The boy is back in town. Prince Harry has come to London and is hell bent on seeing his ‘Pa’. The Great Matter though, is whether his Pa will see him? And whether there might be some fatted calf on offer?
We all know the beef between King Charles and the prodigal Prince. But briefly: after storming to North America in 2020 (Canada and then inevitably LA) Harry has burnt bridges with thunderous regularity. Telling Oprah there was a racist in the family; accusing his father and stepmother of a calculated smear campaign against him and Meghan in his mournful best seller Spare and most recently telling the BBC that he wasn’t speaking to his father after he failed to intervene over Harry’s court case against the government refusing to pay for his security.
Read more: Prince Harry and King Charles should reconcile the old-fashioned way
For all that, the Duke of Sussex is longing to be embraced back to the Royal bosom. There might be an element of calculation to this; the Sussexes are beginning to feel the chill of fending for themselves as non-royals. And with Netflix not renewing their lucrative contract but downgrading it to a first-option agreement, Harry must be longing to feel the sunshine of being the King’s beloved son again.
Harry is seriously homesick. He’s started reaching out to us more and more, with long and earnest whatsapps
The key reason is emotional though. Rumours have swirled around the palace that the King has been given just two years to live, so it is likely that Harry, never one for admitting he was wrong, might just be regretting some of things he has said and done to wound his father over the past few years. A friend of his also says, “Spike (his nickname among his old school friends) is seriously homesick. He’s started reaching out to us more and more. It started with very long and earnest whatsapps. We actually all made a decision when we started getting them not to take the piss out of them. Something we couldn’t have imagined doing a few years before. Anyway, gradually he seems to be sounding more normal. Whenever anyone goes to America they try to see him. It never seems to be with Meghan though. We think he is beginning to pine for home”.
While one of Charles’s courtiers tells me that the King misses Harry bitterly. “Harry seems to have forgotten this but his father always absolutely adored him. He always called him ‘my darling boy’ and was so affectionate. People always seem to think that Harry inherited all his charm from his mother, but lots of the things he is good at, being attentive and always remembering people’s names, is something that comes directly from the King”. What people don’t appreciate too is the tricky relationship that the King has long had with the Prince of Wales. Harry himself alludes to it in Spare. Describing one of his last meetings with Prince William and the King, after the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, Harry writes, “then at last I saw them. Shoulder to shoulder, striding towards me, they looked grim, almost menacing. More, they looked tightly aligned. My stomach dropped. Normally they would be squabbling about one thing or another, but now they appeared to be in lockstep - in league”. A courtier admits that William never phones his Dad directly but has to schedule a call through the King’s private office.
A courtier admits that William never phones his Dad directly but has to schedule a call through the King’s private office
What might have stood in the way of the great rapprochement was Balmoral — the King was last seen on Saturday swirling around the Braemar Highland Games in one of his beloved kilts — but is now set to come South. Both for cancer treatment and to attend the funeral of his cousin the Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral. It is unclear whether Harry, whose ostensible purpose for the UK trip is to attend the WellChild Awards tonight and check in with his other charities over the next few days, will be at the funeral too.
Read more: The Duchess of Kent’s funeral to be Catholic service at Westminster Cathedral
Though attendance at the service, which is to be held on the 16th September, would mean extending his trip by three days, in the past Prince Harry has been punctilious in going to the funerals of his family, even during the estrangement. In fact the last time the two princes saw each other was at the funeral of their uncle Lord Robert Fellowes in August 2024 (‘they did not so much as glance in each others direction’, says a congregant).
Perhaps the cathedral will make for a fitting place to dwell on forgiveness. As Defender of Faiths the King knows all about prodigal sons. And after all, to heir is human, but to forgive divine.
