Prince Harry to testify in his lawsuit against the British tabloids for invading his privacy and publishing racist attacks against his wife, Meghan Markle

• Prince Harry will testify on Tuesday in his lawsuit against British tabloids.
• Prince Harry says the tabloids have invaded his privacy since he was a kid and hacked his phone.

Prince Harry is going where other British royals haven't for over a century: to a courtroom witness stand.

The Duke of Sussex is set to testify in the first of his five pending legal cases largely centered around battles with British tabloids. Opening statements are scheduled Monday in his case.

Harry said in court documents that the royal family had assiduously avoided the courts to prevent testifying about matters that might be embarrassing.

His frustration and anger at the press, however, impelled him to buck convention by suing newspaper owners — allegedly against the wishes of his father, now King Charles III.

If Harry testifies as scheduled Tuesday in his lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mirror, he'll be the first member of the royal family to do so since the late 19th century, when Queen Victoria's eldest son, Prince Albert Edward, testified twice in court.

The man who would go on to become King Edward VII testified in the divorce proceedings of a woman he was accused of having an affair with (he denied it) and in a slander case involving a man who cheated at cards. Edward VII was the great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, Harry's grandmother.

The Daily Mirror case is one of three Harry has brought alleging phone hacking and other invasions of his privacy, dating back to when he was a boy.

In court documents, he described his relationship with the press as "uneasy" in court documents, but it runs much deeper than that. The prince blames the paparazzi for causing the car crash that killed his mother, the late Princess Diana.

He also cites harassment and intrusion by the British Press and "vicious, persistent attacks" on his wife, Meghan, including racist articles, as the reason the couple left royal life and fled to the U.S. in 2020. Reforming the news media has become one of his life's missions.

News that British journalists hacked phones for scoops first emerged in 2006 with the arrest of a private investigator and the royals reporter at the now-defunct News of the World. The two were jailed, and the reporter apologized for hacking phones used by aides of Harry, his older brother, Prince William, and their father.

A full-blown hacking scandal erupted five years later when it was revealed that the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid eavesdropped on voicemails on the phone of a slain girl, forcing the paper to close and launching a public inquiry.

Since that time, other newspapers have been accused of illegal intrusions that extended to tapping phones, bugging homes and using deception to obtain phone, bank and medical records.