Sept. 13, 2026

The King Put It in Writing: Harry and Meghan Are 'Private Citizens' — and Within 48 Hours Uganda Quit the Invictus Games

Show Notes
Transcript

THE KING PUT IT IN WRITING: HARRY AND MEGHAN ARE 'PRIVATE CITIZENS' — AND UGANDA QUIT THE INVICTUS GAMES WITHIN 48 HOURS

Mark Francis on the week a line got drawn in an official document. At the King's direction, the Lord Chamberlain wrote to senior stakeholders across government, the military and the Lord-Lieutenancies confirming the Sussexes remain private individuals rather than working royals, and that their charitable work is undertaken privately. Two days later Uganda's defence chief withdrew the country from the Invictus Games rather than back anything without "His Majesty's approval." A source close to Harry and Meghan called it "clearly a consequence" of guidance "rushed out without consultation." Plus: Prince George starts at Eton.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/palace-intrigue-harry-meghan-the-crown-royal-family-news-and-gossip--4522904/support.

Palace Intrigue is a daily British royal family podcast covering King Charles, Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton and the House of Windsor. New episodes every day. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.250 --> 00:00:15.990
Kalaroga Shark Media Hello and welcome to Palace Weekly. I

2
00:00:16.050 --> 00:00:19.309
am your host, Mark Francis. It has been a week

3
00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:22.929
in which Prince Harry finally got an answer in writing

4
00:00:23.109 --> 00:00:26.670
to the question his entire homecoming has been asking. His father,

5
00:00:26.910 --> 00:00:30.399
or rather his king, had the Lord Chamberlain send round

6
00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:33.020
a letter making it official. The Duke and Duchess of

7
00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:37.039
Sussex are not working royals. Their position akin to private

8
00:00:37.159 --> 00:00:41.329
citizens with commercial and charitable interests. And in the blunt

9
00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:44.109
gloss of one royal source, you may have come back

10
00:00:44.149 --> 00:00:48.570
to the UK, but you are on your own. The

11
00:00:48.590 --> 00:00:51.210
rest of the week arranged itself neatly around that line.

12
00:00:51.750 --> 00:00:55.539
Prince George started at Eton and was promptly overshadowed. Uganda

13
00:00:55.659 --> 00:00:58.219
quit the Invictus Games rather than be caught on the

14
00:00:58.240 --> 00:01:01.579
wrong side of the king. Donald Trump announced he'd never

15
00:01:01.640 --> 00:01:05.840
have taken Harry back, and Windsor Great Park issued formal

16
00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:09.840
guidance on keeping a safe distance from the deer. So

17
00:01:09.890 --> 00:01:12.170
the theme of the week was borders and everyone was

18
00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:14.989
drawing one, which raises the question worth holding on to.

19
00:01:15.450 --> 00:01:18.170
When a father is also a king, which of them

20
00:01:18.390 --> 00:01:22.189
decides where his son belongs? This week, decisively, it was

21
00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:26.430
the king. Let's get into it. The letter is the story,

22
00:01:26.469 --> 00:01:30.840
so start there. Requests had reportedly been piling up Lord lieutenants,

23
00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:34.109
the king's representatives around the country, wanting to know how

24
00:01:34.189 --> 00:01:36.810
on earth to treat the Sussexes now that they're back

25
00:01:36.849 --> 00:01:40.629
on British soil. So Charles directed the Lord Chamberlain to

26
00:01:40.650 --> 00:01:43.629
put in writing. The couple stepped down in January 2020.

27
00:01:43.629 --> 00:01:46.290
They are no longer working members of the royal family,

28
00:01:46.750 --> 00:01:50.260
and their charitable work is a private matter, undertaken as law.

