Prince Harry’s reconciliation meeting with his father is the first step towards his family returning to the UK for a visit next year, a royal source claimed today.
The summit over tea at Clarence House last night could pave the way for Archie and Lilibet to visit their grandfather for the first time in more than three years.
‘The King wants to be a grandfather to his grandchildren so that’s an important pull. He was so pleased when they came over for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee and he was able to spend some time with them,’ a royal source told the Daily Mail today.
‘It’s become clear that Harry now regrets some of his actions. He wants to reset his relationship with his family and with the people of the UK. It’s hard to see him ever coming back to live in Britain but this may be the start of something that at least allows them to be a functioning wider family again.’
But whether Meghan Markle will want to come with them remains another matter, the insider has said. Meghan hasn’t returned to the UK since the Queen’s death in September 2022.
Today Harry’s spokesman said he has ‘loved being back in the UK’ and a source has suggested he could return soon with his children in tow.
Charles last saw Archie and Lilibet in June 2022, when Harry and Meghan returned for Queen Elizabeth II‘s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. He has only met Lilibet once and Archie a handful of times.
Harry’s taxpayer-funded security was reduced after he and Meghan quit royal duties – sparking his legal battle with the Home Office – but the Sussexes would likely receive armed bodyguards when visiting the King.
‘There are all sorts of obstacles to that happening again because of Harry’s insistence that they have guaranteed armed police protection. But maybe there is a way of getting them over to Balmoral or Sandringham next year or another royal residence where they are within the security perimeter’, the insider said.
Meghan Markle, 43, and husband Prince Harry, 40, whisked themselves and their children to Disneyland this year – but a UK visit could still be on the cards, a source has said
King Charles is seen arriving back at Aberdeen Airport from RAF Northolt after flying down on Wednesday to meet Prince Harry
King Charles’s private jet is seen shortly after landing at Aberdeen Airport
King Charles arrives at Clarence House, in London, ahead of a meeting with his son Harry. The monarch has made no secret of his wish to spend time with his grandchildren
It emerged today that Harry promised his father that he and his team would not brief the press on what happened in their meeting last night.
The Duke of Sussex spent 54 minutes having a cup of tea with King Charles at Clarence House in London yesterday ‘rebuilding their father-and-son relationship‘.
When they met in February 2024 after the monarch was diagnosed with cancer, Harry’s audience was limited to just over 15 minutes.
A royal source has said that Harry is determined to ‘reset’ his relationship with his family, and the British people, after years of turmoil caused by Megxit – starting first with his father.
‘This is an important first step towards rebuilding their father-and-son relationship,’ the source said.
‘He has told his father he won’t be giving any interviews about it and his team have been instructed not to brief journalists about what was said.
‘There’s a long way to go before Harry can earn his family’s trust but he’s given some assurances.’
Prince Harry, pictured today at a Diana Award event, met his father for the first time in 19 months as they start to rebuild their relationship
Prince William talks to members of the Welsh Rugby Union during his visit to Cardiff yesterday. The Daily Mail’s source believes he will have been informed that his younger brother and father were meeting
After yesterday’s royal summit the Duke looked carefree as he took centre stage at an Invictus Games event where he revealed his father was ‘great’ when asked about their meeting.
He apologised for being late and joked that many of his guests might be drunk.
But after telling all and launching vicious attacks on his family in his memoir Spare and in various TV interviews, it is understood that Harry told King Charles that he would not be sharing any more details with the public.
Prince William did not attend yesterday’s Clarence House meeting but will have been aware it was going to take place, it is understood.
The Prince and Princess of Wales have been out at royal events all week – and on one occasion were only three miles away from Harry but chose not to meet.
‘William would have known that this was going to happen. It’s not clear how happy he is about it but, you know, sooner or later most families reach some sort of accommodation after a family rift’, the Daily Mail’s source said.
Prince Harry looked buoyant as he described his father King Charles III as doing ‘great’ after the pair reunited for a long-awaited reconciliation meeting at Clarence House.
The Duke of Sussex said of the monarch ‘Yes he’s great, thank you,’ when asked about the face-to-face meeting during a reception for the Invictus Games, which he launched in 2014 as a tournament for injured service personnel and veterans.
