The King is reported to be missing his son Prince Harry deeply and growing weary of Prince William’s stubbornness in the family feud, according to a royal biographer.
Tina Brown, a well-regarded author and friend of the late Princess Diana, stated that King Charles is eager to reconnect with Harry, but only if Harry remains discreet.
Brown described the 54-minute conversation between the King and Harry at Clarence House during Harry’s UK visit on September 10 as fulfilling a deep paternal desire.
However, Brown cautioned that William is still furious with his brother’s visit to the UK and feels that Harry’s actions were attempts to overshadow him by scheduling events simultaneously.
Simultaneously, Palace insiders conveyed to the Daily Mail that Prince Harry will not be permitted to return to a part-time royal role, dismissing notions that he could lighten Prince William’s responsibilities as inaccurate.
The Palace’s strong reaction came after reports from sources seemingly close to Harry suggested his meeting with King Charles might indicate a warming relationship and a potential welcome back into royal life.
Former Vanity Fair editor Ms Brown has said that the positive reception to Harry’s charity events would have angered the Prince of Wales after his sibling ‘trashed his family’.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the One805LIVE! 2025 concert in California on Saturday as debate rages in the UK about the implications of Harry’s reconciliation with his father
Harry, Charles and William at the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London in February 2014
She also picked up on how Harry said during an interview while visiting Ukraine after the UK that his ‘conscience is clear’ after speaking out against other royals.
The author said this ‘suggests to his haters the futility of expecting Harry Hotspur to play the old royal game’, when the King wants Harry to stop speaking out.
Ms Brown, author of The Palace Papers, wrote in the New York Times: ‘It’s no secret that Charles desperately misses his prodigal son who, in earlier days, was always the fun, ebullient scamp compared with the haughtier, more Hanoverian William.
‘It’s understandably enraging for William to see his treacherous younger brother, who spent the last five years trashing his family on TV and promoting a back-stabbing, best-selling book, bounding around the British charity circuit, doing a well-received side-dash to Ukraine and upstaging the photo ops of William’s own diligent engagements.
‘But Charles, I am told, is tiring of his elder son’s self-righteous intractability in the family feud, and wants to re-embrace Harry – if only he can keep his mouth shut.’
It came as Palace sources claimed that Prince Harry will never be allowed to return as a ‘half-in, half out’ working royal – and claims he could ‘take some of the load off’ his brother, Prince William, are ‘wide of the mark’.
Insiders reacted angrily on Sunday night to briefings by sources apparently close to the Duke of Sussex that his recent meeting with King Charles, at the end of what his team believes was a hugely successful charity trip to the UK, signalled a ‘thawing of their relationship’ and the ‘acceptance’ of his family ‘back into the royal fold’.
The same sources also suggest it could even be the start of a new working model for the ex-royal.
He now apparently plans to return to Britain ‘four or five times year’ for ‘public events’, both for his own charitable initiatives and, potentially, in support of the Royal Family.
Referring to the briefings, however, a royal insider told the Daily Mail: ‘Whoever is behind them seems to have mistaken a brief tea and a slice of cake for the Treaty of Versailles.’
It is also clear there are fears that some in ‘Team Harry’ may be using this month’s ‘baby step’ forwards in the broken relationship between father and son to, perhaps sinisterly, drive a wedge between the King and his elder son and heir.
They have repeated unsubstantiated claims that ‘tensions’ are brewing between the King and Prince William over the apparent lightness of his workload.
One royal insider said: ‘These syrupy briefings from supposed Sussex sources are precisely why The King and Royal family are so hesitant to embark on any road to rapprochement. If the intention is to encourage a rebuilding of trust and relationships, they serve the precise opposite effect’.
Tina Brown’s comments come a week after another provocative intervention in the family feud that has raised fresh questions over William’s work ethic, a claim also denied by a Palace source.
Royal author and ex-Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, who was friends with the late Princess Diana
In a post on Substack, she claimed that the cancer-stricken King was frustrated by William’s ‘underwhelming’ approach to royal duties.
Ms Brown contrasted Harry’s ‘buoyant’ series of photo opportunities in the UK and Ukraine with William and his wife Kate’s appearances at a handful of ‘groaningly square’ charity functions.
The Duke spent four days in the UK on a solo trip from September 8, before making a surprise trip to Ukraine.
Speaking to The Guardian during the visit to Kyiv, Harry described his autobiography Spare, published in 2023, as a ‘series of corrections to stories already out there’.
The 41-year-old said he would like to spend more time in Britain and that the past week had ‘definitely brought that closer’.
Harry added: ‘I know that (speaking out) annoys some people and it goes against the narrative. The book? It was a series of corrections to stories already out there. One point of view had been put out and it needed to be corrected.
‘I don’t believe that I aired my dirty laundry in public. It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear.’
Harry joined Charles for a private tea on the afternoon of September 10, spending 54 minutes with his father at Clarence House after not seeing him face to face for 19 months.
Before that meeting, Harry had last seen the King in February last year when he made a transatlantic dash from his Californian home to the UK to speak with Charles following his cancer diagnosis.
Harry, who stepped down from the working monarchy in 2020, has levelled a barrage of accusations at the King, his stepmother Queen Camilla, William and Kate in his Oprah interview, Netflix documentary, interviews and his autobiography Spare since moving to the US.
Harry previously claimed Charles was jealous of Meghan and Kate, did not hug him when he told him his mother Diana had died, and said he believed the King was ‘never made’ for single parenthood, but ‘to be fair, he tried’.
Charles, according to Harry, pleaded with his sons during a tense meeting in 2021 after Prince Philip’s funeral: ‘Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.’
Senior aides to the King and Harry were pictured together by The Mail On Sunday in London this July in what was reported to be an initial step towards opening channels of communication between the two households.
