After weeks of speculation, yesterday the decision was made public: King Charles and his younger son, Prince Harry, will not meet up this week while Harry is in the U.K. for the Invictus Games’ 10-year anniversary celebration, the official celebration of which will take place tonight at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (Harry is due to give a reading at the Service of Thanksgiving.) According to Page Six, Harry had been working for over a month to squeeze in some time in his father’s schedule, “only to be turned down,” the outlet reports.
Hugo Vickers, a well-respected royal historian and a friend of the royal family, told Page Six that “If the King wanted to see Harry, he would find time very easily,” he said. “You can never be too busy to see your son.”
As Harry’s spokesperson put it in a statement released yesterday, Harry “is understanding of his father’s diary of commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon.” Charles just returned to public-facing duties last week after nearly three months had passed since he announced his diagnosis of cancer on February 5; within 24 hours of the announcement being made public back in February, Harry flew to the U.K.—a transatlantic trip, roughly an 11-hour flight spanning over 5,000 miles—where he was given only about 30 minutes with his father. Still, even 30 minutes—as short as that is—is more than no time given to Harry during this visit, which marks Harry’s first time in London in three months.
Vickers said “It’s a good idea if they do meet to forge some kind of reconciliation.” He suggested that there would be points in the King’s diary that he could open up for Harry, including breakfast, though he opted not to do so. “The King has left the door wide open, but obviously not that wide,” a different royal source said. “But they absolutely can stuff things in his diary and juggle things around.”
Longtime royal photographer Arthur Edwards agreed with Vickers, telling The Sun that the King “could have found time” to see Harry: “It’s great triumph that the King is back at work now and back to the grindstone,” Edwards said. “Obviously, his time is packed, and there’s so many things to catch up on. But I’m sure if he wanted to, he could have found time to see Harry, but obviously doesn’t want to, and Harry seems to have accepted it.”
A source speaking to The Daily Express said “Harry is, of course, extremely disappointed that he hasn’t been granted a meeting with his father this time,” they said. “It’s even harder to wrap your head around when you consider that the pair will be in the same city, at the same time, and just a stone’s throw away from each other.”
Though Harry is due to meet up with his wife, Meghan Markle, in Nigeria after visiting the U.K., she is not in his native country with him at present. In addition to Harry not getting to see his father (nor will he see his brother, Prince William, who Page Six reports he hasn’t spoken to in over a year), there aren’t expected to be any senior royals in attendance at Harry’s celebration tonight, despite the Invictus Games being some of the landmark work of Harry’s life. (The first Games took place in London a decade ago, in 2014.)
“It’s quite a snub,” former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole said, per Tatler. “The prodigal son is not welcome—not for the present, anyway. In royal terms, this is big medicine. Prince Harry is bound to see it for what it is, the clearest possible indication of the hurt that has been caused. There can be no mistake—this is a royal flea in the ear for the fifth in line to the throne [Harry]. Actions have consequences, but rarely are they played out as starkly as they are here.”
Not much can be agreed upon in this world—inside the royal stratosphere, and outside of it—but no matter where one stands on the merit of Charles declining his son’s invitation to meet, one statement is almost universally accepted: it’s all just very, very sad.
