What is the Court Circular? The royal document Prince Harry called 'sinister'

Prince Harry’s bombshell memoir Spare only deepened the rift between him and the Firm. The memoir—that earned his ghostwriter a fortune—delves into several revealing aspects of his life within the Royal Family, one of which involves the ‘court circular.’ This official document keeps a record of the number of engagements completed by each member of the Royal Family, such as public appearances and charity work.

While seemingly harmless, Prince Harry claims the Court Circular fuels an ‘obsessive’ sense of competition within his family. He also describes it as a ‘sinister document’ in the book.

What is the Court Circular?

The Court Circular is the official record of royal engagements, a practice started by George III in 1803. According to The Royal Family’s Instagram post in 2015, the document was created after George III got frustrated with inaccurate reporting on royal events. He then established the role of a ‘Court Newsman’ to provide newspapers with accurate, court-approved information. This daily report became known as the Court Circular.

Today, it is published in selected British newspapers. A copy from The Times is kept in a special book at Buckingham Palace, and eventually transferred to the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle for preservation.

Each year, the media often highlights who in the Royal Family worked the most or the least. They use the information from the document to ranks royals based on their public service, creating a narrative around their work that has impacted their public image in the past.

In 2023, Princess Anne was recognised as the ‘hardest working royal,’ completing 214 engagements, followed by King Charles with 181. Comparatively, Kate Middleton only logged 90 engagements. The Princess recently made her first entry in the Court Circular this year since she withdrew from royal duties after her cancer diagnosis, reports The Guardian.

Prince Harry claims the Court Circular is a sinister document

Given the nature of the document, Prince Harry claims that his family members are obsessed with the Court Circular, and they strive to outdo one another in the number of engagements reported. He refers to the document as a ‘sinister’ and wrote in Spare:

The Court Circular, that annual record of ‘official engagements’ done by each member of the Royal Family in the preceding calendar year. Sinister document.

Harry added that these comparisons have created tension within the family. He stated, as quoted byYahoo! :

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 shit.

Though rarely discussed openly, the pressure builds as the end of the year approaches, with the media comparing each member's workload. Harry wrote:

It didn't create the feelings of competitiveness that ran in my family, but it amplified them, weaponised 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…

According to Harry, this obsession with engagement numbers lead some family members to stretch the definition of what qualifies as an official engagement. He noted in the memoir:

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.

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Sources used:

Royal Family Instagram post

The Guardian: Princess of Wales returns to work with meeting about early childhood project

Yahoo!: Prince Harry claims senior royals are 'obsessed' with who does the most charity work