There was a time when a royal visit meant something. It came with a purpose, an official framework and a clear understanding of who was representing the Crown.
Then there is Harry and Meghan in Nottingham. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex swept into the city on Thursday, greeted by wellwishers and bouquets of flowers
They visited community organisations, met young people and worked their way through a programme of carefully arranged public appearances.
Sound familiar? It should. It looks remarkably like a royal visit.
There is just one rather significant problem: Harry and Meghan are not working members of the Royal Family and haven’t been for six years. And their decision to come back to a country they’ve been far from complimentary about in what appears to be the hope of representing an institution they besmirched and decried for years doesn’t change that.
They chose to walk away from a role that was handed to them on a plate. Meghan was given prestigious patronages when she married Harry. The fifth in line to othe throne had been given his own share of royal honours. But they wanted something different and they left, shouting angry comments as the door swung.
They no longer carry out official royal duties on behalf of the King. They are not representing the Crown. Yet here they were , undertaking a series of events that look suspiciously like an attempt to recreate the royal life they left behind.
Welcome to the Sussexes’ increasingly curious world of wanting to look royal without royal responsibilities.
They left the Royal Family. So why are they behaving like it?
Nobody disputes Harry and Meghan’s right to visit Nottingham. They are entitled to support charities, champion causes and spend time with people doing valuable work in their communities. They do not need royal permission to do any of those things. But that totally misses the point.
The issue is not whether they are allowed to visit a recording studio or a food bank. It is the manner in which these visits are presented, the attention surrounding them and the unmistakably and intended royal character of the spectacle.
This was not simply a private couple popping in to see a local charity. The Sussexes posed for photographs, greeted well-wishers and followed a programme of public events across Nottingham.
Meghan reportedly told one woman in the crowd that it was “great to be back”. Harry chatted with schoolchildren. The couple moved from one organisation to another, with their every appearance attracting media attention.
And what, precisely, are we supposed to make of it?
They have abandoned the formal responsibilities of working royalty, but the public-facing performance remains. The walkabouts are there. The crowds are there. The photographs are there. The media coverage is there.
It is the royal experience without the royal job description.
The missing piece is the Crown
One detail is particularly telling: the reports of the visit did not describe a Lord-Lieutenant greeting the couple as the King’s representatives. That distinction matters!
A Lord-Lieutenant represents the Crown in a county. Their involvement in an official royal visit is part of the constitutional and ceremonial framework surrounding the monarchy. Harry and Meghan, however, were not visiting Nottingham as representatives of the King.
King Charles had, in fact, made it abundantly clear just last month when he ordered the Lord Chamberlain to write to all those involved in putting together royal engagements to remind them that the Sussexes are not official representatives of the Crown and were not to be treated as such.
The letter had to be sent after ”several requests” were sent to Buckingham Palace for clarity. The visit to Nottingham was arranged by the Sussexes, no one else, and carries no more clout than that of a visit by any celebrity. For that is what the Sussexes are – famous people. That their fame came through royal association is another argument (and Meghan’s fame is based on that, Suits didn’t give anyone a global platform in their own right, just to be clear).
it needs to be made abundantly clear that the Sussexes are doing all these pseudo royal events off their own bat, because the distinction between a royal engagement and a visit by two internationally famous members of the Royal Family is not merely a matter of semantics.
One carries the authority of an institution. The other does not.
Harry remains the King’s son. They retain their titles although King Charles was also clear in September that the HRH is in abeyance, a rather old fashioned way of saying that it no longer applies until the Monarch says otherwise. But that fact does not make them working royals, and it does not give their activities the status of official royal engagements.
The Sussexes cannot have it both ways. They cannot step away from the monarchy’s official machinery and then expect their public appearances to be treated as if they are still operating within it.
A shadow royal family?
The phrase shadow royal family may sound dramatic, but it captures the uncomfortable question at the heart of this visit.
What exactly are Harry and Meghan trying to be?
They are not private citizens in the ordinary sense. Their titles, wealth, international profiles and connections ensure that their activities attract attention.
