After processing from Westminster Hall, where the queen’s body had been lying-in-state, to Westminster Abbey, alongside his brother Prince William, Harry joined Meghan with other members of the royal family to take their seats at the foot of the high altar.
Harry and Meghan were seated directly behind King Charles III and Queen Camilla, alongside their royal cousins, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex.
On a row in line with the king and queen, but separated from the main body of the royal family by a small dividing aisle, were seated the Prince and Princess of Wales and their two children, Prince George, 9, and Princess Charlotte, 7.
This arrangement echoes the Platinum Jubilee service of thanksgiving seating arrangement that saw William and Kate seated close to Charles and Camilla, with Meghan and Harry seated on the second row on the opposite side of the aisle at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
At the time of the jubilee, Harry and Meghan’s being seated away from the senior royals was interpreted by some on social media as a form of punishment for the couple’s moving away from the royal family and speaking candidly about the negative aspects of their experiences since their marriage in 2018.
Biographer Tom Bower, a self-confessed critic of Meghan and a monarchist, claimed in an interview promoting his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, that he was told the queen herself authorized the jubilee seating plan.
Bower told GB News host Dan Wootton in July that Harry and Meghan asked an usher to sit closer to the aisle, a request which was denied on being told the monarch had made the arrangements.
Speaking to Newsweek at the time, Bower said that he had repeated information that was told to him by an “impeccable source.” Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
Harry and Meghan were in Britain at the time the queen died on a prearranged visit to attend a number of important charity functions.
The couple remained in the U.K. for the ten-day national mourning period, though it is unknown when they will return to their home in the U.S. where their young son, Archie, 3, attends preschool.
After reported tensions between the Sussexes and the rest of the royal family since the couple stepped down from their working roles to seek financial independence in 2020, there has been a show of royal unity in the days following the death of the queen.
Two days after the queen’s death, Harry and Meghan made their first joint appearance with William and Kate since their last official engagement as working royals in 2020. The two couples viewed floral tributes to the queen outside Windsor Castle before William drove them together to another part of the Windsor estate.
The couples were again reunited at Buckingham Palace to receive the queen’s coffin back to Buckingham Palace before the lying-in-state, and William and Harry appeared side-by-side to walk in processions behind the coffin to both Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey.
Following the funeral service, which included a number of the late queen’s favorite hymns and a reading by British Prime Minster Liz Truss, the queen’s coffin was brought in a procession to Wellington Arch, where it will be taken to Windsor to eventually be laid to rest next to her husband, Prince Philip who died in April last year.
