Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been told they are \u201cplaying with fire\u201d by suggesting they were \u201ca little surprised\u201d at the King\u2019s letter clarifying their status as non-working Royals.<\/p>\n
King Charles laid out the couple\u2019s position in a letter<\/a> sent on Monday (September 7), a few days after Harry and Meghan landed in Britain in late August. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to stay in the UK for an \u201cextended period\u201d.<\/p>\n In the letter<\/a>, sent to senior government and military officials, Charles said the pair will refrain from using the formal royal titles, such as His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness, and added any charity work carried out by the couple will be carried out in a \u201cprivate capacity\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n The Sussexes\u2019 office then issued a briefing to media saying they were \u2018a little surprised\u2019 by the note. Reportedly, Harry only had two minutes to read the letter before it was sent to the media, as Buckingham Palace sent it to the Sussexes office 72 minutes before publication. The Prince was in a meeting and could not be reached.<\/p>\n It has also been said the duo would prefer to be known as \u201cpublic figures\u201d and not \u201cprivate citizens\u201d to reflect their existing personal connection to the King.<\/p>\n Now, former Conservative MP and author Louise Bagshawe, previously known as Louise Mensch, has claimed they are \u201cplaying with fire\u201d. She took to X to share her thoughts on the row.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was another serious error for Meghan to issue an on the record statement that she was \u2018surprised\u2019 by the King\u2019s announcement,\u201d the former MP for Corby said. \u201cShe had no right to be notified of it in advance at all. No right to edit it.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cThe King will not tolerate competing press releases for long, it looks like a rival court. He is King. If Meghan wishes to disobey him, he can remove Harry\u2019s status as a Prince of the UK with a stroke of the pen, and I believe he would. She is playing with fire.\u201d<\/p>\n The row comes as Harry and Meghan are reportedly setting up a new life in the Cotswolds after six years away in California, enrolling their children Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, in local schools.<\/p>\n Meghan has also been seen at the ultra-luxurious private members club Soho Farmhouse in Great Tew, a favourite haunt of the Beckhams, according to reports.<\/p>\n The Sussexes have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been told they are \u201cplaying with fire\u201d by suggesting they were \u201ca…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,11018,11061,4866,111,139,69,3578,294097],"class_list":["post-596636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-king-charles","tag-king-charles-iii","tag-meghan-markle","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prince-harry","tag-royal-titles-dispute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}