On a damp Wednesday morning in Cardiff, at a poignant event marking World Suicide Prevention Day, the Prince of Wales spoke his mind. What we need to “get back to in society”, he said, is “people really seeing each other and reaching each other”. For Prince William and Prince Harry, estranged for three years, there was no hope last week that Harry’s four-day visit would involve either brother reaching out.
But reconciliation between father and son has moved the dial. How far, nobody knows but Harry and the King. There has been no post-match analysis from either camp about their 50-minute tea at Clarence House on Wednesday afternoon and, unlike after previous meetings, no words from Harry about the state of the relationship, other than to tell the media at an Invictus reception that his father was “great”.
But it seems that after 19 months of separation from his “darling boy”, while receiving weekly cancer treatment and navigating the heavy burden of building a legacy as a symbol of national unity during family discord, Charles, 76, has taken the view that rapprochement is a better look for the institution. In his battle-weary interview with the BBC, Harry declared there was “no point fighting any more, life is precious”. His father seems to have come to the same conclusion. Why now?
Charles meets Jacqueline Page at the official opening of Midland Metropolitan University Hospital near Birmingham this month
SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
His decision to see Harry won’t have been taken lightly by him or his advisers. In fact, Charles has previously asked for advice from people he trusts on how reconciliation might be reached. But a proposal put to the King of writing a letter by hand to Harry, setting out their differences but suggesting bygones be bygones, never made it past the in-tray.
Something, recently, has changed Charles’s mind. Perhaps the end of Harry’s long legal battle with the Home Office. Perhaps Harry’s admission that he would “like to come home much more” and bring his family with him, so that Charles might see his grandchildren. He has not seen Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four, since June 2022.
When the King announced his cancer diagnosis in February last year, Harry flew to London from California for a 30-minute meeting with his father. Charles is still undergoing weekly cancer treatment. A friend of the King said: “Over recent years, the Palace has become more and more exasperated when every meeting, call or Christmas card gets briefed to the media, with commentary on potential meetings between them. But it gets harder and harder to explain to the public why you would not make time to see your son. There is a recognition that people want to see a thawing.
“The King loves his son and will have been aching to see him when he could. But this is an olive branch wrapped in a test — if any details of the meeting emerge or there is any commentary from Harry’s camp, it will be back to square one.”
So far, nothing has. Harry left the UK on Thursday with a spring in his step, heading to Ukraine for a surprise visit with his Invictus Foundation to support military personnel injured in the war with Russia. He was buoyed because he got what he wanted. Managing to smile at the media throughout the week, a departure from the previous default of glowering, he has, for now, reset the negativity that has swirled around his last few visits.
Harry with a wounded Ukrainian serviceman in Kyiv on Friday
YURII KOVALENKO/REUTERS
In his back pocket are four days of mostly positive coverage, speeches declaring “unity is not just possible, but formidable” and, what he most longed for, quality time with “Pa”. As a spokesman for Harry said after his final engagement on Thursday morning with the Diana Award, a charity empowering young people which William also supports: “He’s obviously loved being back in the UK, catching up with old friends, colleagues and just generally being able to support the incredible work of the causes that mean so much to him.”
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What will William make of his brother’s return? A royal source said William “has been very jolly all week” but publicly he has made no comment, preferring to focus on his own engagements. He will have kept a close eye on Harry’s coverage and the public’s reaction, though.
While his younger brother bounced through balloon fights with children at the WellChild awards and splashy announcements of a £1.1m donation to Children in Need and more than £360,000 for the injured children of Gaza and Ukraine, William dutifully trudged from Berkshire to Lambeth to Cardiff for engagements which also championed young people and mental health awareness.
Prince William was at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Wednesday, visiting a mental health hub with the Wales rugby captain Jac Morgan
CHRIS JACKSON/GETTY IMAGES
As much as Harry insists he remains committed to “a life of public service”, the reality is he walked away from the daily grind five years ago, with profound consequences for William and his family. Those wounds run deep.
For all Harry’s assaults on the royal family during Queen Elizabeth’s final years, the missiles fired in his memoir, Spare, the bombshells of the Sussexes’ Netflix documentary and all the interviews in between, friends say it is the fact there is no longer a wingman, a brother to share the present and future heavy load, that has always stung William most. He may never forgive him for the impact that has on Catherine, who is in remission from cancer, and Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, ten, and Prince Louis, seven, whose future responsibilities may have differed slightly if the Sussexes had stuck around.
As a close friend told me after Harry and Meghan left these shores, William “definitely feels the pressure now it’s all on him. His future looks different because of his brother’s choices. It’s not easy.”
Harry at a Diana Award event in London, his final engagement before leaving the UK on Thursday
AARON CHOWN/POOL/AFP
Now the King has taken the first tentative step on the path towards reconciliation, the spotlight will turn to William, along with questions of whether he will, or should, do the same. There will be public commentary, expectation and hope that if a father considers forgiveness, why not a brother? But as another of William’s closest friends once told me, when it comes to relationships with the future king, “it is all about trust and loyalty”. William feels he has lost both with Harry and that may prove too difficult a roadblock to pass.
The King is now back at Balmoral for a few days before returning to London for the Duchess of Kent’s funeral on Tuesday, then hosting the Trumps at Windsor Castle from Wednesday on their state visit.
Charles will have briefed the Queen on his meeting with Harry, who has described her as “dangerous” and “a villain” who “left bodies in the street” in her quest to improve her public image. Camilla could be forgiven for not being jubilant about her husband’s reunion with Harry.
As a royal source said: “He has been extremely unkind to her in print and in word and she doesn’t forgive easily.” And as a close friend of the King said: “The royal family make elephants look like they have short memories.” Some members of the family may, in time, forgive Harry for the damage and hurt they feel he has caused, but none of them will forget.
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