Being a member of the royal family has been described as similar to living life in a ‘gilded cage’. Prince Harry has also spoken of feeling ‘trapped’ by the institution. Francesca Jackson argues that senior members of the royal family have no choice but to serve the country because to refuse to do so would pose an existential threat to the institution of monarchy that it might not be able to survive.

Back in May, Prince Harry gave a high-profile interview to the BBC after he lost a Court of Appeal challenge over his security in the UK. Of the many claims he made, one of the most eye-catching was that:  

‘(W)hat really worries me more than anything else about today’s decision (is that) it sets a new precedent that security can be used to control members of the family, and effectively, what it does is imprison other members of the family from being able to choose a different life.’ 

It is a bold claim to make, but is it an accurate one?  

It is generally agreed that, given their prominent role in public life, the monarch and their immediate family should be protected through publicly-funded security. The Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (known as ‘RAVEC’) is charged with overseeing security arrangements for key public figures in Great Britain by assessing risks from terrorism, extremism, stalkers and other foreseeable threats. Amongst other things, it determines which members of the royal family receive security, although there is no public list of who receives protection. The Royal Household has two members on the Committee, including the monarch’s private secretary, who advise on what security they believe is necessary to protect key people and locations, such as Buckingham Palace. 

Just as there is no official public list of which members receive protection, there is no official public list of the qualifications required for a royal to receive publicly-funded security. However, in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex suggested that two conditions must be met. Firstly, it appears that a royal title is needed. According to Meghan, senior members of the family wanted to deny their son Archie the title of prince, which would have disqualified him from receiving security. Secondly, it seems that only working members of the royal family – those who carry out duties on behalf of the monarchy without earning an income of their own – are entitled to publicly-funded security. According to Harry, the Palace justified removing the couple’s security on the basis that their ‘change of status [meant] we would no longer be official working members of the Royal Family.’  

It was this decision to remove security which was at issue in R (Duke of Sussex) v Home Secretary [2025] EWCA Civ 548. Harry sought to challenge how RAVEC reached its decision to withdraw his protection in January 2020 following his and Meghan’s decision to step back from royal duties. Of particular concern was the influence exerted by the Royal Household’s two representatives. Part of his argument was that the Palace weaponised the second condition by threatening to remove security if he and Meghan quit as working royals as a means of deterring them. When the couple eventually decided to do so, he believed that the two representatives exerted undue influence to convince the Committee to remove his security – in spite of his ‘particular’ security risks – to ‘punish’ him for leaving. As he later questioned in the BBC interview, ‘what is the Royal Household’s role (on RAVEC)… if it isn’t to influence and decide what they want for members of their household?’ But Harry failed to prove his suspicions to the court, which ruled that ‘it was impossible to say that (RAVEC’s) reasoning was illogical or inappropriate’ (see paragraph 73 of the judgment). It agreed with the Home Office that RAVEC’s decision to downgrade security was due to the Duke’s ‘change of status’ and the fact that he was moving outside of RAVEC’s GB-only remit.  

In the subsequent BBC interview, Harry claimed that because ‘security was made conditional on having (an) official role’, the ruling now means that ‘security can be used to control members of the family, and… imprison (them) from being able to choose a different life.’ He appears to be referring to those members who currently receive publicly-funded security. Based on the two conditions implied by the Sussexes in the Oprah interview, they include King Charles and Queen Camilla, the Prince and Princess of Wales (and their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis), Princess Anne, and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh (although it appears in these latter two cases that security is only provided when carrying out official public engagements). So what does the ruling mean for them: do, as Harry claims, the rules as to provision of security really now ‘imprison (them) from being able to choose a different life?’  

It is arguable that it is not the provision of security which ‘imprisons’ these royals from choosing a different life. Rather they are (to use another of Harry’s words) ‘trapped’ by the very system of constitutional monarchy. During the Oprah interview, Harry claimed that his father and brother ‘don’t get to leave’. This claim is hard to dispute, since for their very survival constitutional monarchies depend on the principle of hereditary succession; as Professor Vernon Bogdanor asserts in his book, The Monarchy and the Constitution, ‘hereditary monarchy has as its consequence that the destiny of the future sovereign is inescapable’. While there is technically no constitutional requirement for a monarch to remain on the throne (or for an heir to accede to it) against his or her will, in the UK there is no real tradition of abdication, since abdication ultimately poses an existential threat to monarchy. Edward VIII may have set a precedent for the abdication of a British Sovereign, but the constitutional crisis which it sparked makes it unlikely that history would ever repeat itself. There is no precedent for the next in line to the throne seeking to remove himself from it, and it is equally unlikely that any such precedent would be set. This is not least due to fears that doing so could open a can of worms and further threaten the principle of hereditary succession; as Professor Rodney Brazier argues, ‘if one heir resigned, why should others not do the same in due course if they wanted to?’. Harry enjoyed slightly more freedom than his father and brother in this regard: while high up in the line of succession at birth, he ultimately became dispensable from the point of view of succession once William started a family of his own, opening the door to him to pursue another life. 

