Prince Harry returned to Britain on Monday for a four-day visit crowded with meetings and ceremonies but dominated by a single, all-consuming question: Will he meet with his father, King Charles III?
It’s not an idle question. Harry’s rift with the 76-year-old monarch has taken on canyon-like proportions after lawsuits and an emotional BBC interview by the estranged prince in May. It has become the central fault line in Britain’s royal family, dividing not just Harry and his father but also the prince and his older brother, William.
On the face of it, the portents for a reconciliation do not look encouraging. Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, are currently staying in Balmoral, the Scottish castle where Queen Elizabeth II died three years ago on Monday. Buckingham Palace has been tight-lipped about any meeting.
But a get-together in July between communications aides to Charles and Harry, captured by tabloid photographers, stoked speculation that perhaps father and son were open to a rapprochement — or at least open to exploring the idea.
The last time the two met was for 30 minutes in February 2024 when Harry flew to London after Charles was diagnosed with cancer. Seventeen months later, the king continues to be treated for his illness. Harry raised fears about Charles’s prognosis when he told the BBC, “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”
The prince, who is 40 and has settled into a new life in Montecito, Calif., made his comment as part of a plea to mend fences. He said Charles was not talking to him because of a lawsuit the prince brought against the Home Office for cutting back the security he receives on visits to Britain, adding that he “would love reconciliation with my family.”
Harry is again alone on this visit, having declared that he does not feel comfortable bringing his wife, Meghan, or two children, Archie and Lilibet, to Britain without the automatic police protection that he was afforded as a working member of the royal family. He lost his appeal of that case in May.
But Harry’s staff has tried to keep the focus on his philanthropy. On Monday afternoon, the prince took part in an awards ceremony at a London hotel for WellChild, a charity that helps seriously ill children. On Tuesday, he will travel to Nottingham, in the Midlands, to announce a donation to Children in Need, a charity that aids disadvantaged young people, for its work involving victims of violence.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Harry is expected to meet with other charities and foundations. In March, he resigned from one of his highest profile charities, Sentebale, after a clash between the charity’s board of trustees and its board chair, Sophie Chandauka, who made accusations of bullying and harassment. Britain’s charities regulator said in a report last month that it had found no evidence of “widespread or systemic bullying or harassment.”
Harry’s rupture with Sentebale, which helps young people afflicted by substance abuse and gender violence in Southern Africa, deprived him of one of his most cherished causes.
After a long stretch when Harry and Meghan dwelt on their grievances — including in a six-part Netflix documentary and in Harry’s score-settling memoir, “Spare” — both seem to have their eyes trained on the future.
Meghan has rolled out the second season of her Netflix cooking-and-lifestyle series, “With Love, Meghan.” It received scathing reviews in British papers, which have been unremittingly hostile toward Meghan since she and her husband withdrew as working royals and left for North America in 2020.
Meghan’s carefully curated recipes and encounters with fellow celebrities like the model and lifestyle maven Chrissy Teigen, and the chef José Andrés, drew a less snarky reaction from American reviewers. But “With Love, Meghan” did not appear on a list of Netflix’s top 10 programs after its debut on Aug. 26, prompting questions about whether it would be renewed for a third season.
Regardless of whether Harry sees Charles, royal watchers say a meeting to clear the air with his brother seems less likely. William’s relations with Harry were tense even before the publication of “Spare,” in which Harry claimed that his brother knocked him to the floor during a fight.
That Harry’s visit coincides with the third anniversary of Elizabeth’s death only reinforces how long things have been bad between him and his family. Some royal watchers argue that the king should make a gesture, if only to preserve his legacy as a champion of tolerance and inclusiveness.
For now, though, Charles may be more focused on another visitor from America: President Trump. The king will play host next week to Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, at Windsor Castle, west of London. The British government has deployed the royals as a not-so-secret weapon to smooth relations with Mr. Trump, who revered his meetings with the queen, once praising her as a “spectacular woman.”
Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.
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