Reports that Prince Harry stayed at the ancestral home of Princess Diana during a private visit to Britain to attend his uncle’s memorial service last month rather than a royal residence could show that he’s found a “home away from home” without ties to the monarchy, according to a new episode of Newsweek‘s The Royal Report podcast.
It was reported in the British press that Harry and Prince William were both present at the memorial service for Lord Robert Fellowes in Norfolk, England, on August 29.
Fellowes was the brothers’ uncle by marriage, having married an elder sister of Princess Diana, Lady Jane Spencer, in 1978. Between 1990 and 1999, Fellowes served as private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II and lived for a number of years at Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace.
After the memorial, People magazine reported that the prince had stayed with his maternal uncle, Earl Spencer, during his trip to Britain, at the Spencer family’s ancestral country home, Althorp, in the county of Northamptonshire.
Althorp is where Princess Diana lived during her teenage years and was a regular visitor after her marriage into the royal family. She is buried on the 13,000 acre estate on an island located in the middle of an ornamental lake.
Harry’s visit would have been close to the August 31 27th anniversary of Diana’s death.
Harry and William have regularly visited the estate since their mother’s death. In his memoir, Spare, Harry wrote that he took Meghan Markle to his mother’s graveside for the first time in 2022, after their split from the monarchy and move to the U.S.
Since the couple were asked to vacate their Frogmore Cottage home in the grounds of Windsor Castle in 2023, Harry and Meghan have no U.K. residence.
With the duke clearly attached to Althorp, Newsweek‘s Jack Royston told Royal Report listeners that the estate could provide the prince with the British home base he’s been missing.
