The email Harry and Meghan sent that 'made everything fall apart'

In the days following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's bombshell announcement that they planned to leave the royal family, everyone wanted to know how the other royals reacted.

The Sussexes shocked the world by revealing their exit plans on January 8, but there were rumours they had shocked the monarchy too.

Reports began flooding in that the Queen, Prince Charles and other senior members of 'The Firm' were blindsided by the announcement.

Now, there are claims the royals knew about Harry and Meghan's plans long before they announced them at the start of the year.

Almost two months before their January statement, the couple allegedly emailed both Charles and the Queen, detailing their decision to leave the UK.

According to Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand's tell-all royal biography, Finding Freedom, the Sussexes used the email to request an in-person meeting with the Queen before Christmas 2019.

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Harry and Meghan were set to go on a six-week holiday over Christmas, with plans to travel abroad to Canada with baby son Archie.

As such, they likely would have wanted to speak to Charles and Her Majesty before leaving.

However, they purposely kept their email vague and left out key details in case it was ever leaked to the press, the book claims.

According to Scobie and Durand, that email marked the moment when "everything began to fall apart".

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Harry and Meghan were first told by one of Charles' aides that the earliest they could meet with the Queen would be on 29 January, 2020.

They planned to return to the UK in early January, and would then have to wait several more weeks to speak with the monarch in person, putting their exit plans on hold.

Meanwhile, information from the email was quietly leaked to a UK reporter, and on January 7 – the same day Harry and Meghan carried out their first public engagement of 2020 – The Sun ran a story about the pair.

It claimed the Sussexes were planning to leave the UK and move to Canada, hinting at the possibility of a royal split.

The very next day, Harry and Meghan announced their exit on their Sussex Royal Instagram page – and the rest is history.

It has been widely reported the pair were in "discussions" with fellow senior royals about their exit before their January 8 statement, but didn't warn anyone they'd be announcing it that day.

As such, the monarchy was thrown into disarray as aides scrambled to release a statement following the Sussexes Instagram post.

The weeks that followed would see Meghan return to Canada while Harry remained in the UK to iron out their exit deal, which was quite different to what the couple had outlined in their own plans.

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Now, more than six months later, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have just bought a new home in Los Angeles, where they intend to remain with their son Archie.

Having officially ended their roles as senior working royals in March, they're now free to pursue new causes and projects.