Grief ‘could help bring family back together’
Shared grief over the Duke of Edinburgh’s death could be an ideal opportunity to mend any rifts within the royal family after Prince Harry’s move to the US, a former prime minister has said.
Sir John Major made his comments yesterday before reports that the Duke of Sussex had arrived in Britain from California to attend his grandfather’s funeral.
The extent of the tensions between Harry and other members of the royal family was made clear during a television interview he gave with his wife, Meghan, to Oprah Winfrey last month.
Major told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 he agreed with Cardinal Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, who said that many families ‘‘gather and get over tension and broken relationships’’ at funerals.
‘‘I’m sure he is right,’’ Major, 78, said. ‘‘The friction we are told has arisen is a friction better ended as speedily as possible. A shared emotion, a shared grief, at the present time because of the death of their grandfather, I think is an ideal opportunity. I hope very much that it is possible to mend any rifts that may exist.’’
Major said that the Queen had ‘‘earned the right to have a period of privacy in which to grieve with her family’’ after the loss of her husband of 73 years. The former Conservative leader was in office from 1990 to 1997, which covered the annus horribilis of 1992.
Harry was believed to have flown back to Britain yesterday. An onlooker said that the prince was on a British Airways flight from Los Angeles that landed at Heathrow. ‘‘I saw him get into an escorted car,’’ the person told The Sun. The duchess of Sussex, who is heavily pregnant, has stayed in Los Angeles with the couple’s son on the advice of her doctor.
It is Harry’s first time in the UK since the couple stepped back from royal duties. He is expected to join his father, the Prince of Wales, and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, at the funeral of Saturday when they are to walk behind the coffin as it heads to St George’s Chapel, at Windsor Castle.