He is not only the monarch—and vis a vis, head of the Firm—but King Charles is also the head of the royal family, after the death of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022. And the family is apparently “increasingly frustrated” with the King that he “won’t just fix things” with his younger son, Prince Harry, Page Six reports.
In his new book Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, journalist Omid Scobie writes that members of the family are getting fed up with Charles’ reluctance to fully reconcile with Harry; it has been nearly four years (in January) since Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back as working members of the royal family and began forging a new life for themselves in the U.S.
And, while Harry and Meghan “have allegedly made several attempts to reconnect with their estranged family members, it seems Charles and others across the pond won’t budge,” Page Six reports. In Endgame, Scobie reports a source saying to him “It’s complex, but there’s increasing frustration from some of the wider circle of family members that Charles won’t just fix things for the sake of everyone.”
A friend of Harry’s that Scobie spoke to claimed that he reached out to Charles to wish the family a Merry Christmas in 2022 after the King refused to make the first move: “It was an awkward conversation, but he knew if he didn’t make those first steps, there would never be any progress,” they said. “There were no raised voices, no arguments…but the King was cold and brief rather than open to any proper dialogue.” (In all fairness here, keep in mind that Christmas came just after the Harry & Meghan docuseries on Netflix and just before Spare was released on January 10.)
Scobie also wrote elsewhere in the book, per excerpts obtained by Page Six, that “both the institution and the family” were still struggling to “come to grips with [the] fact” that Harry and Meghan “have found success in their endeavors after leaving the U.K.,” the outlet reports.
“I’ve watched Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace repeatedly get worried about being upstaged and derailed by the couple and leak negative information on Harry and Meghan…during moments that could easily be focused on genuine royal news instead,” Scobie writes.
After much anticipation, Endgame is finally on shelves tomorrow.
