King Haakon VIII at Norway’s Parliament to take his oath of accession, along with his daughter, Crown Princess Ingrid and his mother Queen Sonja, with his son Prince Sverre Magnus in the rear (Royal Court of Norway)
Meghan
She’s apparently going to regularly fly back to California, where her business will still be based. As Ever has been marketed as the quintessential California lifestyle firm. Hard to switch that to a country that is famously cold and wet in the winter.
Her mother also lives in California as do many of her friends whom she featured in her With Love, Meghan series. (As is her father, though they haven’t seen each other since well before the wedding in 2018 so it’s unlikely that’s a reunion in the offing.)
It’s unclear how much she’ll be seen in public in Britain. Remember: Meghan has said how much she loathed Britain and its society.
Harry
He is effectively a full-time father. His life outside his family has been reduced to a few charities, including the Invictus Games, WellChild, and Scotty’s Little Soldiers.
He could find the transition rocky from his carefree life in California as a bicycle-riding, surfing prince. For one, he’s never lived in Britain as a private member of the royal family. And things have changed radically in the past six years.
Queen Elizabeth and later King Charles have carefully established and maintained boundaries between working royals and the rest of their relations. For one, formal events are largely off limits as they are the purview of working royals. So it is extremely unlikely that he will take part in the main Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph and other state events.
And then there are his comments to ITV’s Chris Ship earlier this year during a visit to Ukraine: “I will always be part of the Royal Family, and I am here working doing the things that I was born to do. And I enjoy doing it.”
In addition, his pronouncements, such as calling the judgment in his privacy case a “whitewash,” will come under increased scrutiny now that there is no longer an ocean between him and the throne, government, or judiciary being criticized.
Archie and Lilibet
The children are enrolled in public (meaning private) school in Britain. There’s one report that they are to be “day boarders,” meaning they spend longer than usual at school each day, including having their meals there.
My analysis
It would make sense if both Harry and Meghan attend the WellChild awards gala in mid September. It would mark their “coming out” in Britain while emphasizing their belief that charity work isn’t only for royals.
The British media will respect their privacy but will the foreign paparazzi? I expect that the Sussexes will use any breach of their privacy to push even harder for the maximum police protection that they can get.
There is also going to be a sharp compare-contrast with the Wales family, as it’s expected that they will allow images to be released marking Prince George’s first day at Eton College (they start on September 9, according to the college’s website).
And unlike the Sussexes, they know that their school years have been free of media intrusions. Think about it: Have you seen images of them privately enjoying fun fairs, taking sailing lessons, etc., in any British paper or U.K.-based media website? Nope.
Yet we know that the Prince and Princess of Wales do the school run, are in group chats with other parents, and are fixtures on the sidelines at sports events.
People magazine had a rather anodyne cover story on the Sussexes leaving Montecito.
“They wanted to spend time with the people they’re closest to before they left and for the kids to have some special time with friends,” the source says. “It wasn’t a goodbye forever. It was much more, ‘We’ll be back, but this is what we’re doing right now.’”
Even The Economist has its own rather perceptive analysis about the impact of the return of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, starting with its obligatorily catchy headline: “Harry and Meghan are ghastly and back in Britain. Good.”
The piece is lighthearted compared with other fare in the magazine, yet still packs a wallop:
Now Harry and Meghan are back. Prophets have predicted the end of the monarchy; the word “tumbrils” has, previously, been used. Nonsense. Everyone is enjoying this far too much. Not because Harry and Meghan are good; they are not. They are grasping, foolish and far from DIGNIFIED. But that is their point. The monarchy has royals who are dutiful, admirable and dignified: Princess Anne will, in the next fortnight, visit a youth event in Norfolk, a probation office in Manchester and a fish cannery in Aberdeenshire. Hardly anyone cares.
What will really kill the modern monarchy is not lack of dignity but, like any show, lack of interest; not the rolling of the tumbrils but declining audiences and the rolling of the credits. As Bagehot in fact knew: monarchy, he wrote, offers distraction from the “dry scenes of the grave world”. What is drier or graver than Britain’s? Andy Burnham is underwhelming, the drought is ongoing, the green and pleasant land is shrivelling. Meghan and Harry are ghastly but so is life. Let them eat headlines.