It’s now been eight months since Prince Harry last met, albeit briefly, with his father King Charles in the UK; an afternoon tea that was mooted, in true British style, as the impetus for a grand royal reconciliation.
And with the countdown now on for Harry’s much-anticipated return to the UK this July to mark one year to go until the Invictus Games in Birmingham next summer, it has been widely reported that the estranged youngest son of the monarch had hoped to continue where he and Charles, 77, had left off.
Yet recent reports have now hinted that the mood behind palace walls has shifted, and we’re told how Harry, 41, has been plunged into a ‘nightmare’ situation as he begins to fear he’s ‘getting the run around’ from his father.
An insider says, ‘After all these months of discussing this visit as though it was guaranteed to be happening, the conversation has now drastically shifted and Harry is now getting the run around.
‘His [the King’s] aides are refusing to nail down a date or send his schedule, they keep making excuses and Charles is backing them up so there isn’t much for Harry to say. It’s a total nightmare for Harry, he’s devoted so much time and energy to building a bridge with his father and now it’s all looking like it might have been for naught.’
Meghan and Harry continue to face accusations that they are using their royal titles for their commercial endevours ©Getty Images
So what has changed? According to royal observer Paula Froelich, Charles and his team began to become suspicious of Harry’s intentions when a ‘friend’ of his spoke to a British newspaper in March.
At the time, the source told the UK publication, ‘He’d like an invite to Sandringham. Would he go? It would depend on who was there. If the King was to say, ‘Come up and spend some time with the family’, he’d love that.’
However, the so-called friend then further added that Harry would not ‘bring the kids back’ without an ‘enhanced security package around them’ – raising a topic that Harry himself had previously revealed had already divided him and his father.
Then, the following month, Harry and Meghan’s use of their royal titles to carry out their own commercial ventures was widely seen as a breach of an agreement the Sussexes had made with the Royal Family during the 2020 Sandringham Summit that they would not monetise their Duke and Duchess titles.
Not only did Meghan, 44, use her Duchess title to attend a paid gig at a women’s wellness retreat in Melbourne, but was later slammed after photographs of her visiting sick children in hospital were posted on the new AI fashion website she had invested in.
The King’s visit to see Donald Trump in April was a ‘red flag’ for Harry ©Getty Images
Meanwhile, we’re told that while Harry may have arguably been flying his own red flags, the source says that he, too, has noticed the growing setbacks and ‘excuses’ he has received from his father when it comes to confirming a date for his UK return.
‘Harry is still clinging to hope that things will get back on track but he is admitting that there have been a lot of red flags,’ the insider says.
‘The fact that they didn’t get an acknowledgement or even a call from the palace on their wedding anniversary and, even more telling, the fact that Charles was in America [to visit Donald Trump in April] and wasn’t able to fit in a visit.
‘He did nothing but make excuses and Harry bought them all, which he’s now questioning. Harry keeps being told to sit tight and wait for confirmation, but every week that passes without anything being nailed down makes him more anxious. He hates not knowing. The ambiguity is driving him up the wall.’
Estranged Harry had been ‘hanging so many hopes’ on a reconciliation ©Getty Images
The continued distance between Harry and his father is no doubt heartbreaking for them both. But amidst growing reports that Charles is keen to spend time with his grandchildren – Prince Archie, who turned seven last month and Princess Lilibet, who celebrated her fifth birthday last week – the source says the Sussexes had been ‘hanging their hopes’ that a family visit could help to heal the on-going rift.
We’re told, ‘He will be in the U.K. this summer no matter what, so it’s just a question of whether Meghan and the kids come. And if there’s nothing confirmed in the diary he says he can’t see a world in which he’d take her.
‘It’s pretty devastating since they’ve been hanging so many hopes on Charles softening towards them once he spends some quality time with their adorable children and realises what he’s missing out on.’
While Charles did not visit the Sussexes during his US trip with Queen Camilla in April, it was reported at the time how Charles had his ‘hopes’ set on a reunion with Archie and Lili.
A source close to the Royal Family confirmed to royal author Richard Eden, ‘The King hopes to see more of his son and spend time with his grandchildren. This will happen in Britain before long.’
Now the source says this reported commitment from Charles to host Harry and Meghan, alongside their children, had been seen by the King’s youngest son as ‘a sort of consolation prize’ for not having visited their own family home in Montecito.
‘It feels especially shocking for Harry to be getting the runaround like this after Charles said so many times that it would happen,’ the insider says.
‘He put off seeing them in America, which was terrible enough, but this was on the table as a sort of consolation prize and Harry was counting on that. To be fair, Charles was incredibly busy in America, he was hardly in one place more than five minutes so there really wasn’t time for any sort of reunion.
‘But of course it’s pretty telling that he can pack it with work, yet he can’t block out time for his son and grandkids.’
During his legal battle against the Home Office in 2023, Harry shared his wish for his children to feel at ‘home’ in the UK, saying through a statement, ‘The UK is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the US.’
And we were previously told how Charles shares Harry’s fears that Archie and Lilibet – who are direct descendants of the monarch and sixth and seventh in the line of succession to the throne – are all but strangers to their royal ‘roots’.
A source said in December, ‘What troubles him most is the feeling that Harry’s children are being cut off from their heritage. Charles is a traditionalist and he finds it deeply wrong that they don’t know their family history, their roots, or the country that’s part of who they are.’
Harry believes other members of the Royal Family see him as a ‘traitor’ ©Getty Images
But after his brief 54-minute afternoon tea with his father in in September, Harry found himself at the centre of yet another storm after he accused palace officials of attempting to ‘sabotage’ his dreams of reconciliation with his dad.
Whispers of what exactly happened at the royal tete-a-tete were widely reported, with inside sources revealing that Harry had gifted Charles with a picture of Meghan and had been ‘surprised’ to feel ‘more like a visitor’ than a family member.
And while a spokesperson for Harry rubbished further claims that he had been trying to drive a wedge between Charles and his older brother Prince William, when it came to the photograph and the ‘tone’ of the occasion, they released a damning statement, accusing palace ‘sources’ of being ‘intent on sabotaging any reconciliation between father and son’.
Now, we’re told that Harry is again placing the blame with the so-called ‘men in grey’, who, alongside Prince William and Queen Camilla, he accuses of ‘actively working to undermine him’ and prevent him meeting with his father.
The insider says, ‘The King does have an exceptionally busy summer ahead and the line from his advisors has been that he’s not yet in a position to make a plan, which Harry isn’t buying for a second. He thinks that’s absolute nonsense and just people messing with him and trying to put a spanner in the works as far as any reconciliation between him and his father is concerned.
‘Harry is convinced there are people advising his father that have an agenda against him because they see him as this horrible traitor. He knows his brother and stepmother feel that way but he believes there are plenty of others in that same camp that are actively working to undermine him. To him the sudden collapse of this plan is proof.’
WATCH: Ever wondered what the Love Island beach hut looks like IRL? We’ve done some investigative journalism for you x