The ageing monarch faces an impossible choice this spring — advance crucial state business or risk the kind of family confrontation that could overshadow the entire diplomatic mission. As King Charles III prepares for what could be a defining trip to America, the palace appears to have quietly resigned itself to an outcome that reportedly torments the 77-year-old: another year will pass without seeing his two youngest grandchildren.
It's a form of separation that cuts deeper than the usual royal protocol. Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet — now six and four respectively — have not laid eyes on their paternal grandfather since June 2022, when the family jetted across the Atlantic to celebrate the late Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. That visit, which coincided with little Lilibet's first birthday, now feels like a fading memory in an increasingly fractured relationship.
