If Whatsapp goes down in the UK this week, blame Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Chat groups in the Cotswolds – a combination of the old-money-flatulent-ancient-labrador-just-off-for-a-hack-with-Minty and new money all-Bottega-Veneta-PJ-to-Menorca sets – are reportedly buzzing about their arrival.

Also hot topics of discussion: The $22 million house the Sussexes might have their eyes on and the feelings-first, maths-later school where they might be sending Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

Less than a week after Harry and Meghan returned to the UK, we now face a new question – have they moved home to not just face family drama, tabloid drama, and security drama, but social Siberia?

In choosing the Cotswolds, have the Sussexes just moved behind enemy lines?

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It is now looking like Meghan has traded 300 days of sunshine a year, a 16-loo mansion, being near her adored mother and an easy breezy existence of soul sisters and savvy B (’your pool or mine?’) to live somewhere where anything she says might be reported back to Queen Camilla in minutes, where titles are two-a-penny, where many of the reigning social figures happen to have fallen out spectacularly with the Sussexes and where their signature woe-is-us-ery will go down like a vegan Scotch egg.

Already, locals in the Cotswolds “simply can’t wait to see if Meghan really is as ghastly as everyone makes out”, a source told The Daily Beast and The Royalist’s Tom Sykes.

Locals, Sykes wrote, are “amused, entertained, appalled and titillated by their new neighbours”.

For the time being they are with at least one friendly face, with the Sussexes reported to be staying at the home of billionaire hedge funder Ian Wace, on whose private Scottish island they holidayed in July, while they house hunt.

However, they could face a far chillier reception once they venture past Wace’s large, large gates, with the Cotswolds home to many of the bites noires of the Sussex cinematic universe.

Numero uno on the list would have to be Queen Camilla, who has had a house just over the border in Wiltshire since her divorce from Andrew Parker Bowles in 1995, and where she still spends many weekends.

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Anything Harry and Meghan say will only take “five minutes” to get back to Queen Camilla, according to journalist Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris, “depending on who [was] there. There are a lot of loose lips [in the area]”.

“The Cotswolds is very royalist”, Johnson told the Daily T podcast. “You would move in and go to some wonderful lunch party or drinks party and start whining about the institution”.

Next, Sir David and Victoria Beckham, with whom Harry and Meghan were once super pally. Their halcyon days of couples Cluedo were short-lived, and by the time of the Sussexes’ 2018 wedding, relations had suffered such that the Beckhams failed to make the nighttime reception guest list, but George and Amal Clooney, who had never met the newlyweds before, did.

Since then, David has assiduously worked his way into King Charles’ good books, becoming an ambassador for the King’s Trust, wheedling away to finally getting his ‘K’ (knighthood), and sharing beekeeping tips with His Majesty.

Then there is Baroness Bamford, who, as Johnson has said, “basically invented the Cotswolds”. Lady Bamford is the impresario behind the Daylesford Organics empire, a lifestyle brand which turns over more than $100 million a year and employs 700 staff, and is far from a Meghan fan. Last year, after the Duchess of Sussex launched her As Ever range, Lady Bamford called Meghan “crazy”, saying “she hasn’t got any history. Or authenticity.”

Another one of the other biggest names in the area is Jeremy Clarkson, whose Cotswolds Diddly Squat Farm is the setting for his monstrously successful Amazon series Clarkson’s Farm. In 2022, Clarkson wrote a column in The Sun saying he hated Meghan “on a cellular level” and that he ‘dreamed’ of her being forcibly paraded through the UK and crowds throwing “lumps of excrement at her.”

The outpouring of revulsion the piece very rightly prompted saw the UK’s independent press standards body deluged with a record 25,000 complaints, which later ruled the piece was “humiliating and degrading”.

The Sussexes accused Clarkson of spreading “hate rhetoric”.

Another leading light in the Cotswolds is Sir Ben Elliot, former chairman of the Conservative party and founder of a concierge service for the 0.01% – who also happens to be Camilla’s nephew. See above re: loose lips and indiscreet comments making their way back to the Queen in less time than it takes to boil the softest of soft eggs.

Also in the area is interior designer, social arbiter and close Camilla chum Nicky Haslam, who has said Meghan is “ghastly but she’s got guts”. Haslam is famous for releasing an annual list of things he finds common, calling out in recent years almond milk, rescue dogs, baby showers, and talking about vegetables “from our garden”. Hard to see him and Meghan vibing over one of her colour-coded ombré crudité platters.

Another famed Cotswoldian is Crown Princess Marie Chantal of Greece whose late father-in-law King Constantine was one of Prince William’s godparents while he in turn is the godfather of her son Prince Constantine Alexios. When Spare was released, Marie Chantal posted an image on social media of the title sitting beside a book called How To Kill Your Family. Subtle.

Still, there are a few pluses for Harry and Meghan in choosing the Cotswolds.

It’s an area full of twee villages so picturesque they look like leftover sets from Austen adaptations, there are superb prep schools for their little ones, and it offers ready access to both Meghan’s spiritual Mecca, Soho House or at least their rural outpost, Soho Farmhouse.

Also nearby is Charles’ Highgrove House, where he spends most weekends, thus making it easy for Harry to stage regular, uninvited pop-ins.

And then there are the Hollywood blow-ins. On the pro-Sussex side of the ledger, we have Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi and Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who are temporarily living in the region and have previously been reported to have been looking at houses.

Much of the reporting about the Sussexes’ return has said that enrolling Archie and Lili in British schools is the key reason for the family’s shock decision to skitter away from California and to stash their dogs and remaining staff in a Birmingham-bound jet.

However for Meghan especially it could be a hard transition. She has talked about how her time in the UK left her struggling with her mental health such that she suffered suicidal ideation and has never been reported to have made any close friends when she previously lived there.

Meanwhile, she is leaving behind an incredibly strong emotional support network of staunch friends and defenders, her mother Doria Ragland, her As ever home base, the massive garden she has regularly featured on Instagram, and the family’s chickens.

Meghan could face a tough time should she, mid-whipping up a Victoria sponge, a treat for Harry after a hard day putting his atrophied ribbon-cutting hand back to work, need to borrow a cup of sugar.

Good thing Waitrose delivers.

Daniela Elser is an editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with Australia’s leading media titles.

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