Prince Harry didn’t meet with King Charles or Prince William when he was briefly in his home country, but royal experts told Fox News Digital that the monarch has been missing his “darling boy.”
On Sept. 30, the Duke of Sussex attended the 2024 WellChild Awards ceremony in London. According to People magazine, the 40-year-old had no plans to see the king, 75, or the Prince of Wales, 42, while he was in England.
They also didn’t meet when Harry was in the U.K. in May to commemorate 10 years of his Invictus Games. The outlet noted that Harry extended invitations to his father and brother ahead of the event.
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A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told Fox News Digital they wouldn’t be commenting. Fox News Digital also reached out to the Archewell organization for comment.
British royals expert Hilary Fordwich told Fox News Digital that the king is more likely to have peace talks with his younger son – when he feels ready.
“If anyone would relent, it would be King Charles III, whom, of course, Prince William won’t challenge,” Fordwich explained. “[He] still misses his ‘darling boy’ and would like to see more of Prince Harry.
“However, to this day, after the release of [his memoir] ‘Spare’ and the Netflix series, as well as with everything else Harry has said, done and not done – it’s Prince William who adamantly refuses to even speak to his brother.”
“With Prince Harry, it’s all an issue of trust,” said Fordwich. “Prince William is the most unlikely royal to ever forgive Harry for all his despicable indiscretions. He is now very much seen and accepted as the family enforcer, taking on the hard-line ruler role of his grandfather, Prince Philip.
“In this capacity, it’s widely known within the family that Prince William has laid down an absolute ban on Harry returning in any way, shape or form to his former royal family fold.”
Harry has had a strained relationship with his family since he and his wife, Meghan Markle, quit royal duties in 2020. At the time, the couple said the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British press were what prompted them to step back as senior royals.
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The father of two has since detailed his rocky relationship with his family in TV interviews, a documentary and his memoir.
Sources previously told People magazine that Harry’s calls and letters to his father go unanswered. His attempts to connect with William through texts, calls and messages are “similarly ignored.”
The outlet noted that King Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, are in Scotland. They traveled north to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament on Sept. 28. Harry’s visit to London was meant to be a short one as he’s now in South Africa on a four-day trip.
“William and Harry would not meet each other right now, even though they were just a very short distance away from each other,” royal expert Ian Pelham Turner claimed to Fox News Digital.
“This is of no surprise to me as the bickering between the two brothers continues,” Pelham Turner claimed. “And King Charles is occupied preparing for his Australian visit… Another nail in the royal coffin is when Prince William was seen at a charity helicopter event with none other than David Beckham, who was a friend of Harry’s, too.”
Christopher Andersen, author of “The King,” previously claimed to Fox News Digital that while Charles misses his son, he’s still unable to forgive him for casting Camilla as the villain in “Spare.”
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“I think people have to realize that the one thing that Charles finds unforgivable is criticism of Camilla,” Andersen claimed. “There’s no criticism of Camilla. And unfortunately for Harry… Harry said some pretty devastating things about her. He made it clear that he felt she was… the villain in the piece. I think that still bothers the king, and I don’t know that it will be easy for him to [forgive]. I don’t think they’ll ever forgive Harry for that.”
“[He’s] on his own,” Andersen added, referring to the Duke of Sussex.
In televised interviews to promote the book, Harry accused his stepmother, 77, of leaking private conversations to the media to burnish her own reputation. He accused members of the royal family of getting “into bed with the devil” to gain favorable tabloid coverage, singling out Camilla’s efforts to rehabilitate her image with the public after her longtime affair with his father.
“That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,” Harry told CBS. “There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street.”
The allegations about Camilla were particularly sensitive because of her role in the breakdown of Charles’ marriage to Princess Diana, Harry’s mother.
The late Princess of Wales once described Camilla, who carried on a long-term affair with Charles, as the third person in their marriage. While many members of the public initially shunned Camilla, she has won fans by taking on a wide range of charitable activities and has been credited with helping Charles appear less stuffy and more in tune with modern Britain.
Writing about his father’s 2005 wedding to Camilla, Harry said, “I had complex feelings about gaining a stepparent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar.”
Still, he says he wanted his father to be happy.
“In a funny way, I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy?”
Andersen claimed that Harry still “resents” Camilla.
“[Prince William and Prince Harry] didn’t want their father to marry Camilla,” said Andersen. “They tried to talk him out of it… they had to put on a public face of acceptance. It took Charles forever, for decades, to get his mother to accept Camilla as his future bride.
“It was actually during the 2002 Trooping the Colour events that [Queen Elizabeth II] started to crack a little bit, and she allowed Camilla to appear with the royal family for the first time. And later, during the Diamond Jubilee … because Prince Philip was ill briefly with pneumonia, the queen allowed Camilla to ride with her in the royal carriage.”
“It was obvious at that point that the queen had decided to put aside her past feelings and accept Camilla into the royal family,” Andersen continued. “The king pressured the queen for so long, and in so many ways, to accept Camilla… We have to remember, he promised he would never make Camilla queen. And I think that’s one thing that still bothers both Harry and William.
“It’s unfortunate that Charles… promised he would never make Camilla queen. [He felt] that the way the people felt about Diana, they would never allow him to crown her by his side. But that’s exactly what he did. So, in that sense, I think both William and Harry feel a sense of betrayal to this day on that issue.”
Andersen said that there’s one person Harry will have an especially hard time making peace with, and it’s not his father or stepmother.
“I really do think that the hardest nut to crack in this whole scenario is William,” Andersen claimed. “He has taken [what Harry wrote about him] very, very personally. And he’s [very] moody. I think he’s probably the moodiest… although he is incredibly charming. Obviously, he has great people skills. But behind the scenes, I think he’s really rock hard in his feelings about things, and it’s very hard for him to change his ways.”