The Duke of Sussex during a visit to take part in a panel discussion on how social action positively impacts mental health with four young people involved with The Diana Award, in Salisbury Square, central London, today
Appearing relaxed, smiling and upbeat, Harry mingled with corporate sponsors and government ministers as he attended the event in The Gherkin, London, ahead of a speech outlining the next ten years of his Invictus movement.
Harry, 40, arrived at the event 40 minutes later than planned after travelling directly from a private tea with the monarch, which lasted for 55 minutes. It was their first meeting in 19 months since the Duke flew to the UK to see Charles in February 2024.
He was spotted being driven into the royal residence in a black Range Rover at 5.20pm before leaving in the same car at around 6.15pm.
Earlier, the King was seen arriving at Clarence House at 4pm, having landed at RAF Northolt at around 3pm following a flight from Aberdeen Airport.
Charles had flown to the capital after a stay at Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, raising the possibility of a meeting with Harry during his son’s four-day stay in Britain.
Harry was due to arrive at the Invictus reception at 6.45pm but organisers said he was running late, before he finally arrived at 7.24pm.
It is believed the Duke travelled to the event straight after seeing his father but traffic has been very heavy in central London this week due to an ongoing Tube strike.
Prince Harry arrives at Clarence House, London, after his father King Charles
The Duke of Sussex is seen leaving the royal residence around 55 minutes later
After a reception where he met sponsors and supporters, the Duke gave a speech and began by joking about his long journey across London to attend the event.
He made his guests laugh when he said: ‘I think this whole thing has been delayed slightly, so at this point you’re all hammered – which was part of the plan all along, stuck up here at the top of The Gherkin.’
Harry’s comments became serious when he said: ‘We live in a time when conflicts rage across the globe, when anger and resentment towards those who are different can feel overwhelming.
‘The Invictus community stands as a direct challenge to that. We prove that unity is not just possible, but formidable. That the bonds of courage, respect and humanity are stronger than the divisions of politics, background, or nationality.
‘Our ambition for the future is clear: we will focus where the need is great, we will strengthen the international community we have already built, and we will continue to drive systemic change – ensuring that wounded, injured, and sick service personnel everywhere can find recovery through sport, rehabilitation, and the support of community.’
The Duke is on the final day of his rare four-day trip to the UK, carrying out a string of solo charity visits.
He is attending a Diana Award event this morning before he is expected to fly back to Los Angeles.
Harry arrived in Britain on Monday and attended the WellChild Awards at London’s Royal Lancaster hotel to celebrate the achievements of seriously ill youngsters.
He then travelled by car to Nottingham on Tuesday to visit the Community Recording Studio and announce a £1.1million personal donation to the BBC’s Children In Need.
This afternoon, Harry was all smiles as he was greeted at the Centre for Blast Injury Studies in White City at about 1pm and hugged his friend, former Army captain David Henson.
The ex-Royal Engineer served as Team GB captain for the inaugural Invictus Games and attended Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle in 2018.
Mr Henson lost both his legs above the knee after standing on an improvised explosive device in 2011 while clearing a compound in Afghanistan. He went on to gain a PhD in Amputee Biomechanics at Imperial.
Harry opened the Centre for Blast Injury Studies in 2013, which was the forerunner of Imperial’s new centre, launched a few years ago on its White City campus.
Clinically driven trauma injury research is carried out at the building, and the King visited in February to highlight support for injured soldiers in Ukraine.
Harry’s office said that his foundation has donated $500,000 (£370,000) to projects supporting injured children from Gaza and Ukraine, including helping the World Health Organization with evacuations and work developing prosthetics.
The Duke visited the centre to learn more about its work, especially its increased focus on injuries suffered by children and those sustained in natural disasters.
‘No single organisation can solve this alone,’ Harry said in a statement. ‘Gaza now has the highest density of child amputees in the world and in history.
‘It takes partnerships across government, science, medicine, humanitarian response and advocacy to ensure children survive and can recover after blast injuries.’
The three grants announced by Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation include $200,000 (£150,000) to the World Health Organization to support medical evacuations from Gaza to Jordan, and $150,000 (£110,000) to Save the Children to provide ongoing humanitarian support in Gaza.
The third grant $150,000 (£110,000) was to the Centre of Blast Injury Studies to help its efforts to develop prostheses that can support injured children, particularly those children injured from the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
The Duke has a long association with the Centre for Blast Injury Studies, which was set up with a focus on helping military veterans and personnel, having opened its former laboratories in 2013.
