The King remains open to meeting Prince Harry this week but the prospects of real reconciliation inside the Royal Family have suffered a setback after a breakdown of trust on both sides.
What should have been the perfect opportunity for bridge-building and a chance for the monarch – the great convenor feted for bringing people together to resolve problems – to see his grandchildren for the first time in four years, has dissolved into mutual recriminations and a briefing war reminiscent of the actions of the rival camps when Charles and Diana split in the 1990s.
Harry had hoped that his return to Britain for a series of events to support the Invictus Games would be a watershed. He hoped it would allow him to bring Meghan and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, to see their family and begin repairing the rift that tore the Windsors apart when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex quit in 2020.
But his plans have been thwarted at every turn, according to those close to him, culminating in claims that the offer to let Harry stay at Buckingham Palace for one night this week had been withdrawn.
Moments after it was reported that Harry had accepted the King’s offer to stay, royal sources insisted that was no longer possible because he had chopped and changed his mind and missed a deadline necessary to put staff in place.
Attempt to ‘humiliate’ Harry
It was, according to some close to Harry, a deliberate attempt to humiliate him.
“I think it absolutely was done to try and humiliate Harry. Step back from all of this, it is obvious to anyone that some at the palace have done everything in their power to make this trip as difficult and as hostile a landscape as possible for Harry,” one friend said.
“Unfortunately, that attitude has been the case for some time. Frankly, everyone in Harry’s team is rather resigned to this sort of behaviour whenever he comes to town. It’s notable that such a circus doesn’t happen when he’s back in the States or when he visits any other country.”
A compromise may be possible but to really fix their problems, according to some insiders, the King will need to have confidence that his younger son has moved on and will no longer embarrass him and the monarchy. At the same time, Harry will need to have confidence that his father is really there for him, Meghan and the children.
It has been a dreadful few days for Harry, who along with six others lost a £50m court case claiming unlawful news gathering against the publishers of the Daily Mail on Tuesday.
But it has been clear, talking to people close to him over the past few weeks, that he still has so much unfinished business with “the institution” and the men in grey suits at the palace for it to be easy for him to move on.
He was furious that RAVEC, the Home Office-run executive committee for the protection of royalty and public figures, refused to provide armed police protection for him and his family on their planned visit and equally angry that a promised review of his security while in the UK generally had not been completed. He feels the King, whose staff sit alongside police and civil servants on RAVEC, could have resolved this.
But what is said to have compounded his anger was when it was then leaked that Buckingham Palace was the royal residence where he and his family would stay, which he believes makes them all immediately vulnerable when their car emerged in public in his view.
The Duchess of Sussex and the couple’s children had been due to join Harry on the visit (Photo: Hollie Adams/Reuters)Could a royal meeting still be on the cards?
Meghan and the children will now not join him in London but there is still a chance that they could come over and meet the King or other family members outside the capital this week, according to sources.
In former times, they would have based themselves at Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor estate, which would have provided them with armed protection within the security perimeter, but to their continuing chagrin they were evicted from the five-bedroom house, still empty three years later.
The drama is all too much for many inside the Royal Household. Palace officials were reluctant to say more but there is a sense of weariness with what officials believe is Harry’s posturing. One of the other reasons cited for withdrawing the accommodation offer to him was the fact he wanted to stay at the palace on the day that the court judgment was due.
Aides argued the King, as the ultimate source of judicial authority, could not afford for Harry to be staying at the palace on such a sensitive day.
But the late Queen never showed any similar concern when Charles as Prince of Wales got embroiled in a court case with The Mail on Sunday in 2005 after the newspaper published extracts from a diary in which he criticised the leaders of Communist China. Nor did anyone at the palace express concern when Prince William criticised the BBC over its handling of an investigation into how his mother was duped by Martin Bashir into giving a controversial Panorama interview in 1995.
The King, it seems clear, has lost patience with Harry. But in spite of that, father and son are believed to have been in direct touch recently. The smart money could still on them meeting this week.
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