Harry f lies in to see father for first time in 9 months
PRINCE Harry is dashing back to Britain alone to be at his father’s side.
The Duke of Sussex has spoken to King Charles about the diagnosis, and ‘will travel to the UK to see him in the coming days’.
Harry, 39, is likely to make the 11-hour flight from his home in California today.
But Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, is expected to stay at their Montecito mansion with their two children, Prince Archie, four, and Princess Lilibet, two.
It is understood that both the King’s sons ‘were notified personally by His Majesty’ about his cancer diagnosis.
This trip is believed to mark the first time Harry will have seen his father in nine months, since the Coronation in May last year.
On that visit, their reunion was ‘ brief’ and they have spent very little time together in almost two years. Harry was back in London last September for the WellChild charity awards but it is believed he did not see his father then.
Relations between the monarch and his youngest child have been seriously strained in recent years.
Charles was said to be feeling ‘furious’ and ‘wearied’ by the claims Harry made in his bombshell memoir Spare, published last year, which included one that his father did not hug him when he was told Princess Diana had died in 1997. It has been suggested that Harry’s relationship with his father was ‘firmly rooted at rock bottom’ with reconciliation a ‘long way off’.
The duke is due to be in Canada next week ahead of his Invictus Games, and was due to take part in a number of engagements in Vancouver along with Meghan. But he has decided to fly to London first to see the King.
When the duke and his new wife quit being frontline royals in January 2020 and left Britain, Harry knew that one day there could be that phonecall from across the Atlantic that every ‘expat’ living thousands of miles away from their family always dreads.
Though father and son have seen little of each other in recent months, in a flicker of hope, they reportedly shared a ‘warm’ phone call when Charles celebrated his 75th birthday in November.
And news of his father’s cancer has put Harry in mind to fly to the UK ‘imminently’, said the Office of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It added: ‘The duke did speak with his father about his diagnosis. He will be travelling to the UK to see His Majesty in the coming days.’
Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond said she hoped Charles’s diagnosis ‘will bring a reconciliation’ with Prince Harry. His estranged brother William is also in close contact with his father but last night neither had made a public statement.
Harry is still suing the Home Office in the High Court, claiming he should be entitled to police bodyguards during visits, which were removed after he quit royal life.
The duke’s representatives have claimed he is put off bringing his family because it is ‘too dangerous’ to bring them ‘ to his home’. He launched the legal action after his security was ‘ compromised due to the absence of police protection’ when he flew to Britain to unveil a statue with Prince William in honour of their mother Princess Diana in July 2021.
Although the High Court case is ongoing, the prince has been provided with royal security on a ‘case-by-case’ basis, including when he attended last year’s Coronation.
Since leaving the UK in 2020, Harry and Meghan have rarely been back. They attended the Commonwealth Day Service in March that year – famously exchanging frosty glances with William and Kate – and then in 2021, Harry came back alone for Prince Philip’s funeral in April.
After seeing William at the statue unveiling in July that year, Harry did not visit again
‘Bring about a reconciliation’
‘Entitled to police bodyguards’
until April 2022. He and Meghan went to see Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle for the first time in two years, and also saw Prince Charles, during a visit to Europe a year before his Invictus Games in Germany.
In June that year, the couple brought Archie and Lilibet to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It was the first time the late Queen, Charles and Camilla met Lilibet. Harry and Meghan touched down again on UK soil in September 2022 which is where they were when the Queen died. Last year, Harry made three trips to the UK.