This story started out kind of tedious, as opposed to scandalous. By the time the dust settled on the cycle of this story, it still seems rather tedious, and overwhelmingly nitpicky. The backstory: Prince Harry and Meghan thought that they could form their own Sussex Royal charity or Sussex Royal Foundation. They formally split with the Royal Foundation last year, and began making plans to set up this Sussex Royal Foundation. Then Sussexit came and they were banned from using “Sussex Royal” branding on anything. Now they’re starting Archewell, except they haven’t actually started it yet, which means that some of the projects they began in 2017-2019 are kind of up in the air, in legal/charitable limbo.
So it is with Travalyst, which was started under the Royal Foundation banner (when the Sussexes and Cambridges were still joined charitably). When the split happened, Travalyst went with Harry, since he started it and it is his initiative alone. As the brothers were splitting up charities, the Royal Foundation of course owed funds to Meghan and Harry, because there was already a division in fundraising and fund allocation. So the Royal Foundation “gave” £145,000 to Sussex Royal and £144,901 to Travalyst. Now Republic, a royal-shenanigan watchdog group, claims that the Royal Foundation’s grants to Sussex Royal and Travalyst were some kind of fraud.
Republic says Travalyst is not a registered charity and should not have received the money. Graham Smith, chief executive of Republic, said: “Maybe I’m missing something here, but I find it difficult to believe that a charity making an independent and impartial decision would decide to make these payments. The Royal Foundation has lost almost £300,000 to Prince Harry’s pet projects. Harry’s own charity is now closing and he appears to be taking the charity’s money with him. I can’t see how that isn’t a breach of charity law. Whatever the legal position this looks unethical and underhand. People donate money to a charity expecting it to be used to fund the charity’s objectives, not to be given away to support a patron’s other projects.”
A spokesperson for Prince Harry’s legal team, Schillings, said: “The Duke of Sussex has always and continues to remain deeply committed to his charitable work. This is his life’s focus, and his devotion to charity is at the very core of the principles he lives by, and is obvious through the impact and success of his many charitable projects throughout the UK and beyond. To this point, it is deeply offensive to today see false claims made about The Duke of Sussex and his charitable work. It is both defamatory and insulting to all the outstanding organisations and people he has partnered with. Travalyst (which was founded within Sussex Royal) is a non-profit organisation for which The Duke receives no commercial or financial gain, as is the case with all of his charitable commitments. The Duke has not, nor has he ever, had any personal financial interest in his charitable work.”
They added: “All of The Duke’s charitable activities are fully transparent as well as compliant with Charity Commission guidelines, and moreover with his own moral compass.”
A spokesperson for The Royal Foundation said: “The grants made to Sussex Royal were to support the charitable work of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. They were fully in line with governance requirements and were reported transparently.”
So, Republic’s issue is that they don’t believe the Royal Foundation should have given those “grants” to Travalyst, for reasons. Here’s the thing: I don’t actually doubt that there are some hinky financial shenanigans with the Royal Foundation and how they’re splitting up funds from the Sussexit and all that. I actually think that one of the big reasons why Harry and Meghan wanted to start their own charity is because they didn’t want to be tied to the financial mess that is the Royal Foundation any longer. But it really sounds like the Royal Foundation’s grants were simply the brothers splitting up the funds which Harry had already earmarked for Travalyst anyway.
God, is there anything more boring than “auditing charitable funds with an anti-Sussex grudge”?
A spokesperson for Prince Harry calls the claims “an attempt to attack and undermine” Prince Harry’s charitable work. Team Sussex add that a legal letter to formally reply to the anti-monarchy group @RepublicStaff will be issued shortly.
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) July 20, 2020
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
I mean, if you want to look at the royals spending and criticize it, go ahead, but this particular move seems like a poor one to criticize, because it is so easily defended.
I love how Harry is now all about the lawyers though lol.
The main issue in the actual complaint was focused on the royal foundation but the press and Graham are focusing on Harry.
Republic is clout chasing. I just looked through their Twitter and they are taunting Harry to come chat with them. Their own supporters are dismissing their behavior as just talk on the internet to play down the seriousness of the accusations which shows why the organization has always been a joke.
But this also implicates William and Kate who were part of distributing the funds. So Robert Jobson was in the comments trying to tamp things down.
The Republic is so bad at this that many are wondering if they were hired by the royals to diminish the cause of republicanism.
There are financial things to question, a lot of them, but this does not seem shady. Maybe focus on Andrew and his charity mess?
