow the Twitter thread below. Some interesting points about the jockeying of courtiers and how Harry’s trip got in the middle of it.
Even if we leave the Sussexes out of it, the courtiers are completely out of control. Perhaps this is one of the side effects of the Queen having a long rule and having two very grown men in waiting. Regardless of the personal dynamics between Charles and William their staffs https://t.co/XJ2dSNgVc6
— Goldburn P. Maynard Jr. (@deathntaxesprof) May 3, 2019
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
I’m really starting to grow tired of this family. Meghan’s pregnancy and the birth of her baby have been tainted by all of this crap. I feel really bad for her.
Just trying to figure out how someone’s pregnancy can be tainted? What an odd thing to say
I think she means the experience, which should be joyful, has been tainted. Aren’t we all thinking that?
I really don’t think Meghan cares. She’s living her life and doing her thing. And she doesn’t strike me as the type who is overly concerned about what other people think about her. Don’t forget she was in actress and she managed to land a fairly successful TV show.
I truly hope that Meghan isn’t terribly bothered by the negative press.
Nevertheless I will continue to be outraged by, and speak out against the relentless attempts by and through the media, to diminish and smear a lovely, accomplished and purpose driven woman. It is just plain evil.
@Patty, I was about to post something similar. Well said. And though I agree wholeheartedly with @Mego about the media, I have to say that the projection thing works both ways and I think many people are pushing their own outrage and frustration on to Meghan.
I personally (not attributing any of this to @Patty) didn’t have a WTF moment over Harry’s announced trip. Meghan’s mother is with her and the trip was only scheduled for 2 days not 2 weeks. Beside, it’s not like he’s flying halfway around the world. Harry flying to Amsterdam is probably like me flying to Atlanta, which for me is a 1 hour 20 minute flight. I just checked. Amsterdam is a 1 hour 15 minute flight for Harry.
I’m just here to say that Prince Harry is clearly the one with the look in the Windsor pool gene. That top picture makes him look lovely. A young Prince Phillip. xx
I never understood the Harry paternity conspiracy theories because for years now his resemblance to young Philip has been so obvious. And yes, despite his many faults, Philip was a FOX in his younger days…
You should look at some pictures of a young Queen Mary, the Queen’s grandmother. I have always thought that Harry really resembles her, especially the eyes.
Actually, as he ages I think that unfortunately the resemblance to Charles is coming through more and more.
I really dont understand why the Cambridges couldn’t have done this trip during their month long break?
Harry’s Invictus trip was planned a year ahead as well as he did similar countdowns for all the other Invictus games.
Please, Cambridges……..no number of contrived PR photo shoots will re-heat a stale marriage. So calm the f-ck down.
Ha!
You hit rhe hammer right on the nail head…. the cambridge are so thirsty for attention nearly 18 years and they still do make use of the opportunity they had then and now. Whom ever advising the whole windsor family hates them. Excluding the sussex as all the shun and abuse the are getting from the press both familied and stangers
The BR family needs to get together. No one is looking good right now, including the Queen.
Part of the problem is the Queen’s infamous ostrich attitude when it comes to family issues. Things go south and she shoves her head in the sand until the situation gets too dire, ala Charles and Di’s marriage. She’s over 90 now and that should be taken into account, but it’s just such a damning aspect of her legacy overall. Feels like the same mistakes of the 80s and 90s are being repeated here.
By all means Charles should be stepping in and putting his foot down too, but his own ego is probably involved and it seems like neither he nor the Queen ever truly set William straight when he needed it. From everything that’s been said since Diana’s death, the Palace was focused on protecting and coddling William (and Harry to a far lesser extent). Harry went through his teens and adult life being thrown under the bus for William’s sake, and it looks like Will’s never had to answer for his own mistakes and crappy behavior. We’re seeing the consequences of that right now.
Charles and Camilla will be in Germany from the 7th to the 10th. William and Kate will be in Wales on the 8th. Harry is only cancelling the 8th but will be in The Hague on the 9th when Charles and Camilla are still on tour.
A few RRs including Omid made it a point to say the cancellation wasn’t related to Baby Sussex still not being born, which would have been an excuse that most would have accepted without question.
A mess on all levels in the PR here.
