- Meghan Markle and Prince Harry announced their intention to quit as senior royals this week, stunning the royal family.
- Their plan for how to arrange their affairs in the future was contained on a website that the two built without the other royals knowing.
- It was put together by The Article, a Canadian web design firm that worked on Markle's old blog, The Tig.
- For a time, staff at the firm would have known more than about the future plans of two of the most prominent royals than even Queen Elizabeth II.
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When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle needed to work out their future outside of the top ranks of the royal family, they turned to allies from Markle's past — the company that coded her lifestyle blog.
The couple — known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — worked with Canadian web design firm The Article to produce the website which spelled out their dramatic departure as senior royals.
The Article was also behind Markle's old lifestyle blog, The Tig, which she closed down not long after going public about her relationship with Harry.
The new site, Sussex Royal, contains details of their plan to pull back from their duties as senior royals and to forge a new path.
While doing fewer royal engagements, the Sussexes want to maintain many of the privileges that go with it, including their taxpayer-funded bodyguards and their newly-refurbished home near Windsor Castle.
As has been widely reported in the UK and international media, the rest of the royal family did not know about the duke and duchess's plan until they went public with it on Wednesday.
This creates the unlikely situation whereby The Article's web design team for a time knew more about the future of the royal family than Queen Elizabeth II.
According to The New York Times, the Sussexes' own communications staff also had no idea about the website, and were caught off-guard when it was made public.
It is unclear what will happen to the couple from here.
A formal statement by Buckingham Palace described the Sussexes' plan as being "at an early stage."
Prince Charles, whose private wealth funds most of the duke and duchess's spending, was said by The Times of London to be considering cutting off their funding if they pull back too far from their royal duties.
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