Celebrities | Oct 02, 2020 01:30 PM EDT

Prince Philip Heartbreak: Queen Elizabeth II Forbids Duke To Weigh on Megxit

By Staff Reporter

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip — (Photo : Jonathan Brady - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Six months after breaking free from the Royal Family, people never heard any word from Prince Philip concerning Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision to step down as senior royals. It is because Queen Elizabeth II forbade him to and did her best to keep his husband away from the "Megxit" drama.

According to a royal expert, the 94-year-old monarch did not allow her spouse to discuss the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's future, particularly the conditions under their 12-month trial period.

Speaking to Express, royal author Ingrid Seward said that while the Duke of Edinburgh is aware of the Sussexes desire to have a "half-in half-out" setup with the British monarchy, the Queen still prohibited him from deciding the couple's future.

In Seward's new biography, "Prince Philip Revealed," she claims that the Queen intentionally kept Prince Philip out of the discussion and somehow tricked him during the emergency meeting of senior royals at Sandringham estate.

According to Seward, Queen Elizabeth II asked one of the Duke's close friends, Penelope Knatchbull - Countess Mountbatten of Burma, to drive him out of the Sandringham just before the meeting started.

"The Queen refused to allow their shenanigans to get to her husband," Seward wrote.

"So, when she called an emergency summit at Sandringham on January 13, attended by her son the Prince of Wales and grandsons Prince William and Prince Harry, as well as their senior advisors, she asked one of her house guests, Countess Mountbatten, to drive him away from the house at least for the duration of the meeting," she added.

The royal biographer explained that while the senior royals are in an in-depth discussion on what will happen to the Sussexes future life out of the monarchy, she kept the 99-year-old Duke busy entertaining guests.

"While they sat in the long library on the ground floor and thrashed out a solution that would allow Harry and Meghan their freedom without bringing the Royal Family and the Crown into disrepute, Philip remained out of the way," Seward claims.

It looks like Queen Elizabeth II wants to protect her aging husband from the stress brought by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

After the Sandringham meeting, Her Majesty released a statement fully supporting the Sussexes decision and desire to have a private and independent life away from the Royal Family.

Despite being out of the picture during the decision making, Seward claims that Prince Philip thinks that the setup demanded by Prince Harry and Meghan are impossible to achieve.

He is also saddened that the younger members of the Royal Family do not value their sense of duty.

"As a result, it grieves Philip that many younger members of the Royal Family do not appear to share his values," Seward wrote.

The royal biographer also claims that the Duke of Edinburgh could not understand why the Sussexes need to break free when they have everything they need at the palm of their hands.

"He has struggled greatly, for example, with what he sees as his grandson Harry's dereliction of duty, giving up his homeland and everything he cared about for a life of a self-centered celebrity in North America," Seward continued.

"He has found it hard to understand exactly what it was that made his grandson's life so unbearable," she added.