Prince Harry and Meghan visited Charles at his Highgrove country estate following days of speculation
PICS: Getty Images
Buckingham Palace confirmed that the King and Queen Camilla welcomed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their two children to the monarch’s private Gloucestershire residence on Friday afternoon for what was described as an entirely private family meeting.
No photographs will be released and no further details are expected to be shared.
The meeting marked the first time King Charles has seen Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, since Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022.
Meghan and the children flew privately into Britain from a family holiday in Europe to join Harry for the visit.
It emerged on Thursday evening that the Duchess and the children planned to travel to Britain but would not make any public appearances. Meghan later pulled out of attending the Invictus Games one-year countdown event at Birmingham’s NEC.
Earlier on Friday, Prince Harry attended the Invictus Games event in Birmingham while King Charles carried out an engagement at Oxford University before travelling to Highgrove.
The reunion comes after months of reports that Harry has been working to repair his relationship with his father. He is understood to have built bridges with Charles in recent months and has been speaking with him regularly by telephone.
The meeting follows a difficult week for Harry. King Charles reportedly declined a last-minute request from the Duke to stay at Buckingham Palace during his visit to London after his travel plans were affected by delays and uncertainty. There was also reportedly a desire to create distance between the Royal Household and Harry’s unsuccessful £50 million privacy claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail, which was dismissed by the High Court earlier in the week.
During the family’s previous visit in June 2022, then-Prince Charles and Camilla, then the Duchess of Cornwall, spent time with the children in what marked Charles’ first meeting with Lilibet, who had been born in California the previous year after the Sussexes relocated to the United States.
GETTY IMAGES
“It was a fantastic visit. The prince was delighted to see his grandson and meet his granddaughter for the first time,” a royal source said at the time, adding that it was “wonderful” to have the Duke and Duchess of Sussex back in the U.K.
“The Prince and the Duchess [of Cornwall] were absolutely thrilled to see them,” the source said, referring to Charles and Camilla by their titles at the time. The insider added that the future King had not seen Archie “for a bit of time,” as he was a baby when Prince Harry and Meghan stepped back from their royal roles and moved to California in 2020.
“It was very special to have some time with him. He hadn’t met Lilibet, his granddaughter, and so to meet her for the first time was very emotional — it was a wonderful thing,” the source said of the family meeting.
Princess Lilibet, who was born in California in June 2021, celebrated her first birthday during that trip with a “casual, intimate backyard picnic” at Frogmore Cottage while the family was in Britain for the Platinum Jubilee.
Prince Harry last reunited with his father during a visit to Britain in September 2025, when he spent around 55 minutes with the King at Clarence House, the monarch’s London residence. Before that, the pair met in February 2024 after Harry flew from California following the King’s cancer diagnosis.
The Duke has spoken candidly about wanting to heal the rift within his family. Speaking to the BBC in May, he said: “I would love reconciliation with my family; there’s no point in continuing to fight anymore. Life is precious.”
He added: “I don’t know how much longer my father has, he won’t speak to me because of this security stuff.”
The Duke conceded that reconciliation was in his family’s hands, saying: “If they don’t want that, that’s entirely up to them.”
He admitted: “Of course, some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book. Of course, they will never forgive me for lots of things.”
