Prince Harry will not meet Queen for face-to-face Megxit talks due to Covid: Duke unable to fly to UK for 12-month review of deal to quit as senior royals after ban on non-essential travel
Prince Harry will not meet the Queen face-to-face for a 12-month review of the so-called 'Megxit' deal as the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a ban on non-essential travel.
The Duke of Sussex, together with wife Meghan Markle, quit as senior royals in January last year, with a review on their position set to take place on March 31.
Prince Harry, 36, planned to request a meeting with his grandmother in the coming weeks, but those plans are said to have been scuppered by the coronavirus pandemic.
According to The Mirror, royal sources say the prince has 'not yet attempted to contact' the Queen to organise a meeting - but a solution was expected to be arranged in the coming weeks.
It's understood the couple want to increase the amount of time before a deal relinquishing their position becomes permanent.
Prince Harry is understood to have delayed plans to meet with The Queen, 12 months after he stepped down as a senior royal together with his wife Meghan Markle
The veteran of two Afghanistan tours is keen on retaining all military appointments, while Meghan, 39, remains a royal patron of the National Theatre.
According to The Mirror, senior advisers are alarmed at the pace the Duke and Duchess have signed huge financial deals.
Last month it was revealed the couple had signed up for a podcast deal with Spotify thought to be worth up to £30million.
It comes just months after the royals agreed a £100million partnership with Netflix and days after Meghan invested in a $28-per-pack oat-milk 'superlatte' business later promoted for free by her LA neighbour Oprah Winfrey.
Sources have told The Mirror that courtiers are taking a 'renewed in-depth look at the couple's business deals,' to assess whether they fit with Her Majesty's values.
A review of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's position is due at the end of March, with sources claiming courtiers are taking a 'renewed in-depth look at the couple's business deals,' to assess whether they fit with The Queen's values
One source told the paper: 'There is undoubtedly a sense of unease over the pace at which they have entered the corporate world and the way in which they have conducted themselves relating to their various legal disputes.'
The recent deals will help the Sussexes in their pledge to become 'financially independent' from the royal family - following their decision to step back from frontline royal duties in January this year.
The couple have since bought a sprawling nine-bedroom and 16-bathroom mansion in upscale Santa Barbara, known as 'The Chateau' for $14.65million, making them neighbours with celebrities including Oprah Winfrey.
The pair are thought to have purchased the sprawling property, which sits on 5.4 acres of land, from a Russian businessman with a $9.5million mortgage after the price was knocked down by more than $10million.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment. MailOnline has contacted representatives for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The Duke and Duchess sparked a major royal crisis last January with a bombshell statement saying they intended to stop being senior royals, earn their own money and still support the Queen.
But the dual role was unworkable. The Queen held a summit at Sandringham to deal with the crisis and the outcome was a hard Megxit.
At the end of March, less than two years after they wed, Harry and Meghan quit as working royals completely and stopped using their HRH styles.
They have since settled into a new life in Montecito in California, bought an £11million house, secured lucrative multimillion-pound deals with Netflix and Spotify, volunteered during the Covid-19 crisis and been working on their Archewell foundation.
Meghan gave an impassioned Black Lives Matter speech to her old high school about the death of George Floyd in the US. But controversy has not been far away.
Harry was criticised for political interference after he urged people in the US to 'reject hate speech' and vote in the presidential election.
The duke and duchess were also accused of staging a publicity stunt after they invited a fashion photographer to take pictures of them at a national cemetery in LA to mark Remembrance Sunday.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are pictured with their son Archie while visiting Cape Town in September 2019
In August, a new biography, Finding Freedom by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, revisited the rift between Harry and William.
The book said Harry was angered by what he perceived as his brother's 'snobbish' attitude to Meghan, and Kate was accused of not reaching out to Meghan and of snubbing her at the Sussexes' final public engagement at Westminster Abbey.
The Sussexes' son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor celebrated his first birthday, with Meghan reading the boisterous youngster the children's book Duck! Rabbit! in a video for Save the Children UK.
But the couple also experienced heartache, with Meghan revealing in an article in November that she had suffered a miscarriage in the summer, writing: 'I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.'
Last week, Harry and Meghan released their debut Spotify podcast which saw them chat about 'the power of connection', 'empathy' and 'collective mental health'.
Also last week, Harry used a photograph of his late mother Princess Diana and described himself as his 'mother's son' as he and Meghan launched the website of their non-profit organisation Archewell.