Harry and Meghan buy a holiday home in EUROPE after Charles asked them to give up their British base Frogmore Cottage

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were evicted from their cottage at Windsor by King Charles, they were left without a home in this country.   The California-based couple have, however, ensured that they retain a foothold on this side of the Atlantic.  The Daily Mail understands that Prince Harry and Meghan have bought a home in Portugal.

They are not the only royals who have a Portuguese property, with Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, owning a home in the CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club, a luxury development of 300 properties by the sea in Melides, south of the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.  Mr Brooksbank, 38, works in marketing and sales for CostaTerra. He, Eugenie, 34, and their two sons, August, three, and Ernest, 16 months, split their time between Portugal and London.

The purchase of the home in Portugal may have allowed the Sussexes to acquire a so-called Golden Visa, under which they would have visa-free access to the European Union’s Schengen area.  This could have been a major attraction to Meghan, who is a US citizen. When the couple got engaged in November 2017, Kensington Palace said Meghan would apply for British citizenship in due course, with a spokesman confirming that ‘she will go through the process [which] takes a number of years’.

However, she eventually abandoned her bid to become a British citizen after she and her husband left the country in March 2020, less than two years after their wedding.  A spokesman for the Sussexes confirmed in January last year that they had been asked by the King to give up their British home, Frogmore Cottage.

The five-bedroom property in the grounds of Windsor Castle was offered to Prince Andrew, the King’s brother, who rejected a move from the much larger Royal Lodge elsewhere at Windsor.  The King’s move followed the publication of Harry’s highly controversial memoir, Spare, in which he criticised members of the Royal Family including his stepmother, Queen Camilla, and his brother and sister-in-law, the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Frogmore Cottage was given to the Sussexes by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2018, shortly after the couple were married at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Officially, however, the Crown Estate owns the property.  Harry and Meghan carried out some £2million worth of taxpayer-funded renovations, though they subsequently repaid the cost in full through a contribution to the Sovereign Grant.

After Harry and Meghan moved to North America and quit royal duties in 2020, Frogmore Cottage was leased to Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank until 2022.  The Sussexes are known to be close to Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank, who featured in their 2022 Netflix ‘docu-series’ Harry & Meghan.  Last year, it was reported that the Sussexes enjoyed a ‘romantic three-night break’ in Portugal after attending the Invictus Games in Germany.

The couple are said to have flown from Dusseldorf to Lisbon before travelling an hour south to Melides in a ‘mega-secret’ operation. A source close to the Sussexes confirmed that they had been to Portugal. At the time, it was thought that they stayed with Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank, who have visited them at their home in Montecito, California.  Jose Santos, head of the Alentejo Tourism Board, confirmed that the Sussexes had enjoyed a ‘short stay’ at the CostaTerra.

‘We have no idea how many people linked to cinema, royalty, arts, design and fashion visit us, precisely because they value discreet travel, which is something they find in Alentejo like nowhere else in Europe,’ he said.  CostaTerra Golf is owned by a company founded by Mike Meldman, one of George Clooney’s business partners in tequila firm Casamigos.  Mr Brooksbank previously worked as a brand ambassador for Casamigos.

The Sussexes’ main home is a £19.5 million Tuscan-style mansion in Montecito with seven bedrooms, 13 and a half bathrooms, library, cinema, gym, pool and chicken coop.  A spokesman for the Sussexes was contacted for comment.