Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Website Update Shows They "Can Do Without" the Royal Family, Expert Says

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's new lives are developing in California, far away from the U.K.-based royals.

The latest sign of this has come in the form of an update to their Archewell website homepage, which now features a loved-up photo of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex taken by their friend, photographer Misan Harriman.

Next to this picture is the quote, "Each of us can change our communities. All of us can change the world," signed, "Harry and Meghan."

For royal expert Angela Levin, this isn't an innocuous decision.

"What's very interesting is you can always read the underlying content of what they want to say really, and the main thing, right at the beginning, is 'each of us can change our communities,'" Levin told The Sun.

"I think that's saying very much that they can do without the Royal Family, they don't need them, they're fine where they are, they're building another community.

"And then, 'all of us can change the world,' they're back to wanting to be global and saying to the Royal Family, 'we can do without you,' but actually they can't.

"If they could, they would have done it before and dropped their titles and been totally independent, but they're clinging on."

The Archewell website was blacked out during the period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, with just a message from Harry about his grandmother's sad passing. Now, those mentions of the late Queen have gone.

"There's not even a few lines saying something kind and nice about the loss of the Queen," Levin remarked.

It is worth noting for context that Levin, who is the author of Camilla: From Outcast to Queen Consort (opens in new tab), is consistently quite critical of the Sussexes.

Still, many signs point to Levin being right about this: After all, the Sussexes have spent the past few years distancing themselves from the Royal Family, both physically by moving to California, and in terms of their work and media appearances.

With that in mind, Meghan Markle did say in her interview with The Cut that she hopes that Harry doesn't lose his father over all of this drama, in the same way that she lost her father Thomas in the run-up to their 2018 wedding.

"Harry said to me, I [Meghan] lost my dad [Thomas] in this process," she recalled. "It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision."