When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left Britain in 2020, the move represented far more than a change of address. They wanted financial independence, freedom from working royal life and the opportunity to construct an identity outside the institution that had defined Harry since birth.

Six years later, they are heading back.

According to a Daily Mail report, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are preparing to live in Britain for an “extended period,” with Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, reportedly enrolled at a British school. They will not return as working royals and are expected to live in a non-royal residence.

That distinction matters. This is not Megxit being reversed institutionally. But geographically, the circle is difficult to ignore.

The journey began in January 2020, when Harry and Meghan shocked the Royal Family by announcing plans to step back as senior royals, become financially independent and divide their time between Britain and North America. After negotiations, they ceased being working royals and gave up using their HRH styles.

By March, they had completed their final official engagement and moved with baby Archie to California.

Then came the deals.

Netflix announced a multi-year agreement with the Sussexes in September 2020 covering films and television projects. Spotify followed in December through Archewell Audio, eventually producing Meghan’s Archetypes podcast.

But 2020 also brought personal tragedy. Meghan revealed in a New York Times essay that she had suffered a miscarriage:

“I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”

By 2021, the Sussex story had shifted from separation to open confrontation.

Harry told James Corden that Britain’s “toxic” press had damaged his mental health and that protecting his family influenced his decision to leave royal duties.

Then came Oprah.

During their March 2021 interview, Meghan said someone within the royal household had speculated about the skin colour of their future child. She also described the depth of her mental-health crisis, saying:

“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

Harry said he felt “really let down” by his father and described distance between himself and William.

Buckingham Palace responded with perhaps the most memorable line of the entire post-Megxit era:

“some recollections may vary.”

At roughly the same period, allegations emerged that Meghan had bullied Palace employees. Buckingham Palace said it was “very concerned” and launched an investigation. Meghan denied the allegations.

In June 2021, the couple welcomed Lilibet Diana.

Their connection with Britain never completely disappeared. They returned for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, when Lilibet celebrated her first birthday in Britain, while Harry remained involved in a dispute over police protection.

They were also in Britain when Queen Elizabeth died that September and participated in the mourning period and funeral.

But the Sussexes were simultaneously transforming their royal experience into major media projects.

Netflix released the six-part Harry & Meghan documentary in December 2022. A month later came Harry’s memoir, Spare, containing intimate revelations about his childhood, drug use, royal life and fractured relationship with William. It became one of 2023’s biggest-selling books.

Harry attended Charles’s coronation that May but sat separately from senior working royals.

Then the commercial landscape began changing.

Spotify and Archewell Audio ended their relationship in June 2023, although a source told People two months later that Harry and Meghan were “really happy together” in California.

Controversies also continued. In 2024, competing accounts emerged over whether Queen Elizabeth had approved the use of “Lilibet” for the couple’s daughter. Omid Scobie disputed claims that permission had not been given, while Robert Hardman reported that a former royal employee remembered the Queen becoming “as angry as I’d ever seen her” over suggestions she had been consulted.

Harry nevertheless began moving closer to his father. He briefly returned to Britain following Charles’s cancer diagnosis in February 2024.

The couple remained internationally active, attending Invictus events in Canada and making visits to Nigeria and Colombia that year.

In 2025, however, their separate post-royal careers produced sharply different headlines.

Meghan’s Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan launched in March and received largely negative reviews from television critics.

Later that month, Harry resigned from Sentebale, the charity he had co-founded in 2006, after relations between its board and chair Dr Sophie Chandauka collapsed. Chandauka accused Harry and former trustees of trying to remove her after she raised concerns involving bullying, harassment, misogyny and misogynoir.

The Charity Commission later found no evidence of widespread or systemic bullying, misogyny or harassment, but criticised both sides for allowing the dispute to become public and damage Sentebale’s reputation.

Meghan, meanwhile, found commercial momentum elsewhere.

Her lifestyle brand As Ever launched in April 2025, with its first collection of jams, teas and baking mixes selling out in under an hour. It expanded into alcoholic beverages in June.

The Sussexes also helped wildfire-displaced Californians and appeared together at the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver.

By 2026, however, Britain was becoming increasingly prominent again.

Following a four-day Australia visit in April, the family spent time on Scotland’s Tanera Mor in July and secretly met King Charles and Queen Camilla at Highgrove. Charles had not seen Archie and Lilibet since 2022.

Now comes the biggest reversal of all.

The children are reportedly preparing for British school, with suggestions the family could remain until their education is completed.

Harry and Meghan are not returning to royal duties. Their attempt to create independent careers has also not produced only failures: Spare sold enormously, As Ever enjoyed a rapid sell-out launch, and Invictus remains central to Harry’s public work.

Yet the symbolism is unavoidable.

The couple who left Britain to construct a life beyond the monarchy are returning after six years containing blockbuster interviews, books, streaming deals, family confrontations, commercial successes, cancelled partnerships and PR controversies.

Megxit succeeded in getting Harry and Meghan out of royal life.

What those six years have not demonstrated quite as clearly is whether they ever succeeded in getting royal life out of Harry and Meghan.