Prince Harry has to show King Charles three things in order to heal family rift

Prince Harry

Prince Harry's upcoming visit to the UK next week is buzzing with anticipation as rumors swirl that the Duke of Sussex is set to meet his father, King Charles.

Harry's solo journey for the WellChild Awards marks six months since he last set foot in his homeland, a trip that saw him lose his High Court appeal over changes to his security arrangements in the UK. During that visit, he expressed hopes of mending fences with his father, King Charles, 76.

However, past attempts to mend the fractured relationship between the Duke of Sussex and his family have proven fruitless. Any hopes that the Queen's passing or his father's cancer diagnosis would bring Prince Harry and the Royal family closer together have yet to come to fruition.

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The dark clouds hanging over the family have failed to produce any silver linings. If anything, the chasm between Harry and his loved ones has only widened, particularly after the fallout from his unsuccessful security court case and the explosive BBC interview in May this year, where he seemed to place blame on his father for endangering his and his family's lives.

king charles

As for what his late grandmother would think of Harry's dramatic fall from public favor, Royal expert Katie Nicholl believes she would be deeply disheartened by recent events, reports the Mirror.

"I'm sure she would be deeply saddened and disappointed by how things have played out with the Duke of Sussex," she says. "But I think nothing would really surprise her when it comes to Harry and Meghan because she saw so much herself. She had to live through the Oprah Winfrey interview [Harry and Meghan's controversial 2021 televised chat with the US talk show host] and the devastating fallout from that while the Duke of Edinburgh was seriously ill in hospital.

"And, of course, she had to deal with the fallout of Harry and Meghan leaving. So I think there would just be a great sense of sadness that it had all come to this. Harry not speaking to his father or his brother, being estranged – ostracised, even – from the family, was certainly not anything she ever wanted."

The Duke of Sussex is due to arrive in his homeland in a matter of days on a solo trip, where he will attend the annual WellChild Awards in London. It is the first time that Harry has made the journey across the Atlantic for almost six months and was last here for his High Court hearing into changes into his security arrangements in the UK.

Last month, it emerged that senior aides to the King and Duke of held a meeting in London in what was described as a step towards restoring the relationship between Harry and the Royal Family.

And this could potentially pave the way for the first meeting between father and son since February 2024, when the King first revealed his cancer diagnosis.

Royal author Phil Dampier believes that, given Harry's track record, his late grandmother wouldn't have been shocked by the Prince's recent controversies.

"I think she was very upset and exasperated by his antics even while she was alive," he says. "She specifically laid it down at the Sandringham Summit [the infamous meeting at the Queen's Norfolk residence where she, Harry, Charles and William discussed the Duke of Sussex's future following his and Meghan's decision to step down as working royals] that he couldn't be 'half in and half out'.

"If he'd said, 'I just don't want to be a royal, I can't cope with it. I've met this girl and I want to live abroad,' I think most people would have accepted it. But to then go and criticize the royals for the way he'd been treated... I think she was horrified and I think she would continue to be so today.

"If she was still alive, I think she'd be trying to bang a few heads together."

Meghan and Harry

After his devastating court of appeal loss at the start of May, where he attempted to challenge modifications made by the Home Office concerning his taxpayer-funded protection detail, Harry once more attacked his family in an explosive interview.

In a devastating setback to those hoping for a Royal reunion, the Prince declared, "I can't see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point."

The conversation took a more ominous tone when he alleged that certain Royal Family members were "knowingly putting me and my family in harm's way", and hinted that a perceived "sense of threat" could potentially draw him back into Royal life.

The Duke of Sussex also confessed uncertainty about how much time his father "has left" and indicated that any possibility of reconciliation rested with the King – though he claimed his father "won't speak to me because of this security stuff."

Katie contends that the responsibility for initiating a reunion falls squarely on Harry's shoulders.

"The reason his father is not speaking to him is because he fears that anything he might say will be made public in some shape or form," she explains. "Let's not forget that details of private conversations between Harry, Charles and William at an event as intimate as the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral were chronicled in Spare.

"So much has been aired publicly, which has been incredibly damaging for the monarchy, that the King is understandably wary of speaking to his son. Charles has had his fingers burned. And so the ball is in Harry's court to prove that he can earn back his father's – and his family's – trust."

Naturally, it's not only Harry and Meghan who have become progressively estranged from the Royal household. Their children – Archie, six, and Lilibet, four – are now tragically separated from their grandfather, King Charles, their aunt and uncle, The Prince and Princess of Wales, and their three young cousins, George, Charlotte and Louis.

The late Queen, who found her greatest joy in the company of her close family, would have found this situation incredibly difficult to bear.

"I think she would have been absolutely devastated by the fact that the King's not seeing them [Archie and Lilibet]. They are sixth and seventh in the line of succession at the moment, so she would be very upset," Phil comments. "And I don't think she would have liked the fact that Harry's never met [Meghan's father] Thomas Markle, or that the kids have never met him."

As for Prince Harry, Phil believes he might be feeling lost without his grandmother's guidance.

King Charles

"I like to think he would be missing her," he says. "I think he should be missing his father as well, I think he should be missing his brother – he should be missing everyone.

"But he's got himself into this situation and even if he'd won that case, I don't think Meghan would particularly want to come back and spend much time in this country. I think she knows how unpopular she is, so I don't think she's going to come back, she's not going to bring the kids. I don't see any immediate resolution to it.

"In fact, I don't actually think that William and Harry will ever repair their relationship. It is permanently damaged, unfortunately."

Despite the seemingly widening rifts within the Royal family, Katie remains hopeful that the Prince and his father might eventually reconcile their differences.

"I think there is still a chance that there can be a reconciliation," she says. "The King is a magnanimous man and not a malicious man, and he's also a man who wants a relationship with his youngest son, with his daughter-in-law and with the grandchildren.

"I think there is a far greater hope for a reconciliation with Charles and Harry, than with Harry and William. And I think it's going to take time.

"It's really down to Harry to prove that he can be trusted and that he's prepared to listen to his father and drop this campaign, this mission he seems to be on, to trash his family and to hurt those who were once closest to him."

Harry's stance on family matters stands in stark contrast to that of the late Queen, who strongly believed in forgiveness and mending relationships. Despite once allegedly calling her "that wicked woman", she eventually grew close to her daughter-in-law, Queen Camilla, throughout the years and also developed a warm bond with Prince Andrew's former wife, Sarah Ferguson, whose two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, she cherished deeply.

Phil notes that, unlike Harry, "The late Queen wasn't somebody who would hold grudges – she was somebody who would always try to resolve problems."