Royal drama behind Harry and Meghan’s wedding ban

WHeN the Duke of Westminster chose to exclude Prince Harry and meghan from his wedding next June, he was mindful of the royal row that complicated his sister’s ceremony at the same venue.

I hear that the King’s godson Hugh Grosvenor was ‘conscious’ of tensions surrounding the wedding of Lady Tamara Grosvenor and edward van Cutsem at Chester Cathedral in 2004 and didn’t want a similar situation at his own, to olivia Henson.

‘Hugh knows how sensitive wedding invitations can be,’ a friend tells me.

Camilla Parker Bowles was invited to his sister’s wedding but was told that she would not be allowed to sit with Prince Charles and would instead be seated several rows back and be made to arrive separately. This was because Queen elizabeth and Prince Philip attended the ceremony, along with Princes William and Harry.

‘Her majesty is a stickler for protocol,’ a courtier said at the time. ‘It would be inappropriate for mrs Parker Bowles to sit beside Prince Charles since she has no official standing.’ According to royal author Sarah Bradford, Camilla was so infuriated that she told Charles the status quo was no longer acceptable.

The couple did not attend the wedding and their own engagement was announced three months later.

The King, the Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales and Prince George, who is the Duke of Westminster’s godson, are invited to the Duke’s wedding. But it is understood that while the Duke, who is reportedly the godfather of Prince Harry and meghan’s son, Prince Archie, wanted to invite the Sussexes, he feels their appearance could cause tensions.

It follows the fallout from the Dutch edition of omid Scobie’s book, endgame, which named the King and the Princess of Wales as the relations who allegedly discussed Archie’s skin colour before his birth.