‘We very much consider you part of our story,’ Emily Mayhew, the paediatric blast injury lead at Imperial College London, told him when he arrived.
The Prince himself spent ten years in the British military, during which he served two tours in Afghanistan.
He has made campaigning to help the fate of veterans one of his main priorities, founding the Invictus Games for military personnel wounded in action.
He was joined by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for a tour of the centre, where he met with research teams working on a number of world-leading projects.
Showing him round was double leg amputee Dave Henson, an ambassador for the centre, who has known Harry for more than a decade and was the first captain of the British Invictus team in 2014.
‘It’s been hugely important for raising the profile of the centre,’ Mr Henson, who lost his legs in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2011, said of Harry’s involvement.
The centre said children were seven times more likely to die from blast injuries than adults and in 2023, with support from Save the Children, it began expanding its work to launch the Centre for Paediatric Blast Injury Studies.
Among the research Harry was shown were new designs for prosthetic knee joints for children, a demonstration of the world’s most advanced foot and ankle physiological simulator, and the ‘gait lab’ which uses a virtual environment with motion capture cameras and a treadmill to evaluate the impact of new prosthetic designs on patients.
‘Here’s a good-looking man,’ Harry said with a big grin when he saw Steve Arnold, who was demonstrating the gait lab equipment.
Like Mr Henson, Mr Arnold, who lost both his legs in an IED blast in Afghanistan in 2011, became well known to the Duke after taking part in the 2014 and 2017 Invictus Games as a cyclist.
Rugby player Jac Morgan and Prince William participate in arts activities during his visit to new a mental health hub run by the Jac Lewis Foundation
On Monday, Harry marked the third anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death by privately laying flowers at her grave in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.
But he remained apart from William, with the Prince just seven miles away visiting a Women’s Institute branch in Sunningdale, Berkshire, in his grandmother’s honour.
Harry and Charles last met face-to-face more than a year and a half ago when the Duke made a transatlantic dash to see the monarch on February 9, 2024, after hearing of his cancer diagnosis, but they spent just over 30 minutes together before the King left to recuperate in Sandringham.
The Duke, who stepped down as a senior working royal along with his wife Meghan Markle in 2020, does not carry out official royal duties on behalf of the monarchy and remains estranged from much of the Royal Family.
Harry claimed in his controversial memoir, Spare, that William had physically attacked him in a row over Meghan, and that his brother and Kate encouraged him to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005 and ‘howled’ with laughter when they saw it.
The Duke – who levelled other accusations at William, Kate and the King and Queen Camilla in his Oprah interview, Netflix documentary and his autobiography – told the BBC in May that Charles will not speak to him because of his court battle over his security, and that he does not know ‘how much longer my father has’.
Harry is reported to have not been offered a place at a royal palace and is said to be staying at a hotel at his own expense.
The Duke has previously spoken of his hopes for a ‘reconciliation’ with his family, saying: ‘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.’
He added: ‘But you know, I would love reconciliation with my family,’ and said there was ‘no point in continuing to fight anymore’.
Senior aides to the King and the Duke were pictured together in London this July in what was reported to be an initial step towards opening channels of communication between the two sides.
As for William, he visited a new mental health hub in Cardiff to mark World Suicide Prevention Day.
William attended the Principality Stadium to see a new centre for the Jac Lewis Foundation.
Mr Lewis, a popular footballer from Ammanford, was aged 27 when he died by suicide in February 2019.
The charity set up in his name provides rapid access to mental health support in communities across Wales.
It already operates two hubs, at Ammanford and Swansea Football Clubs, to encourage people to come forward.
William met Janet and Jesse Lewis, the parents of Mr Lewis, for a private conversation by the pitch at the stadium.
They were joined by Rhys Fisher and Shaun Williams, former teammates of Mr Lewis at Ammanford FC.
The Prince then spoke to Wales rugby captain Jac Morgan and head coach Steve Tandy.
William asked Mr Morgan and Mr Tandy about their experiences with mental health support as their careers progressed.
‘I’ve heard from some football guys that when they reach a certain level, mental health becomes harder to talk about,’ he said.
‘Do you feel, as your career has progressed, that it gets harder to talk about it and be open about it?’
Mr Tandy said he aimed to create an environment for players to talk about mental health, regardless of level.
As he left the table, William said to Mr Tandy ‘good luck, we need you’ before telling Mr Morgan: ‘We really need you too.’