29
00:01:50.680 --> 00:01:55.840
in effect, private citizens. All technically true, all established years ago,

30
00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:59.560
which is precisely what made restating it in an official

31
00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:03.719
document days into their return feel less like clarification and

32
00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:08.110
more like a fence being posted. The Sussex camp certainly

33
00:02:08.210 --> 00:02:10.490
read it that way. A spokesman said they were a

34
00:02:10.509 --> 00:02:14.030
little surprised not to have been told in advance. The

35
00:02:14.050 --> 00:02:17.189
palace countered that their team did nothing. get the letter first,

36
00:02:17.650 --> 00:02:21.050
and the Mirror published the minute-by-minute to show how little

37
00:02:21.129 --> 00:02:24.419
that meant. The contents landed with the Sussex office at 1.59

38
00:02:24.419 --> 00:02:29.659
on Monday afternoon. By 3.06 it was with journalists. Harry,

39
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:33.080
in a meeting, couldn't be reached until 3.09, by which

40
00:02:33.139 --> 00:02:35.879
point it was already everywhere. Twenty minutes of notice for

41
00:02:35.919 --> 00:02:39.289
a line drawn under six years. Rob Shooter's sources claimed

42
00:02:39.349 --> 00:02:42.009
William was the hand behind it, that he'd had enough

43
00:02:42.050 --> 00:02:45.810
of the confusion. that his answer was brutally simple, nothing

44
00:02:45.830 --> 00:02:48.909
has changed, they are out, and that the Sussexes had

45
00:02:49.250 --> 00:02:54.340
underestimated William's power. Then came the border skirmish over a

46
00:02:54.379 --> 00:02:58.379
single phrase. Harry, per the Telegraph, took real exception to

47
00:02:58.580 --> 00:03:03.460
private citizens. He'd prefer public figures, and would have welcomed

48
00:03:03.639 --> 00:03:07.280
some acknowledgement that they remain whatever else members of the family.

49
00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:11.090
Sounds like semantics because it is semantics, but it's the

50
00:03:11.129 --> 00:03:14.419
whole fight in miniature. Harry wants to be family without

51
00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:17.620
being staff. And the letter says you can't stand on

52
00:03:17.659 --> 00:03:21.659
the line. You're on one side or the other. And

53
00:03:21.719 --> 00:03:25.009
where exactly is that side? Somewhere in the Cotswolds, still

54
00:03:25.069 --> 00:03:27.610
to be determined? The couple are staying on a wealthy

55
00:03:27.629 --> 00:03:31.229
friend's estate while they hunt for a permanent home. A search,

56
00:03:31.330 --> 00:03:34.069
a friend told the Mail, could take 12 to 18 months.

57
00:03:34.650 --> 00:03:37.250
Given a budget north of Â£ 8 million and a taste

58
00:03:37.270 --> 00:03:39.810
for the kind of historic pile that comes freighted with

59
00:03:39.870 --> 00:03:44.620
heritage restrictions... Meghan's been spotted at Soho Farmhouse before nine

60
00:03:44.639 --> 00:03:48.400
in the morning. The family is reportedly still jet-lagged, unpacking and,

61
00:03:48.659 --> 00:03:52.219
per one friend, trying to buy pencil cases without being photographed.

62
00:03:53.139 --> 00:03:56.340
Harry notably has softened toward the press he spent years suing.

63
00:03:56.900 --> 00:03:59.800
Some Rotor reporters are being granted access again, a source

64
00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:02.919
noting he's in a different headspace than in 2020. The

65
00:04:03.919 --> 00:04:06.259
one genuine worry, and it's a fair one, is the

66
00:04:06.379 --> 00:04:09.740
school run. Protection experts point out it's the hardest thing

67
00:04:09.780 --> 00:04:13.659
to secure. Same starting point? Same end point every day.

68
00:04:14.039 --> 00:04:16.680
And former officer Scott Hamer made the sharp observation that

69
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:19.259
whatever you think of Harry, the risk to his children

70
00:04:19.319 --> 00:04:22.019
doesn't vanish because he stopped being a working royal, and

71
00:04:22.060 --> 00:04:24.920
he's not sure Harry has ever had a proper objective assessment.

