The build-up to what was billed as a “low-key family meeting” had already generated a full-blown media storm.
Yet since Prince Harry, Meghan and their children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, joined the King and Queen for tea at Highgrove last Friday, there has been no further noise.
As I disclosed in these pages three weeks ago, the terms attached to any reconciliation were clear: no cameras inside the room, no private briefings afterwards and no Instagram updates about jam — or anything else.
Harry, said to have approached the moment with humility, accepted those conditions “in a heartbeat” and, so far, has kept to them.
One friend of the Duke puts it simply: “Harry was never going to disappoint the children. They had been completely invested in this trip.”
“They FaceTime with Charles all the time, so there is already a bond there, but they were thrilled to finally come over. It was their first real opportunity to meet properly.”
Meghan, 44, had not returned to Britain since the Queen’s funeral in September 2022. Archie and Lilibet had also been away from the UK since the Platinum Jubilee in June of that same year.
Queen Camilla’s presence was notable, too. Harry once branded her “dangerous” and a “villain” who left “bodies in the street” during a television interview promoting Spare three years ago, and she was absent from his brief meeting with the King in February 2024. This time, she took her place at the table.
However, this week People magazine – long understood to be the unofficial Sussex mouthpiece – reported that there was actually ‘a lot of sadness’ over how the week unfolded.
Prince Harry is said to have agreed ‘in a heartbeat’ to conditions of the reconciliation amid his visit to the UK last week
A friend of Harry’s said that he was ‘never going to let the kids down’ as ‘they were so invested in the trip’ to see their grandfather, King Charles
Meghan was upset not to be able to be by her husband’s side in public and the fact that the chaos over their security arrangements was hashed out in public left her feeling ‘humiliated’.
But in the end the most important objective was achieved and those close to the Prince say that this significant step towards making peace with his father was actually all that mattered.
He was said to feel ‘buoyed’ and ‘energised’ after the meeting and certainly was in high spirits the following day fooling around with water bombs and goat yoga at Maxstoke Castle, Warwickshire, for the Scotty’s Little Soldiers charity, which supports bereaved military children.
But then I can reveal what was at stake was more than simply a grandfather, who has not been in the best of health, spending time with his grandchildren or even healing the wounds caused by Oprah, Spare, Harry & Meghan on Netflix, the court actions against the Home Office and all the rest of it – the Sussexes are seeking to reverse Megxit.
It seems that a return to the UK is being contemplated in some form and that the couple’s holiday home in Portugal will be used as a staging post back to Britain.
I’m told there are two key reasons for this.
A friend of Prince Harry says: ‘There is definitely a feeling in his camp that he has started to feel a bit unwelcome in America.
‘That has been an increasing and significant shift in sentiment, a feeling that the American dream might not be all that it was cracked up to be.
‘I am told that this is coming from Meghan as well as from him. I hear that Meghan is all for rekindling with and reconnecting with Harry’s English side. She is fully behind it.’
Their dwindling star power and the end of their deals with Spotify and Netflix must surely play a part, as must Meghan’s fading popularity among the supporters, like Ted Sarandos of Netflix, who had previously been her cheerleaders.
The source adds: ‘England is where Harry’s heart has always lain. It is no secret that they went to the States to try and seek their fortune, to try to capitalise on his fame and his royalty to some degree.
‘They have had successes. A $100million Netflix deal is not nothing.
‘But that American dream is cooling and she feels an outcast status as well.
‘She feels like she is trying to push fresh thoughts and projects but it is not easy. So maybe enough water has now passed under the bridge here for some form of a return.’
That’s not a permanent or imminent return, but to hear it being mooted still feels like a bombshell.
Another source, who is less sympathetic to the Sussexes, says they suspect a different kind of cooling may lie behind the manoeuvres.
The source said: ‘I don’t think he’s ever wanted to be estranged from his family. I think when he was madly in love with Meghan he could be blind enough to choose her. Now things are different, and the veil is lifting.’
Harry was said to feel ‘buoyed’ and ‘energised’ and was in high spirits after fooling around with goat yoga at Maxstoke Castle, Warwickshire, for the Scotty’s Little Soldiers charity
Travelling to the UK is going to be made easier by the Sussexes’ purchase of a home in Portugal, perhaps allowing Harry and Meghan to be ‘half in and half out’
Prince Harry still sees himself as a ‘working royal’, but there’s a growing acceptance by the Palace that he and Meghan will have to be busy commercially if they are to fund their expensive life, and expensive private security, in Montecito.
The couple want to carry on making money in the US and elsewhere, but to be treated as ‘working royals’ when in the UK.
The situation now is that Harry earns money from sustainable travel company Travalyst and business coaching firm BetterUp, and is trying to make money from the Archewell production company, while Meghan has her lifestyle company As Ever and gets commission from plugging outfits she has worn on an e-commerce platform. But Harry is also undertaking charity work with his patronages on UK soil and being welcomed by the King in his home.
It is a short hop from that reality to Harry and his family staying in a royal palace when he is next in the UK.
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And if that protocol is established, which Harry apparently feels sure can happen next time, then he looks as ‘half in and half out’ – precisely what the late Queen barred the couple from doing – as you can imagine.
What we do know is that Harry will be back in September for another charity event.
