Standing on a wharf in Sydney Harbour on Friday, it was clear what Buckingham Palace was worried about has come to fruition: Prince Harry and Meghan can have their cake and eat it too.
A swath of fans, waiting behind barricades for a glimpse of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, immediately started cheering once the couple got out of their car. They’d had the same rock star reception at Bondi Beach that morning, and throughout the week in Melbourne and Canberra.
“Harry’s just a lovely, strong man,” Lisa, from Hobart, told this masthead while she waited. “I think Diana would be very proud of him.”
Squished near her was Emma Ives, who had come with her aunt Christine. Neither of them wanted to miss the chance to see the duke and duchess, even if it was only for a second or from far away.
“I’ve always followed Harry and William,” said Ives. “I admire everything they do.”
The couple’s four-day visit to Australia was not a royal tour, their team insisted in the lead-up to them touching down at Melbourne Airport on Tuesday morning. And they are technically right.
Unlike in 2018, when the newlyweds embarked on a 16-day, 76-engagement tour of Australia and the South Pacific, the federal government wasn’t hosting them. There was no police escort waiting for them when they disembarked from their commercial Qantas flight. They were not staying at government-owned residences.
After their high-profile resignation as senior working royals in 2020, the duke and duchess are not entitled to it. (Though they did receive some taxpayer-funded policing services at events where there was public involvement, as is usual for high-profile visitors.)
But what they are and are not entitled to as they travel Australia in their capacity as private citizens, for a mix of commercial and charitable engagements, appeared to be something only those behind palace gates in London were worried about.
Harry and Meghan may no longer be allowed to use their His/Her Royal Highness styling, but to many they will never lose their royal shine. Australians who watched the then-12-year-old duke dutifully trail behind his mother’s casket in 1997, and welcomed a then-pregnant Meghan with open arms at the Sydney Opera House almost eight years ago, don’t care for the Firm’s rules.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Harry, and Meghan was lovely when she spoke to Mum,” said Michelle Haywood, daughter of the duke’s “biggest fan” Daphne Dunne, who died aged 99 months after speaking with them on the forecourt during their last tour.
“Meghan couldn’t have been more beautiful to take time to talk to Mum and not hurry off. I’ve found them to be so special to my family.”
Of course, what keeps the royal shine polished is the fact the duke does not shy away from speaking about his bloodline, particularly the late Princess of Wales, and the similarities they share beyond genetics.
“After my mum died just before my 13th birthday – I was like: ‘I don’t want this job. I don’t want this role – wherever this is headed, I don’t like it,’” the duke said on stage at the InterEdge summit on Thursday, where he had given a keynote address about mental health.
“It killed my mum, and I was very much against it, and I stuck my head in the sand for years and years. Eventually, I realised – well, hang on, if there was somebody else in this position, how would they be making the most of this platform and this ability and the resources that come with it to make a difference in the world?
“And also, what would my mum want me to do? And that really changed my own perspective.”
Meghan, meanwhile, opened up about being the “most trolled person in the entire world” while speaking at Swinburne University.
Both engagements – and Harry and Meghan’s vulnerability – were done so in the service of mental health advocacy. InterEdge was presented by and supporting Lifeline Narrm, and the duchess’ candid admission was made while speaking with representatives from youth mental health charity Batyr.
That the Sussexes have lent their name and support to causes that need it – Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, Movember, Batyr and Invictus Australia – is “fantastic”, according to Invictus Australia chief executive Michael Hartung.
Hartung, who is preparing to launch a bid to host the Invictus Games in Australia in 2031, has had a front-row seat to seeing how well-received the couple has been by veterans, government officials and the wider public – both this week in Canberra and Sydney, and in 2018.
“There was a bit of negativity surrounding their return visit, and I think that’s all been put to rest really,” he said.
“I think the general public can see that their hearts are in the right place, and they’re there to support good causes, like Invictus. It’s a really positive thing.”
Amid the plethora of bombshells Harry and Meghan dropped in their explosive 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey was this little nugget: the claim that the British royal family, once they saw how “incredible” Meghan was at the job during their 2018 Australia tour, changed their previously positive treatment of her.
“Really, here you have one of the greatest assets to the Commonwealth that the family could have ever wished for,” the duke told Winfrey of his wife.
Imagine what could have been had she not slipped through the Firm’s fingers.
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Bronte Gossling is a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, WAtoday and Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
