Happy birthday, Your Majesty. The King turns 75 today but the celebrations will be muted: Charles is spending the day launching the Coronation Food Project, which is designed to deal with the pressing issue of food shortages throughout the country. He’ll also be hosting a reception for NHS nurses and midwives. For a monarch who has been accused of taking it easy (there was an extended summer break in Scotland), this represents a riposte to his critics. Charles is once again seeking to present himself as a dutiful, committed monarch, getting on with the business of ruling. Yet it is Charles’s private life – particularly his relationship with Prince Harry – that continues to excite most attention and has done since his accession to the throne.
Charles’s relationship with his younger son has been viewed as one of near-total estrangement for a considerable time, and even Harry’s presence at the Coronation – dignified and uncontroversial though it undoubtedly was – was a token one; it was briefed that there was no reconciliatory meeting between father and son before the event, and Harry left immediately afterwards. Nor is the Duke of Sussex attending his father’s birthday celebrations this evening, even if it has been suggested that Charles invited him to them, as well as to a September rapprochement in Balmoral.
A royal source told the Sunday Times that:
The current act is a challenging one, there are issues that aren’t resolved and there won’t be a rapprochement any time soon. There is the sense of a cooling-off period from the family that is under way after the aftershocks of the book and the interviews. But that doesn’t change the King’s love for his son. He’ll never not invite his son to a family gathering, because that’s not who he is.
With Harry presumably being kept busy with the many court cases that he is currently fighting, there has been no overt counter-briefing from his side, and the King’s word has to be taken as the final one.
Might a reconciliation be on the cards?
But might a reconciliation be on the cards? ‘Well-placed sources’ told the BBC that Harry will be putting in a birthday phone call to his father. Assuming their conversation isn’t leaked, this could be a sign that, slowly, the pair’s relationship is healing. While Charles has maintained a dignified silence in public about the breakdown of his relationship with Harry, it’s obvious that the events of the last few years have caused the monarch considerable grief. A longed-for rapprochement would be a welcome present for Charles.
Whether Harry and Charles can patch things up, the call caps off what has generally been a good first year for Charles as king. A series of well-received and well-intended public speeches, including a diplomatically tricky address in Kenya that expressed profound regret for colonialism while stopping short of being a full apology, have been matched by an assured performance in his first King’s Speech. Charles has adroitly steered clear of any controversy, bar murmurs about the extended summer break he took in Scotland. Still, everyone merits a holiday now and again. He remains a source of fascination to his subjects, and others, the world over, but his careful decision to avoid controversy while stressing his dedication to duty, his country and – yes – family means that he continues to be seen as a reliable and steady figure amidst an increasingly turbulent government. So three cheers, Your Majesty.
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