I’m starting to believe that are too. Why attack the royals who left? Why not beat the drum about Andrew, the actual charity investigation report revealing how the royals don’t contribute anything, how much taxpayers pay for the Yorks and royals they’ve never heard of? That’s just easily a way to gain populist support. Or why not choose a tactical one and take down the heir or heir’s heir? Or why not estimate the costs of maintaining the Queen’s
And Anne’s hobbies like horses or other things they expense to amuse themselves?
Omg you guys, yes, that is the exact same conclusion I came to. Even commented on it further down!
Just like clockwork. On the eve of a Travelyst conference a faux scandal emerges. Last year it was the commercial plane stunt.
The attempts to derail Harry’s initiative seem way too obvious . Why is everyone so threatened by Travelyst?
It’s simple: “Everyone” = William and “Travalyst” = Harry and/or Meghan. Any story with a pro-Cambridge slant is the result of a petty little man with a grudge against his own brother. Will used to be the favorite, and he coasted on it for years with no work to show for it. Harry was the f*ck up, but he grew up and found himself. His brother can’t stand it. It’s really sad.
???? It seems deeply unlikely that William is coordinating articles for a publication that is based on abolishing the monarchy and in an article which also investigates his own foundation.
Bingo, Aurora. This latest attempt has the distinct aroma of freshly trimmed rose bushes and homemade chutney all over it.
The amount of effort and work put into colluding with media to try to derail and undermine others who genuinely want to do something worthwhile with their privileged positions is jaw-dropping. If only that same effort was directed to their own initiatives instead.
I’m surprised a republic account went for this. In terms of charity and royalty, this is a very odd hill to die on.
You think W+K did report their own foundation to harm Harry? How does this make sense?
Projection – its long been rumoured that the RF has been upto financial no good with their funds so this is an attempt to blame the Sussex’s not just by Republic but the RR’s.
The only place that has been rumored is here.
If that’s true that means that Harry’s hands aren’t clean in this too. He was an active member of the Royal family, less than a year ago. Thus he benefited from these alleged financial misdeeds. At the very least, he would be complicit in them.
Delete
The ridiculous lengths these people will go to harass and undermine Harry and attack his wife is unbelievable.
It truly is sickening and exhausting to witness. They are so obvious it’s almost funny, except it’s not because it’s so cruel.
It’s fascinating. The 6th in line non working royal has a entire media armed and ready to destroy his character because he wants to become independent. People should be happy their tax dollars are no longer funding an irrelevant member of that family but no, they seem really pissed off. I find that strange.
If this was really about charity, they could’ve investigated Andrew’s charity or how the Wessexes haven’t released a report in 3 years. No wonder the republic movement hasn’t gained much steam. I doubt Harry would do something highly illegal with the press and the palace watching his and Meghan’s every move hoping to find something to use against them. This timing is also interesting bc travlyst has a summit soon. There was also the jet/budget flight stunt before the launch of travlyst. Someone does not want this venture to be successful.
You are so right but why? H already has the IG which I think is much bigger than Travalyst! isn’t it more efficient to derail that one instead? or sentebale?
All of that and no one asks what William, the future future, has ever achieved!!!
Because there is a Travalyst conference at the end of this month – they are trying to derail that the way they did last year’s announcement about Travalyst with the Flybe plane BS.
Probably because Harry managed to actually put out a project for sustainability and his brother’s earthshot prize endeavor is still nowhere to be found and heard from.
The IG is well established and successful by now and was set up while Harry was still being painted as the screw up third wheel to W&K.
Travelyst though, is new and is being set up now when Harry is getting more attention than his brother and is not following the Firm’s orders. It’s an easier target.
GuestWho, the funny thing is, within 7 months after that ‘budget flight’ stunt, orchestrated by William’s Tory Party secretary man, FlyBe was out of business. Karma came fast.
I thought they were irrelevant! the other senior royals wanted them gone because they were taking all the spotlight; why do I feel like the british press can’t stop talking about them? for them, not to grab the headlines, isn’t it best to ignore them?
There are so many futures and top CEOs in the UK, why focus so much on H&M?
Republic – A royal-shenanigan watchdog group. Exactly.
The leader of this group Graham something (who has a know SM history of bitching about Meghan) immediately began tweeting the Daily Fail and its ilk about his complaints. People are saying that this a planned and targeted attack to taint Harry and his charity work as he is about to open up the Travelyst Summit in about 10 days. The BRF and BM are still working in collusion just like they were before and during the Travelyst Launch and the whole Flybe stunt by the Lazies. Harry’s family does not want him to succeed and is creating circumstances hoping that he comes back to them with his tail between his legs. Yeah, keep dreaming!
