Prince Harry lost a preliminary round in his libel case against against the publisher of the Daily Mail tabloid over an article that said he tried to hide his efforts to retain publicly funded protection in the U.

In an excerpt of the Duke of Sussex' witness statement, read out by his lawyer Shaheed Fatima KC during a court hearing in London on Dec. 7, Harry revealed that he and Meghan Markle would not necessarily have chosen to leave the U.K. if they felt they had a choice.

In letters exchange between the late monarch’s secretary Sir Edward Young and then-cabinet secretary shown in court, King Charles’ mother deemed it “imperative” that her grandson is provided with security due to his public profile by virtue of being born a royal.