72
00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:28.800
The Queen Mother got protection in retirement, so does every

73
00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:32.420
former Prime Minister. Robert Jobson, for his part, dismissed the

74
00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:36.240
paparazzi fear as nonsense, noting Britain's self-governing rules mean no

75
00:04:36.300 --> 00:04:40.490
pack of photographers waits outside a royal child's school. Somewhere

76
00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:43.389
between those two is where the family will actually have

77
00:04:43.449 --> 00:04:50.389
to live. More Palace in just a moment. A line

78
00:04:50.629 --> 00:04:54.779
drawn inside Buckingham Palace, it turns out, has consequences a

79
00:04:54.939 --> 00:04:59.319
long way from Buckingham Palace. Consider Uganda. Two months ago,

80
00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:03.779
the country joined the Invictus Games, Harry's signature cause. This week,

81
00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:08.920
its military chief, General Mahoosey, The President's son abruptly withdrew

82
00:05:09.060 --> 00:05:12.339
and said why in as many words, in order not

83
00:05:12.379 --> 00:05:15.660
to be construed as being opposed to His Majesty King Charles,

84
00:05:15.980 --> 00:05:20.540
whom we deeply revere. Uganda hereby withdraws. He told the

85
00:05:20.579 --> 00:05:23.579
Times he'd had to quash a pro-Harry faction inside his

86
00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:28.199
own defence ministry. I support the monarch, period. That is

87
00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:30.680
the letter's teeth, a nation pulling out of the games

88
00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:33.060
for wounded veterans, rather than be caught on the wrong

89
00:05:33.110 --> 00:05:37.379
side of a line the King had just drawn. From

90
00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:40.579
across the Atlantic came a less disciplined contribution. Donald Trump,

91
00:05:40.620 --> 00:05:43.709
asked about the return, was delighted. I'm happy about it.

92
00:05:43.720 --> 00:05:46.139
I would not have taken them back. He called Harry's

93
00:05:46.170 --> 00:05:49.750
book terrible, Meghan a horrible influence, and Charles, by contrast,

94
00:05:49.949 --> 00:05:53.129
a great, great guy, and a personal friend fighting bravery

95
00:05:53.149 --> 00:05:56.990
through his illness. Which made it distinctly odd when, days later,

96
00:05:57.029 --> 00:06:00.250
Trump shared a doctored video appearing to show Charles callously

97
00:06:00.290 --> 00:06:02.810
ignoring a man who'd collapsed in front of him. An

98
00:06:02.970 --> 00:06:05.720
edit that conveniently cut the part where it Charles tried

99
00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:07.819
to catch the man and stayed until he was cared for.

100
00:06:08.540 --> 00:06:10.480
Praising the king and smearing him in the same week

101
00:06:10.540 --> 00:06:14.779
is quite a needle to thread, but the president managed it. Meanwhile,

102
00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:17.819
the actual price of the monarchy went up. Parliament approved

103
00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:21.170
a new formula, sending the sovereign grant to nearly Â£ 100

104
00:06:20.829 --> 00:06:26.569
million for 2027-28, up from around Â£ 52 million just two

105
00:06:26.610 --> 00:06:29.569
years ago. Pegged now to a fatter slice of crown

106
00:06:29.589 --> 00:06:32.889
estate profits, and justified, the treasury said, by a king

107
00:06:32.949 --> 00:06:35.959
carrying out markedly more engagements than his mother did in

108
00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.259
her final years. Not everyone was charmed by the household's

109
00:06:39.300 --> 00:06:42.939
approach to money. Tom Sykes reported that Camilla's sister, Annabelle Elliott,

110
00:06:43.310 --> 00:06:45.870
is now being paid by the King's Charitable Foundation for

111
00:06:46.009 --> 00:06:50.129
Branding Consultancy. After William pointedly removed her from the Duchy

112
00:06:50.170 --> 00:06:53.589
of Cornwall payroll, the King, Sykes wrote, operating on his

113
00:06:53.610 --> 00:06:56.610
lifelong principle of doing what he likes and treating inconvenient

