Like a couple of retired rock stars, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have been on tour in a doomed effort to recapture the magic that once was theirs.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have been on tour – but the self-loving pair can’t disguise the fact that they have permanently alienated those who should mean the most to them – their family, says Nigel Jones.

Like a couple of retired rock stars, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have been on tour in a doomed effort to recapture the magic that once was theirs.

But the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s travels only served to emphasise the deep disgrace that they have plunged themselves into – entirely by their own efforts.

First up was Harry, who, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games Charity he co-founded for disabled ex-servicemen and women, paid his first visit since February to Britain – the land of his birth that he has publicly spurned.

But the visit was hardly triumphal progress.

Indeed, its main event was a non-event: the announcement by Harry’s father King Charles that he was “too busy” to meet his second son.

Instead, at the time when he could have been seeing Harry, the King was pictured in the grounds of Buckingham Palace in animated conversation with footballing superstar David Beckham.

This humiliating snub was an open sign of how deeply the exiled Prince has offended his own family by his words and deeds since choosing an empty existence as a C-list California celebrity over the duties he was born to as a leading member of the Royal family.

It’s no wonder the Mirror is reporting claims that Harry had burst into tears after hearing his father had bestowed his brother Prince William with a very special honour that is particularly close to the Duke of Sussex’s heart.

On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace announced that William will be made colonel-in-chief of the Army Air Corps – despite Harry having personally served with the unit in Afghanistan.

The announcement appeared timed to inflict maximum pain on Harry, coming on the same day that he returned to London to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games.

It just goes to show that you cannot expect to denounce your family as cruel and unfeeling racists in interviews and a bestselling book – and then be welcomed back into their bosoms as if nothing had happened.

The snub was especially wounding for Harry as his elderly father has only recently resumed his own royal duties during his ongoing treatment for cancer.

Neither did Harry meet his older brother William, the Prince of Wales, or his sister-in-law Kate, who is still in seclusion while she also undergoes treatment for cancer.

After his less than successful flying visit, Harry then reunited with his wife Meghan for a 72-hour joint sojourn in Nigeria – which seemed to have no purpose other than to attract publicity for the world’s most famous self-glorifying grifters.

But the freezing out of the errant pair by the British establishment followed them into the heat of Africa: the British embassy in Nigeria declined to provide security or take any part in the Sussex’s tour on the quite reasonable grounds that they have deliberately given up on being working royals.

If Harry and Meghan had a shred of humility or self-awareness, this exercise in empty grandstanding egotism would have brought home to them the irreparable damage that they have done to their family – and to themselves.

As it is, however, they will probably continue to do what they do best: show the world just what a pair of performing poltroons they are.