Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made a very special stop on their way to the Invictus Games.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who stepped back from their duties as senior royals in 2020, visited Harry's grandmother Queen Elizabeth II in the United Kingdom while traveling abroad to the Netherlands for the annual sporting event, a spokesperson for the couple confirmed to E! News on April 14. The visit marks Meghan and Harry's first joint trip to the U.K. since moving to California.
It's unclear where the meeting took place, though the Queen has been staying at Windsor Castle amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The last time Harry flew out to his native England was in June 2021, when he joined brother Prince William to unveil a statue of their late mother, Princess Diana, at the Sunken Garden of Kensington Palace. Prior to that, he attended his late grandfather Prince Philip's funeral in April 2021.
At the time, Meghan was pregnant with their daughter Lilibet, now 10 months, and opted not to make the transatlantic flight under doctor's advice.
News of the couple's reunion with the Queen comes on the heels of reports that Her Majesty will be skipping the Easter Mattins Service at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle on April 17. While Buckingham Palace confirmed members of the royal family will be at the service, a senior Buckingham Palace source told NBC News that the 95-year-old monarch is not expected to attend.
The Easter gathering would have been the Queen's first public engagement outside her residence in almost a month. Although she has been hosting virtual meetings at home after testing positive for COVID-19 in February, Her Majesty last stepped out for an in-person event on March 29, when she attended a memorial for her late husband at Westminster Abbey in London. Harry and Meghan, who also share 2-year-old son Archie, were not in attendance at the memorial.
Previously, Harry's legal team expressed concerns that the Duke "does not feel safe" bringing his wife and children to the U.K. without the proper security measures in place.
"It goes without saying that he does want to come back to see family and friends and to continue to support the charities that are so close to his heart," Harry's lawyer Shaheed Fatima said in a statement obtained by E! News on Feb. 18. "This is and always will be his home."
(E! and NBC News are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)