Harry and Meghan’s Faux-Royal Tour Reveals Why They Returned

As King Charles arrived in Cardiff on Thursday to officially open the Senedd, Wales’s Parliament, a small group of anti-monarchy protesters gathered outside and urged politicians to walk out.

Inside, the King delivered his speech. It was worthy, if unremarkable—as much constitutional royal business can be—but its significance should not be dismissed.

Yet the cameras were focused elsewhere: on his younger son, Harry, and daughter-in-law, Meghan, who were staging what looked like a return to public life in Nottingham.

Only months earlier, Charles had been widely praised during his visit to the United States for his witty speeches and his rapport with President Trump. Now Harry and Meghan had seized the headlines.

The couple first attended an acting workshop at a youth studio in St Ann’s before meeting women from the Hubb Community Kitchen, founded after the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, at the Himmah food bank. Meghan told those gathered how pleased she was to be back, greeting them with her familiar broad smile.

It was their first joint appearance in Britain since returning in August, six years after leaving for California. Officially, the visit was not a royal engagement. In presentation, however, it had been carefully arranged to resemble one.

At the first stop, members of the press appeared to outnumber the public. The second attracted only a few onlookers, while a larger gathering formed at the final location—many of them passers-by curious about the attention.

Meghan accepted armfuls of flowers as Harry, dressed in jeans, appeared to enjoy the reception. The scale of the apparent triumph, however, owed much to the camera angles.

I was there for Meghan’s first public appearance as a newly engaged member of the Royal Family.

It was December 1, 2017—World AIDS Day—and the engagement announcement had come only days earlier. The cold was bitter, but the crowd stretched five deep. When Meghan crossed the road, the reaction was extraordinary. An 81-year-old woman gave her fridge magnets and wept. Some of us believed the Windsors had found a star. We were badly mistaken.

Nottingham was an intentional choice for this attempted royal reboot. Returning to the place where their public story began was meant to signal a clean break and a new beginning.

But history cannot simply be erased.

Years of conflict cannot be undone by a smile. Harry’s 2023 memoir, Spare, exposed private family conversations and revisited disputes involving his brother and stepmother. Meghan’s Netflix series also recounted her first meeting with the Queen, including a theatrical curtsy that appeared to leave even Harry uncomfortable.

Neither episode has been followed by an apology.

In 2020, the late Queen rejected their proposal for a partial role as working royals at Sandringham. Now, they have effectively created such an arrangement on their own terms.

On September 7, acting on the King’s instructions, Lord Benyon, the Lord Chamberlain and one of his senior aides, wrote that the couple’s royal styles “remain in abeyance and are not used”. Their status, he said, was “akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests”. Copies of the letter were sent to the Government, the military and the Lord-Lieutenants.

Five weeks later, Harry and Meghan were in Nottingham, waving to crowds that proved considerably smaller than the publicity surrounding their return had suggested.

The King’s letter kept the man or woman in the plumed hat, the Lord-Lieutenant, at home. But it cannot stop two people with a global audience and money in their pockets who want back in on their own terms.

Private citizens? In 35 years covering the royals I have never known a private citizen whose charity visit was trailed in the national press days in advance.

In 2020 the couple promised to favor outlets ‘focused on objective news reporting,’ without saying who decided what was objective. Now, I am told, they keep a pool of friendly reporters who get the close-up access.

So the man who called the British press toxic – and took half of Fleet Street to the High Court – is now courting sections of it openly.

Much of the press seems to have gone tame, chasing clicks.

Why should Americans care? The monarchy has one argument left: duty before profit.

Harry once said service is universal. The Nottingham visit was all about self-service.

The Sussexes sell their brand. But you cannot monetize monarchy. The late Queen knew this and acted to stop it when they tried it the first time.

She was clear. You are still part of the family, but not The Firm. She sent them and their ideas of some sort of royal Hokey Pokey packing.

Once royalty is just celebrity, British taxpayers will start asking why they pay for the official version. The Senedd protesters who want rid of this unelected institution already are.

Every Member of Parliament still swears allegiance to the King and ‘his heirs and successors.’ That oath is harder to defend while the line of succession includes Harry and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – stripped of his titles by his own brother.

So why is the Harry and Meghan circus back? Not, it seems, to see his father with whom he has yet to spend time. It is about relevance.

This palace says nothing. If the King speaks out, he risks looking like a cold, uncaring father. Yet his silence is doing the Sussexes’ work for them.

The late Queen was strong because people deferred to the rank. That bolstered her. Her word was law.

But now there are two rival courts in Britain: One opens parliaments, the other plays to the cameras.

William and Catherine have spent years on work that rarely goes viral: for him, the environment and homelessness; for her, the early years of childhood. Every Sussex outing pulls attention away from them and, on Thursday, from the King himself.

William has made it clear he wants royalty with a small ‘r’. For now he is rising above the mess of his brother’s return, but such reserve cannot last forever. As king, he can decide by letters patent who is royal and who is not.

He still holds all the aces. It may be he, not his father, who has to play them.

Robert Jobson is a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Windsor Legacy, published by Pegasus (USA) and Blink (UK).