Meghan Markle and Prince Harry likely received plenty of wedding presents to celebrate their May 19 nuptials, but one was reportedly much more extravagant than the rest, with Queen Elizabeth II gifting the couple a country home.
Metro reports that the monarch gifted the couple York Cottage, which is located on the 20,000-acre Sandringham Estate. The estate is about 110 miles northeast of Kensington Palace in Norfolk.
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The gift lines up with the Queen’s “habit of giving property,” royal biographer Duncan Larcombe told Cosmopolitan UK. The monarch has previously gifted Sunninghill Park to Prince Andrew, Birkhall to Prince Charles, and Anmer Hall to Prince William and Kate Middleton, who lived there with son George for a time when he was young.
York Cottage was occupied for 33 years by Queen Elizabeth II’s grandparents King George V and Queen Mary after their marriage in 1893. The couple was titled the Duke and Duchess of York, so the cottage was renamed in their honor, the Telegraph reports. The pair lived there until George’s mother, Queen Alexandra, died at Sandringham in 1925.
The property is reportedly the third for Markle and Harry, who currently live in Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace and are also believed to have a home in The Cotswolds.
After the wedding, it was revealed that the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex reportedly returned or turned down a majority of the over $9 million worth of wedding gifts they received due to royal protocol.
The Express reports that Kensington Palace received an overwhelming amount of gift boxes for the couple from various companies and celebrities, though most of the gifts are being returned to sender as to avoid allowing the couple to give any brand free publicity.
The official royal policy on receiving gifts from businesses states, “When gifts are accepted, the consent of the Member of the Royal Family should be contingent upon the enterprise undertaking not to exploit the gift for commercial purposes.”
The palace’s guidelines add, “Gifts offered by private individuals living in the UK not personally known to the Member of the Royal Family should be refused where there are concerns about the propriety or motives of the donor or the gift itself.”
Ahead of their wedding, the couple had requested that in lieu of gifts, well-wishers make a donation to a selection of charities the Duke and Duchess had chosen that represent their philanthropic passions.
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