Prince Harry’s planned summit with King Charles might resolve their estrangement, says Fleet Street Fox. But it’ll never end the draaaaaaaaama
Summits aren’t what they used to be. The tension that simmered in the air when the Soviets sat down with the Americans, the Israelis shook hands with the Palestinians, or Bet Lynch and Peggy Mitchell faced off at the TV Choice Awards.
This time it’s Prince Harry, whose mostly-fictional novel – let’s be honest, it had a higher froth content than a Californian macchiato – had all the other Royals going spare. William has no hair left to pull, Princess Michael would murder for those sort of book sales figures, and if anyone should be writing a book about life behind the velvet curtain it’s Naughty Uncle Andrew.
Now after 18 months of estrangement, mostly to do with the fact Harry was suing his dad’s government but not entirely unconnected with referring to his stepmother as “the villain”, we’re told he’s due to sit down with King Charles. Who knows where, or when, or whether an unwise podcast might yet derail things. But a summit is on the cards.
Wife Meghan won’t be joining, busy as she is scattering flower petals on food and tra-la-la-ing about collecting eggs without every once mentioning who cleans out the chicken coop. Nor will Archie and Lilibet, the latter of whom has never met her Royal grandpa in the flesh, and the former who probably can’t remember him. According to Harry, they’re so much safer in a country where children are gunned down in their dozens. Every. Single. Day.
Of course this is less a family reunion than a high-stakes poker game with extra scones. In the gloomy corner, the cancer-stricken king trying to get a lifetime of reigning into however many years he has left. In the even-gloomier corner, the prince who just wasted a chunk of his wife’s Netflix cash on a futile court battle for taxpayer-funded, round-the-clock police bodyguards.
And what’ll happen is entirely predictable. A parent who will always love their child, no matter what. A wish to keep talking, coupled with a total lack of trust on all sides that whatever is said won’t somehow be weaponised to shore up a creaky monarchy or upsell a minor Californian celebrity. And do you know, it doesn’t matter.
Because as Harry once said so tastelessly, who knows how long his father has left? Even cancer-free, Charles is still 76. Perhaps he has the longevity of his parents, but at best there’s 20 years. A long time, of course, but whenever he goes Harry will still have half his own lifespan left and will be spending it in permanent exile from a very chilly Willy.
For the older prince never forgives. It is a remarkable feature of William’s backstory that whenever someone was less than perfectly loyal and close-lipped about him, they were mercilessly and permanently shunned. And Harry did more damage of any of them – he’s trashed Kate, trashed the monarchy, and even accused his brother of starting a physical scrap over the “rolling catastrophe” of Harry’s marriage. Harry’s therapist might call it consciously uncoupling, but to William it was the detonation of a nuclear bomb, and twice as toxic.
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Harry wants a summit with Pa to show he’s all touchy-feely, misunderstood, and still has enough Royal connection to be relevant for his business partners. Charles wants one because he’s a dad, but also to stymie any suggestion he’s head of a starchy, protocol-addled institution that breaks and dehumanises its inmates. Both need the Royal soap opera to stay on-air.
But it’s of no use to William, who will be king soon enough to make any reconciliation with Pa nothing more than a brief salve for whoever still has a conscience about it. He’ll never forgive the suggestion that his wife made Meghan cry, or wondered about the skin colour of their first child, nor that his younger brother should have a role of any kind. And it’s William who will control the purse strings, William who’ll dictate protocol, William who’ll be the person Harry has to swear fealty to.
Siblings never forgive as easily as parents; the love is just as unconditional, but there’s always a heap of childhood bitterness, and when the prodigal son wants to return home, the loyal one rightly resents the fact they had to pick up all the broken china hearts last time.
If I had to guess, the so-called summit will be trailed for months and will involve Harry popping in and out of a palace quicker than a Deliveroo driver, then getting on a private plane clutching his emotional support chicken to rush home and comfort a wife triggered by all the headlines she wasn’t part of.
One of the reasons the Royals are still so attractive to the world, despite being 1,000 years past their sell-by date, is they’re just as dysfunctional as the rest of us, perhaps more so. Perhaps a public acknowledgement that grudges are too heavy to carry for long will encourage some of us peasants to likewise make peace with our own families.
Maybe Harry is genuinely remorseful. Maybe a parent’s love is enough to smooth things over, for a while. But he’d have to be thicker than Meghan’s naff jam to imagine it’ll make a damned bit of difference to the prince who has already decided he won’t be inviting the Californian cousins to the next Coronation.