If ever there was a day to reflect on the stark difference between the royal family in Britain and the renegade Sussexes in California, this was it.

I woke in New York to news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are apparently “licking their wounds” after failing to get an Emmy nomination for their family-bashing Netflix documentary series.

But several hours later, real news broke in London that both King Charles and the Princess of Wales have been forced to cancel public engagements due to health issues.

Charles is having a “corrective procedure” next week for an enlarged prostate, and Kate has already had abdominal surgery and will spend the next two weeks in the hospital, and then several more months recovering.

It’s almost unprecedented for two such announcements to be made on the same day, and a worrying time for a family, institution and country still coming to terms with the recent deaths of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip.

Any surgery for a 75-year-old man like Charles is concerning, and although it’s not known exactly what 42-year-old Kate’s condition is, the fact she’s spending so much time in the hospital and won’t be back working until April suggests she’s had major surgery with all the potential complications that can come with that.

But what struck me on reading the two official statements was that their first thoughts were for other people.

Kate made a personal apology for having to postpone weeks of public appearances and stressed that she intends to reinstate all the events she will miss.

The king said he was disclosing his prostate problem because he was “keen to share the details of his diagnosis to encourage other men who may be experiencing symptoms to get checked.”

It reminded me of what the late, great queen said about her purpose: “I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughout all my life and with all my heart, I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.”

Pomp and pageantry may be what makes the royals globally famous, but it’s their devotion to duty that ties them in a knot of trust and respect to their subjects.

Annually attending hundreds of charity fundraisers, hospital and school openings, sporting occasions, flower shows and myriad other often very mundane, non-glamorous events up and down the country is the selfless price the royals willingly pay for all the palatial privilege they enjoy.

Duty is the bedrock of the monarchy, and Charles and Kate will be acutely conscious that they will be letting down many thousands of people who will have spent months enthusiastically preparing to meet and greet them.

Compare and contrast this with the incessant self-serving antics of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, whose only sense of duty is to their entitled egos and bank balance. 

A new book published this week by eminent British journalist Robert Hardman revealed the truth behind the decision by Meghan and Harry to name their daughter Lilibet, which was the queen’s very private childhood nickname, only ever used by her husband, her parents and her sister, Margaret.

Rumors swirled at the time that they’d done this without getting Her Majesty’s permission, but when British media including the BBC reported this, Harry furiously set his lawyers on them, insisting it wasn’t true and warning that any suggestion to the contrary was “false and defamatory.”

Now, however, we discover that it was true.

In fact, not only did the queen not give consent to her nickname being used, but she was absolutely furious that the duplicitous couple then publicly lied that she had done so and claimed she had been “supportive” of their choice.

Hardman writes in “Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story” that a staff member close to the queen “recalled that Elizabeth II had been ‘as angry as I’d ever seen her’ in 2021 after the Sussexes announced that she had given them her blessing to call their baby daughter ‘Lilibet,’ the Queen’s childhood nickname.”

And, he adds: “When the Sussexes tried to co-opt the Palace into propping up their version of events, they were rebuffed. Once again, it was a case of ‘recollections may vary’ — the late Queen’s reaction to the Oprah Winfrey interview — as far as Her Majesty was concerned.”

Remember that all this came at a time when she was still grieving Philip, who’d died just two months earlier, and when she herself was suffering from increasing ill health.

Even by Sussex standards, it’s hard to think of a more insensitive act than to appropriate the queen’s nickname for their child without her express permission, and then to lie about it afterward and try to force palace staff to endorse their lie.

But what else should we expect from a couple who disgracefully accused the royals of being racists on their Oprah whine-athon, then two years later tried to deny it?

Or who continue to shamefully attack their family to the highest bidders for tens of millions of dollars, while simultaneously moaning about the monarchy that gave them the royal titles they exploit so ruthlessly?

On the day Meghan and Harry are “licking their wounds” over not winning awards for their despicable treachery, the victims of their abuse are enduring and about to endure actual wounds from surgery, and the only regret they have is for being forced to miss doing their duty.

 That says it all.