114
00:06:56.670 --> 00:07:02.889
safeguards as impertinences. Which brings us inevitably to Christmas, the

115
00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:06.209
next line to be fought over. Heat reported Williams' position

116
00:07:06.250 --> 00:07:10.209
had hardened into an ultimatum. It's me or Harry. He

117
00:07:10.250 --> 00:07:13.170
reportedly rather spend Christmas with the Middletons or alone than

118
00:07:13.449 --> 00:07:16.350
sit across the Sandringham table from his brother, making, in

119
00:07:16.410 --> 00:07:19.000
his words, a phony act of it. The memory of

120
00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:23.699
that grim, thunder-faced post-funeral walkabout in 2022 apparently still fresh.

121
00:07:24.639 --> 00:07:27.379
The likeliest escape hatch, mercifully for everyone, is that the

122
00:07:27.420 --> 00:07:30.379
Sussexes simply spent their first Christmas back in California with

123
00:07:30.459 --> 00:07:34.209
Meghan's mother, Dorian. which one commentator called the best possible

124
00:07:34.269 --> 00:07:37.230
news the palace could hope for. The feud itself has,

125
00:07:37.610 --> 00:07:41.569
if anything, calcified. No reconciliation, no contact, and fresh reports

126
00:07:41.610 --> 00:07:45.250
of William fretting about spies inside the palace. Not an

127
00:07:45.389 --> 00:07:48.870
organised operation, a source clarified, just the reality that Harry

128
00:07:48.910 --> 00:07:52.629
still knows everyone, and that after spare, even ordinary conversation

129
00:07:52.889 --> 00:07:57.459
gets read through a lens of suspicion. And Harry wasn't

130
00:07:57.519 --> 00:08:00.829
the only one testing the borders this week. Sarah Ferguson,

131
00:08:00.910 --> 00:08:03.540
seven months out of view since leaving Royal Lodge, is

132
00:08:03.620 --> 00:08:07.779
reportedly moving back to Britain, into a six-bedroom gated house

133
00:08:07.819 --> 00:08:10.779
in the home counties at a reported Â£ 10, 000 a month,

134
00:08:11.660 --> 00:08:15.540
and mulling a tell-all interview about her Epstein association. The

135
00:08:15.560 --> 00:08:20.100
reception was withering. Dickie Arbiter called her delusional. Jeremy Kyle

136
00:08:20.120 --> 00:08:23.040
warned it could be her newsnight, the way the interview

137
00:08:23.079 --> 00:08:26.370
finished Andrew, and a columnist noted that Sarah can rent

138
00:08:26.410 --> 00:08:29.480
the gates, the postcode and the privacy... but she cannot

139
00:08:29.579 --> 00:08:32.519
rent a new history. The line, in other words, is

140
00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:36.700
being drawn around more than one returning royal. More palace

141
00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:43.330
in just a moment. So let's leave the borders for

142
00:08:43.450 --> 00:08:46.830
a moment, because the week's most affecting moments had nothing

143
00:08:46.870 --> 00:08:51.129
to do with them. On Monday, Prince George started at Eton,

144
00:08:51.129 --> 00:08:53.289
13 years old, in a jacket and tie, his parents

145
00:08:53.340 --> 00:08:56.159
carrying umbrellas through the rain, on the fourth anniversary, as

146
00:08:56.200 --> 00:08:59.950
it happened, of the day his great-grandmother died. He's boarding

147
00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:02.659
ten minutes from home now, in a world of tailcoats

148
00:09:02.700 --> 00:09:06.139
and its own private dictionary. Teachers are beaks, the senior

149
00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:09.620
prefects are pop, the cricketers are dry bobs, and every

150
00:09:09.659 --> 00:09:12.240
new boy is assigned an older uncle to help him

151
00:09:12.279 --> 00:09:15.970
find his feet. Newsweek noted the obvious tension. There is

152
00:09:15.990 --> 00:09:19.909
nothing ordinary about an $ 85, 000 a year school. However hard

153
00:09:19.950 --> 00:09:23.509
William works to seem an ordinary dad. But there's a

154
00:09:23.710 --> 00:09:26.279
gentler reading too, and it's the one that fits the week.

