In 2024, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made two high profile international visits in support of their philanthropic endeavours and public profile: three days in Nigeria in May 2024 in honour of the country’s involvement in the Invictus Games and four days in Colombia in August 2024 to promote internet safety for children.
At first glance, these public appearances by Harry and Meghan in Colombia and Nigeria resembled traditional royal tours by senior working members of the royal family, which have existed in their modern form since at least 1860, when Queen Victoria’s eldest son, the future King Edward VII toured British North America (Canada) and the United States. Although Harry and Meghan stepped back from their roles as senior members of the royal family in January 2020 and settled first on Vancouver Island and then in California, Harry remains fifth in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and fourteen other Commonwealth realms including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica and is technically a Counsellor of State. (In contrast to past reigns, however, only working members of the royal family who represent the sovereign in their public engagements are now called upon to perform the duties of a Counsellor of State.) In Nigeria and Colombia respectively, Harry and Meghan received official security (an issue at the centre of legal proceedings between Prince Harry and the British government), met with senior political figures and attended cultural events in addition to their public appearances in support of Invictus Games or internet safety.
There are clear differences between Harry and Meghan’s visits to Colombia and Nigeria, however, and official royal tours by senior working members of the royal family. First, Harry and Meghan have not been working members of the royal family since 2020 and they do not represent Harry’s father King Charles III, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth on the world stage. When Harry stated at a summit on digital responsibility, "For as long as people are allowed to spread lies, abuse, harass, then social cohesion as we know it has completely broken down" he was expressing his personal opinion alone, informed by his own perception of how social media is used. A senior working member of the royal family, representing a constitutional monarch expected to remain above party politics, might have avoided making such a strong statement about social cohesion in the immediate aftermath of riots in the United Kingdom. Second, Harry and Meghan carefully controlled media coverage of their time in both Nigeria and Colombia, allowing only their own videographers and photographers, People Magazine’s foreign correspondent in Nigeria, and a single journalist from Harper’s Bazaar in Colombia, to provide material for the rest of the media. The BBC observed some events from the sidelines, but the press pool present for official royal tours did not have direct access to Harry and Meghan during their travels.
There is ample evidence that Harry and Meghan themselves were unhappy with the conventions of official royal tours during their brief period undertaking these kinds of tours together in 2018 and 2019. In his 2022 book Courtiers: Intrigue, Ambition and the Power Players Behind the House of Windsor, Valentine Low discusses Harry and Meghan’s discontent behind the scenes of an outwardly successful 2018 official visit to Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji including Harry’s hostility to the presence of journalists from the royal rota who cover royal events for the British press and Meghan’s comment on her public engagements with Harry in Australia, "I can't believe I'm not getting paid for this." On a royal tour of South Africa in 2019, Meghan stated in the ITV documentary Harry and Meghan: An African Journey, "You've got to thrive, you've got to feel happy. I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. I tried, I really tried. But I think that what that does internally is probably really damaging." Harry and Meghan’s departure from official royal life provides them with the opportunity to engage with the public and their philanthropic endeavours more on their own terms.
Despite the substantial differences between official tours by senior working members of the royal family and the travels of non-working royal personages such as Harry and Meghan, press coverage of the 2024 visits to Nigeria and Colombia sometimes discussed these events as though they were official royal tours. There were online magazine features that placed Harry and Meghan’s presence in these countries at the end of a timeline of royal tours, noting, for example, that the future King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited Colombia in October 2014. On social media, discussion of Harry and Meghan in Nigeria and Colombia as though they were on official royal tours was even more pronounced, especially among their admirers who highlighted fashions and seemingly spontaneous moments from their public appearances. This coverage is unfolding while King Charles III presides over a streamlined royal family with clear distinctions between working and non-working members that contrasted with the larger extended royal family that made official visits overseas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
Unofficial foreign travel that looks like a royal tour has caused political problems in previous reigns. After his abdication in 1936, King Edward VIII made a controversial visit to Nazi Germany in 1937 that was not sanctioned by the British government, envisioning a continuing diplomatic role for himself. Edward later represented his younger brother King George VI officially as Governor of the Bahamas during the Second World War. The former King Edward VIII, however, was not content with this role. He made visits to the United States and expressed defeatist sentiments to the dismay of the King and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Like Harry and his elder brother Prince William today, the former King Edward VIII and King George VI were estranged after the Abdication Crisis of 1936.
Harry and Meghan’s 21st century travels are not nearly as controversial as the former King Edward VIII’s activities following his abdication, but these historical precedents demonstrate the problems that have the potential to arise when there is a working royal family undertaking actual official tours and non-working royal relatives whose travels might be mistaken for official tours. The importance of the distinction between official royal tours and the travels of royal relatives who do not represent the monarch may explain part of the negative reaction in the British press to Harry and Meghan’s recent visits to Colombia and Nigeria. Harry and Meghan’s travels have the potential to distract attention from the work of King Charles III, Queen Camilla and the Prince and Princess of Wales and create additional problems for the monarch who is already facing critical scrutiny concerning his disgraced brother Prince Andrew’s residence at Royal Lodge, Windsor. From the perspective of both monarchists and republicans, Harry and Meghan appear unwilling to move beyond their former roles in the royal family to create distinctive independent careers, instead continuing to use the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex and conducting overseas visits that appear to be modeled on traditional royal tours.
During the reign of King Charles III, there have been comparatively few high profile overseas royal tours by the most prominent members of the royal family: King Charles and Queen Camilla, and Prince William and Catherine, the Prince and Princess of Wales. Instead, King Charles III’s sister Princess Anne, the Princess Royal and sister-in-law Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh have become increasingly prominent as working members of the royal family, traveling extensively in support of Commonwealth initiatives, philanthropy and military patronages. Both the King and the Princess of Wales underwent cancer treatment in 2024, limiting their public appearances in the United Kingdom and precluding long distance travel for an extended period of time.
There are indications that the King and Queen and Prince and Princess of Wales will once again be undertaking high profile overseas tours in the coming months. King Charles III and Queen Camilla will visit Australia and Samoa, where the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will take place, in October of this year. Catherine has resumed official engagements related to the Royal Foundation, and William and Catherine will likely undertake Commonwealth tours in the coming months, if her health continues to improve. As a full schedule of official royal tours resumes, the distinctive characteristics of these tours will be clear to the public. While Harry and Meghan travel to promote their own philanthropic interests and public image, the focus of King Charles III’s upcoming tour will be the monarch’s role as Head of the Commonwealth, highlighting how Commonwealth nations have the potential to work together to address major global issues from climate change to public health initiatives. An official royal tour is always about more than the members of the royal family who are traveling but instead encompass the wider issues facing the United Kingdom and Commonwealth today.
Dr. Carolyn Harris is an author, historian, royal commentator and instructor in history at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. She received her PhD in history from Queen’s University at Kingston in 2012. She is the author of three books: Magna Carta and Its Gifts to Canada (Dundurn: 2015), Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe: Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette (Palgrave: 2016) and Raising Royalty: 1000 Years of Royal Parenting (Dundurn: 2017) and the co-editor of the four volume English Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty series (Palgrave: 2022-2023). You can visit her website at royalhistorian.com or follow her on X @royalhistorian.
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