Why Two Rival Royal Courts Went Head-to-Head as Palace Fumed

It was a day when two competing royal operations appeared to collide.

Whatever spin was placed on the Sussexes’ visit to Nottingham—and however casually Team Sussex insisted it was not a traditional Palace away day—the underlying message was difficult to miss: Harry and Meghan regard themselves as public figures free to operate on their own terms.

And, above all, they seem intent on recreating the appearance of royal life.

For Harry, it is the world he has known since childhood. Meghan’s motivations are less clear, but she is perceptive enough to recognise the value of these public-facing events, which offer an efficient way to meet communities and generate goodwill.

There is a reason the working royals have relied on this formula for generations.

It was hard not to sympathise with the King and Queen as they demonstrated the restraint and dignity associated with traditional royal duty. During their arrival to formally open the Welsh parliament in Cardiff, they largely ignored a small but vocal group of anti-monarchy protesters.

Camilla, striking in vermilion—an apparent contrast to Meghan’s more understated burgundy—stood beside Charles as he paid no heed to cries of “not my king.” He continued with the official red-carpet greetings before sharing a deeply moving exchange with Gareth Jones, a survivor of the 1966 Aberfan disaster who became so emotional that he held tightly to the monarch’s hand.

The royal couple also encountered Len Moss, an off-duty nurse whose memories of Aberfan remain especially harrowing. After the colliery waste tip collapsed onto the village school, Moss spent two days cleaning the hands and faces of children recovered from the rubble so grieving relatives could identify them.

Inside the Senedd, Charles praised the building’s “spirit of public service.” The address was written in advance, naturally, but the phrase carried particular resonance given Harry’s long-running and highly public disagreement with the royal institution over the meaning of service.

Harry’s late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, supported by Charles—then Prince of Wales—and Prince William, took the firm view that a royal could not be “half in, half out,” especially while pursuing profitable commercial ventures.

The Sussexes famously responded that “service is universal” and have spent the past six years seeking to expand the limits of the so-called Sandringham Agreement in the direction they originally wanted.

William, for his part, was wisely absent from the public stage. He was understood to be taking part in a long-planned “duchy day,” working privately on projects connected with the Duchy of Cornwall.

What made the day particularly revealing was how closely the Sussexes’ programme resembled the brief they once followed as working members of the Royal Family.

An operational note circulated to journalists, including royal correspondents—though notably not Our News Outlet’s—outlined their series of “official engagements” in Nottingham. These were the same types of reporters Harry once derided as “pirates with Press cards.”

Several journalists were also invited to attend and distribute reports and video from the day as part of an official Sussex media pool.

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That is not intended as a criticism of fellow reporters. Major news events must be covered, and journalists have a duty to describe what they witness fairly and accurately.

What’s so remarkable, though, is that this is the way the Sussexes have chosen to fashion their approach to the British media, when they vowed to do the very opposite at the time of their acrimonious departure.

Once again, it seems, they cleave back to the mothership.

Even their staffing yesterday was eerily familiar.

Behind Harry in Nottingham, those with an eagle eye might have spotted the delightful Beth Herlihy, who was employed as a programme coordinator by the prince when he was a working royal (and who also previously worked for William and Catherine at their Royal Foundation).

She and another equally lovely former royal aide Clara Loughran (Harry’s former programme manager, who was appointed a member of the Royal Victorian Order in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List) have since founded a private advisory firm working with high-profile individuals in the philanthropic sector, whose number one client in the UK is …the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Both, in other words, have been trained in ‘the royal way’. Even the walkabout undertaken by the couple – just hours after their own team pointedly insisted they wouldn’t do one because they didn’t have the security to manage it, despite the exact timings of their visit being publicly released, presumably in an effort to drum up interest – was royal in all but name.

While courtiers have done their best to make clear the Sussexes have nothing to do with them and should be treated as private citizens (as Harry and Meghan themselves have so frequently requested) events like their trip to Nottingham yesterday come as close to ‘official’ royal duties as you could get.

The obvious question is: what can the Palace do about it?

Very little, it seems. They’ve made their point, Harry and Meghan have chosen to ignore it.

There’s no doubt that the Royal Household is irritated and is likely to be even more so when it reads an inflammatory briefing by a friend of the couple to Hello! yesterday that the Sandringham Agreement was ‘foisted’ upon them – and that they never actually agreed to anything. Which many feel tells you a great deal about their current thinking.

But the Palace is absolutely determined not to be stung into reacting. Indeed, if the King’s approach yesterday was anything to go by, he will simply ignore the haters – whether they be random protesters or members of his own family – and stoically get on with his public duties.

And the same goes for the rest of the real royals too.