Prince Harry Was 'Saddened, Disappointed' After Royal Family Denied This Request, Book Claims

Prince Harry was "saddened" after his request to the royal family for last year's Remembrance Sunday was denied, a book has claimed.

A new epilogue included in the paperback release of royal correspondents Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand's unauthorized biography on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, "Finding Freedom," claimed to reveal new details about their life after quitting royal duties and moving to California and their tensions with the royal family.

In the epilogue, the co-authors discussed the reports that Buckingham Palace allegedly denied Prince Harry's request to have a wreath laid on his behalf at the Cenotaph, where Queen Elizabeth II and members of the royal family led tributes to those who died in the two World Wars and other conflicts on Remembrance Sunday in November 2020.

The book said that a red poppy wreath had been ordered for Prince Harry with the Royal British Legion at the time, the Independent reported. However, "as the day came and went, the duke's gesture remained in its box at the charity's headquarters in Kent," the authors claimed.

The Duke of Sussex's request was allegedly denied because he was no longer a "frontline royal," the book said. Prince Harry, who had spent 10 years in the military, had agreed to stop using his official military titles after he resigned from the royal family early last year. This included his role as Captain General of the Royal Marines.

Scobie and Durand quoted an unnamed source "close" to Prince Harry as saying that the royal was "saddened and disappointed by the decision."

"Ten years of service and a lifetime commitment to the military community and this is how it’s been acknowledged by his family," the source added.

Despite the alleged rejection, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle commemorated Remembrance Sunday in their own way. They were photographed visiting Los Angeles National Cemetery, where they left flowers on the gravesites of two commonwealth soldiers and placed a wreath at a memorial obelisk.

According to royal expert Katie Nicholl, author of "Harry: Life, Loss and Love," what they did only widened the gap between them and the royal family.

"It highlights the great divide between Harry and the royal family," Nicholl told OK! magazine in November last year. "There is such a gaping cavern now and exercises like this only serve to widen that gap rather than heal the rift."

In "Finding Freedom," the authors also covered the series of claims that Prince Harry and Markle made during their March interview with Oprah Winfrey. During the tell-all, the duchess claimed she was silenced by the firm and did not feel protected after joining the royal family.

The couple also claimed that a member of the royal family raised concerns over how dark their son's skin would be before he was born, though they did not name names. An unnamed friend of Markle's who spoke with the authors said the interview was "cathartic" for the duchess.

"All the things she had kept to herself or been too afraid to say [as a working member of the royal family] she felt safe to finally share. It was liberating," the friend was quoted as saying in the book.

Prince Harry and Markle's legal team issued a statement earlier saying that Scobie and Durand do not speak for them and that the claims in "Finding Freedom" are from the authors and not them. They also made it clear that they "did not collaborate with the authors on the book, nor were they interviewed for it."