There is no doubt that Harry and Meghan’s relationship with the royal family remains deeply fractured, and it seems much work is still required on both sides to repair the damage.
With the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year now underway and a series of major events taking place in the coming months, sources believe Harry will come under increasing pressure to iron out his differences with his father Charles and brother William.
“Harry will want to be a part of the celebratory weekend in June, and will almost certainly be required to appear with William at that time,” says royal reporter Katie Nicholl. “It seems to me that both brothers will have to make concessions.
"They didn’t seem to find an opportunity at Prince Phillip’s funeral last April to talk properly, but the Jubilee should give them more of a chance to thrash it out one to one. It’s the same with Prince Charles – Harry is going to have to meet his father and look him straight in the eye if their issues are to be fixed.”
It was Katie who first reported a rift between Harry and William back in late 2018, when it was suggested that the Cambridges may not have been entirely welcoming of Meghan.
“Harry felt William wasn’t rolling out the red carpet for Meghan and told him so,” a source claimed.
Things were not helped when William reportedly voiced concerns over Harry’s blossoming romance with Meghan, apparently advising his younger sibling, “This seems to be moving quickly, are you sure?”
In the three years since, the hostilities have simmered away, with the Sussexes’ controversial split from the family fanning the flames and their TV tell-all with Oprah Winfrey last March seen as pure napalm.
In that interview, which Katie says left William “devastated”, the couple spoke warmly of the Queen, but accused the family of “total neglect” following multiple requests for support.
They also claimed the family failed to condemn the racism Meghan had been subjected to, and that an unnamed royal had expressed concern about “how dark” baby Archie’s skin might be.
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Meghan even told how she had contemplated suicide while a working member of the family, saying, “I just didn’t want to be alive any more. That was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.”
As the revelations kept tumbling out, Harry claimed Charles had cut him off financially, and that his father refused to take his calls, leaving him feeling “really let down”.
However, in recognition of a need to break the deadlock, he added, “I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try to heal that relationship.”
It seems a little healing may have taken place in the months since, as it was reported in the US in December that Harry and Charles are now speaking again, with a source telling website Page Six, “The channels of communication are open.”
However, the source also stressed that Charles had been “hugely hurt” when Harry and Meghan upped and left the UK, and that mutual forgiveness is far from certain.
“I don’t think it’s all roses,” the source said. “It’s not like they are sitting down for a heart-to-heart on the phone once a week.”
Any green shoots of reconciliation may also yet be damaged by Harry’s forthcoming memoir, set for publication later this year. The book promises to be an “accurate and wholly truthful” account of his life, with Harry stating that he would write it “not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become”.
Estimated to have been inked in a hefty £15 million deal, the memoir is due for release in the autumn, and royal author Duncan Larcombe believes Harry’s future royal relationships rest firmly on what it contains.
“We don’t yet know if or how strongly he’ll slate his father and brother in the book. It’s hard to imagine what might be coming, but until that book hits the shelves, the stalemate is highly likely to continue.”
Duncan suggests that the impending memoir is also ringing alarm bells for the Queen.
“What must be concerning her most right now is not so much whether Harry will say Charles was unworthy as a father, but whether he’ll say he’s not worthy of being future king. If those sorts of accusations emerge, it could make things very difficult indeed,” he says.
Still, many commentators believe that Harry will be keen to avoid upsetting his grandmother further. “The Queen is 95, and she’s obviously feeling the strain of losing her husband, as well as her advancing age,” says Katie. “On a personal level, I think Harry will be very concerned for his grandmother’s health.”
Although the uncertainties around the book mean Harry’s relationship with his family remains poised on a knife-edge, sources suggest that William may have been offering him an olive branch when he released his Time To Walk podcast in December.
In the one-off episode on Apple Fitness, William recalled memories of Princess Diana belting out Tina Turner’s hit Simply The Best with him and Harry when they were very young.
“Sitting in the back seat singing away, it felt like a real family moment,” he reflected. “My mother, she’d be driving along singing at the top of her voice and we’d even get the policeman in the car, he’d be occasionally singing along as well.”
The blast of nostalgia is likely to have struck a meaningful chord with Harry, and Duncan adds, “We have to hope that even the most subtle words from William here and there act as little signals to Harry. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Look, come on. Let’s sort this out.’ As the older sibling, William is sensible enough to know that he has to fix things.”
However, royal writer Nigel Cawthorne believes the brothers have been lacking a more concrete intervention from within the family – which ideally would have come from the late Duke of Edinburgh, who died last April.
“Everyone forgets how Prince Philip always managed to keep people together,” he says. “Although he was a very blunt character, he had a subtle diplomacy about him. He certainly would have got Harry and William talking again. As it stands, no one seems to know what the answer is, and there is quite literally an ocean and a continent between the brothers.”
Emphasising the gulf that still exists between the two, Katie points out that Harry did not attend the reception hosted by William at Kensington Palace in October to thank donors for the statue of their mother, Diana. “I think that tells us all we need to know about the true state of affairs between William and Harry,” she claims.
Meanwhile, Katie scotches rumours that the Cambridges will stay with Harry and Meghan if they travel to the US next year for the Earthshot Prize, an environmental contest launched by William in October 2020.
“I think it’s very unlikely,” she says, “given it will be a formal visit, staying at an official residence would be more appropriate.”
She suggests the well-documented frostiness between Meghan and Kate could also be a factor in the brothers’ stand-off.
“I don’t think there’s much of a relationship between the two women these days – and that seems unlikely to change. Previously, I think they got on for the sake of appearances, and because both were trying to keep the peace between the brothers.”
Tellingly, it was reported last summer that after the birth of baby Lilibet, Harry broke his and Meghan’s happy news by text to Kate, rather than to William. A source at the time said it was Harry’s way of “cementing her role as a bridge between him and his brother.”
In spite of the continued tensions, Harry and Meghan have at least remained in regular contact with Princess Eugenie, 31, and her husband Jack Brooksbank, 35.
“They were close from the start, and I think they recognise that Harry has been ostracised by some members of the family,” says Katie. “I think they also see they’re in a position to try and act as peacemakers and defuse the situation, which they tried to do at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.”
Katie adds that Eugenie and her older sister Princess Beatrice, 33, are reluctant to take sides in the royal spat. She says, “They just want it to be like the good old days when all the cousins got on well and had fun together.”
With so much still up in the air, including the issue of Harry being refused the right to pay for police security for his family, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee commemoration from 2-5 June – marking her incredible 70 years as sovereign – does seem to offer the best chance of the feud finally being laid to rest.
Hinting that this is Harry’s wish too, it was claimed in December that he has formally written to his grandmother offering to help with the official arrangements.
While it may not be clear until summer whether the family can mend fences and agree to move on, we can only hope there will be no further drama to overshadow Her Majesty’s dazzling occasion.
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