This stunt is right in line with the leaked plans to “send Harry and Meghan to Africa”. They didn’t go with the plausible excuse of baby Sussex because the whole point of canceling part of the trip was to let Harry, and the public, know who’s in charge. They’ll “let” him continue with the Invictus Games event because it’s important to Harry, and frankly too big intertationally to f around with, but he’s not to distract from the main shows for anything less. It’s messy, but I honestly think they mistakenly think making the point is more important than the bad PR
Agreed, especially on your last point. I also think they’re making a big mistake by doing this nonsense so publicly. They’re only going to weaken their case for existing if they keep this up, but they’re clearly too far up their own behinds to see that.
I found it so interesting and telling that everyone except Rookie was carefully avoiding any mention of the Cambridges’ trip on Wednesday. Completely validates that section in Tim Shipman’s article about Will “reaching out to senior media figures”.
Well,Rookie also said he was going to cover Charles’ trip but he was told to go with Harry,so yes he just confirmed that these change have also something to do with Charles’ trip.
This is ridiculous. The two future kings are so insecure that the “unimportant” sixth in line to the throne will get more press coverage. Like it or not Harry made a historic marriage with Meghan and their children are historic heirs and/or heiresses to the throne.
The Lord is in his heaven .. And all is right with the rules of succession. Thank god, the Lord has his priorities straight. Perhaps he should have a heart-to-heart with Only-No.-6.
One of the royal photogs on Twitter said his editor pulled him off Charles and Camilla’s Germany trip to send him with Harry to Amsterdam. He wasn’t very happy about it, either. So I do think this is coming from Charles.
Oh that’s interesting. So this could be from charles. Hmm.
I don’t know enough about this particular situation, but I have no problem believing Charles wants the attention to be on him.
How is it coming from Charles? Hes been doing engagements all of last week in Scotland and you rarely heard of it.Hes used to not having a lot of attention on his tours and day to day engagements
There was a thread yesterday of several reporters/photogs complaining that there was too much happening the 7-10, especially with the baby overdue. And it was specifically mentioned that royal photogs had been pulled off Charles’ historic trip to Germany (wherein he’s supposed to meet with Angela M and personally heal the relationship between the countries, if you believe the hype) to cover Harry’s trip. So, I think too many people got pulled and Charles’ put him foot down.
Also, not for nothing, but BP shouldn’t have announced this trip for Harry at all. In the best case scenario, he’d be leaving his wife and one week old baby for two days for two events? Apparently on Wednesday there was only one thing scheduled at 11 am and then nothing until the Invictus kickoff on Thursday, which was another thing the reporters in the thread were complaining about.
Charles is going to meet Merkel on the 7th.
@Elisabeth – I think Harry’s trip has been planned for quite some time, if anything it seems like the DoLittles trip is recent. I think given the press around the baby’s arrival BP was just reconfirming it was still going ahead which also confirmed that Meghan is not quite at her due date.
The fact that the Wales trip is slap bang in the middle of his father’s trip and on the first day of Harry’s trip is very very telling. This is William making a statement, this is him saying I have more power than Harry, me and my wife are more important and you all better lap up whatever crap I tell my PR to churn out.
I could be wrong but that’s my take on it.
Apparently his visit in Amsterdam was added later.
Charles may have other engagements the following day,but at least there will be a good coverage for two days and reporters will not travel to cover three series of engagements during the same day because of harry’s single engagement. And yes,some reporters were going to cover Charles’ trip but they were told to go with Harry,so it does have something to do with that.
It’s the result of poor planning,but also conflicting schedules factoring the imminent birth. I can really see a scenario where they don’t know where to send reporters. Also,from the palace’ prospective,it’s easier to blame conflicting schedules and not fuel speculation about the baby.
Charles is still in Germany when Harry will be in The Hague. It’s the Cambridges who won’t be doing anything on the 9th, not Charles.
I read that tweet and got a different impression. That the request to cancel is not coming Charles but is coming from the media themselves who are angry about being dicked around by the last minute announcement of the trip by Harry’s camp and who are now in a difficult position of being told to uproot all their carefully planned arrangements and switch them to Harry at last minute. Why wasn’t Harry’s trip announced a lot sooner? The media also seem to be mad that Day 1 of the trip involves about an hour of Harry’s time and then he has nothing to do until lunch time the next day, so the media are forced to hang around for a dead 24 hours while Harry does what exactly? Hang out in Amsterdam? Which in itself is a little odd considering the the timing.
