A houndstooth blazer, a distinctly British Mulberry handbag and a London-style front step dressed for Christmas: every detail in Meghan’s latest image appears carefully chosen.
Little about Meghan’s public image is left to accident. The photograph, featured in As Ever’s holiday catalogue, offers a particularly polished—and pointedly British—presentation of the Duchess of Sussex.
This is Meghan in her British Influencer Edition. Since launching her lifestyle brand in April 2025, she has remained at its centre, usually promoting a distinctly Californian vision of life: oversized sunhats, bright gardens and plenty of barefoot ease.
Now, however, the mood has shifted. Meghan appears to be embracing a country-house persona, entering territory long associated with Carole Bamford and her luxury wellness and organic farming business, Daylesford Organic.
The move may also invite fresh scrutiny of the Sandringham agreement. Following Megxit, Meghan and Prince Harry agreed with the late Queen that they would not remain “half in and half out” of royal life, although the Sussexes have indicated this year that they did not accept all of its terms.
That backdrop gives added significance to Meghan’s latest commercial push. It comes shortly after a day of charity engagements in Nottingham that carried an unmistakably royal tone.
This time, the offering is not another jar of jam. Instead, As Ever is presenting a “refined” collection designed around entertaining at home, with a distinctly British feel.
The range includes blue-and-white tableware, among it a porcelain Trellis teapot priced at $98 (£73) and a matching teacup and saucer costing $68 (£51).
The Duchess of Sussex wears a houndstooth blazer and carries a Mulberry handbag in a promotional image from her As Ever holiday catalogue
The collection also features a leather notebook with a British penny tucked into its front pocket and the phrase “A penny for your thoughts” printed on the cover. It sells for $185 (£138), while the most expensive item is a $398 (£297) tablecloth.
The Christmas shopping season continues regardless, but the timing comes during a particularly difficult week for the Sussexes.
Attention remains focused on disturbing allegations involving Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, which he denies.
The Daily Mail reported yesterday that it had contacted the FBI after the discovery of alleged child-abuse material in a storage unit rented by Thomas Markle near his former home in Mexico. The report is understood to have caused further distress for Meghan, who is said to have recently left Britain for several days with Harry and their children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five.
“She’s just really, really upset,” a friend told Hello! magazine this week. “She keeps on looking at Lili and she’s in tears, and thinking about all the children, the alleged victims. It’s just devastating.”
The family controversy was followed by another setback on Thursday, when a YouGov poll suggested that Harry and Meghan are now less popular in Britain than they were before returning to the country in August.
Just 29 per cent of Britons expressed a favourable view of Harry, a four-point drop since July, while 60 per cent viewed him negatively. Meghan recorded a 20 per cent positive rating and a 68 per cent negative one, giving her a net score of minus 48—the lowest YouGov has recorded for her.
In stark terms, more than two-thirds of those surveyed said they viewed the Duchess of Sussex unfavourably. Only former Prince Andrew ranked lower in the poll.
Meghan and Harry embrace their children, Archie and Lilibet, in an image shared by the couple last Christmas
The couple’s apparent strategy for rebuilding their standing—keeping a low profile, avoiding apologies and focusing on charitable work—has so far produced little evidence of a turnaround.
The poll results raise a difficult question: would the public be more willing to offer a second chance if it heard an apology first?
That’s certainly the opinion of renowned royal author Robert Jobson who said this week: ‘I am not mean-spirited. But I believe that to be granted a second chance you must first earn it. Oh, and yes, you need to apologise for what you did wrong too . . . and mean it. As yet, this entitled pair – H & M – haven’t, and don’t think they should.’
So has the Sussexes’ bold gambit failed? Friends of the couple waft away talk of a crisis, and deride reports circulating which suggest that they might just declare the whole attempt a bust and go back to Montecito, California, after Christmas, for good.
‘There is no buyer’s remorse!’ one insists.
The family is on a short planned break out of the UK – possibly at their home in Portugal – and will be returning this weekend so that the children are ready to start the second half of term in their new schools. They are occupying a house on the estate of a wealthy friend in the Cotswolds.
There is no question of giving up on the reverse Megxit. A source says: ‘They have definitely not gone back to Montecito for half term. They are just away for a few days. They have been focused on the children spending some time with their new English friends as they are still very much settling in.
‘After half term it will be a big change for Archie as they start to play sport on Saturdays. They are still absolutely committed to their life in Britain and to making it work.’
As Ever is flogging blue and white crockery – a porcelain Trellis teapot for $98 (£73) and a teacup and saucer for $68 (£51)
The friend adds: ‘Meghan is trying to fit into British society and doing a lot of things differently from last time around.
‘When she was first here [when she moved to the UK and married Prince Harry] she wanted to send out signals with her clothes about uplifting this designer or that cause but she gets it now, people don’t want that. A lesson has been learned.
‘She wants to come across as low-key and respectful rather than all guns blazing. This is very early days and a new chapter and they are treading carefully.
‘She sort of needs one of the local grandes dames to adopt her, take her under their wing. It only takes one matriarch!’
