Prince Harry and Megan Markle have returned to the U.K., but not to any official royal duties. But just in case there is any hint of confusion, King Charles released a letter of clarification on Monday. CBS News' Holly Williams has details.
Page D2From§Eachthe midnight edition — 8 September 2026
King Charles's letter confirms Harry and Meghan remain non-working, worth $680 million.
As it ran on the front
Let the record show: King Charles's office did exactly what a functioning institution does when a story gets confused. It wrote a letter. On September 7, the Palace confirmed, again, that Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, remain non-working members of the royal family — a status unchanged since 2020, restated now because the couple has moved back to the United Kingdom and someone needed it in writing. This is called clarity. A confused public gets a document, and the document says the same thing it has always said. Nothing to see here, which is presumably why it had to be said again.
The first pressure to say it came August 28, when a Washington Examiner column ran the title alongside a figure, tallying the returned couple's household against what it called Britain's $680 million royal lie. That's a columnist's number, not a government one. The letter is about titles. The $680 million is about money, which the letter does not mention, because the letter is about titles. Did I already make that argument? I believe I already made that argument.…
…(cont) Three days after that column, on August 31, Queen Camilla had Harry to tea at Highgrove ahead of the move the letter now formalizes, offering what one report described as a "fixed smile" — the sort of expression a family produces when logistics require it, not when reconciliation does. Then on September 4, the logistics turned domestic: warning letters went out to parents at the Cotswolds school where Archie and Lilibet are starting classes, over privacy rules that, per the experts quoted, the family still cannot control. That one isn't about titles either. That one is about who stands outside a school gate with a camera. I'm not confident the letter covers that.
Which leaves the letter answering exactly one of the three things it was released into: not the $680 million, not the school, just the title. Non-working is doing one job in Monday's sentence. $680 million is doing a very different one. The Palace answered the question it wanted asked, in writing this time.
“Non-working, my ass — that's the label that lets the money move without anyone at the Palace having to explain where a $680 million figure comes from. They'll write you a letter clarifying a title before they'll write you one clarifying a bank account, because the title's free and the number's the story.”
“Non-working just means no public duties — that's a constitutional line, not a financial one. The $680 million figure and the title status are two completely separate matters that happen to be in the same news cycle, which doesn't mean the letter was a response to the column. Did I just say the timing lines up? That's not what I meant to say.”
The receipts
LONDON (AP) — King Charles III has reiterated that Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, remain non-working members of the royal family following their return to the United Kingdom. A letter sent on behalf of the king to senior government officials said the couple will continue to refrain from using their royal titles as they have done…
· Harry and Meghan are back to cash in on Britain’s $680 million royal lie from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
· Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s school warning letters reignite privacy battle they ‘cannot control’: experts from the morgue, 4 Sep 2026
· Queen Camilla puts past differences with Prince Harry aside as King Charles seeks closer family ties: experts from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.