I think that the media really did go running to the Palace with their complaints and those complaints were heard. Not to mention, there was worry about how this whole Harry trip would start to be portrayed in the media if he actually went through with the whole thing.
This is a car crash of a scenario and make both Chuck and the DoLittles look bad. Am sure both Chuck and Big Baby Willy were scared they wouldn’t get attention, but my money is on Big Baby Willy pushing to have the 8th cancelled as its the first joint engagement with Katie Keen in a while and given Turnip Gate they need to put on a united front. From a PR PoV the Cambridges need the positive PR more than Chuck.
This reeks of Big Willy pulling rank to continue to put down the Sussex’s because he’s a brat on a power trip who needs to cover up cheating on his wife. This is all about William continuing to exert control over Harry’s life.
It will be interesting know if Harry’s event was organised before the DoLittle’s. I didn’t know until this broke they had an engagement in Wales.
It would be funny if Meghan gave birth on the 8th. There would be nothing Big Willie could do about that.
Sigh it’s nothing malicious but simply which engagement requires more press coverage..geez. I work within a collective and our communications coordinator is constantly following other organization’s releases and events to ensure a release doesn’t get ignored or lost in the flood of media releases
It sounds like Harry’s trip was scheduled first, the Cambridges later chose the same date and then Harry’s engagement on the 8th was cancelled.
That’s what people are commenting on. If that’s the way it went down, then this whole thing is shady. What kind of person pulls rank to force someone to cancel their previously scheduled trip especially when his wife is just about to give birth. Why choose that moment to mess with the person’s schedule?
This is not good future king behavior. Leadership is about a lot more than just getting your way because you can. If this is the way things went down, William sounds like a spoiled brat.
I feel this was all because the Cambridges also have their thing on the 8th. As was said above, Harry is still going on the 9th while Charles and Camilla will be in Germany.
@Toot – this. All day. This is because of the Cambridges, not C&C.
I agree.
I honestly don’t think this was Charles. Maybe partly, but he is constantly doing events and some get covered, some don’t. I could have understood if this was the Cuba trip, something that they wanted to make sure got covered, but I feel like Charles wants the boys to work. This seems more like William especially in light of that article a few weeks ago.
Maybe it’s just that they would have all been traveling? So that was looked at differently from if they were all doing events in London.
So who knows what is really going on, but one thing that is clear is that this is messy and their people need to get their acts together.
Charles was in Scotland doing engagements this week and there was only minimal coverage, mostly meeting the actor from Outlander. He’s been to Germany over 30 times so it’s really unlikely the press was going to go whole hog on this.
Meanwhile, there are tons of advance articles about that trip to Wales, including some weird online twitter compilation of every time Kate has done a sports thing during an engagement.
Lol at a compilation of Kate doing sports. KP is so obvious with their PR.
I was thinking of Charles’ Scotland events too. The royal press wheel kept turning even though he was doing some really interesting things. (Who wants to go to the castle of mey with me??)
Chuck does quite a lot of interesting engagements that sadly never get the coverage they deserve, that will change when he is King. Its sad that his work with the environment and climate changes doesn’t get the attention is deserves.
Maybe they cannot have all the heirs out of the country at the same time? Don’t know….
Wales is not out of the country. Wills and Kate will be in U.K.
Also, what did Kate the Healer and Wills the Leader’s Germany, Netherlands and Scandinavian tours achieve? I guess they do so much, it’s hard to keep track of.
There are also three heirs between William and Harry.
Questions why is there so much Drama in that family.
Because it is picture day in school and the royals are petty little brats.
Harry still being scheduled on the 9th, when Charles and Camilla are working, but being pulled out of the 8th says that this was the Cambridges getting their knickers in a twist.
They’ll be wanting to put on a lovey dovey display after the affair rumours and will want that to take centre stage.
Gross, considering how long Harry’s appointment has been scheduled for.
Indeed it is – on top of the stories that we are getting about how broody Kate is and that she wants a 4th.
Am betting good money Katie Keen is pregnant again by the end of the year.
Also I think Eugenie will get pregnant soon, maybe the same time at Katie Keen – that will NOT go down well at KP. If that happens it will be interesting to see how things go down between Big Willy and Uncle Andrew.
