Even after all the drama of their UK visit, Harry and Meghan realize they need to be on good terms with King Charles in order to revive their flagging professional fortunes

FILE – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duke and Duchess of Sussex visit the track and field event at the Invictus Games in The Hague, Netherlands, Sunday, April 17, 2022. Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have been asked to vacate their home in Britain. Frogmore Cottage, located on the grounds of Windsor Castle west of London, had been intended as the couple’s main residence before they gave up royal duties and moved to Southern California. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

For a couple reportedly plotting to “reverse Megxit,” Prince Harry and Meghan Markle certainly had some interesting ideas about how to make the British public like them again during their visit to the U.K. last week.

Harry created weeks of “psychodrama” over his family’s travel plans by raising alarms about long-settled security arrangements and then by getting into a row with Buckingham Palace over its offer to let him stay there during their trip. The Duke of Sussex also very publicly lashed out, issuing a statement that accused a High Court judge of engaging in “a white wash” after the judge delivered a devastating blow against his efforts to claim, without evidence, that journalists at the Daily Mail engaged in illegal news-gathering practices.

Meanwhile, Meghan reportedly felt “a lot of sadness” and was “humiliated” by the public bickering over whether she and their children, Archie and Lilibet, would join Harry in the U.K., according to People. She ended up dropping out of scheduled events with her husband in London and for a celebration to mark the one-year countdown to the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham.

And yet, the Sussexes — Harry especially — may have gotten one important thing out of the trip, which he reportedly hopes will mark a significant step toward making peace with his estranged father and staging their return to the U.K., six years after their acrimonious departure from royal duties and move to the United States.

Daily Mail writer Alison Boshoff is reporting that Harry is desperate to renew his connections to his home country and that he and Meghan realize they need to be on good terms with Harry’s father, King Charles III, in order to revive their global status and flagging professional fortunes in the United States.

“There is definitely a feeling in his camp that he has started to feel a bit unwelcome in America,” one friend told Boshoff. There also is a feeling “that the American dream might not be all that it was cracked up to be.” Meghan, similarly, feels their “dwindling star power” and is aware of her “fading popularity,” even in her home country of the United States, Boshoff reported.

Harry’s friend told Boshoff that Meghan has begun to feel “an outcast status” as well in America, while Harry’s heart has always belonged to the U.K.

“It is no secret that they went to the States to try and seek their fortune, to try to capitalize on his fame and his royalty to some degree … but that the American dream is cooling,” the friend said.

With this reality, Harry was said to be “buoyed” and “energized” by achieving one major gain during his U.K. trip — gaining a personal audience with his father, the king, Boshoff reported.

Harry also brought Meghan and their children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, to meet with Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, at Highgrove, the king’s country estate on July 10. Reports described how hush-hush the meeting was, with arrangements made so that the Sussex family could sneak into Highgrove undetected by the media. Buckingham Place also was left to handle the very limited release of information about the tête-à-tête after it was all over.

As Boshoff also reported, the king and the palace imposed some pretty strict restrictions on the famously attention-seeking Harry and Meghan for the reconciliation to take place. “There were to be no cameras in the room, no briefings and no Instagram posts about jam or anything else,” Boshoff said.

Thus far, Harry and Meghan appear to have taken these conditions to heart and have not let their team do any anonymous briefings with favorite media outlets about what happened at the meeting, Boshoff said.

Boshoff previously reported on an effort by Harry and by some royal aides to bring him back into the royal fold. During “Megxit,” Harry and Meghan left royal duties to move to the United States and to try to become independently wealthy by signing multimillion-dollar production deals with Netflix and Spotify.

They also famously used their Netflix and other platforms, including Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” to criticize the monarchy and royal family members. This was after the late Queen Elizabeth II had ruled that they couldn’t have a “half-in, half-out” arrangement and told them they could no longer serve the British monarchy if they wanted to become media moguls or pursue other commercial ventures.

“I don’t think he’s ever wanted to be estranged from his family,” another source told Boshoff. “I think when he was madly in love with Meghan he could be blind enough to choose her. Now things are different, and the veil is lifting.”

Among the many things that Harry and Meghan didn’t foresee with “Megxit” is that it takes more than being famous to become successful media moguls and entrepreneurs. Their deals with Spotify and Netflix fizzled, and Meghan’s As Ever lifestyle brand reportedly is struggling to offload her jams and other products. And even though her Netflix lifestyle series, “With Love, Meghan” scored a surprising Daytime Emmy nomination, it was still poorly reviewed and Netflix declined to renew it for another season.

Meanwhile, Harry never stopped seeing himself as a “working royal,” despite his grandmother’s edict. Likewise, Boshoff said, there’s a growing acceptance under Charles III that he and Meghan will have to continue to pursue commercial ventures if they are going to fund their expensive lifestyle, which includes costly private security and a mansion in Montecito.

Boshoff said there are some in the palace who agree that Harry and Meghan should be able to continue to try and make money in the United States and elsewhere — but be treated as “working royals” when they visit in the U.K.

For that reason, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Harry and his family will get accommodations in a royal residence the next time they visit the U.K., Boshoff said.