On the newest edition of the Daily Mail’s Palace Confidential, royal commentators Richard Eden and Richard Kay discuss allegations that Prince Harry’s team may be trying to apply “public pressure” on King Charles to attend the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham.
Their remarks followed a Mail column published this week by Amanda Platell, who argued that the monarch should turn down his son’s invitation after news of the approach surfaced in the media.
Eden, the paper’s diary editor, suggested that details of the invitation may have been deliberately placed in the public domain by Prince Harry’s public relations team in an effort to make it harder for the King to decline.
To support his point, Eden referred to Mail on Sunday Editor-at-Large Charlotte Griffiths, who said last year that advisers connected to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had supplied her with positive stories.
On the latest episode of Palace Confidential, Richard Eden and Richard Kay discuss claims that Prince Harry’s camp is seeking to use “public pressure” to encourage King Charles to attend the Invictus Games
Diary editor Richard Eden suggested that Prince Harry’s PR operation may have leaked the invitation in the hope of nudging the monarch towards an appearance
Eden said the attention already surrounding an event still eleven months away should prompt Harry to think about distancing himself from the Games
Eden went on to argue that, whatever the intent behind the publicity, the row developing around an event still eleven months away was itself a sign that Harry should consider stepping back from the Invictus Games entirely.
‘Pressure is always put on the King and Queen,’ Eden said.
‘We saw this in the run-up to Harry and Meghan’s visit to Britain, didn’t we? We had three weeks of speculation, all about the security and whether they would bring the children.
‘It all seems like public pressure and it’s really not the way the royal family has traditionally operated.
‘You would expect an invitation like this to go out behind the scenes, and that it all would be done in private. This kind of public pressure is awful really.
‘It’s something that Amanda Platell certainly feels strongly about. Her view was that the King would be giving in, but the problem is you do not want to see the Invictus Games turned into some sort of personal football.
‘Personally, I would like to see Harry step down from it, to distance himself from Invictus. It would get rid of that controversial element and the Games would prosper as a result.’
Veteran royal correspondent Richard Kay agreed the invitation may have been deliberately fed to the press. He noted how ‘unusual’ it was for an engagement to surface so far in advance, pointing out that royal diaries are set at six-monthly intervals.
He suggested Harry may have hoped to bypass the aides who run his father’s diary, men the Duke views as unsympathetic to him, by appealing directly through the press.
Kay argued: ‘It does feel like Harry is trying to bounce his father into something ahead of time… it’s entirely possible that Harry sees enemies among Charles’s staff, the people who run his diary and look after him.
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Should Harry step away from Invictus Games to protect its legacy?
Harry founded the Games in 2014 as a working royal, with the Royal Foundation, which he then shared with William and Catherine
‘It does feel slightly desperate. I am certain the King will want to go along anyway to support it. One of the things the royal family likes to be identified with more than any other, I would argue, is their support for the armed forces.
‘Invictus is a feather in Harry’s cap, without a doubt. But, if it is being used just to promote himself, that would grate a bit.’
Harry founded the Games in 2014 as a working royal, with the Royal Foundation, which he then shared with William and Catherine, delivering the event alongside the Ministry of Defence.
The next Games run in Birmingham from 10 to 17 July 2027, the first time the event has returned to Britain since its London debut.
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