Princess Kate's return to work found its way into the official royal diary the Court Circular—which Prince Harry said reduced his family to a "circular firing squad."
The Princess of Wales was off work most of 2024 after an operation in January and a later cancer diagnosis but has now completed her chemotherapy.
And her first royal job since the announcement was a private meeting in Windsor about her biggest project, her work on early years care through The Royal Foundation.
The court circular read: "The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron, The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, this afternoon held an Early Years Meeting at Windsor."
The news was described by the Daily Mail as her "first official work meeting in nine months" while the Evening Standard reported: "Princess of Wales returns to work for first time since finishing chemotherapy treatment."
However, Kate is not back at work full time and it is not currently clear whether she will manage any in-person engagements before Remembrance Sunday, in November.
If the palace is planning a shift in approach that places greater emphasis on private meetings publicized predominantly through the Court Circular then aides may want to note with caution Prince Harry's strongly negative view of what he described as a "sinister document."
The official royal diary may appear to outsiders to be a fairly bland and formal affair but it is also used by analysts to count how many jobs are done by each royal in a year.
At the end of each year, a table is then published ranking each royal according to how hard they have worked with King Charles III and Princess Anne usually jostling for the top spot.
Prince Harry wrote in Spare: "Sinister document. At the end of the year, when all the numbers got tallied, comparisons would be made in the press.
"'Ah, this one's busier than that one.' 'Ah, this one's a lazy s***.' The Court Circular was an ancient document, 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.
"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.
"Certain family members had become obsessed, feverishly striving to have the highest number of official engagements recorded in the Circular each year, no matter what, and they'd succeeded largely by including things that weren't, strictly speaking, engagements, recording public interactions that were mere blips, the kinds of things Willy and I wouldn't dream of including.
"Which was essentially why the Court Circular was a joke."
In other words, if Kensington Palace wants for the time being to turn the public's attention away from in-person visits to charities and other causes and towards private meetings they may inadvertently create a new benchmark through which Kate may be judged in comparison to other royals.
And among them will be King Charles III who has also been treated for cancer this year but has undertaken many more royal engagements than Kate.
News stories about Kate's meeting being her first job since the chemotherapy announcement are also awkward since sources had previously indicated the princess had already returned to working from home by September 9, the day she released the video announcement about her chemotherapy.
Not all home working is recorded on the Court Circular, so only Kate's actual formal meetings will be chalked up for the statisticians.
It is therefore yet to be seen whether the Court Circular's ability to track some but not all of Kate's at home working serves as a benefit or another source of pressure.
And it comes after a mixed reaction to her announcement video which some columnists were particularly scathing about.
In her announcement video, she said: "Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes.
"I am however looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can."
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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