I think we will know about number 4 by September. I noticed the multiple broody articles in the DM as well. It’s similar to the lead up to number three.
As for Eugenie she could already be pregnant. There was speculation at the Maundy Thursday service. Let’s hope she doesn’t get accused of trying to steal attention at Lady Gabriella’s wedding in a few weeks.
I wonder if they will actually touch each other…that’s what I’ll be looking for. If they do, we know it’s a shit show. If they don’t…life goes on and we know it’s a shit show.
First off it was never for two whole days, it was 24 hours max.
Second off blaming it on Charles makes no sense when he will still be on tour when Harry goes on the Thursday. If hes worried about being overshadowed he still when be when Harry eventually does go. Also its not like cause Harrys no longer going on the Wednesday all the editors are suddenly going to decide to send the RRs to Germany. And charles knows this, he knows full well the media attentions on his children and their spouses, rarely him and his wife. Both of them did multiple engagements last week and I think it was only one of Camilla’s engagements that got a bit of media attention. none of Charles’ did or the others Camilla did.
Only the Wednesday seems to be problemtaic oh and guess whos doing two engagements on Wednesday and isnt worried about being overshadowed on the other day of Harrys trip? Thats right the Cambridges. This reeks of them IMO.
Also, if Meghan has had the baby by then, will and kate’s Events are going to get less attention anyway. I would think they would do the photo call before Harry goes to The Hague, so it could be on Wednesday.
I thought that Meghan was going to be disoriented by entering the royal family, but finally the Windsors are like Hollywood actors, fragile equals who need a lot of media attention.
The whole announcement was amateur. I thought moving to BP would be more professional than KP. 1) Every other recent event has been announced on the day of, but this one a week in advance, then 2) less than 2 days after announced it was partially canceled, and 3) the offical reason is because there is already 2 tours on the 8th and they didn’t want to split the press more? Both trips were already announced, it wasn’t news to them. Just terrible work from the new office. Get it together people.
If the baby is born on any of those days, the baby will get all the coverage
I said it when this came out and I’ll say it again. Heads need to roll. Someone needs to be fired. This is so unprofessional and counterproductive. And William needs to be reigned in. He had an affair. He allowed it to go beyond mere whispers and rumors to the media. He did all that. Did he learn his lesson? Nope. He’s still doing crap to put his brother and sister in law in place and people know it. If karma is real, Baby Sussex will arrive on May 8th.
Real karma is Turnip Toff gate is exposed.
Who needs republicans when all this in-fighting is going on? The amateurish way they are dealing with this is disgraceful – if they don’t sort it out when HM goes they’ll be lucky if there’s a monarchy left.
Good lord help the British monarchy. I wont blame the queen too much I mean she is in her 90s. I really think she neede to retire. Then again I always thought Charles and William would bring it into the 21st century. Lol…nope.
They are stuck in a forgotten time and Charles, William and their courtiers will forever be stuck in the past. Brexit isnt helping their country and neither are they with their way of thinking.
I agree. I think they are all stuck in the past and that’s because Elizabeth is still Queen. People remind us of her vow at age 21, but I think she could best serve her country by stepping down. Her remaining there keeps the monarchy tethered to the 1950s. Time to leap forward several decades and catch up with the rest of the world, IMO. And give Charles a chance at the top job and let his son get a feel of what it is like to be Prince of Wales while he is still relatively young.
Harry’s Invictus games involves many different countries and has been a huge success. Hes still more popular then William. And rather then utilize that William,and I do think Charles and the queen are partly to.blame, they try to banish him to Africa along with his poc wife. That hole family is a mess and with social media (which they dont know how to use) everything is being on a global scale.
I hope baby Sussex is born on the day the Cambridge’s are in Wales…
I just don’t get this newfound “they can’t all work on the same day!” BS. All the other royal houses have multiple members of the family working on the same day-that’s their job. W&K seem to like getting all the attention for their few events and never seemed to mind when other senior royals worked on the same day. I wonder what could have changed hmmm……..
Every member of the family should be working regardless of the ‘fair’ division of press attention. Do your work. Also whoever is running the PR at the palaces are idiots.
