If there’s one thing the Buckingham Palace courtiers love to do, it’s mess with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s profiles on royal.uk, the official website of the British royal family. In previous years, BP webmasters have played stupid games with vanishing and reappearing royal titles and HRHs. Let’s not forget the seven-weeks-long delay in adding Princess Lilibet to the line of succession list online, nor the delay in adding Lili and Archie’s titles last year. All of the updates and games were always very stupid and petty, and a very obvious effort to “create a story” of the Windsors snubbing the Sussexes, especially their children.

So, I thought this latest story would be another dumbf–k “let’s focus on how Buckingham Palace is snubbing the Sussexes on royal.uk again” deflection from the Waleses’ sh-tshow. But no, it’s not like that at all? While royal.uk merged Harry and Meghan’s profiles into one page (they used to have individual pages), the palace webmaster added flattering photos of Harry & Meghan and added the palace’s statements about Harry and Meghan “stepping back” from being working royals. Even more fascinating is that royal.uk now links to sussex.com, with this statement: “Information about the current work of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex can be found on their official website: sussex.com.”

Also notable: the palace webmaster isn’t playing fast and loose with their titles. The page notes, “The Duke and Duchess were given their titles by Queen Elizabeth II on the day of their marriage.” The palace clarifies that Harry is “The Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel. He was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2015.” Meghan is “The Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel.” While there should be HRHs attached, once again, Harry and Meghan have “voluntarily” decided not to use them.

Again, while all of this is being promoted in the British media as a snub, it doesn’t actually look that way to me? Harry and Meghan’s bios/pages were merged, as if the palace has made their peace with the fact that the Sussex marriage is fine and Meghan can’t be “removed.” They linked to sussex.com, almost like sussex.com has the king’s stamp of approval? It’s a hell of a thing. Super-curious.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.