Are Harry and Meghan Facing the Consequences of Their Public Criticism?

The Sussexes’ response to a letter from King Charles reaffirming their position as non-working royals was “utterly petty,” according to royal editor Rebecca English.

The Lord Chamberlain, the Royal Household’s most senior official, wrote and circulated the letter on the King’s behalf on Monday. It was sent to government departments, the military and lord lieutenants.

It made clear that, despite Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s return to Britain, they remain “akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests.” Their HRH styles, the letter added, “remain in abeyance.”

Speaking on the Daily Mail’s Palace Confidential, English told host Luke Blackall that the Royal Household had made a “pretty punchy” intervention. However, she said the Sussex office’s subsequent reaction was extraordinary and appeared entitled.

“Their reaction after the letter emerged was to say, ‘We are surprised this has been done,’” English said.

“Well, actually, they first tried to say they didn’t get any notice of it at all. That is not true. They did. Then they said they didn’t get enough notice to make any amendments or clarifications.”

“The only way I can describe the reaction of their office is pettifogging and utterly petty.”

‘They issued the exact timings of this letter, that they received notification of its contents at 1.59pm… The fact they were so needled that they wanted to set out this timing, really speaks to the heart of the situation.

‘People I have spoken to were like: “This is the directive of a head of state. Not the head of a family, the head of a state. Why should these two private individuals feel that they have any bearing on what he says?”

‘There’s a lot of eyebrow raising at the fact that the Sussexes believe they should have had a chance to change what the King had written.’

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The Sussexes’ office was sent the contents at 1.59pm and replied twenty minutes later asking whether it had already gone out. It was released to the media at 3.06pm. Harry himself was contactable only at 3.09pm, having spent the day at a studio in London.

English went further, saying people she has spoken to feel the Sussexes’ reaction is deeply hypocritical.

‘What about Oprah? What about Spare? What about the Netflix series, what about the many interviews in which they’ve taken some really nasty pop shots at the institution as well as individual family members?’ she asked.

‘Where was the notice that the palace got on those? None.

‘I don’t think this was the palace’s intention, but a lot of people will think, the Sussexes have got a taste of their own medicine.’

The royal editor also dismantled the suggestion, briefed out by the Sussex camp, that the letter had been timed to influence an upcoming meeting of RAVEC, the Home Office committee that rules on entitlement to taxpayer-funded security.

She said the Sussexes’ claim was ‘pretty inflammatory’, given it supposes the palace would seek to sway a government committee over which it has no control.

‘I have been told [the claim] is wrong on two counts,’ English said.

‘One, the Sussexes are actually wrong about the timings of the RAVEC meeting and two, the reason why it was put out on a Monday is because it’s effectively the start of a new term for royal engagements.

‘The Sussexes have made clear they’ve got a very busy programme of their own engagements, so that they feel they needed to get the record straight before this all kicked off.’

Watch English’s full assessment of the Sussexes’ response to the King’s letter by subscribing to Palace Confidential on YouTube.