Prince Harry will become the first senior British royal to testify in court for 130 years in his case against a newspaper group he accuses of illegal behavior next week.

Harry, King Charles’ younger son, will testify at London’s High Court in his and more than 100 other celebrities’ lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and Sunday People.
The last senior royal to testify was Edward VII, who testified in part of a divorce case in 1870 and 20 years later in a card game slander trial before becoming king.

Harry, fifth-in-line to the throne, has been in the news for six months due to his legal battles with the British press and the publishing his memoir and Netflix documentary series, in which he accused other royals of cooperating with tabloid tabloids.

His court appearance may garner global interest.

David Yelland, a senior communications consultant and former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sun tabloid, which Harry is also suing, said the royal family had avoided legal cases because they were out of control.

These instances generally involve mutually assured destruction. “Nobody will look good,” he remarked.

Harry and three others are test cases in more than 100 MGN lawsuits.

MGN journalists or private investigators commissioned by them phone-hacked on an “industrial scale” and conducted other illegal acts to collect information about the prince and other claims, according to the trial, which began last month.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer David Sherborne alleged senior editors and executives approved this. However, MGN denies the hacking claims and claims senior figures were kept in the dark.

A writer and Harry biographer told the court that Piers Morgan, one of Britain’s most prominent broadcasters and a vocal critic of the prince and Meghan, knew about hacking.

After criticizing Meghan, Morgan, who has denied wrongdoing and accused Harry of invading his family’s privacy, departed his TV breakfast show job.

“It’s hard to escape the notion that he’s using the courts, because he knows that when he is in the witness box, he will be believed,” Yelland said. “It is the ultimate interview to be cross-examined by a hostile barrister in the witness box.”

MGN, now owned by Reach (RCH.L), apologized in court documents at the start of the trial and admitted that the Sunday People had wrongfully obtained information about Harry and that he was entitled to compensation.

It denied his other charges, stating he had no evidence. However, However, MGN would argue that Buckingham Palace staff provided some of Harry’s cross-examination information.

MGN’s materials suggest Harry’s former deputy private secretary and Morgan had “regular meals and drinking sessions together.”

Harry said his family and aides leaked bad news to preserve their reputations. No palace remark.

Harry will return to London’s High Court this week after appearing with Elton John and others in March for their lawsuit against the Daily and Sunday Mail tabloids’ publisher.