There is an expectation that there will be another meeting with the King, and that he will accept an offer to stay at Buckingham Palace – in good time, this time.
(On this visit he declared that he had accepted the offer to stay at Buckingham Palace but it then transpired that he had left it too late, and the offer had been withdrawn because it didn’t give staff enough notice.)
Next summer, he will be in Birmingham for all ten days of the Invictus Games and the plan is that Meghan will come with him for the whole thing. ‘If she is in the UK then they will want to bring the children too,’ says the friend.
If it is possible, I’m told he would like the children to see what he does and experience some of the atmosphere of the games, which are very close to his heart. Where might they stay? Highgrove would make perfect sense, geographically.
The view from the Palace side, as told to the Sunday Times, was that the King ‘will never shut the door on the possibility of spending time with his family because despite all the trouble, blood is blood’.
Crucially, this travelling to the UK is going to be made easier by the Sussexes’ purchase of a home in Portugal.
As revealed in October 2024 by Richard Eden in this newspaper, the home on a private estate in Alentejo is near to one owned by Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank.
A source says: ‘They had a house built in Portugal for the kids to be close to their royal side in case they want to participate. It’s in a private part, I’m not sure it’s finished yet. Meghan was having Soho House decorate it.’
Harry’s friend says: ‘The house in Portugal is a foot on the right side of the pond and I believe that they spent time there after being in the UK last week and before it as well. It’s striking distance for them to get to London.
‘Harry has no desire to be Eurotrash, he is very proudly British and English and wants to be in England but Portugal could be a kind of a stepping stone for a couple of years.’
The issue which vexed last week’s visit was security. Harry felt that the provision, unchanged for the past five years, wasn’t good enough.
He wanted RAVEC, the Home Office committee, to reassess the security he and his family were given, and he wanted his own private security to receive intelligence from the security services.
From the Palace side, the King has reportedly said he ‘will never shut the door on the possibility of spending time with his family because despite all the trouble, blood is blood’
What remains unresolved is the schism between Harry and his brother Prince William – but Harry’s friends claim the two men ‘do communicate’
According to briefings from Team Sussex, he believed this was going to happen but then, after announcing that he, Meghan and the children were coming to the UK together it became apparent that the security situation was unchanged. Within 24 hours, his PR team said that an ‘upset’ Prince had to reconsider everything in the light of their safety.
A few days on, a briefing document from his security team which said there were a number of credible terrorist threats to his safety somehow found its way to ITN News, to add to the pressure. Still nothing changed.
Meghan didn’t go to the Invictus ‘One Year To Go’ event, nor was she at his side for any public engagements. It felt like an ugly stalemate.
But she and the children still travelled privately to Highgrove, and are thought to have then gone on to Althorp to be hosted by Harry’s uncle, Earl Spencer, and pay a visit to his mother’s grave on the estate.
A friend says that despite appearances, and without going into operational details, security actually was ‘improved’ this time for the visit.
‘He would have liked full security from the start but that was not on the table. But what was on the table was a considerable upping of what was there previously. For that reason the visit was very much better and everything is in a better place. It is still baby steps, but there is reason to hope going forward.’
The Prince apparently believes his security will continue to improve and after the shocking murder of former MP Ann Widdecombe – that seems to be a fair assumption.
There’s no prospect of any further legal action from him against the Home Office – that legal action which had put his father in such a difficult position because he would not and could not intervene and which Harry lost on appeal last May. Indeed, I am told: ‘There are no more fights to come. That era has closed.’
The colossal defeat against Associated Newspapers, the publishers of the Daily Mail, over wild allegations of bugging and hacking will, according to friends, be the very last time the Prince comes to court. ‘That’s it now, he is putting down his fists,’ says the friend.
The loss was ‘absolutely a no-go area for discussion’ during his visit.
The judgment was handed down on Tuesday last week, as Harry prepared to give a speech.
A friend says: ‘He was deeply disappointed but also somewhat embarrassed. He ended up with significant egg on his face.
‘The “CG” revelations [the release of a host of friendly messages in court between him and Mail on Sunday journalist Charlotte Griffiths] was a very embarrassing moment for him. The follow up piece in the Daily Mail last week [by Charlotte detailing their friendship] was mortifying, too.
‘It was a disaster which didn’t need to happen. He is shutting up about it – silence, silence silence now.’
First, though, he released an intemperate statement attacking the High Court Judge, Justice Nicklin, and saying the judgment was an ‘obvious whitewash’.
According to a well-sourced report in the Sunday Times last weekend, it caused astonishment in Palace circles.
‘There were jaws on the floor with a statement attacking not just a High Court judge but the entire judicial system that acts in the King’s name. There is profound upset constitutionally about that attack,’ a source said.
However, if he chooses to move on and be silent, there can surely only be relief for the Palace.
What remains unresolved is the schism between Harry and his brother Prince William, the heir to his spare.
Friends of Harry claim the two men ‘do communicate’ and say: ‘It would have been the most amazing signal to everybody if William had managed to be at Highgrove.’
That seems the faintest of prospects but Harry must be serious indeed about reconciliation to even talk about aiming for this outcome. As one Sussex source observes: ‘Everyone knows their future is not in his dad’s hands – it’s in his brother’s.’
