A royal family reunion might be on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry ’s calendar this summer. The Sunday Times’ royal correspondent Roya Nikkhah reported on Sunday that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are excepted to return to London to attend Her Majesty’s 95h birthday parade, Trooping the Colour, in June.
“The current plan is for the Queen’s birthday parade to go ahead in London as normal, with the acceptance that it may need to be adapted or scaled back depending on what guidelines are in force at the time. But the aspiration and the ultimate desire is to make it happen,” a senior royal aide told the newspaper.
The annual celebration in London, which the Cambridges are fixtures at, was canceled last year due to the pandemic. Instead, a scaled-down ceremony was held at Windsor Castle with no royal family members in attendance.
Trooping the Colour 2021 would be Meghan and Harry’s first public appearance with the royals in over a year. The Sussexes, who are no longer working members of the royal family, were last publicly seen with the Queen, Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Kate Middleton at the annual Commonwealth Day Service held at London’s Westminster Abbey on March 9, 2020.
Last week marked one year since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their desire to step back as senior members of the royal family. The couple’s “revised” roles went into effect last spring. Since then, the pair and their son Archie Harrison have moved to Montecito, California. Back in August, Harry admitted that he would have returned to the UK had it not been for the pandemic. During a video call to commemorate the Rugby Football League’s 125th birthday, the Duke said, “I definitely plan on coming back. I would have been back already had it not been for COVID.”