Prince Harry’s ongoing—and seemingly only deepening—feud with the royal family will “reflect badly” on the reign of his father, King Charles, according to a new piece in The New York Times.

According to royal historian Ed Owens, the King—who is currently still receiving treatment for cancer after his diagnosis in early 2024—has “had the wind taken from his sails” because of the ongoing conflict between himself and his younger son Harry, which reached a boiling point on May 2 when the Duke of Sussex sat down with the BBC for an interview where Harry said, in part, that he hoped for reconciliation with his father and the royal family and that he didn’t know how long Charles had left to live.

The article claimed Charles’s reign is “shaping up as both eventful and oddly unchanging in its core narrative: that of a beleaguered father managing a messy brood.”

“There is an overhang in the way we see Charles’s reign,” Owens added. “It hasn’t really gotten going, nor are we sure how long it will last.” 

Former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt added, “When history comes to be written about the King, this will reflect badly on him. He represents an institution that is about family, unity, and fostering forgiveness. His role is to bring people together, and yet he can’t bring people together on his doorstep.”

Of Prince William, Owens said, “William has sometimes been seen as work-shy, but we see him gravitating toward bigger, more media-friendly events. He’s burnishing his reputation as a statesman.”

As for the King, the piece added that Charles has “embraced his duties with a zeal that royal watchers say is either evidence of a robust recovery or the mark of a man who knows he has limited time.”

Charles was only 16 months into his reign when cancer was detected following a routine procedure to correct a benign enlarged prostate in January 2024. On February 5 of that year his cancer diagnosis was announced, and in December it was announced that he would continue treatment into the new year. Despite continuing to receive treatment for cancer—the type and stage of which remains unknown to the public, save for Buckingham Palace’s announcement that it was not prostate cancer—Charles and Queen Camilla have undertaken royal tours to Australia, Samoa, and Italy, and Charles (much to Camilla’s chagrin) hasn’t dialed back his workaholic tendencies.

Ahead of Charles and Camilla’s visit to Canada later this month, The New York Times wrote that “Nothing in the King’s calendar suggests he is slowing down.”

As for Charles and Harry, Harry flew to the U.K. to visit with his father almost immediately after the King’s cancer diagnosis was announced in February 2024, though the two men got only roughly 30 minutes together of face-to-face time. It has been 15 months since father and son have reunited in person, and amid Harry’s ongoing court battles to reinstate his taxpayer-funded security, it is believed that the two aren’t speaking at the moment.

“Harry should have said to his father, ‘Sorry, I’ve got this wrong—I’ve made a mistake, but I want to reconcile,’” royal biographer Robert Jobson told Hello!. “If you read between the lines, Harry was clearly reaching out to his father. The only way this is going to be resolved and to stop this becoming the focus of the King’s reign is for Charles to take a shot in the dark and give Harry a last chance to build bridges.”

“I think that was going to happen, if he [Harry] hadn’t said what he said,” Jobson continued. “The King is someone who understands forgiveness and has made mistakes himself. If anyone can be the bigger man in this situation, it would be him.”