Prince Harry’s occasional visits to Britain are regarded by many with the sense of unease that most people reserve for unexpected tax bills, visits from distant relatives and Jehovah’s Witnesses turning up on the doorstep on Sunday mornings. It would seem that his father feels rather similar about the prospect of seeing his errant son, and it has been briefed that, although Harry is in London to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Invictus Games, there will be no meeting between Charles and the Duke of Sussex on this occasion, despite or perhaps because of the recent good news that the King’s cancer treatment is proceeding positively.
The royal family have never been much good at subtlety
The story that was briefed on behalf of Harry was that his father had a full ‘diary of commitments and various other priorities’ and that ‘in response to the many inquiries and continued speculation on whether or not the Duke will meet with his father while in the UK this week, it unfortunately will not be possible due to His Majesty’s full programme.’ It has been said that Harry ‘is understanding of his father’s diary of commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon.’
Nonetheless, both seasoned royal watchers and those carpetbaggers who have only started to pay an interest when the familial drama has ramped up will know that if it looks like a snub, and sounds like a snub, it almost certainly is a snub. The royal family have never been much good at subtlety, and this is a clear indication that even a brief encounter between the King and Harry is neither desired nor welcome.
On its own terms, this may be understandable. Harry has, after all, seen his father once this year, dropping everything and flying to be with the King once the news of his cancer diagnosis was made public, although rumour has it that this was dictated as much by a belief that those around the monarch would not tell Harry the whole truth as it was by simple filial concern. And although Charles’s diary is slowly filling up again, it will be a far cry from how busy he would have been expected to be before his illness. His doctors will have insisted that he rest between the inevitable gruelling bouts of treatment; the presence of his younger son is not wholly conducive to this, however well-intentioned it might be.
There are suggestions that the King has even gone so far as to actively snub Harry by giving Prince William his role as colonel-in-chief of the Army Air Corps, given that the Duke, unlike the Prince of Wales, served with the Army Air Corps in Afghanistan. But Harry is no longer a working royal, and it would have seemed extraordinary for him to be given this honour, whatever the circumstances of its bestowal. Nonetheless, the King’s younger son has arrived in the country at a tense and uncertain time for the monarchy; there is, of course, no suggestion that he would attempt to see his sister-in-law, given how toxic the feud between him and his brother continues to be.
It would be someone churlish who did not wish the Duke all the best for his involvement with celebrating the Invictus Games, perhaps the most wholesome aspect of his public legacy. Yet when Harry blithely said in February that ‘I’ll stop in and see my family as much as I can’, you can only imagine a senior courtier gritting his or her teeth, and thinking about how to frustrate such an unwelcome outcome as far as they can. The news suggests that they might well have got their wish.
