Buckingham Palace insiders have dismissed a report that King Charles III rescheduled an official visit to France next month so that he’d be available to have some private, in-person time with Prince Harry, who’ll be in Europe for the Invictus Games.
According to the report in OK! magazine, Charles was hoping to meet Harry in London on Sept. 17, as a way to begin the process of healing all the bad feelings between the two of them, the Daily Beast reported. According to the OK! report, Harry would stop in the U.K. after presiding over the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany. But palace insiders scoffed at the idea that the king would reshuffle his schedule around an important state visit for such a meeting, even if they say he’s always open to the idea of reconciling with his renegade second son.
Britain’s Prince William and Britain’s Prince Harry walk beside each other after viewing the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle, in Windsor, England, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
Another roadblock to such a meeting is Prince William, according to Daily Beast royal correspondent Tom Sykes. Even if Charles was open to one day engaging in “peace talks” with Harry, there’s “no chance” William would agree to “a tête-à-tête.”
A friend of William’s told the Daily Beast: “Charles won’t be seeing Harry and nor will William. No chance. He feels utterly betrayed by what Harry wrote about him in the book and said about him on Netflix.”
As is well known, details of William’s last meeting with his once-beloved younger brother ended up as the opening scene in Harry’s memoir, “Spare.” As Harry recounted, he had flown from California to the U.K. in April 2021 for the funeral of his grandfather, Prince Philip.
“While there I’d asked for this secret meeting with my older brother, Willy, and my father to talk about the state of things” and to “find a way out,” Harry wrote. This meeting, according to Harry, took place in a royal graveyard on the grounds of Windsor Castle. He wrote about how nervous he was and how eager he was to “explain my side of things.”
But Harry said his brother and father arrived together, walking “shoulder to shoulder,” “almost menacing” and “ready for a fight.” William, whom Harry referred to as his “arch-nemesis” in the chapter, didn’t want to hear anything he had to say.
“After he’d shut me down several times, he and I began sniping, saying some of the same things we’d said for months—years,” Harry wrote. “It got so heated that Pa raised his hands. ‘Enough!’ He stood between us, looking up at our flushed faces: ‘Please, boys—don’t make my final years a misery.’”
Prince Charles accompanies his youngest son Prince Harry to Eton College, west of London, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1998, where the teenage Prince will be a boarder with his older brother, Prince William. .(AP Photo/ Martyn Hayhow)
When Sykes asked William’s friend if the Prince of Wales actually hates his brother, as a source previously told the outlet, the friend said: “He feels betrayed. They were very close growing up so it has been very painful for William. But ultimately what can he do? Just look at ‘Spare.’ It’s literally William’s worst nightmare. It is a total violation of his privacy. On top of that, Harry has criticized Kate and the way he is bringing up his children. It’s very, very sad. I think it is completely understandable that right now William is still absolutely disgusted by what his brother has done.”
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Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II nearly a year ago, her friends have expressed dismay at the way Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, went public with their criticisms of the royal family in “Spare” and in their six-part Netflix series. One friend of the late queen even questioned Harry’s claim that he had a “special relationship” with his grandmother. The friend told the Daily Beast in June that the renegade Duke of Sussex caused his 96-year-old grandmother anguish when she was dying and in physical pain by airing their grievances against certain members of the royal family and the institution she had represented for 70 years.
Still, there are reports that the queen always hoped for a reconciliation with Harry and that he and his American wife would one day return to royal duties. The Daily Beast reported that Charles continues to express a conciliatory tone when it comes to discussing Harry and Meghan. However, the king has no expectations that his son and daughter-in-law will return to the U.K, the Daily Beast also said. In fact, he has shown he can be “ruthless” when it comes to excising Harry from certain family affairs, notably by evicting him and his wife from Frogmore Cottage shortly after the publication of “Spare” and, more recently, by removing Harry’s honorific “HRH” title from the royal family website.
The king also isn’t about to remake his schedule for Harry’s benefit, as a friend told the Daily Beast.”The king loves both his sons and his door is always open to Harry,” the friend said. “But I don’t think they will be meeting on Sept. 17. The king will be preparing for the state visit to France.”
