The Real Reason Why Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Were Seated in the Second Row at the Queen's Funeral
The gossip continues.
In the weeks before Queen Elizabeth's funeral, the drama surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has been hard to ignore, as various news and gossip outlets speculate about their relationship with the rest of the royal family since stepping down as working royals and moving to California. The gossip continued at the services for the queen, with some wondering why the couple were seated in the second row. One British news outlet reports that the real reason has nothing to do with drama. Read on to find out what it is.
Harry's seating arrangement raised comments on and offline. "Why is Prince Harry in the second row?" wrote one Twitter user. "Another bad decision by the royal family and truly disrespectful to her majesty the queen who adored her grandson. Where is the unity?" "Disrespectful treatment of Harry and Meghan is disgusting," said another. "They really just couldn't HELP but put Harry and Megan in second row, when there was 2 perfectly fine spaces on Will and Kates row," observed another. "The unity between William and Harry from last weekend's walkabout looks sadly to be shortlived," tweeted journalist Sarah-Louise Robertson.
But at least one alert social media user cracked the code during the services. "Looks like the grandkids are in order of age," they tweeted. "Peter Phillips, Zara, William and families are on the front row. Harry, Eugenie, Beatrice, James and Louise on the second." Hello! magazine reported that the Queen's grandchildren were, in fact, seated in order of their age. Although Prince William—the new heir to the throne—was ahead of his older cousins Peter and Zara, the rest of the family appear to have been seated by birth order.
King Charles III and his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, sat in the front row with Charles's sister, Princess Anne, and her husband Sir Tim Laurence, his brothers Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, and Prince Edward's wife Sophie. They were joined by the Prince and Princess of Wales and their two oldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Princess Anne's son and daughter, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, also sat in the front row.
In the second row, Prince Harry was seated directly behind his father, King Charles, and sat next to Markle. Harry's cousins, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, their husbands, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and Jack Brooksbank, and their mother Sarah Ferguson, were also in that row.
The Queen's funeral was watched by a reported four billion people worldwide, including 11.4 million people in the United States, where it began before dawn on Monday. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had been in Europe for a series of charity events when Queen Elizabeth died on Sept. 8. People magazine reports that the couple has since returned to their home in California.
