Friends and allies of King Charles and Prince William have been caught off guard by Prince Harry’s latest media campaign: an astonishing attempt to get the King to open Harry’s Invictus Games event in the United Kingdom next year.
The story was first leaked to British tabloid The Sun, framed as a “MAJOR olive branch” opportunity for Charles. The Royalist has confirmed it to be essentially true with sources in Harry’s camp.
While it is a long way from a done deal, there is a very real possibility that Charles might actually be considering the invitation, sources tell The Royalist—much to the chagrin of William.
The story is an interesting illustration of the larger patterns and interfamilial conflicts that are destabilizing the monarchy at the moment: The gulf between the King and his heir on a key matter of policy (what to do about Harry) as well as the King’s failure to communicate clearly to his public where he stands on the matter (of what to do about Harry).
“Prince Harry desperately wants Charles at Invictus—and he wants him to open the Games alongside him,” the source told The Sun. “Harry wants it to happen both for the Games, and for their relationship. It’s his dream to have his father by his side.”
“The Games represent a cause close to both’s hearts,” they continued. “The Games are a perfect opportunity for them to work alongside each other… The sight of them on stage when it opens would be heart-warming and in the spirit of the occasion.”
The story has caused some on the King’s side to bristle at what they see as an attempt to force Charles into attending the Games—and lending Harry the stamp of legitimacy. But the situation is undeniably nuanced by the fact that the King has shown remarkable indulgence toward his younger son, in defiance of his heir’s clearly stated wishes.
Friends of William want the King’s team to rebut the invitation before it takes legs, and hope to see scathing, skeptical responses sprinkled into media briefings in the coming days. But they are nervous that Charles will indeed entertain the idea as part of a broader goal of reconciling with Harry and spending time with his Sussex grandchildren.
Friends of the King and Queen told The Royalist that any attempt “to emotionally manipulate Charles will fail.” They pointed to the fact that he is “flat-out refusing” to see Harry when he will be in London in the coming weeks for the opening day of his lawsuit against Associated Newspapers as evidence of the king’s “steel” on the matter.
However, they notably declined to outright dismiss the possibility that Charles could appear at next year’s Invictus Games.
Indeed, one said: “The King has always made it very clear that he loves both his sons and of course he wants to be reconciled with Harry. It would be a source of great joy to him if trust could improve sufficiently to normalize the relationship.”
Of course, one of the King’s biggest problems here is hopelessly mixed messages—Charles’ position vis-a-vis Harry has always suffered from being both opaque and contradictory.
In Spare, Harry’s most corrosive charge against his father and stepmother was of emotional neglect. He described a royal household in which he was sacrificed to the press in order to protect and rehabilitate Charles and Camilla’s reputations during the early 2000s. Harry’s sense of betrayal is explicit: the damage done to him, he says, was the price paid for making their own lives easier.
His language is stark: he describes his stepmother as “dangerous,” while Charles is portrayed as weak, emotionally distant and aware of the harm being done but unwilling to intervene if it threatened his own priorities.
One of Charles’ best friends, Nicholas Soames, subsequently accused Harry of behavior of “the cruelest” kind toward his father in the memoir: “I can’t put myself in the position where my own son, if he did something like that to me…it would just be the cruelest thing,” Soames said in a radio interview. “Put oneself in his position. It was just painful beyond words.”
Charles has seemed to bounce ever since between attempts to cut off his son and to try to make up with him.
In a recent Daily Mail report, sources on the King’s side said that a proper reconciliation could not happen without an apology from Harry to the King and the wider royal family for the “appalling and derogatory” comments he made in Spare.
It felt like an attempt to recalibrate after what many inside the palace now privately concede was the costly misstep of meeting Harry last autumn. (Immediately after that meeting, Harry repaid his father’s indulgence by doubling down on his memoir, telling a journalist he didn’t regret the scathing attacks he launched on his family in the book. He then accused his father’s staff of trying to “sabotage” their relationship.)
Indeed, there is no doubt that any decision to extend an olive branch to a son who has spent years monetizing attacks on the institution his father embodies will go down badly with much of the British public.
Many think that such behavior makes Charles look weak, indulgent, and out of touch with the anger Harry has provoked by accusing the monarchy of a culture of cruelty, racism, and emotional neglect.
Friends of William are concerned that Charles is once again allowing the Sussex camp to set the narrative. Having been encouraged by the Daily Mail’s report of the King’s hardened position, which of course aligns more closely with William’s uncompromising (and extraordinarily popular) stance, they say that Charles now has to effectively pick a side.
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