The mood towards Harry has suddenly shifted behind palace walls, according to insiders, as he prepares for his first meeting with the King in more than two years
Prince Harry last met his father, King Charles, in September last year at Clarence House in London, their first face-to-face meeting since February 2024.
The private afternoon tea lasted around 50 minutes and the brief meeting was seen as a first step towards repairing relations and sparked hopes of a wider royal reconciliation.
With Harry expected to return to the UK this July to mark one year until the Invictus Games in Birmingham next summer, reports suggested he was hoping to continue rebuilding ties with his father.
However, sources now claim that optimism has faded, leaving Harry increasingly concerned that he is being given the runaround over plans to meet Charles.
Excuses, excuses, excuses
An insider told National Examiner “After all these months of discussing this visit as though it was guaranteed to be happening, the conversation has now drastically shifted and Harry is now getting the run around.
“His [the King’s] aides are refusing to nail down a date or send his schedule, they keep making excuses and Charles is backing them up so there isn’t much for Harry to say. It’s a total nightmare for Harry, he’s devoted so much time and energy to building a bridge with his father and now it’s all looking like it might have been for naught.”
According to royal commentator Paula Froelich, concerns within the King’s camp began to grow when a supposed friend of Harry’s spoke to The Times in March.
The friend said, “He’d like an invite to Sandringham. Would he go? It would depend on who was there. If the King was to say, ‘Come up and spend some time with the family’, he’d love that.”
They also claimed Harry wouldn’t bring his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, to Britain without enhanced security measures, a subject that has previously been a source of tension between Harry and Charles.
Questions were further raised the next month when Harry and Meghan’s continued use of their royal titles in commercial ventures attracted criticism.
Meghan used her Duchess title while appearing at a paid women’s wellness retreat in Australia and also faced backlash when photographs of her visiting sick children in hospital appeared on an AI fashion website she’d invested in.
Insiders are saying Harry has become increasingly frustrated by delays in confirming whether a meeting with his father will actually take place during his visit.
“Harry is still clinging to hope that things will get back on track but he is admitting that there have been a lot of red flags,’ the insider says.
“The fact that they didn’t get an acknowledgement or even a call from the palace on their wedding anniversary and, even more telling, the fact that Charles was in America [to visit Donald Trump in April] and wasn’t able to fit in a visit.
“‘He did nothing but make excuses and Harry bought them all, which he’s now questioning. Harry keeps being told to sit tight and wait for confirmation, but every week that passes without anything being nailed down makes him more anxious. He hates not knowing. The ambiguity is driving him up the wall.’”
Despite ongoing tensions, reports still suggest Charles would like to spend more time with his grandchildren, Archie, and Lilibet, five.
Sources claim Harry and Meghan had hoped a family reunion could help heal the long-standing rift.
“It’s pretty devastating since they’ve been hanging so many hopes on Charles softening towards them once he spends some quality time with their adorable children and realises what he’s missing out on,” the source claimed.
Although Charles didn’t meet Harry and Meghan during his visit to America in April, sources indicated at the time that he hoped to see both Harry and his children in the near future.
According to insiders, Harry viewed that reported commitment as reassurance he’d seen them during his UK visit.
“‘It feels especially shocking for Harry to be getting the runaround like this after Charles said so many times that it would happen,’ the insider says.
‘He put off seeing them in America, which was terrible enough, but this was on the table as a sort of consolation prize and Harry was counting on that. To be fair, Charles was incredibly busy in America, he was hardly in one place more than five minutes so there really wasn’t time for any sort of reunion.
‘But of course it’s pretty telling that he can pack it with work, yet he can’t block out time for his son and grandkids.’”
Harry previously expressed a desire for Archie and Lilibet to connect with their British heritage.
“The UK is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the US,” he said in a statement.
Sources have previously claimed Charles shares similar concerns about his grandchildren becoming disconnected from their British heritage and royal roots.
Now, insiders claim Harry once again believes palace figures are blocking progress.
The source claims Harry believes the so-called “men in grey”, alongside Prince William and Queen Camilla, are actively working against efforts to rebuild his relationship with the King.
The insider says, “The King does have an exceptionally busy summer ahead and the line from his advisors has been that he’s ‘not yet in a position to make a plan’, which Harry isn’t buying for a second. He thinks that’s absolute nonsense and just people messing with him and trying to put a spanner in the works as far as any reconciliation between him and his father is concerned.
‘Harry is convinced there are people advising his father that have an agenda against him because they see him as this horrible traitor. He knows his brother and stepmother feel that way but he believes there are plenty of others in that same camp that are actively working to undermine him. To him the sudden collapse of this plan is proof.”