There are other more pressing reasons of practicality – rather than security – which further ‘imprison’ royals and so prevent them choosing a different life. It is well known that the UK’s constitutional monarchy has been ‘slimmed down’ in recent years. According to the royal family’s website, it today comprises the King and Queen, Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Anne, Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra. Seven of these 11 members are over the age of 75: as Professor Robert Hazell argues, they have accepted decades of public service and are not going to quit now. That leaves the Prince and Princess of Wales and Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. Even if they wanted to leave (which, in the case of the Prince – and, by extension, Princess – would be inconceivable for the reason outlined above), for reasons of practicality they could not. The UK’s slimmed-down royal team is now the same size as Norway’s, but while Norway’s working royals have a population of around five million to service, the UK’s has a population of nearly 70 million. This is problematic since, as the monarchy has over the centuries been stripped of its political functions, it has taken on a civic purpose to justify and legitimate its place in the constitution, creating what is known as the ‘welfare monarchy’, which sees it carry out public engagements and champion worthy charitable causes. Senior royals, though perhaps not destined to inherit the throne, are nevertheless expected to carry out this role. But it is becoming increasingly hard to fulfil as the number of royals of working age decreases. Consequently, royals like the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh could never opt out. Indeed, the practical need to retain younger royals was arguably one reason why (if Harry’s claims are true) the Palace tried to prevent the Sussexes from leaving in the first place. 

Ironically, when Prince Edward tried to carve out a life outside of the institution, he found it impossible – not due to security, but because of the inexorable career expectations which constitutional monarchy places on senior members. Despite initially serving in the Royal Marines, Edward later chose not to take up traditional royal duties, instead setting up his own media company, Ardent Productions. But he was repeatedly accused of exploiting his royal status for profit, and according to reports the then-Prince Charles and Princess Anne believed that he should instead devote his time to public and charity work. In 2002, Edward took their advice, stepped down from Ardent Productions and became a full-time working member of the royal family. His experience suggests that, while there are technically no legal restrictions on the career choices of British royals, in practice the UK’s system of constitutional monarchy prevents those high up in the line of succession from choosing their own careers, as Robert Hazell and Bob Morris have previously argued. Moreover, they would necessarily need to gain financial independence in order to make a different life for themselves yet cannot pursue a professional business career due to the overwhelming expectation that they should undertake charitable – rather than commercial – activities.   

Ultimately, therefore, what Harry himself describes as his ‘escape’ was only made possible by Meghan. Indeed, in the Oprah interview he stated that it was only through meeting Meghan that he could ‘see a way out’ and be ‘saved’ from what would otherwise be a lifetime ‘trapped’ in the institution. With a successful, established career as a Hollywood actress, Meghan had a very different life to the one that he knew. She further opened the door to an alternative life for Harry who – as someone who since a young boy has always seemed uncomfortable with the trappings of royalty – took it.  

Back in 2017, Prince Harry stated ‘is there any one of the royal family who wants to be king or queen? I don’t think so. They do it for the greater good.’ And it is this unescapable duty – rather than security – which arguably ‘imprisons’ royals from choosing a different life. It is unlikely that, as a result of the Court of Appeal ruling, security will be weaponised to imprison other members of the family from choosing a different life, since they (unlike Harry) do not have the choice of leaving in the first place. But Harry is arguably right to say that they are ‘trapped’ in the system. Constitutional monarchy relies for its survival on hereditary succession to the Crown (which traps the monarch and immediate heir) and the execution of welfare and charitable work (which traps the other working members). Those high up in the line of succession thus simply have no choice but to serve the country as head of state or senior member of the royal family, especially in the UK’s slimmed down constitutional monarchy – to do otherwise would ultimately pose an existential threat to the institution itself. 

About the author

Francesca Jackson is a PhD student at Lancaster University.

Featured image: “Buckingham Palace, London, England” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by dconvertini.