I can still picture the day the Duke and Duchess of Sussex left the UK. I was with them at Buckingham Palace for what would be their final official engagement as working members of the Royal Family.
It was a bleak afternoon in early March 2020, with a quiet sense of unease hanging over everything. Part of it may have been the looming threat of Covid, as lockdowns were set to close down Italy that night and the crisis appeared to be moving towards Britain at alarming speed.
Yet there was something else in the atmosphere too: the dawning recognition that matters had reached this point less than two years after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, when much of the country had celebrated the promise of a more modern, more relatable monarchy.
That hope, however, had not endured. The Sussexes were about to leave on what amounted to a one-way journey — first to Canada that evening, and, only days later, on to their new life in California.
The occasion was the annual Commonwealth Day service at nearby Westminster Abbey. Beforehand, Meghan had invited me to a reception where I met a group of young students regarded as among the most promising talents from Commonwealth member states.
Like the service itself, the reception was designed to honour diversity and individuality. The irony was hard to miss: later that same day, the first mixed-race person to marry into the Royal Family would be departing, just 22 months after her ceremony at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
The reception unfolded without fuss, and then came the moment for Meghan to say goodbye.
She embraced me for a long moment. As she did, I noticed a shine in her eye, the same visible emotion reflected in the two members of her staff who were also there to bid farewell. Then Prince Harry arrived to lead his wife away to the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey.
Bryony gets an arm around the shoulder from friend Prince Harry. She got to know the prince through her work on mental health
Meghan and Bryony embracing each other. In 2019 the duchess told her how difficult she was finding royal life
Harry didn’t have tears in his eyes, but nor did he look particularly happy – just two days before, he’d had his final outing as Captain General of the Royal Marines, wearing his red mess uniform and the medals he earned for his tours of Afghanistan.
It has been over six years since that day, and there have been times during that period where it has seemed almost impossible to conceive of Prince Harry ever returning to the UK for more than the briefest of visits – the Queen’s funeral, his father’s Coronation, the annual awards ceremony for the charity WellChild, of which he is a patron.
Indeed, when I flew to the Sussexes’ Montecito home in January 2023, to interview Harry about his soon-to-be-released book Spare, the distance between the couple and the royals could not have felt greater.
It wasn’t just the revelations in the memoir – the physical fight with his brother; the ‘spare’ label given to him by his father, King Charles, on the day he was born. It was also that the Sussexes seemed deeply settled and happy in California.
By this time, I had got to know the couple a bit, mostly through the mental health work I had done with them both, which started after I interviewed Prince Harry on my podcast in 2017, about the chaos he experienced after the death of his mother.
I had become close enough to the pair that I had also visited them in 2019 when they lived at Frogmore Cottage, Windsor, where Meghan told me a little bit about how difficult she was finding royal life (this was almost two years before she revealed her mental health crisis in the couple’s infamous interview with Oprah).
In contrast, the family seemed lighter, brighter and far more relaxed in Montecito. I spent some time with them after our interview, and it was clear that they were thriving in their Californian home. But the UK was clearly still important to Prince Harry.
He proudly showed me the DIY photo wall he had put up himself on their staircase, featuring pictures of his mother and his childhood. It was the type of feature so many families have in their homes, and it spoke to a bond that could not be broken by distance or family disagreements.
Meghan and Lilibet on holiday in Europe. As well as their Montecito home, the Sussexes have a property in Melides, a village on the Portuguese coast near Lisbon
And so it was that on Wednesday night, 2,354 days after the Sussexes relocated from the UK, it was revealed that they would be coming back. Not entirely, of course – they will keep the house in Montecito, and the idea is that they will become more of an international family who will move around a fair bit, the ability to do so being one of the benefits of no longer being tied to the institution.
But they have enrolled their children in British schools, with seven-year-old Archie and five-year-old Lilibet starting their first terms next month.
The Sussexes also have a house in Melides, a village on the Portuguese coast near Lisbon, where they’ve enjoyed a lot of time this summer.
It must help, of course, that Harry’s cousin, Princess Eugenie, lives there, and after the birth of her third child at a hospital in Lisbon this month, perhaps Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, have shown the Sussexes that there is a way of living life that doesn’t involve having to be confined to one place all the time.
California is gorgeous, but it’s also a long way from anywhere. This summer has undoubtedly reminded them of this. Not only did they travel to Portugal, they also came to the UK, in part so Prince Harry could launch the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games, which will be held next summer in Birmingham (another reason to come back).
The family also spent time with King Charles at Highgrove, and then with Harry’s uncle, Earl Spencer, at Althorp.
It is on this vast estate in Northamptonshire that Princess Diana was finally laid to rest, on a private island in the middle of a lake, and of all the places the Sussexes visited during their summer trip, it is the one that will surely have meant the most to them.
Indeed, in light of this news, those glorious pictures that Meghan shared on Instagram of their July trip suddenly feel like so much more than just a sweet photo album of a summer holiday. There’s Lilibet, walking through an arch of trees at Althorp; and there’s Harry, flinging her in a pool as Archie plays in the background.
There are Portuguese beaches, market stalls, fish restaurants, glimpses of the Scottish wilderness. The whole carousel captured the spirit of the Sussexes: always up for wild adventure, and able to make anywhere their home, as long as they’re together.
Archewell – which consists of their charitable endeavour Archewell Philanthropies and development company Archewell Productions – will stay as it is, as will Meghan’s brand As Ever.
Montecito will always be an option to escape to. Home is where the heart is, after all – but how lovely it is that, after six long years away, their hearts are well and truly back in the UK.
