Prince William’s private secretary Simon Case helped to draft a key document about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quitting the Royal Family, according to the judgement from Harry’s court case, The Times has reported.
This week the Duke of Sussex lost out in the High Court to the Home Office, after a judge ruled that Harry’s loss of taxpayer-funded security while in the UK should remain in place.
A 51-page document from the court case exposed Mr Case’s role in Megxit, which saw the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announce their decision to step down from royal duties in January 2020.
The documents show that Mr Case authored a paper on behalf of the Firm which set out the framework for their departure, with the family meeting at Sandringham to discuss the move.
Court papers state: “On January 8, 2020, an announcement was made in relation to the claimant [the Duke of Sussex] stepping back from official royal duties and a public role.
“On January 11, 2020, Sir Edward Young [the late Queen’s private secretary] emailed the claimant with a draft paper, which was largely the work of Simon Case, concerning the detailed arrangements to give effect to the announcement.
“Following a meeting at Sandringham on January 13, 2020, what the claimant describes as ‘an agreement of sorts’ was reached, which has been described in the media as the ‘Sandringham Agreement’.”
It is understood that five options were drafted for the Sussexes, later detailed by Harry in his memoir Spare, published three years later in January 2023.
The Prince wrote that option one was keeping everything the same: “Meg and I don’t leave, everyone tries to go back to normal”, while option five was completely at the other end of the scale: “Full severance, no royal role, no working for Granny and total loss of security.”
An insider told The Times: “(Simon) Case wasn’t always on Ravec but at this time he was there to do a job for the royal household as an institution.
“Very few people know the amount of delegated power the household wields on Ravec. Case was a professional technocrat with a gift for navigating the awkward nitty-gritty of a situation and getting a desired result.”