I’ll be naive: is it not possible that given the family history and now intense media attention surrounding baby Sussex, the actual issue here is security and not overshadowing? Or that Meghan was due April 30, so she may not be induced until May 7 and could still be laboring on the 8th? I just think that since their PR has become much less direct and more attempted “gamesmanship” in the last several months, perhaps there is more left unsaid than butthurts not getting enough attention. (Which can also be a genuine reason).
If nothing else Williams pettiness has been exposed to everyone. With Twitter you cant hide anything like in the gold ol days. Which is why the courtiers and the RR are fighting a losing battle. Many of the older generation that their mind set is at is slowly being replaced by the more diverse generation. Williams affair, his wanting to send his brother and his brothers biracial wife to Africa has been laid out for the entire world to see. This is just another example.
He is in his feelings cause he got booed last week at the Submarine Service . I found that on People here in the US with the headline “Why Prince William Was Booed at a Ceremony to Honor Britain’s Submarine Service.” There is a picture of him that is very telling with a clenched jaw and tight fist. And they say women are the more emotional sex especially if we don’t get attention. Ha!
He got booed. What in the world did he do this time?
I think the booing had more to do with celebrating the use of nuclear weapons than William himself. That said I’m sure his ego couldn’t handle the booing even if it wasn’t aimed toward him specifically.
I was just a protest. But omg it was hilarious. Poor wittle William. His jaw was clenched so tightly 😂😂
With relatives like that, who needs enemies?
Seems like Meghan had the perfect training, coming from her family into this one…
Both Meghan and Harry are from dysfunctional and narcissistic families. They are also both charismatic younger siblings and wanted to prove themselves and receive praise for their efforts. It makes a lot of sense why they were drawn to each other.
William’s controlling behavior towards Harry -nice enough to keep him near while still always putting himself first is probably familiar to Meghan.
I agree with you Hope.
Honestly, Meg is probably going to give birth sometime this week, so all of their events are going to be overshadowed. Just saying.
^^^^
THIS!
I don’t get why any trips were scheduled/announced for Harry during a time when Meghan is about to give birth. It seems to me it should have been postponed until well after Baby Sussex has arrived. I think Harry would have a hard time focusing since he seems like the type to worry that she would go into labor while he is gone. It just seems better for Meghan, Harry, and Baby Sussex for this trip to wait.
All that is evident is once Meghan goes into labor, all the other Royals might as well pack their bags and go home .
😂
Some reporters said that they were covering Charles and Camilla but they were told to follow Harry,so it’s evident where is the problem. At least he will get a good coverage for two days and reporters will not travel to cover three series of engagements during the same day because harry has to appear publicly for less than a hour..
C&C and Harry are the ones travelling abroad. The Cambridges’ visit would be always cover by UK media “on the ground”.
This is just the consequence of poor planning,but also conflicting schedules factoring the imminent birth. I can really see a scenario where they don’t know where to send reporters. Plus,from the palace’ prospective,it’s easier to blame conflicting schedules and not fuel speculation about the baby.
Are we still saying that William is controlling his brother from KP?
I really don’t get this blame game. And this comes after months of comments about how the Queen and Charles were in charge and saving them from KP.
Seems to me people are reading too much into an accidental confluence of events. Given the heavy importance of the Games to Harry, and given that the Hague is only a 1 hour plane flight away, it makes sense that he might choose to risk going ahead with the Games appearance rather than cancel the entire trip due to Meghan’s condition. The activities of the other Royals are just coincidental.
It’s just a logistics issue for goodness sake. The media don’t want to waste time and money on making travel plans that anyone could see would have a 90% chance of being cancelled. So they asked the Palace for better guidance on it and the Palace made the rational decision.
” but I think William had a hand in it too.”
LOL what a surprise you think that!
It sounds like everyone is reading too much into this. The Palace basically just did a nice thing for the media who didn’t want to send a bunch of of their employees to Amsterdam just because the royals were playing chicken with the birth, and unwilling to definitively pull Harry out of an existing obligation unless forced to. I think like everyone else can, the media outlets could see the likelihood that Harry would end up having to cancel, and the media didn’t want to go through the expense and cost of making travel arrangements for something that would eventually be canceled. So they begged the Palace to just make the decision now rather than last minute and the Palace complied.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
@susan, way way too sensible an explanation!
Lol, right?
Watching Australian TV is LOL, they’re so invested in the Royal Family, they said Kate is perfect and the most boring person in the RF.