What is it about July 10 and not-quite-royalty? On that day in 1554, a 17-year-old Lady Jane Grey was shunted onto the throne for all of nine days, thus forever more dooming historians to bickering about whether she should be counted as a Queen or not.

And on that date this year we could witness – pause for ceremonial trumpeters tooting – Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex descending on the UK to roll out their half-in, half-out plan.

Which, if you’ve been paying attention, is exactly what Queen Elizabeth tried to prevent.

Last week, Australia provided the laboratory-safe conditions and the testing ground for the Sussexes’ new caring-meets-cold-hard-commerce master plan and it worked a treat.

Crowds turned up and cheered, hordes selfied, sick kids were visited, veterans hailed, hugs energetically dispensed, TV cameras filmed, businesses wrote them cheques to sit on artfully arranged chairs on stages and to say lines they have been wheeling out for years (yeah, yeah, pot kettle) and shoppers shopped Meghan’s looks.

In four days, the Sussexes came, they saw, they conquered and they sold or as Julius Caesar might have said if he had understood ‘add to cart’ – Veni, vidi, vici, vendere.

This was the biggest Sussex plot twist in years, finally debuting the duty and dollars, philanthropy and payola, on and off version of royalty they had unsuccessfully pitched to the late Queen and then Prince Charles back in 2020.

Since their royal divorce, the duke and duchess have undertaken Option A, DIY royal ‘tours’ to places like Nigeria and Colombia and Option B, any number of commercial enterprises (jams, podcasts, doomed reality TV shows about horsey sport, being paid to speak at real estate conferences) but never the twain had met.