Here are more photos from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s visit to Nottingham on Thursday. I can feel it in my bones, the Sussexes’ day in Nottingham is going to become one of those major moments which shift the conversation and narrative. Other recent moments include: Harry’s solo trip to the UK and Ukraine in September 2025, and the Sussex family visiting Highgrove in July. Anyway, these pics show Harry and Meghan inside the The Community Recording Studio, then their visit to Himmah Hub and then their event at Epic Partners. At every stop, they were greeted warmly by large, appreciative crowds. The royal rock stars are back! Which means that the leftovers are having nervous breakdowns and crying about how THIS IS NOT ALLOWED!

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are back. Back to Nottingham, back to hand-picked charity visits they still call “engagements”, and back to walkabouts. Back to accepting flowers, inviting the press to cover them, and doling out hugs to anyone in the vicinity. Back to the life they said they did not want, except this time with none of the boring bits, or the duty that being a working royal entails.

Having found their financial freedom, Harry and Meghan can – and now have – staged their own away day, on their own terms, as if the past six years simply did not happen. Like Rip Van Winkle, who awoke from a 20-year slumber to find the world had changed but he had not, the Sussexes appear to be picking up exactly where they left off.

They have already been accused of “cosplaying” the royals, of flagrantly ignoring Elizabeth II and the King’s hopes that a line could be drawn between the working family and the selling of jam. It felt, at first, like something of a challenge to the King. The Sussexes have made clear that they do not feel bound by the “no half-in half-out” agreement set by the late Queen, and which the King and Prince of Wales will uphold. An extraordinary briefing, from a friend of the Sussexes to Hello! magazine before their day trip, spelt it out.

“They never agreed they wouldn’t be half in half out,” it said. “That was what was decided and foisted upon them.”

It is true to say there is no Sandringham Summit contract, with a flourish of Meghan’s calligraphy signature across the bottom. But there was an agreement, whether Prince Harry liked it or not. It seemed, for a while, that the Sussexes had settled into it. Sure, they staged a quasi-royal tour occasionally, but that did not greatly trouble the scores. The Duke was set to focus on Invictus, the Duchess on As Ever. In Britain for an “extended stay”, the children settled into their (second) school, and things have changed.

…If Buckingham Palace hoped that a letter spelling out the Sussexes’ role as private citizens who do not represent the family would encourage them to differentiate their activities, they do not know the Sussexes. There is no escaping it: this looked like a royal engagement. Will the King act? Can the King act? It is tempting, I imagine, to simply watch this run its course from afar.

[From The Telegraph]

I’ve mentioned before that the Windsors are pretty much in their Who Gonna Check Me Boo era – they’re sitting on tens of millions of pounds annually from the Sovereign Grant, their duchies are bloated, feudal catastrophes, but as of now, there’s no real appetite for change. The Windsors can basically do whatever they want or not do anything at all, give or take those increasingly loud Not My King chants. Well, here’s the thing – Harry and Meghan are arguably in the same position, give or take police protection. They have the money and star power to go wherever they want and do anything. There’s nothing King Charles can do which he isn’t already doing, namely, blocking their royal protection. That’s the only thing being held over the Sussexes’ heads. And clearly, they don’t care at this point, I guess.

Incidentally, in the Mail’s Palace Confidential newsletter, Richard Eden huffed this particularly amazing little tidbit, about the Sussexes presenting an existential threat to the monarchy: “The threat to the Royal Family is that coverage of the Sussexes will overshadow the working royals. It’s notable that two of Prince William’s last engagements, to Northern Ireland with Catherine, and when he played cricket in The Mall to publicise the Earthshot Prize, did not even make some of the British newspapers.” LMAO!!!!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.