The King received a man at Clarence House yesterday afternoon who has a justifiable right to be aggrieved with the ill treatment that has been meted over to him over the years. He has been unfairly discriminated against for reasons that are not his fault, and he has dealt with the opprobrium that has been hurled his way with dignity, maturity and personal righteousness. If he has a persecution complex, then he can hardly be blamed for having developed such a thing. He deserves our respect and admiration.
Yes, King Charles’s encounter with Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg, for whom he performed an investiture, was important and no doubt affecting for both men. Yet it was immediately overshadowed by the arrival of the King’s estranged younger son, Prince Harry, appearing in the rain in a black Range Rover for their first face-to-face meeting since February 2024. The two had what was described – euphemistically? – as “a private tea”, which lasted just under an hour.
Pity the poor broadcast journalists, waiting in the damp and drizzle outside Clarence House to find out precisely nothing of any substance. Briefings from both Buckingham Palace and Camp Sussex afterwards were bland to the point of irrelevance. When Harry, attending an engagement with the Invictus Games Foundation, was asked how the King was by eager reporters, he simply responded “Yes, he’s great, thank you.”
It was reported that the brief meeting between father and son took place under several pre-arranged conditions, many of which may have been bashed out during the ‘summit meeting’ that took place at the Royal Over-Seas League club in July. It is likely that these included Harry offering no public comments to the media during his visit to Britain about his family (although his passing remark at the WellChild awards on Monday about challenging sibling relations was, probably rightly, taken as throwing shade at his very much estranged elder brother) and there being no indiscreet briefing about the substance of any conversation that he had with his father. We shall see if these conditions are adhered to; past experience suggests otherwise.
Although I was sceptical that the reunion between the two would happen as quickly as it has done, I also suggested that “there will be many at Buckingham Palace, and beyond, who would like to see such a harmonious meeting take place, with a view to putting this prolonged squabble to bed.” So it has come to pass. It must also be said that Harry’s behaviour on this trip has been impeccable. The angry, narcissistic court-botherer, suing his father’s government to be allowed to hire the police as his personal protection squad, was not in evidence. Instead, we saw glimpses of the old, likeable Harry, joking about his love of jerk chicken and declaring his love for Nottingham, as well as warmly interacting with members of the public he encountered on his (admittedly carefully scheduled) travels. The decision to make a private donation of over a million pounds to Children in Need was a generous and wise one, ensuring favourable headlines and decent PR.
Barring a last-minute disaster between now and his departure, the duke can head back to Montecito happy in the knowledge that a high-risk, high-reward gamble has paid off handsomely. (It is not expected that he will be attending the Duchess of Kent’s funeral next week, although who knows if he might be tempted to return for it.)
We saw glimpses of the old, likeable Harry, joking about his love of jerk chicken
Admittedly, there was no encounter with Prince William, but there was never on the cards. Instead, he has successfully charmed many who had otherwise written him off, reconciled with his father and, most impressively, navigated central London in the traffic-strewn hellscape of a tube strike. It may be a false dawn – an awful lot can happen between now and 2027, when it is hoped that the King will attend the Invictus Games in Birmingham, of which Harry continues to serve as patron. But those who so confidently predicted that the duke’s actions had cast him into reputational Siberia as far as the royal family are concerned will now be eating their words.
Still, it is currently not known what the tenor of the conversation inside Clarence House really was. Should a suspiciously well-informed and detailed account appear in the papers in the next couple of days, the whole, miserable saga will just carry on going, without any apparent end in sight. For sanity’s sake – if not curiosity’s – let’s hope that Harry can remain discreet, just this once.
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