Ask any denizen of the Coast and they will tell you that popping into an In-N-Out Burger does not confer on one instant hipster status or lovability. It can, however, take the edge out of a mid-afternoon craving for a hamburger and salty French fries. If that was Meghan Markle’s intention on Sunday when she stopped by an outpost of the popular fast food chain near Santa Barbara, driving up in a luxury Range Rover, then it was mission accomplished for the Duchess of Sussex. 

Kate Middleton, who has no particular hankering for the limelight, on Tuesday made a surprise visit to a men’s prison in England to get a firsthand perspective on how prisoners cope with and recover from addiction. She did not let a hand injury, which happened while trampolining with her children, stop her. With bandaged fingers and sporting a recycled blue Alexander McQueen pantsuit, the Princess of Wales cleared the standard prison security check and shook hands with prisoners at the jail. 

As for Ms. Markle, it is possible that she was looking for something to nibble while watching “Heart of Invictus,” the five-part Netflix documentary series produced by her husband Prince Harry that has thus far met with limited success. But on Monday she departed California for Germany, where she was expected to join the Duke of Sussex at the actual Invictus Games there. The games are an international multi-sporting event for wounded and sick veterans which Harry, a veteran himself and now 38, founded in 2014.

Ms. Markle, now 41,  was spotted on the tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport with a tote bag filled with a printed scarf and a binder notebook. The deal that Harry and Meghan signed with Netflix is a big one, estimated to be worth $100 million. Given that sum, any amount of publicity to help boost the sagging series would probably be welcome. 

Following the couple’s decision in January 2020  to “step back as ‘senior’ members” of the British royal family and divide their time between Britain and America, the public service dimension of their careers has taken a back seat to the ancient Hollywood art of self-promotion. As Ms. Markle, a former actress, appears to be finding out, too much of that in the entertainment industry is almost never enough. Lest there be any doubt about how quickly it becomes a way of life, with all the ersatz glamor that comes with, just ask the Kardashians. 

Fame and fortune has not made that flashy family particularly beloved, and that sort of fate may await the Duchess of Sussex, whose podcast on Spotify was not enough to shore up a content deal with the company worth a reported $20 million. That arrangement fell apart earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the popularity of the Prince and Princess of Wales is growing. According to a new poll, most Britons would like to see William and Kate take on even more royal duties. A majority also believe that Harry should be removed from the royal line of succession. 

Obviously more secure in their futures, Kate and William appear both more at ease in public than the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and generally above the fray of the royal dramas of which they are inexorably a part. In that respect Kate’s surprise visit to His Majesty’s Prison High Down at Surrey actually seemed not like a surprise at all. 

One of the items on the agenda was for the princess to experience what it is like for relatives when they visit family members in prison. That experience included sitting at a desk chair with her hands on her knees as a black Labrador named Penny checked her for drugs, as the dog routinely does. 

The prison’s warden, Emily Martin, stated that “It’s very important when a member of the Royal family comes to see the realities of life and the mechanics of a prison — what they look like, what they smell like.” 

According to British news reports, Kate listened to four inmates speak about overcoming drug and alcohol issues and told them she did not believe that addiction was a choice. Afterwards she said, “I asked one of the guys: ‘Would you have liked help [with your addiction] earlier?’ And he said, ‘Yes, but I didn’t know I needed it’.” 

The princess also visited the jail’s restaurant, which is called The Clink and is open to the public. It was not immediately clear what was on the menu, but Kate reportedly found a moment to tell kitchen staff, “Well done. It smells delicious.”