Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's U.K. Family Trip Hits Security Setback

Prince Harry’s long-hoped-for family return to the U.K. is now uncertain.

The Duke of Sussex is reconsidering whether Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, will join him in Britain next month after his request for police protection was rejected. The trip would have marked the family’s first visit to the U.K. together in four years and the first time Archie and Lilibet had returned since Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

Harry was expected to travel for events tied to the one-year countdown to the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, along with private meetings connected to the Invictus Games Foundation.

Harry’s team had formally requested police protection while the family was in the U.K., but was told Friday that no taxpayer-funded security would be provided. The decision came from the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, known as Ravec, which handles security arrangements for senior royals through the Home Office.

Police protection would reportedly be available while the Sussexes are on a royal estate, but outside those times, Harry would have to rely on private security traveling with him from California.

Harry and Meghan had planned to bring Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, to Britain, though the children were not expected to appear at public engagements. A source close to Harry told The Guardian that plans to see family, friends and charities had been “pulled out from under their feet at the 11th hour.”

The source said Harry is “looking at every option” to bring the family safely, but added that he will not allow his children to be “chased by paparazzi.”

“The hope is they can meet their grandfather, but there is no way that can happen if they are chased by paparazzi wherever they go from the moment they step off the plane,” the source said. “He won’t put his children through that.”

The visit carried personal stakes beyond the Invictus schedule. King Charles has seen Archie only a handful of times, and reportedly met Lilibet just once during the Platinum Jubilee in June 2022.

Harry last saw his father in September, when the two had tea at Clarence House, their first face-to-face meeting since February 2024.

After losing his legal fight over automatic police protection last year, Harry told the BBC, “I can't see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.”