155
00:09:26.830 --> 00:09:29.610
George walked through those gates following a lion his father walked,

156
00:09:30.070 --> 00:09:33.049
and his uncle Harry walked before him. The same rituals,

157
00:09:33.149 --> 00:09:36.799
decades apart. Whatever the brothers have done to each other since,

158
00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:40.419
they once shared that. And the school drew the one

159
00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.440
boundary that actually protects a child. A quiet note to

160
00:09:43.500 --> 00:09:46.559
parents reminding them not to photograph other children so that

161
00:09:46.620 --> 00:09:49.740
one particular boy might have something like a normal term.

162
00:09:51.250 --> 00:09:53.759
While that happened, the working monarchy did its quiet work.

163
00:09:53.919 --> 00:09:56.440
William and Princess Anne flew to Oslo to represent the

164
00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:59.750
king at the funeral of Norway's King Harald. Anne has

165
00:09:59.789 --> 00:10:02.889
gotten to the new King Harkon. Walking in the procession

166
00:10:02.929 --> 00:10:06.409
behind Europe's grieving royal houses while, back home, the soap

167
00:10:06.490 --> 00:10:10.610
opera roared. Kate skipped it for the most ordinary reason imaginable.

168
00:10:10.950 --> 00:10:13.350
The younger children were back at school. This is the

169
00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:16.570
job that the letter exists to protect. The showing up

170
00:10:16.690 --> 00:10:18.870
in the rain for the dull and the solemn. And

171
00:10:18.909 --> 00:10:21.659
it went on all week without a headline. Charles, for

172
00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:24.759
his part, was reportedly convening 30 of the world's leading

173
00:10:24.860 --> 00:10:29.049
figures in artificial intelligence at Dumfries' house this month, the

174
00:10:29.090 --> 00:10:32.250
sort of quiet, statesman-like gathering that is precisely what the

175
00:10:32.289 --> 00:10:35.289
grant just went up to fund, and a further answer

176
00:10:35.429 --> 00:10:37.610
to anyone still whispering that the King is too unwell

177
00:10:37.870 --> 00:10:42.789
to work. There was inevitably more Diana. Richard Kaye reported

178
00:10:42.830 --> 00:10:44.509
that one reason Harry is back is to make his

179
00:10:44.590 --> 00:10:48.720
own documentary about his mother ahead of next year's 30th anniversary.

180
00:10:49.129 --> 00:10:52.690
quietly reaching out to her old friends to contribute. And

181
00:10:52.750 --> 00:10:55.669
Kay named the ache underneath it. William is every bit

182
00:10:55.710 --> 00:10:58.009
as much his mother's son as Harry is, and watching

183
00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:01.659
Harry try to claim the Diana legacy, the Spencer name,

184
00:11:02.100 --> 00:11:05.299
the Spencer connection, as a way of setting himself apart

185
00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:08.059
from the Windsors is, Kay said, a source of intense

186
00:11:08.100 --> 00:11:10.980
frustration to his brother. Even their mother, it turns out,

187
00:11:11.019 --> 00:11:14.240
has become a border to fight over. But the week's

188
00:11:14.399 --> 00:11:17.440
truest grace note came from 25 years ago, It was

189
00:11:17.460 --> 00:11:20.460
the anniversary of September the 11th, and two archives reminded

190
00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:23.539
us how the monarchy can, at its best, find exactly

191
00:11:23.590 --> 00:11:26.809
the right register. Two days after the towers fell, Queen

192
00:11:26.850 --> 00:11:29.909
Elizabeth ordered the band outside Buckingham Palace to play the

193
00:11:29.950 --> 00:11:32.970
Star-Spangled Banner during the Changing of the Guard, a foreign

194
00:11:33.009 --> 00:11:35.789
anthem for a grieving ally as Americans wept at the gates.

