Meghan Markle and Prince Harry married in 2018 after dating for two years after meeting in 2016 through mutual friends. Both have long been used to travel thanks to Harry’s main role in the Royal Family and Meghan’s past career as an actress. When royals travel there are certain rules they need to abide by and stick to royal protocol. On on occasion, when Harry and Meghan were still dating, the Duke of Sussex broke an important rule.
The Queen’s grandson was due to fly back to the UK on completion of the Caribbean trip.
He has a number of UK public engagements to carry out on his return.
Harry was booked to fly back on a British Airways flight to London from Barbados, according to Kensington Palace.
However, the Prince decided to take his travel into his own hands in order to see his girlfriend Meghan.
Rather than heading straight back to the UK, Harry opted instead to travel to Toronto, Canada where Meghan Markle was then based.
Such a decision goes against royal protocol as the Prince mixed business and pleasure.
According to the Telegraph, palace policy dictates that “working visits should not be combined with personal travel”.
This rule was introduced back in 2004 after Prince Andrew’s antics came under fire.
The royal was lambasted for combining business trips with personal trips including golfing expeditions.
The problem with mixing such trips is that Royal Family members official trips are paid for by the taxpayer while personal trips are paid at their own expense.
At the time, the Royal Household said: “In order to avoid confusion, combining private and public engagements in the same trip is actively discouraged.”
However, Prince Harry would have paid for his own ticket to travel to Canada where Meghan was filming Suits at the time.
Prince Charles has been revealed to have the most expensive travel costs of all the Royal Family.
The Sovereign Grant Report was published in June for 2019 and reveals the costs of the royals’ travels.
The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall spent £1.3million on travel for royal engagements over the past year – up by almost a third on the previous year.