On another note, Harry is really staying true to his moniker “Ginger Avenger”.
Republic has been around since the 1980s. And yesterday they came out against the Cambridges as well for freeloading off the public weal. Maybe their claims against Travalyst are incorrect. But they aren’t some anti-Sussex sock puppet.
Mumbles, they are implying fraud which could be criminal. You think it’s just a coincidence they bring this up right before the Travelyst summit? Maybe this guy is the world’s biggest diva opportunist. Or maybe not.
Well if the Republic are such a non-partisan group, it would have been better for them to follow the required procedure of carrying out such inquiries against charities and not blab all their business to the cesspit of racist fools working for the Daily Fail and family who are known specifically for being bloodhounds when it comes to doxxing the Sussexes in every aspect of their lives.
And, If they are so serious then they should first go after nonce Andrew who is still misusing charity funds, taxpayers money for his perverted lavish lifestyle. And then these ‘Republic’ nasties are asking the public to fund them for their bitch moves. Loved that the public (not just H&M fans) gave them a nice dressing down on social media.
I hope Harry drags their sorry a$$es to the court and takes every penny that he can for targeting him, his small family, his life’s work.
Also once Harry gets cleared of all wrong-doing, the public should demand the Republic to file a fresh complaint against all the charities who have Noncy Andrew, the never-do-well William, and future keen consort Kate as their patrons. Let’s see them actually walk their talk to the end with actual royal members.
I mean, if Republic wants Royal Charities to be investigated because of financial shenanigans that is a great idea – most of the royal charities seem sketchy, investigate all of them! Not just Travalyst!
They’re specifically targeting the Cambridges’ Royal foundation. When H&M left, they were given money for their new foundation from the Royal foundation. The Republic is arguing that that money was donated to a charity foundation and must be used for that purpose. Travelyst isn’t under investigation, but it’s also not a charity. The media is spinning it, but William is equally guilty in this. He’s the one who would have signed off on giving the money to the new Sussex Royal foundation. That money ultimately ended up going to travelyst. So, the Republic is right that the funds were mishandled, but it wasn’t just Harry’s doing.
Graham Smith himself has been targeting just Harry in his tweets. It’s not just the tabloids twisting things which makes this whole thing look bizarre.
Hey Andrew!!! How are you?? Have you spoken to the FBI?? I see you!
Hey William! How’s the rose garden?
Hey Queenie, how’s the back stabbing and head in sand exercises going? I see you too!
@Alexandria The little conspiracy theorist in me is whispering that Andy shanghaied his daughter’s wedding and moved it so far forward because he knows his time is up and that he’s soon going to be getting cosy with the Prosecution.
I’d say given the hyper-focus on literally every single move they make, Harry & Meghan would not be dumb enough to commit fraud via charity. The irony never ends, though, given Andrew was *just* caught violating charity laws and we know he’s been making private income through his charitable endeavors for years. Everything peddled against H&M is simply projection from other royals.
The Republic guy is a scam artist, but he was used to being able to get publicity this way because the Monarchy couldn’t be seen to directly attack a group like Republic. He’s been more interested in getting publicity of of Hard and Meghan than actually ending the Monarchy because that would put him out of a job. He forgot Harry is now free.
This in my opinion was one the biggest reasons why Harry and Meghan wanted out and away from the Royal rota. As soon as they would give their embargoed briefing to the rota the reporters would go back to their editors and the newspapers would use their columnists and try to create independent sourcing to undermine a charity effort before it is launched. Happened with Vogue. They suddenly cared about private planes because they were briefed about Travalst even though the rest of the world didn’t know about it yet. And they even tried to sabotage smart works. You can tell by Meghan’s Vogue introduction she was tired of trying to anticipate every possible criticism.
I’m glad Harry is fighting back. This is his livelihood they are messing with. This is make or break for him and Meghan.
If they were still with the RF they wouldn’t be able to fight back with this accusation.
Looking at the Republic account you could see how they were desperate for attention. Their none sussexs posts barely get 20 likes!! Notice how they were retweeting the 4 blacklisted tabloids and asking if bbc was reporting their propaganda. It’s pretty clear that this was for attention.
If they were serious like Sussexs lawyers said, they could’ve gone through correct procedures to file a complaint with Charity Commission. The commission spokeswoman said:
“We have received a complaint on this issue.
