It only took thirty minutes for the Royal history books to add a new chapter. Prince Harry and his father, King Charles, were reunited after months - if not years - of animosity and speculation about their relationship, for a brief meeting at Clarence House on Tuesday 6th February, having not been in one another’s company since the latter’s coronation in May last year. According to reports, Harry flew to London from Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, after hearing the news that his father was beginning immediate treatment for cancer.
A statement from Buckingham Palace said that during the King’s recent hospital procedure for benign prostate enlargement, a separate concern was raised and test results last week revealed that it was cancer. While the type of cancer has not been diagnosed, palace aides said that it was not prostate cancer. It is understood that it was detected at an early stage and the King began treatment with an outpatient procedure earlier this month. He plans to travel into London to continue his treatment, returning to Norfolk for his recovery.
Harry, 39, arrived alone at Heathrow via a commercial flight with British Airways, and was driven in a convoy (with a police escort, despite ongoing wrangling with the Home Office about his rights to such protection now he is no longer a working Royal) to Clarence House where he was reunited with his father. There was speculation that he could stay at his former residence, Frogmore Cottage, although it’s thought that the Prince instead opted to stay at a luxury London hotel following the meet up with the 75-year-old monarch, who himself flew back to Sandringham with Camilla to rest. The very next day, Harry flew back to the States so he could attend the NFL Honors in Las Vegas, where he took the stage to present the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award. Although many were speculating that Harry's brief trip to the UK could have been an opportunity to repair his very broken relationship with Prince William, this didn't happen. The BBC's royal correspondent Daniela Relph described Prince Harry’s relationship with his brother Prince William on Radio 4’s Today programme that morning as still looking ‘incredibly broken’, adding that there was ‘nothing in the diary’ for the royal brothers to see one another while the Duke of Sussex is in the UK, with reports suggesting he would fly back to the US imminently.
Could the brief reunion with his father, however, be the start of a rebirth of what has, in recent years, become an unworkable relationship? At present, it’s difficult to say, explain Royal sources, although they add that Harry’s swift return home to London meant a great deal to the King who has long been said to want to reconcile with his youngest son.
Although Harry, along with his wife Meghan Markle, has kept a distance from his family (5459 miles to be precise, between his home in Montecito, California, and Buckingham Palace), the emotional distance between him and his father has been an ongoing source of concern for the Prince. During a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2020, following Harry and Meghan’s decision to leave the Royal family and move to the US, he said, ‘I will always love him. There's a lot of hurt that's happened, and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.’ Whether that has truly been the case over the last four years is unclear to anyone but Harry and Charles, but some reports would suggest otherwise, with a racism row sparked by the publication of Omid Scobie’s latest book End Game, about the future of the Royals, stoking fresh flames of discontent between the estranged family towards the end of last year.
One UK newspaper, however, published an article which speculated that a rapprochement could be on the cards, claiming William needed Harry now more than ever, adding that there were hopes they could reconcile over their shared love for their ‘darling Pa’. With the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, 42, currently recovering from abdominal surgery for an undisclosed condition, which took place at a London hospital last month, Prince William is under more pressure than ever before, prioritising his young family while his wife recovers and also taking on increased duties in his father’s absence from public life.
As the slimmed down Firm flounders in difficult times, however, is it fair to claim that Prince Harry, and even Meghan, should now be stepping up to support them? From a professional perspective, hardly, considering the couple were told in February that they couldn’t be half in and half out, with a statement from the Palace describing that talks between the Queen and Harry and Meghan had decided that the break had to be clean. ‘Following conversations with the duke, the Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of the royal family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service. The honorary military appointments and royal patronages held by the duke and duchess will therefore be returned to Her Majesty, before being redistributed among working members of the royal family.’
From a personal point of view, it’s almost as unlikely. The chasm between the brothers (who aren't thought to have spoken since the Queen's funeral in 2022) appears now to be so deep that a fleeting meeting before he returned to Meghan and their two children Archie, four, and Lilibet, two, in the US may not have been the tonic this very broken relationship needs. There’s no doubt that William needs his brother more than ever during one of the most difficult periods of his life, and it’s likely Harry would like to be there for him, but their brotherhood, in its current state, needs a lot more time to repair.