Royal Family Court Circular: What It Is and Why Prince Harry Called It a ‘Joke’
Between heartbreaking and sometimes searing passages in Spare, the best-selling memoir from Prince Harry offered eye-opening details on royal life when it dropped in January 2023. Among them is the Court Circular. What the Duke of Sussex had to say about the “sinister document” and why he considers it a “scam.”
What is the British royal family Court Circular?
First, an explanation of the Court Circular. As described on the royal family’s website, the Court Circular is “the official record of past royal engagements.” Meaning it provides details on engagements carried out by British royals.
Additionally, there’s also a daily Court Circular which, per the website, lists events from the previous day. Appearing in newspapers and online, “circulating a report of the Sovereign’s official daily engagements to the newspapers” dates back to 1803.
King George III began the Court Circular after growing “frustrated” with the royal events not being reported accurately in newspapers.
Today, the Court Circular still keeps track of royal engagements. “Highlights” are shared on the royal family’s official Twitter. Although it usually gets the most attention at the end of the year when an annual record’s released.
‘Feelings of competitiveness’ among royals are ‘weaponized’ by the Court Circular, according to Prince Harry
Discussing the “sinister document” in Spare, Harry recalled how, in his experience, it can create an undercurrent of “tension.”
“At the end of the year, when all the numbers got tallied, comparisons would be made in the press,” Harry said. “Ah, this one’s busier than that one. Ah, this one’s a lazy s***.”
“The Court Circular was an ancient document,” he continued. “But it had lately morphed into a circular firing squad. It didn’t create the feelings of competitiveness that ran in my family, but it amplified them, weaponized them.”
The end of the year, Harry revealed, proved to be a particularly tense time with the Court Circular looming: “Though none of us ever spoke about the Court Circular directly, or mentioned it by name, that only created more tension under the surface, which built invisibly as the last day of the calendar year approached.”
Meaning, come Christmastime when the royals descend upon Sandringham, the Court Circular’s probably in the back of their minds as they walk to church or open presents.
‘Money determined all’ with the Court Circular
Despite some royals including “mere blips” as engagements to top the Court Circular, it came down to money.
“Certain family members had become obsessed with the Court Circular,” Harry recalled. They found themselves “feverishly striving to have the highest number of official engagements recorded in the Circular each year, no matter what.”
They did so, Harry claimed, by “including things that weren’t, strictly speaking, engagements, recording public interactions that were mere blips. The kinds of things Willy [Prince William] and I wouldn’t dream of including.”
That, he added, wasn’t even the “main reason the Court Circular was a joke, a scam,” Rather, it was “that none of us was deciding in a vacuum how much work to do.” His grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and father, King Charles III, controlled the purse strings.
“Granny or Pa decided, by way of how much support (money) they allocated to our work. Money determined all,” he explained.
“Maybe the stress around all this stuff stemmed from the overarching stress about the monarchy itself,” Harry continued. “The family was feeling the tremors of global change, hearing the cries of critics who said the monarchy was outdated, costly.”
“The family tolerated, even leaned into, the nonsense of the Court Circular for the same reason it accepted the ravages and depredations of the press – fear,” he said. “Fear of the public, fear of the future, fear of the day the nation would say: OK, shut it down.”