Good luck with that, as all the signs are that the couple are making very little headway socially in the Cotswolds or in London.
They have been visited by friends from America and Meghan has seen US comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who lives in the Cotswolds, but aside from a few sightings at Soho Farmhouse they haven’t been in evidence at social events.
Perhaps there is some hesitating among the smart set over inviting them to break bread. But the pair are apparently sincere in their wish to be accepted in the UK and to ‘do good’ here.
There is to be another public engagement for both of them between now and Christmas and Harry also has a number of yet-to-be-announced public appearances at charity events.
And those close to the couple don’t place too much stock in the poll of 2,000 people.
‘The whole vibe in the country is generally soaring, people can see that they are not bad people,’ says the friend. ‘They were so happy with the Nottingham visit. They are looking seriously at where and when to buy now but I know that the place they are in has started to feel special to them so there is no rush.’
He adds: ‘They are very well aware that they need to build bridges. They really have gone out of their way to make a quiet start and to be humble. The King sees Harry as a naughty rogue and really there is no problem between father and son. They chat regularly and things are all moving in the right direction.
‘There was a sense of trepidation in coming back for the pair of them and in particular for Meghan.
‘It was a heart-wrenching moment giving up her life in Montecito and coming back to a country which, rightly or wrongly, has not made her feel the most welcome.
‘She was very aware at that point that she was to some degree unwelcome in the UK. There were deep breaths to do it. It was a decision made for the sake of the family that this would be the best place to educate the children, that an English public school education was second to none and that it needed to start this year so that Archie could begin at prep school at the same time as everyone else.
‘They are still very committed to that, although there are now some conversations around a possible different tack at secondary school level rather than going to Eton, Wellington or Marlborough.
‘They are UK residents now and will be for decades to come but have discussed the idea of sending the kids abroad for secondary education.’ One possibility is boarding at Upper Canada College, a leading private school in Toronto.
Meghan will continue to ‘come and go’ from the UK as she carries on with her lifestyle brand and also takes on any other media work.
It won’t include series three of the Netflix hit The Gentlemen – reports that she was ‘in conversations’ for a role in the gangster drama – which seemed to be seeded from the Sussex side just as they came back to the UK – didn’t turn into casting.
So what else will she do? Ari Emanuel, formerly her agent and chairman of William Morris Endeavor agency, made waves a few weeks ago when he revealed she was ‘actually getting booked’ for ‘reality stuff and TV stuff’ by other members of his team.
What that meant became clear this week when it was announced that Meghan is to be a guest judge on Junior MasterChef, filmed in Melbourne, next year. She did a day’s filming with the Australian version of MasterChef when the couple were visiting this spring.
In a statement she said: ‘I had an incredible time with the whole team at MasterChef this past April, so when they approached me to come back and work with this young group of talent, it was an easy yes.
‘I love cooking with my own kids, so seeing what these young stars create in the kitchen is going to be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see what they cook up.’
I’m told that the appearance will be more than just a guest spot this time. ‘She is going to go for a few weeks,’ says a source. Despite speculation: ‘None of the family will go, it will just be her.’
The source adds: ‘She will continue to work in the US and globally and be very, very careful about what she does in the UK and how she does it. She is aware that the consequences if she gets the optics wrong can be really bad.’
We can expect further announcements from Meghan of new patronages and initiatives involving UK charities particularly relating to women, children and digital harm.
And what of the ghastly Thomas Markle allegations? His son, Thomas Jr, has told a newspaper that he found a sickening trove of paedophile pornography among his father’s belongings and police in the Philippines are investigating.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the police watchdog for failing to pass allegations about Thomas Markle to the FBI and other foreign forces.
It received a letter in 2019 accusing the Duchess of Sussex’s father of being a paedophile and committing crimes overseas but took no action beyond handing a copy of the letter, believed to have been written by Mr Markle’s late ex-wife, Roslyn Loveless, to the duchess.
Embarrassingly for the Met, when the new allegations emerged, it had to ask the duchess for a copy of the letter as it had lost the original.
Meghan said in a statement last week: ‘I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed. In 2018 [sic], a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection [Rasp]. That letter was subsequently shared with me. It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated.
‘I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications’ distortion over the years, any distance from my father, and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children, was for one reason: to protect them. I trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families.
‘Although the breadth of what has now been uncovered is more sickening than one could ever imagine, my sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served and that the priority remains the safety and protection of innocent children.’
One source tells me that the characterisation of Meghan as in tears over her father this past week is not correct. On the contrary, she is ‘relieved’ that the world now knows the allegations about him.
He said: ‘She is relieved that it is being looked into properly and she is also relieved to some extent that things are out in the public because she feels that the way it’s being dealt with now indicated how significant it is. She just wants the right outcome for any victims.’
The source adds of Thomas Markle: ‘There has always been a thick layer of oddity about the man.’
A layer the duchess will want to distance herself from as soon as possible as she continues to forge her reinvention as a domestic goddess.