Nor are they working royals. They do not undertake official engagements on the King’s behalf.
Instead, they occupy an increasingly awkward space between the two: independent public figures who retain the visibility of royalty while operating outside the institution’s official structure.
Nottingham offered a striking illustration of that arrangement.
The Sussexes were able to undertake a programme of charitable visits and generate the sort of coverage routinely associated with senior royals. Yet this was not an official visit conducted on behalf of the Crown. It was a Sussex visit.
That distinction should not be buried beneath the familiar language of royal reporting.
There is a difference between supporting a charity and conducting what looks like a royal tour. There is a difference between being a celebrated public figure and representing the monarchy. And there is a difference between possessing a title and carrying out royal duties.
Harry and Meghan may be comfortable occupying that grey area. Why wouldn’t they be? The elephant in the room is why they felt the need to return to the UK and start doing this, given that they want to run private businesses. There is no doubt that even the smallest vestiges of a royal link bring benefits and, in this case, to them rather than the institution. The public should not be expected to pretend it does not exist.
The problem with wanting the best of both worlds
The British monarchy operates through a distinction between the King and those who represent him, and other members of his family who may retain royal connections without undertaking official duties. That distinction is not always straightforward, but it matters.
Working royals have obligations. Their engagements are undertaken within an established institution, and their public roles come with expectations that extend beyond turning up for a photograph.
Harry and Meghan made a decision to pursue a different life. They were entitled to do so. But a decision to leave the working monarchy inevitably means accepting that their future public activities are different from those of the people who remain within the institution.
They cannot simply recreate the most visible elements of royal life whenever it suits them.
If they wish to operate as independent philanthropists, they should be free to do so. If they want to support charities, they have that right and ability as themselves. If they want to visit Nottingham, again, up to them.
But there is no need to dress those activities up as a substitute royal operation.
Nottingham deserves better than another royal sideshow
The organisations the Sussexes visited have important work to do. Young people need support, families face hardship and community groups often operate with limited resources. Their work should be the story.
Instead, the arrival of Harry and Meghan inevitably turned the spotlight towards the couple themselves: their return to Britain, their relationship with the monarchy, the photographs and the question of what their next move might be.
The charitable work was a mere backdrop to a much larger Sussex narrative. And there is no doubt that this is a rebrand and the main beneficiaries are Harry and Meghan.
That is the danger of a public role built around celebrity and royal identity rather than a clearly defined institutional purpose. Every visit becomes another chapter in the story of Harry and Meghan.
The irony is difficult to ignore. The couple have spent years establishing their independence from the Royal Family, yet their continued public appeal depends in no small part on their royal identity. The move back to the UK has been about enhancing that.
Strip away the titles, the royal connections and the fascination with their relationship with the Crown, and these would be two famous people visiting charities. There is nothing wrong with that. But it certainly wouldn’t get the attention it gets right now.
They cannot reasonably expect the benefits of that identity to disappear when inconvenient and return whenever it provides an advantage.
Make the choice clear
Harry and Meghan are free to build whatever future they want. They can be philanthropists, campaigners, entrepreneurs or celebrity figures. They can support causes in Britain and around the world. Their decision to leave royal duties does not oblige them to disappear from public life. However, after six years, it would be expected that an identity away from royalty would have been established. That it remains their main draw is perhaps another key to why they have come back.
In 2020, it was clear that Harry and Meghan have every right to make their own lives. Six years on, their decision to try and pick up a life they left, imitating an institution they criticised repeatedly, is odd to say the least. And we come back to the point that the only ones to benefit right now are the Sussexes who have been given acres of coverage and hours of attention while Meghan skipped off happily to her Instagram to show herself being a duchess again.
If they want to be independent, they should embrace that independence fully.
Because Britain already has a Royal Family. It does not need a second, unofficial version operating alongside it – borrowing the spectacle of royal life while leaving the responsibilities behind. Perhaps it really is time for the pair to be removed from the official royal website, just to make the independence clear.
