Before seeing Queen, Harry and Meghan had a sombre meeting with Charles that will decide their status as Royals. It lasted ‘just 15 minutes’
ONLY the weather was the same. A bright sun shone from a blue sky just as it did on that May morning almost four years ago when Prince Harry took his new bride home through cheering crowds to Windsor Castle in a horsedrawn carriage.
Everything else had changed. This time, husband and wife retreated behind the blacked-out windows of a people carrier for the short drive from their former home, Frogmore Cottage, to the castle.
And instead of thousands of wellwishers lining the route there was a rather modest turn out of spectators gathering for the spectacle of the Maundy Thursday service at St George’s chapel.
Ahead of Harry and Meghan were two meetings of sombre gravity that will almost certainly have determined their long-term status within the Royal Family – as future participants or as mere observers.
Harry’s offer of breaking his long flight from Los Angeles to the Hague in Holland, where he is attending his Invictus Games, with a stop-over in Windsor to see his grandmother a year after their last encounter at Prince Philip’s funeral, was warmly welcomed by the Queen.
The timing was significant. To the Queen, Easter’s promise of spiritual renewal and forgiveness – such an important time of year to her – represented an opportunity.
But there were strings attached: ahead of meeting the Queen, Harry would first have to see his father.
Just as in the crisis over Megxit when she insisted that the Sussexes’ departure from Britain was overseen by Prince Charles, the Queen was again demonstrating that she had her own red lines.
And since the Prince of Wales was also at Windsor – along with the Duchess of Cornwall – where he was standing in for his mother to distribute Maundy money to community figures, there were no logistical obstacles.
YESTERDAY all sides agreed that if there is to be a reconciliation between Harry and his family then these meetings were a crucial first step. It is understood that Harry and Meghan met Charles around at around 10am for 15 minutes. According to a source Camilla joined the meeting midway through. Charles and Camilla then left the castle together for St George’s.
In many ways this was the most important of the two meetings. Harry and his father have been barely speaking in recent months.
He heavily criticised Charles in last year’s toxic interview with Oprah Winfrey for failing to adequately support him and also accused him, wrongly, of cutting him off financially.
And Charles is said to be deeply concerned about Harry’s memoirs, due to be published later this year, which he fears will be used to settle more scores.
Against such a background he was understandably anxious about yesterday’s meeting with Harry.
As one long-standing friend of his told me: ‘He loves his son and he has been broken-hearted by everything that has taken place, although he fears history repeating itself with Harry just as it did with Princess Diana. But he also wants to keep the door open and keep talking, something he still regrets not doing with Diana.’
After saying their farewells to Charles, Harry and Meghan moved on to the Queen’s private apartment where I am told the atmosphere was a lot less edgy.
Even though she has been both mystified and at times upset by many of Harry’s words and deeds in the past two years, her grandson is something of a favourite.
‘He has always had the ability to make her laugh and she loves that about him,’ says a companion.
‘To this day whenever she hears that Harry is on the phone her eyes light up.’
It can be no coincidence therefore, that for once Harry and Meghan’s social media cheerleaders have been unusually quiet about the content of both meetings. ‘Not leaking details is being seen as a way of getting some trust back into the relationship,’ I am told.
THIS was no last minute visit and had to take account of the Queen’s recent bout of ill-health, which included contracting Covid in February. It was also the first time Meghan had seen any of her royal in-laws since March 2020.
Intriguingly it involved a fifth member of the Royal Family who was not present at either meeting – Princess Eugenie. The princess who is temporarily living in her cousin’s Frogmore Cottage with her husband Jack Brooksbank and their son August, is thought to have played an ‘encouraging’ role behind the scenes.
She is Harry’s closest royal ally – she and Jack visited the Sussexes in California earlier this year – and is also close to the Queen. But it was the absence of one other royal figure that was most keenly felt – Prince William, who is on a family skiing holiday.
The Duke of Cambridge has been his brother’s biggest critic, dismayed by allegations of bullying of royal staff and of claims of racism, and as a result a rift has opened up between them.
He has not seen Harry since the two jointly unveiled a statue of their mother outside Kensington Palace last July and contact since has been sporadic.
‘He doesn’t like talking about Harry,’ says a friend of the duke. ‘He says it gives him a headache.’
The breach between them is an open wound that has still not remotely begun to heal.
William is especially uneasy about Harry’s book deal amid fears that both he and his wife Kate will be in the cross-hairs. ‘He understands the need for reconciliation and all that, but at the same time he worries about his father being “ambushed” by Harry.’
It is understood Harry and Meghan arrived in Britain on Wednesday after an overnight British Airways flight from Los Angeles. It is thought they did not bring their children, Archie, two, and ten month old Lilibet – who the Queen has still not met.
They were driven to Frogmore where they spent Wednesday night ahead of yesterday’s meetings.
AFTER his failure to attend his grandfather’s memorial service last month – amid an ongoing legal row with the Home Office over the removal of his police protection – Harry’s offer to visit the Queen was being viewed as an olive branch.
Though it remains to be seen if it was a genuine wish for a rapprochement. ‘This has been a deeply troubling time for the Royal Family and the Queen would dearly love to put the recent bitterness behind her.
‘Would she love to see Harry on the Buckingham Palace balcony during the Platinum Jubilee events? Of course, but she knows there has to be reassurance on all sides for that to happen.’
Not since the days of Diana’s collaboration first with writer Andrew Morton and then with Panorama have the royals been quite so destabilised. But there is a pragmatism inside the Palace where aides recognise that Harry had to swallow some pride in making this week’s visit.
Courtiers will be hoping that, having already resolved one highly damaging family issue involving Prince Andrew, they can similarly settle their differences with Harry and Meghan.
Only time will tell if they are successful and confidence is not particularly high.