By SYLVIA HUI | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

LON­DON (AP) — Prince William and wife Kate made a sur­prise joint ap­pear­ance with Prince Har­ry and wife Meghan on Sat­ur­day, warm­ly greet­ing a large crowd gath­ered out­side Wind­sor Cas­tle to re­mem­ber their long-reign­ing monarch, Queen Eliz­a­beth II.

Their “walk­a­bout,” the first time the broth­ers have ap­peared am­i­ca­bly to­geth­er in pub­lic since March 2020, comes at a time when the younger gen­er­a­tion of Britain’s roy­al fam­i­ly must step up their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

William, long sec­ond-in-line to the throne, is now the heir ap­par­ent af­ter his fa­ther, King Charles III, be­came Britain’s new monarch up­on his moth­er’s death. That means William and Kate, both 40 and par­ents of three young chil­dren, im­me­di­ate­ly as­sume a much more cen­tral role as the new face of the monar­chy.

William and Har­ry had been on frosty terms since Har­ry quit as a se­nior roy­al and moved to the U.S. two years ago. Their show of uni­ty Sat­ur­day was re­port­ed­ly ini­ti­at­ed by William and left some ob­servers hop­ing that Har­ry, 37, might re­turn to the fray and sup­port his el­der broth­er in shar­ing the heavy work­load now on William’s shoul­ders.

“Cer­tain­ly, William and Cather­ine, as the new Prince and Princess of Wales, will be even more in the me­dia spot­light if that’s pos­si­ble,” said Joe Lit­tle, man­ag­ing ed­i­tor of Majesty mag­a­zine. “Un­til Thurs­day, there was a buffer be­tween him and the throne. That buffer has now been re­moved.”

Britain's Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, left, and Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex walk to greet the crowds after viewing the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle, in Windsor, England, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

It’s a stark con­trast to how thing were just two weeks ago, when William and Kate an­nounced they were mov­ing their fam­i­ly from cen­tral Lon­don to a more rur­al base in Wind­sor. Ob­servers thought they were seek­ing more pri­va­cy and a more “nor­mal” up­bring­ing for their chil­dren, who just start­ed a new year to­geth­er at a pri­vate school.

Long be­fore he be­came King Charles III, Britain’s new monarch in­di­cat­ed that he want­ed a “slimmed down” monar­chy with a tighter core group of full-time work­ing roy­als and low­er ex­pens­es.

That was be­fore Har­ry’s move — and be­fore the princes’ un­cle, Prince An­drew, was ef­fec­tive­ly ban­ished from pub­lic life fol­low­ing sex­u­al mis­con­duct scan­dals.

Not many oth­er rec­og­niz­able “work­ing roy­als” — mem­bers of the roy­al fam­i­ly who of­fi­cial­ly rep­re­sent the monarch — were left to share the hun­dreds of of­fi­cial en­gage­ments and nu­mer­ous over­seas vis­its un­der­tak­en each year.

The group in­cludes Charles and his wife, Camil­la, now the Queen Con­sort; William and Kate; the queen’s on­ly daugh­ter, Princess Anne; and the queen’s youngest child, Prince Ed­ward, and his wife, So­phie. Al­so work­ing roy­als, but much less­er known, are the queen’s first cousin, Prince Richard, and his wife, Bir­gitte.

In his first speech to the na­tion, which was broad­cast Fri­day, Charles for­mal­ly be­stowed his own ti­tle, the Prince of Wales, to William. Kate is now the Princess of Wales, and is the first per­son since William’s late moth­er, Princess Di­ana, to hold the ti­tle.

William and Kate al­so in­her­it Charles and Camil­la’s oth­er hon­orary ti­tles, the Duke and Duchess of Corn­wall. That means man­ag­ing and tak­ing in­come from an es­tate com­pris­ing land across the U.K. that is re­port­ed­ly worth 1 bil­lion pounds.

“With Cather­ine be­side him, our new Prince and Princess of Wales will, I know, con­tin­ue to in­spire and lead our na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions, help­ing to bring the mar­gin­al to the cen­tre ground where vi­tal help can be giv­en,” Charles said Fri­day.

From left, Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Kate, Princess of Wales, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex wave to members of the public at Windsor Castle, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday, in Windsor, England, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. (Kirsty O'Connor/Pool Photo via AP)

In his speech, Charles said he knows won’t be able to de­vote as much time and en­er­gy to caus­es he cares most about, such as the en­vi­ron­ment and cli­mate change.

William will now like­ly spend more time cham­pi­oning those top­ics. He has al­ready made his mark by found­ing the Earth­shot Prize, an am­bi­tious “lega­cy project” ex­pect­ed to hand out mil­lions of pounds in grants for en­vi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives over the next 10 years.

Charles al­so spoke of Har­ry in his ad­dress to the na­tion, ex­press­ing his “love for Har­ry and Meghan as they con­tin­ue to build their lives over­seas.”

Har­ry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sus­sex, moved away from the U.K. to seek fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence and free­dom from se­vere British me­dia scruti­ny in­to their lives.

The cou­ple is now set­tled in Cal­i­for­nia with their two young chil­dren. Both Har­ry and Meghan have re­peat­ing aired their un­hap­pi­ness with the roy­als since their de­par­ture.

Dur­ing their ap­pear­ance Sat­ur­day with William and Kate, both cou­ples ac­cept­ed flow­ers and con­do­lences from peo­ple who pressed against road bar­ri­ers out­side the gates of Wind­sor Cas­tle. They shook hands with many and stopped to talk to both adults and chil­dren.

In his first state­ment since the queen’s death, William spoke of his grief and how he and his wife have ben­e­fit­ed from her wis­dom, guid­ance and sup­port.

“It will be some time be­fore the re­al­i­ty of life with­out Grannie will tru­ly feel re­al,” he wrote Sat­ur­day. “I will ho­n­our her mem­o­ry by sup­port­ing my fa­ther, The King, in every way I can.”