Prince Harry's Quiet Gesture Proved He Was Ready To Prioritize a King Charles Reunion

Prince Harry’s meeting with King Charles III appears to have gone as well as it possibly could after over five years of feuding, and the Duke of Sussex might be the one who made it happen.

Harry knew he would be in the U.K. for the annual WellChild Awards, and it had been a significant amount of time since he last saw his father. In February 2024, he rushed to see Charles for a brief 15-minute visit after his dad announced he was battling cancer. This time around, a son made sure his father understood how important a reconciliation was to him.

Vanity Fair described the meeting as “brief but significant” while noting that Harry kept his calendar free “for the entire day” — he was willing to make the reunion happen on his father’s terms.

“Harry had a meeting in London this morning and then made sure he kept his schedule completely clear so that he could see his father at a moment’s notice,” Charlotte Griffiths, editor at large at The Mail on Sunday, told the media outlet. “It was a last-minute diary plan—it wasn’t in Harry’s diary—but perhaps that’s because he was nervous about leaks. He was prepared to drop everything to see his father, and he let that be known to the palace.”

The seeds were planted in May when Harry spoke with the BBC about his eagerness to see King Charles. “There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” the Duke of Sussex said in May about Charles’ health battle. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

By July, the Sussexes’ chief communications officer, Meredith Maines, and their PR representative in the U.K., Liam Maguire, met with the monarch’s communications secretary, Tobyn Andreae, in a curiously photographed meeting in London in July. Even if the moment was leaked to the paparazzi, it was a watershed moment in the ongoing feud.

The Daily Mail shared small details about the Sept. 10 reunion, which lasted 54 minutes at Clarence House over a cup of tea. One of the hot topics seemed to be about trust.

“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,” a palace insider explained to the U.K. publication. “There’s a long way to go before Harry can earn his family’s trust, but he’s given some assurances.”

Still, the father-son duo seemed delighted that a thaw is finally happening in their relationship. The feud has gone on long enough, and with Charles approaching his 77th birthday in November, time is of the essence.

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