“As with all concerns raised with us we will assess the information provided to determine whether or not there is a role for the Commission.
“We have not made any determination of wrongdoing.”
I hope Schilling is working on a defamation suit. This slanderous claim not only affects harry’s reputation but also his charity.
Funny how a lot of Sussex trolls are celebrating this when it would implicate the Cambs if true. It’s just more proof that a good chunk of Cambs fans are more anti-Sussex than pro them.
I think 95% are hate accounts. I don’t the Cambridge’s have that many fans.
I don’t think Harry and Meg did anything wrong but the Royal family’s finances have always been shady. Where does Andrew get so much money from? And do they ever account for their charitable donations?? Harry will have to file income taxes if he keeps living in the US – he could expose a lot of the family’s dirty money secrets.
It’s fishy why republic always go after Meghan and Harry with so much time and energy when they already have their foot out the doors, it’s almost like conspiracy theory why the republic heads hardly ever attack the Fk and FFK?? Are they harder targets, do they shell out money to keep the organizations quiet, hmmm.
It seems that certain people are really bothered about Travalyst and have tried to sabotage this particular project from the initial launch. They are having a big online conference July 30, and now this news is dropped? Also, they went straight to the press without initially going through the regular channels to file a complaint. Glad Harry’s legal team responded very quickly and forcefully. The dragging on Twitter for these republic clowns was glorious. Then they tried to redirect to get Harry to “ have a chat” about abolishing the monarchy. Like wtf? The Sussexes are well aware every single penny in and out of their charities will scrutinized with a microscope, especially in the U.K. Look at all the digging into the trademark process. No way would they do anything like this. Glad they responded immediately and hope they sue them for blatantly lying.
Is this William getting revenge for Republic’s statement that he and Kate should get jobs and had no right to laze around on the public’s money; and that the two of them are horrifically expensive? The £950,000 hedge was mentioned.
£950,000 for a bloody hedge. We’re shedding jobs like a dead dog sheds fleas, every day, but they can spend a million quid on topiary.
I understand the technical basis original complaint seeing as in the hurry to break up the Royal Foundation Travalyst was set up as a private limited company rather than a charity. However, the funds do not seem to be moving around for corrupt purposes, so blasting it out like Republic did was clearly a move intended to defame Harry. I wouldn’t be surprised if the RRs were the ones who caught the transfer and told Republic about it, so that the Anti-Harry campaign could have some steam on the left and reach the people too smart to buy into it when it was just coming from the right-wing tabloids.
Even if it is registered as a limited company it is still a non profit, the money can’t go anywhere else except for the use in the organization. They were trying to say Harry was taking it for himself for his personal use
I believe Travelist is a non-profit with two legs: a private LLC and a charitable leg. Harry collected/received donations from his partners for the development of the initiative, so when Travalist moved to his Sussex Royal Foundation, and now is an independent organization, it was, by the charity rulings, allowed to move with the donations received for the purposes of this initiative.
Since Travalist is going to work with the private sector, the LLC part would be, to generate the means to fund itself (like selling merchandise, create content like books, documentaries, etc.) to keep its operation running. The charitable part would be to look for donations to fund the initiatives/projects/grants, etc.
Many big charities are setup like that: a business operation leg and a grant/project leg, just to prevent citizens of misuse of donations, for lets say, to fund a (lavish) business operation. Big international/global charities, like the ones regarding wildlife conservation, environment, children, women, are structured in this way.
In their statement, William’s Royal Foundation made it look like they gifted Harry the money for Travalist out of goodwill, but that’s not the case. It was Travalist money (for its development) from the start. The Royal Foundation was just an umbrella for Harry’s projects and foundations.
Since money was one of the big problems between the brothers, in terms of spending and running the Royal Foundation, as they moved forward, thru the years Harry had learned to make sure to separate his projects/foundations, and the money raised for them by himself, from the operations of the Royal Foundation.
I don’t think people donated to the Royal Foundation expecting it to be used for Travalyst, which is more or less a corrective PR project for rich people using fossil fuels. I’m side eyeing.
The funds that were moved from the Royal Foundation to Travalyst were earmarked for sustainability projects spearheaded by the Duke Of Sussex in the Royal Foundation’s recent financial report. Given how long he’s been working on this, the donors were probably aware that it was earmarked for Travalyst which was originally conceived when he was at the Royal Foundation and was supposed to be housed at SussexRoyal. Look at the interview of Disney’s Bob Iger from the Lion King where he said that he was supporting sustainability/conservation work for “Harry’s foundation”. Harry has donors from his own network who support his work. As long as the $$ was specifically earmarked for his work, which it looks like it was; there is no issue.
