One Royal Warned of Harry and Meghan "Reinventing the Wheel" Years Ahead of Their U.K. Move and "Predicted All of This," Says Author

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down as senior working royals in 2020, it sent shockwaves around the world, and there was one member of the Royal Family who gently suggested that shaking things up might not be the best approach. Now that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have moved back to the U.K., royal author Katie Nicholl says that Princess Anne saw it all coming.

At 76, Princess Anne has been there through a number of tumultuous times in the Royal Family, and Nicholl recently told Hello! magazine that the Princess Royal “predicted” the Sussex family’s move wouldn’t pan out the way they’d expected.

“Harry has always had a very good relationship with his aunt Princess Anne,” the author said. “This relationship has certainly been tested and when I sat down with her to interview her back in 2020, just after Megxit, she gave me a very sort of coded message, which was, it's all very well the new younger royals doing things differently, but they shouldn't try and reinvent the wheel.”

In the April 2020 Vanity Fair interview ahead of her 70th birthday, Princess Anne hinted at her feelings about the Sussexes, who had left Britain just a month before. “I don't think this younger generation probably understands what I was doing in the past and it's often true, isn't it?” Anne said. “You don't necessarily look at the previous generation and say: ‘Oh, you did that?’ Or: ‘You went there?’”

She continued, “Nowadays, they're much more looking for: ‘Oh, let's do it a new way’ and I'm already at the stage, ‘Please do not reinvent that particular wheel. We've been there, done that. Some of these things don't work. You may need to go back to basics.’”

Nicholl says she took the Princess Royal’s comments “very much to be a word of warning, a cautionary word to Meghan and Harry that yes, of course there needs to be changes, but, but not to do anything too drastically.”

“I think she will be one who has sort of sat back, predicted all of this, not been surprised that they're coming back somewhat with their tails between their legs because things haven't worked in America,” the royal biographer added.