Prince Harry has no chance of healing his ongoing rift with his father, King Charles, “anytime soon”, however, there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, according to a royal expert. The Duke of Sussex has been estranged from the Royal Family ever since he and wife Meghan Markle quit their royal duties and moved to the US in 2020.
The pair’s strained relationship with the Firm was damaged even more after they made a series of claims against the royals through TV interviews, their Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan and the duke’s memoir, Spare. But whilst there may have been hope Harry could reconcile with his estranged family following the King’s cancer diagnosis earlier this year, royal author Robert Hardman argued this will not happen anytime soon as “people are wounded” and there is a “trust issue” between the two camps, the Independent reports.
Mr Hardman, who spoke at this year’s Hay Festival in Wales, said: “The problem that exists is, at the moment, there is still a trust issue. People are still very wounded, particularly Prince William, that these intimate private childhood family moments all spilt out in Harry’s book. “It’s not what Harry said, it’s the fact that he said it, and he gave away so many secrets. And he was, effectively, at the time of the Queen’s death, you know, he was taking notes.”
The biographer, who wrote Charles III: New King, New Court, The Inside Story, claimed that the monarch is “unhappy” about the row with his younger son, which he finds “unsettling” and added that the first step to repairing the relationship would be to “normalise” it. He said: “There he is, he’s got two sons, one he hardly sees, and two grandchildren he’s barely ever seen, and yes, I think he would like some sort of modus vivendi. Clearly they can’t come back to royal life, I don’t think they want to. And, after all that’s happened, it wouldn’t work.”
Mr Hardman added: “I thought it was telling that when the cancer diagnosis came through back in February, Prince Harry came straight over. People said why didn’t he stay longer, why didn’t he talk to his father? I mean, there is so much to be worked through, but this was absolutely not the moment to have some sort of summit with Harry about all of Harry’s grievances. “But I think the fact he came was important, the fact he was received was important, I think what encouraged people at the palace and encouraged the king was the fact that afterwards, we didn’t then read about it or hear about it. It remained private.”
Harry rushed back home to the UK for a little over 25 hours in February, right after it was announced the King had been diagnosed with cancer. His short trip back was followed by an interview on Good Morning America, during which he said: “I love my family. The fact that I was able to get on a plane and go and see him and spend any time with him, I’m grateful for that.”
Meanwhile, the biographer suggested that Harry could begin “normalising” things by coming over to the UK “with Meghan, with the children, privately, for a few days maybe in the summer. “Once that happens it’s not such big news when it happens again. Then you start to get somewhere.”
