Royally Off Duty Harry's Bittersweet Goodbye

The strain shows on the sussexes’ emotional last day

- Judy Kean

It was the end of an era. Prince Harry, accompanied by wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, carried out his final engagement as a senior member of the royal family last week.

But what was undoubtedly a poignant occasion for the prince unfortunately also appeared to be an extremely awkward and uncomfortable one.

As he attended the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey with his family for the last time, Harry (35) looked pensive and ill at ease. His interactions with brother Prince William and sister-in-law Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, were described as frosty and strained too.

But royal insiders are divided over whether Harry’s demeanour was due to the fact that he was desperate to get the event out of the way so he can get on with his new life in Canada with Meghan (38) and their son Archie (10 months), or whether he was actually extremely emotional about leaving the role he was born into.

“Harry looked like he really didn’t want to be there,” says one observer. “It could have been this was a tricky time for him, and perhaps it was sinking in that this really was the end of his royal life, at least as he has always known it. He could have been overwhelmed by it all.

“But it looked more like he couldn’t wait to get it over and done with.”

Royal biographer Robert Hardman described Harry as distracted and subdued. “It was a case of grin and bear it.”

In a striking green Emilia Wickstead dress, Meghan, by contrast, was poised and sported a megawatt smile.

“The duchess beamed away all afternoon, to the point of facial exhaustion,” says Robert.

Another commentator believes Meghan looked as though she was drawing on all her acting skills to give the impression that the occasion wasn’t the trial it surely must have been.