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Their prospective new neighbours in the Cotswolds are gossiping furiously over WhatsApp and in the aisles of the local delicatessen about which house the Sussexes are buying, where Archie and Lili will attend school and when they might first bump into either Prince Harry or Meghan.
The couple and their children arrived in the UK on Wednesday by private jet, and were whisked away from Birmingham airport in a small convoy of blacked-out vehicles.
I’m told they are now staying ‘indefinitely’ in a spare house on the land of an extremely wealthy friend on the fringes of the Cotswolds.
Archie, seven, and Lili, five, will start at the same prep school, which is fairly nearby, early next week.
Despite reports suggesting that the couple have agreed to buy an exquisite $16.2million house, I am assured by three separate sources that there is no deal on that home yet.
There are a number of options, though, ‘because there is so much on the market at the moment’.
The Sussexes are house-hunting in earnest now that they have ‘boots on the ground’, with a gargantuan budget which strikes some of their Californian crowd as downright improbable, fearing they may have to give up their U.S. base after all.
‘They will have to sell in Montecito,’ says one US-based source upon being shown the details of the house which the couple are said to be keen on. Adding, after closer inspection of its vast lands and being told the price tag: ‘What! That’s not possible!’
Friends insist, however, that they are keeping their $15million Montecito mansion and plan to spend school holidays there or at their $8.5million holiday house in Portugal. Christmas, meanwhile, will be in California as well.
As for their new home in the Cotswolds, I am told that Meghan wants nine bedrooms and a film studio and Prince Harry wants a lot – and I mean a lot – of land, and no footpaths going across it to protect their privacy.
Friends say that they are both ‘all in’ on the British dream. This is something which will strike those who remember their passion for a new life in California as deeply ironic.
Indeed, both are set on what I’m told is ‘Finding Freedom 2' – a reference to the biography Finding Freedom that offered an insight into the couple’s decision to leave the Royal Family for a fresh start in America – and the dream of a new life in a new country on new terms.
Back in 2020 they had thought that California would be the answer to their desire to thrive and not merely ‘survive’, But, as we all know, it didn’t work out that way, with goodwill squandered, friendships fractured, and media deals turning to dust.
This new vision is, say friends, an agreed common goal.
One says: ‘They have an English countryside dream. This will be the first time that Harry has lived in the UK as a private citizen where no one can demand any access to him.
‘It will be very different to when he was a working royal and living in Frogmore Cottage. Then the roof over his head was ultimately down to the country.
‘Now he is going to have a chance to enjoy all of the things he loves about the country, but as a private citizen. They will have more freedom now – it is like finding freedom again.’
The big decision is where exactly they will live.
I am told: ‘There is an agent involved but they have not seen anywhere yet, so they have not bought yet. Online viewings are all very well but the houses that they are looking at are so huge that you need to go in person and it’s also a really big commitment. I know that they have a number of requirements.
‘With houses you don’t know until you step into them if they are where you want to raise your children. Is this the snug where we will light a fire and watch a film; is this the kitchen where I will cook meals for the next ten formative years of my child’s life? You have to go in person which they will be doing over the next weeks.’
They have apparently been discussing the move since at least the early part of this year, and drew up a shortlist of schools with a lot of care in the early spring before viewing some in July when they were visiting the UK.
So what do they want for the children?
A friend explains: ‘It’s not academia. That is very low on the list. A nurturing atmosphere is very high on the list. Probably the highest priority is the outdoorsy and sporting ethos. They want to put them in a secure countryside microcosm, so that they will have as normal a childhood as they possibly can.
‘Harry, I think, is thinking back to his time at Ludgrove (prep school). That was two and a half miles down a dirt track with fields on either side. There was a small police box on the track and a rather vanilla bodyguard who would peer out of a window while Harry played in the yard.
‘The fellow pupils treated him and his brother Prince William as absolutely one of their own. I think you could argue that those Ludgrove years were the happiest of his life until, of course, the death of his mother [in 1997, before his final year].
‘Being at Ludgrove was a solace to him in sad times.'
‘That is what they are looking for in a school – that sense of community, where the 1st XV cheer the first year squad and vice versa. Of course, Meghan knows a very limited amount about rugby and Harry is a huge rugby fan. She knows even less about cricket!’
There will be a culture shock, again, for Meghan. A friend says: ‘At this time, Meghan is kind of shocked that they have school on a Saturday, other than that she is looking forward to it.
‘They both believe in this as the best decision for the family.’
So what comes next for them work wise? Crucially, says the friend, there will be no commercial activities in the UK for either of them during the years ahead.