Also; travalyst hasn’t fully launched yet. You have no idea what the full scope of its services are. Wait for it to actually launch before making conspiracies theories. Statements like this are the reason why Harry needed to get his lawyers involved; you can’t just accuse someone of maliciously appropriating funds with no evidence.
Yeah! They meant those funds to go towards another yacht race!
But the question is if funds from the Royal Foundation can be earmarked towards a private company, which is Travalyst’s current status. It is not registered as a charity.
Republic is getting dragged? It lost its credibility when it didn’t bring in Andrew and the Wessexes. They look like Cambridge and/or tabloid stooge.
Harry’s lawyer are right: If Republic was serious about investigating this they would have reached out to the Royal Foundation and Travalyst for documentation as is required by the Charity Commission. Instead they put out a statement accusing Harry of misappropriating donor funds and defrauding donors with literally no evidence to back it up.
The fact that they didnt follow process means their complaint probably won’t even be heard by the Commission but if they don’t rescind their public speculation and apologize for their unfounded criminal insinuation Harry should sue them into a cardboard box. Charities should be subject to scrutiny but you cant just accuse someone of literal crimes publicly with no evidence to back it up.
Republic made a statement saying Harry overreacted with bringing in the lawyers. Graham bit off more than he could chew.
I believe Travalyst has two legs: a private LLC and a non profit /charitable leg. Harry collected/received donations from his partners for the development of the initiative, so when Travalist moved to his Sussex Royal Foundation, and now is an independent organization, it was, by the charity rulings, allowed to move with the donations received for the purposes of the initiative.
Since Travalyst is going to work with the private sector, the LLC part would be, to generate the means to fund itself (like selling merchandise, create content like books, documentaries, etc.) to keep it’s operation running. The charitable part would be to look for donations to fund the initiatives/projects/grants, etc.
Many big charities are setup like that: a business operation leg and a grant/project leg, just to prevent citizens of misusing donations for a (lavish) business operations. Big international/global charities, like the ones regarding wildlife conservation, environment, children, women,, are structured in this way.
In their statement, William’s Royal Foundation made it look like they gifted Harry the money for Travalist out of goodwill, but that’s not true. It was Travalist money (for it’s development) from the start. The Royal Foundation was just an umbrella for Harry’s projects and foundations.
Since money was one of the big problems between the brothers, in terms of spending and running the Royal Foundation, as they moved forward, through the years Harry had learned to make sure to separate his projects/foundations, and the money raised for them by himself, from the operations of the Royal Foundation.
I don’t know too much about the Republic as an organization, but from what I can understand, they’re primarily in the business of rabble-rousing, not exactly bringing the truth to light.
To that end, most of their work in opposing the monarchy is far more about being in-your-face and vocal rather than doing any tangible work wrt the political and legal aspects of disentangling the monarchy from any future form of govt and political structure in the UK (and the states over which the British monarch is head of state).
Other people have pointed out that if the intent is to criticize the royals as a drain on public funds, with shady financials, then you can simply look towards figures like Andrew etc for that. If you really cared about what a post-monarchy Britain would look like, you could highlight some of the constitutional issues that need to be resolved before the monarchy can be abolished.
But constitutional law is not particularly fun and gripping, and neither is a pot-bellied fifty year old man who’s been accused of sex trafficking minors. And so we get back to the crux of the problem with Meghan, Harry and the press. The press needs Meghan. They keep going on and on about her because she is the most interesting person to join the monarchy since Diana. The press has no objective to make her stay or go, they only have the objective of making sure that she remains a public figure, because as long as that’s true, then they can continue to profit off of her existence.
This is why they compared Beatrice’s wedding to Meghan’s, and it’s why Republic though it would be worth putting the focus on Travelyst. Outlets want eyeballs. The Republic can’t offer anything new or unique to entice people towards their point of view on the Andrew front, or pretty much anything else for that matter. But instead of putting in the work to grow their movement, they’re choosing to stoop for attention on Twitter, and therein comes all their problems.
I see Harry can clap back with the best of them and use an iron fist if necessary. Harry is not bullshitting with anyone who tries to smear him of misusing any charity funding. Sometimes you have to throw down the hammer and mean business. I got a hint for your ass-leave this ginger avenger and his family alone.