The Sussexes’ next chapter may not require them to choose between two countries. It may be an aspirational love story about belonging to both.
The Union Jack and heart emojis Meghan used on her Instagram reel told me everything I needed to know. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex want the world to know that they love England as much as they love the United States. 🇬🇧❤️🇺🇸
There is a stubborn little narrative that follows Harry and Meghan everywhere: if they love America, they must dislike England.
This is not true.
Harry and Meghan love England as much as they love America. They simply love each country differently. And this makes perfect sense. The two countries are very different.
America represents freedom. It is where they purchased their first independently chosen home as a couple, planted roots in California and discovered what their family could look like beyond the formal boundaries of royal life.
England represents something equally powerful: history, heritage, memory and belonging. It is the landscape of Harry’s childhood and the country whose traditions are woven into the identities of Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Meghan does not need permission to be in the United States. Harry does not need permission to be in the United Kingdom. And you do not stop loving a country because parts of your experience there were painful—or because you lived abroad for a number of years.
You certainly do not surrender every beautiful thing about it to the people who made you feel unwelcome.
England Still Belongs to Harry
Harry’s attachment to England is not difficult to understand.
It is in the green fields, the old stone walls and the familiar rhythm of the seasons. It is in polo grounds, military friendships, childhood memories and the landscape connected to his mother. It is in the ceremonies he grew up attending and the causes to which he devoted much of his adult life.
England is not merely where Harry was born. It formed him.
Leaving allowed him to breathe, protect his family and discover another way to live. But departure is not the same as rejection. In the speech Harry delivered as he and Meghan stepped back, he was careful to explain that their decision was not a rejection of the British people.
Perhaps distance has even allowed him to love England more honestly—not as a prince fulfilling an obligation, but as a man choosing which traditions, places and relationships still deserve a place in his life.
That is a very different kind of homecoming.
Meghan’s Relationship With England Is More Complicated—and More Interesting
Meghan’s relationship with England cannot be reduced to whether she enjoyed being a working royal.
She can have been deeply wounded by the institution and still love the country.
She can reject the hostility of certain newspapers and certain people while remaining enchanted by an English garden, an old country house, a village shop, a beautifully laid afternoon tea or a muddy walk through the countryside.
She can dislike what happened to her without disliking England itself, or the people of the territory.
In fact, I suspect Meghan understands something her critics do not: England does not belong exclusively to the royal establishment or the tabloid press. It also belongs to the women running independent shops, the volunteers supporting community charities, the mothers at school gates, the cooks preparing Sunday lunch and the families rambling across the countryside in Wellington boots.
That England may still have a place for her.
Some parts of England. Some of its people. Not everyone—and that is perfectly fine.
There will always be people for whom Meghan is not their cup of tea. I do not think she is trying to win everybody over.
And perhaps Meghan is not returning to the version of Britain that tried to define her. Perhaps she is discovering her own.
America Gave Them Room to Become a Family
America offered Harry and Meghan something they desperately needed: room.
Room to raise their children away from the daily machinery of royal reporting. Room to create businesses, produce projects and decide how much of themselves they wished to share. Room for Meghan to return to the confident, cheerful woman she had been before every smile, dress and gesture became evidence in somebody else’s prosecution.
Montecito is not—and was never—an act of revenge against Britain.
The Sussexes chose it during the turbulent months following the Sandringham Summit and their return to North America. Montecito became their refuge, their haven and eventually their home base.
It is sunlight, gardens, dogs, family dinners and children growing up near the sea. It is the place where Harry and Meghan transformed themselves from departing working royals into private citizens with a public platform.
America represents possibility. England represents inheritance.
Why should they have to abandon either one?
Their Children Belong to Both Stories
Archie and Lilibet are American children with British royal heritage.
California is part of their story, but so are castles, cousins, family traditions and the green countryside their father remembers. They should not have to choose between the warmth of a Montecito garden and the wonder of an English Christmas.
Their lives could hold both.
Imagine summers in California and autumn weekends in the Cotswolds. Imagine muddy boots lined up beside the door of an English country house, followed by Christmas sunshine back in Montecito. Imagine British traditions mixed with American openness, and royal history softened by the informality of family life.
The best of both worlds.
Yes, it is having your cake and eating it too—but if you can get it and eat it, why not?
A Transatlantic Love Story 🇬🇧❤️🇺🇸
Harry and Meghan’s future may never fit neatly into one postcode, one country or one definition of home.
This is a good thing.
The most interesting lives rarely do.
Harry and Meghan do not have to prove their love for America by rejecting England. Nor must they demonstrate affection for England by giving up the independent life they created in California.
They can love Montecito mornings and Cotswolds afternoons.
They can love American freedom and English heritage.
They can build businesses in California and make memories in Britain.
They can raise two thoroughly modern anglo-American children who understand that home is not always a single house—or even a single country.
Harry and Meghan may have crossed an ocean to save their family. That does not mean they abandoned one world for another.
Perhaps their next chapter is about building a bridge between the two—an Anglo-American love story written on their own terms. 🇬🇧❤️🇺🇸
It will be beautiful to watch.