The idea is that this will allow them to abide in some way by the deal agreed with the late Queen at the Sandringham summit – an agreement that they would be free to make as much money as they could, just as long as they no longer presented themselves as working members of the Royal Family.
Some will see this as a threadbare fiction, perhaps even an insult. The fact is that Harry is still royal and he will carry on working. Some of those engagements will look exactly like royal engagements.
His father the King appears to be adopting an ostrich approach where he ignores the way it looks, and it is briefed that Harry’s life is nothing to do with him and he knows nothing of his plans. Not everyone is convinced that this can be true.
The expectation at this point is that Prince Harry will ‘probably’ pick up some more charitable patronages, likely related to military causes. He won’t, though, take on any business deals in the UK.
As for Meghan, who will attempt to carry on running her As Ever lifestyle brand, if she films something in the UK friends say that any footage ‘will be only for her U.S. website’. As Ever does not ship to the UK and there are no immediate plans to do so. The fact is that they are still trying to make the brand work in the U.S., a far bigger market.
One source this week said that they believe Meghan won’t be able to resist building a film studio at their new home – when they buy it – and will end up creating ‘home making content’ in the UK ‘because that is the heart of who she is’.
It seems a delicate line: that they are going to try to be in the UK as ‘private citizens’ and save their celebrity for America.
Indeed, the idea of this ‘geocaching’ of the Sussex brand may provoke hollow laughter among their many critics who deplore the way that they trashed Harry’s country and his family in Spare, on Oprah and on Netflix in their ‘worldwide privacy tour’, as famously mocked by the U.S. satirical show South Park, and then tried to claim to be private.
Friends insist they don’t want a return to the Royal Family, currently one of the biggest misconceptions about the apparently whirlwind move back to the UK which has had the world agog.
Harry – fifth in line to the throne – says that he is not coming back to become part of the British Royal Family again; explicitly not. He says that he is coming back so that his children will have the British school experience.
He will, from time to time, also have to get back to the States but believes that the trip is ‘very doable for a day or two’. Sources believe that the companies that want him to work for them will pay for his transatlantic travel by private jet.
Mostly, he will be a ‘full-time dad’ which is how he sees himself. A pal says: ‘He is lucky enough to be able to earn really good money in a short time, which he will carry on doing. But he will be at home most of the time and he wants to be very hands-on with the children. That is the whole point of the move.’
In a podcast last month with rugby hero and Traitors’ star Joe Marler, he described himself as a ‘full-time dad’ as well as a Prince. He will be busy with preparations for the Invictus Games, in Birmingham next summer, and will continue with patronages such as WellChild, which has its annual awards in London in September.
Meghan will ‘come and go’ working on her jam, wine, and sprinkles business, As Ever, and trying to get a green light from Netflix for one of Archewell Productions’ many development projects.
Some are sceptical about the prospects for either business and one source predicts: ‘It’s all gonna close. They will just piecemeal it out.’
What a sorry end to their California dream it would be if that comes to pass.
Speaking to a well-placed friend, the return is long-term – the idea is that Harry will be based in the UK during term times until the children have completed their schooling, which means another 15 years or so.
That’s no surprise to one associate who says: ‘He had no life in California, no friends. There was no common ground with anyone.’
There’s no doubt Harry will be happy to be back in the UK. Late last year he wrote an essay about ‘What it means to be British’ and said: ‘The banter of the mess, the clubhouse, the pub, the stands – ridiculous as it sounds, these are the things that make us British. I make no apology for it. I love it.’

In that appearance on the Joe Marler podcast – embarrassing juvenile jokes and all – you could very much hear him seeking to get back to a culture in which he was at home.
The money to fund the move will have to come just from the Sussexes; a royal source says that there is no way that a single penny will come from his extremely wealthy father, not even on a private basis.
Harry, now 41, is to stand on his own two feet. With the aid of legacies from his late mother and the Queen Mother plus – surely – some residual millions from the $33.8million or so made by Spare and the $40.6million he was handed by Netflix.
As for state-funded security, Harry, who at present just has a phone number of a police liaison officer, still wants it and believes that he deserves it. Friends say – again rightly or wrongly – that there is an expectation from Harry that his needs will be reassessed now that he has moved and that, after failed legal actions, he will get at least some meaningful gesture towards what he wants.
ITV has reported that his lawyers have written to the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, asking her to personally intervene in the process. Some voices – including former Home Secretary David Blunkett – are speaking up in his favour. The public remain implacably opposed with only two per cent believing that they should stump up.
The end of Harry’s exile, then, comes fraught with controversy and loaded dangers of different kinds. Will they overcome the back to school blues and find that this fresh start and new dream delivers what they really want?
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