Will the Queen’s death change Meghan and Harry’s new chapter?

On Thursday, the website Prince Harry and his wife Meghan created as a platform for their new business ventures in California went dark. The links to Meghan's new podcast disappeared and so did the references to the couple's philanthropic efforts and their production deal. Instead, the homepage featured a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II.

To veil a website in digital mourning was a decision in line with royal protocols, but also with public sentiment, even in the seaside towns of southern California, where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have lived since stepping back from their official roles in the Windsor family hierarchy.

At Ye Old King's Head, an English pub and gift shop close to the beach in Santa Monica, the news of queen's death on Thursday had made the shop a meeting place for both British expatriates and sentimental Americans, said Dusty Kerr, a 65-year-old from Leeds, who has worked at the shop for 23 years. "She's well missed," she said.

As people bought commemorative teapots and tea towels, and drank toasts to the queen's memory in the pub, there were plenty of questions about what kind of a king Charles would be, Kerr said, but she didn't hear much about California's most famous British expats.

"Nobody's done any negativity today," she said. "Not been really hearing much about that - it's all about Elizabeth."

It's unclear whether Elizabeth's death, at age 96, will do much to change the path Harry and Meghan have begun to chart for themselves in California. In his first address to the nation, King Charles III gave their choice his stamp of approval, saying, "I want to also express my love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas."

The couple live in the celebrity enclave of Montecito, in a mansion reportedly purchased for $14.65m and have started Archewell, a combination of nonprofit and for-profit ventures that aims to "unleash the power of compassion to drive systemic cultural change".