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Football did not come home with the World Cup but the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are about to set up house in Andy Burnham’s Britain. This is The Return of the (Not Quite) King, a rebooting of a saga that will captivate an international audience.

There is a tradition of long-running American television dramas relocating to England as they chase ratings – notably the rather surreal 1998 episode of Friends, which featured the Duchess of York, where the cast congregate in London for Ross’s ill-fated wedding. The Sussexes’ abandonment of California in favour of Britain is a drama-ripe plot twist worthy of a Hollywood screenwriter.

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Will Harry, Meghan and the kids get to cavort this Christmas at Sandringham with the rest of the royals? Will the Prince and Princess of Wales invite the Sussex quartet for a reconciliatory playdate – and will Meghan turn up with her “blackberry spread”?

How long will it be before Prince Harry crosses paths with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor? And where in Britain will Archie, seven and Lilibet, five, attend school?

Is this return a spontaneous move or part of a carefully plotted plan? Maybe Harry glanced at the matcha-swigging, acai bowl-guzzling teenagers of Montecito and decided his offspring needed to get in tune with their British identity?

It is one thing to want your son and daughter to experience the delights of a Full English and to deepen their acquaintance with the land your dad rules, but this is not a move that suggests living a quiet life is the Sussexes' priority. As Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Grey: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

In the United States, Harry and Meghan are one celebrity couple among very many and the novelty of having them in California will have faded over the last six years. But in Britain, for better or for worse, Harry will be the focus of enduring fascination all his life.

The pair once gave the impression of loathing such attention but in their incarnation as global activists they need to command the spotlight, and nowhere is their superpower more potent than in the country of Harry’s birth. If he wants to celebrate veterans or raise money for a favoured cause, he can assemble a phalanx of photographers in nanoseconds.

They know they are stepping into a soap opera but they can use the hoopla for their own ends. There will be a bigger market for books, podcasts and TV shows if their public image contains a frisson of drama.

The Megxile is over, for the time being, and they will be intent on having fun. They are swapping a sun-baked earthquake zone for the delights of Albion – and hopefully this will boost the nation’s tourist revenues.

Royalophiles from across the globe will descend on our country pubs in the hope of finding the Sussexes tucking into a Sunday roast, and even more Americans will consider dispatching their children across the Atlantic for a British education.

The family could have stayed in Montecito with the kids going to the likes of Crane Country Day School, where tuition fees are more than $40,000 a year. It is a vote of confidence in the UK’s education options that Archie and Lilibet will soon be in a classroom here.

Education Secretary Lucy Powell said many people choose to come back to the UK because of the “great schools”. The expectation will be they attend an elite fee-paying institution, but nothing would burnish the Sussexes’ egalitarian credentials more than putting their children into the state system.

This could win them a new place in the hearts of ordinary Britons. Imagine the excitement if Harry and Meghan’s names showed up in the PTA Whatsapp, and if the Duchess arrived at the school fair with her Netflix-showcased caramelised union tarts?

Nothing would demonstrate more clearly that the Duke is not a citizen of La La Land than if he joined other parents on too-small chairs in a cold assembly hall to see his youngsters perform in the Nativity play. He has the chance to immerse himself in the Britain where polo is a brand of mints rather than a sport.

That may be unlikely, but Ms Powell spoke for millions of Britons when she said she hopes this is “all part of a bigger reconciliation for the family”.

The Royal Family are unusual for their fame, their constitutional position and their access to castles. But there is nothing unusual about family rifts, especially in the wake of trauma and stress. This is a chance for a true fresh start and people across this country will wish them nothing but the best.