The expected refusal of any members of the royal family to endorse Prince Harry’s Invictus Games charity by joining him at a church service commemorating its 10th anniversary next week is a “classic example of the royals cutting off their nose to spite their face,” a source has told The Daily Beast.
Harry is arriving in London next week for a PR blitz focused around a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral in London on Wednesday for his Paralympic-style event for wounded servicemen. It is the latest sign that Harry, whose team recently hired a U.K.-based spin doctor, is far from ready to give up on winning back the hearts and minds of his native land.
The Palace declined to respond to requests for comment, but reports have made it clear that no working members of the royal family will attend the service. While there are hints he may see his father King Charles, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s camp ruled out even a quick meeting with Harry soon after Harry’s visit was announced. They will never forgive him for betraying family secrets in his memoir Spare, and don’t trust him to keep their meetings confidential, friends have told The Daily Beast.
And it seems that Charles’ very public expressions of magnanimity, perhaps even being willing to again receive his son for another face-to-face audience, only go so far, with sources suggesting he will not order a working royal surrogate such as Prince Edward to attend the Invictus event.
The absence of formal royal endorsement is likely to be particularly annoying for Invictus as the royal seal of approval turbocharges fundraising efforts. Invictus, as their annual reports show, is a nonprofit funded by a mixture of sponsorship (Boeing is the lead sponsor), ticket sales, charitable donations, and commercial initiatives such as the Netflix series Heart of Invictus.
One source, a former courtier, told The Daily Beast: “Charles has made it quite clear he is ready to be friendly and supportive to Harry in his capacity as a private person, as his dad, but he is not going to throw the weight of the institution behind Invictus again. This all seems very logical inside the Palace bubble, but the trouble is that people who don’t particularly care about such things, who are dimly aware that the royals spend their days visiting community centers and opening supermarkets, are going to wonder why they are boycotting this terrific charity that is headed by the king’s son.
“Many of us think this is a classic example of the royals cutting off their nose to spite their face, because Invictus is clearly exactly the kind of organization the royal family should be supporting. If a bridge is ever going to be built [between Harry and the royals], Invictus is the bridgehead to build it from, and they should get on and do it.”
Indeed, some insiders are quietly wondering whether the royal family’s hand will be forced if the British city of Birmingham wins its bid to host the 2027 Invictus Games.
“If Birmingham get it for 2027 the royals are going to have to send someone, so they might as well get it over with now.”
— Military source
A military source involved in the Games told The Daily Beast: “Harry has done the veterans community proud with Invictus, but some people feel it’s not fair to deny the foundation proper royal endorsement, especially after Queen Elizabeth was so generous to us. [The late queen recorded a video promoting Invictus which also featured Barack and Michelle Obama.] It was explicitly set up as an organization endorsed by the royal family, but now it’s not; it is stuck in this limbo. If Birmingham get it for 2027 the royals are going to have to send someone, so they might as well get it over with now.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Invictus for comment.
Another factor that is embarrassing for the British establishment’s very overt refusal to endorse Invictus is the enthusiasm with which it is greeted by dignitaries overseas. Indeed, after his brief sojourn in London next week, Harry will fly to Nigeria where he will be joined by wife Meghan Markle—who has disclosed that an ancestry test revealed she is 43-percent Nigerian—for what is promising to be an extraordinary quasi-state visit. (Harry and Meghan will even be required to turn a blind eye to the country’s egregious human rights record in the name of diplomacy, as royals visiting overseas so often are.)
Their reception in Nigeria, as guests of a government that has expressed interest in hosting the Invictus Games, will cut a sharp contrast to the studiously indifferent welcome they are likely to receive in the U.K. They are likely to be figuratively showered in rose petals—and paraded through government buildings in a major coup for the regime.
The challenges and contradictions implicit in the royal family’s ongoing refusal to properly reconcile with Harry—or at least agree to disagree and move on—will be thrown into sharp relief by next week’s visit.
The royal family seem to think that a suitable answer to the question of what they intend to do about Harry is, “Nothing.”
The events of next week may yet show that approach to be wishful thinking.
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