195
00:11:36.529 --> 00:11:39.110
And in her message to the memorial service in New York,

196
00:11:39.429 --> 00:11:42.679
she offered the sentence now carved into the church wall there.

197
00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:46.679
Grief is the price we pay for love. This week,

198
00:11:46.700 --> 00:11:49.360
a quarter century on, Charles and Camilla returned to that

199
00:11:49.399 --> 00:11:52.850
memorial to lay flowers and meet the survivors. No line

200
00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:56.450
drawing there, just an institution remembering that its deepest job

201
00:11:56.490 --> 00:12:00.490
was never about status at all. And the rest briefly

202
00:12:00.509 --> 00:12:04.309
with a lighter touch. Windsor Great Park, as promised, warned

203
00:12:04.350 --> 00:12:07.269
visitors to keep a respectful distance from its deer as

204
00:12:07.370 --> 00:12:10.830
rutting season begins. Put a big tree between yourself and

205
00:12:10.870 --> 00:12:14.389
any charging stag, the guidance advised, which is roughly the

206
00:12:14.429 --> 00:12:17.769
strategy William is deploying with his brother. Over at Highgrove,

207
00:12:17.789 --> 00:12:19.789
we learn the king keeps a flock of rescue hens

208
00:12:19.830 --> 00:12:23.850
in a coop known gloriously as Cluckingham Palace. A happier

209
00:12:23.929 --> 00:12:26.110
chicken story than the one that got the Sussexes mocked

210
00:12:26.190 --> 00:12:29.600
all last week. And Kate, between funerals she couldn't attend,

211
00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:32.940
was reportedly ferrying Charlotte to weekend netball and setting up

212
00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:35.399
a folding chair on the sideline like any other parent,

213
00:12:35.899 --> 00:12:38.879
while the beauty press busied itself naming her hair colour

214
00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:43.490
Royal Bronde. The monarchy in miniature, a princess on a touchline,

215
00:12:43.889 --> 00:12:47.320
and a whole industry deciding what to call it. which

216
00:12:47.379 --> 00:12:50.159
is where the week lands, seven days of lines, who's in,

217
00:12:50.259 --> 00:12:53.330
who's out, who's family and who's a private citizen, where

218
00:12:53.350 --> 00:12:56.409
the deer end and you begin. Charles the King spent

219
00:12:56.450 --> 00:12:59.490
the week posting fences around exactly who belongs. But the

220
00:12:59.509 --> 00:13:02.590
two things that actually mattered weren't fences at all. A

221
00:13:02.629 --> 00:13:05.149
boy walking through the same school gates his father and

222
00:13:05.169 --> 00:13:08.620
his uncle once did, carrying the family forward without being

223
00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:12.000
asked to, and a country pausing, a quarter century on,

224
00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:15.480
over five words a queen found when it counted. Grief

225
00:13:15.620 --> 00:13:18.600
is the price we pay for love. You can put

226
00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:22.179
a great many things in an official letter. Belonging, it

227
00:13:22.220 --> 00:13:25.620
turns out, was never one of them. And there you

228
00:13:25.639 --> 00:13:27.419
have it. If you'd like to email us, our address

229
00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:31.700
is thepalaceintrigue at gmail.com. If you're on Spotify, leave us

230
00:13:31.740 --> 00:13:33.740
a comment. If you're on Apple, hit that button up

231
00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.450
there that says listen uninterrupted and get the show commercial

232
00:13:37.169 --> 00:13:39.590
free for five bucks a month. We appreciate your support.

233
00:13:39.610 --> 00:13:42.330
I'm Mark Francis. My thanks to John McDermott. This is

234
00:13:42.409 --> 00:13:45.899
Palace Intrigue. Good times.

The King Put It in Writing: Harry and Meghan Are 'Private Citizens' — and Within 48 Hours Uganda Quit the Invictus Games

Listen On

Recent Episodes