Can Harry Mend Ties With His Royal Relatives?

Prince Harry has returned to the U.K. this week. The official purpose is to pay his respects to Queen Elizabeth II, who died three years ago Monday, and carry out a series of engagements related to his charitable work. But one question hangs over the visit: can he patch things up with his royal relatives?

Harry certainly wants that. A sympathetic story that ran in the Sunday Times quoted a “friend” of the Duke of Sussex as saying, “He’s not given up hope on bringing his family back to the U.K. He wants to be able to show his children where he grew up. He wants them to know their family here.” This echoed Harry’s own comments in May, when he said, “I miss the U.K.”

But hope is not the same as reality. When Harry published his excoriating autobiography Spare in January 2023, it seemed as much a statement of intent as a book. In its anguished flailing, the memoir managed to burn bridges with his father, brother, and stepmother overnight. Although Harry has had limited contact with King Charles—visiting his father last year following his cancer diagnosis—he has no relationship with Prince William or Queen Camilla.

It is hard to imagine Harry contemplating a full-time return. After he lost a high-profile case (and subsequent appeals) over the decision to strip his government-funded security detail, Harry has been cagey over whether he would ever consider it safe for Meghan, Archie, and Lilibet to step foot on British soil. Certainly, his wife is sufficiently busy with her own endeavors, including the much-ridiculed Netflix series With Love, Meghan, to need to think about returning to a country where she has never been remotely popular. Yet her husband’s high-profile trip this week suggests that he has not given up trying to win over the court of popular opinion just yet.

Monday saw Harry attend the WellChild awards in London, where he remains patron, and pay a visit to his grandmother’s grave at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Tuesday saw him head to Nottingham for a meeting with young people affected by violence, and announce a conspicuously generous personal donation of $1.5 million to Children in Need. His other commitments include a reception for the Invictus Foundation, an event for Scotty’s Little Soldiers, and an award named after his late mother. The itinerary looks a lot like any other working royal’s jam-packed schedule. Given that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ostentatiously dropped nearly all their public commitments when moved to California in 2021, this seems to represent a turnaround.

The groundwork for Harry’s trip was laid in July. Harry’s aides Meredith Maines and Liam Maguire met Charles’s communications secretary Tobyn Andrae at the Royal Over-Seas League in what was described as “a positive step.” It was the first time the three had met, and the major topic of conversation was, inevitably, whether Harry and Charles might be able to meet amicably.

To be sure, this week is unlikely to make a major difference to Harry’s relationship with his family. Some careful choreography has been undertaken so that he does not run into the Prince and Princess of Wales—they attended a Women’s Institute meeting at Sunningdale, Berkshire, only a few miles away from Harry laying his wreath at Windsor—and there is little chance of an encounter with his father. The king is at Balmoral, where he is expected to remain until the end of September, which means Harry would need to be invited to Scotland for a rapprochement.

Although nothing can be ruled out until Harry leaves for California on Friday, a trip to Balmoral would take at least half a day and would throw a tightly packed schedule into disorder. But, more importantly, it is unlikely that the king wishes for such a meeting. Harry had only months earlier unwisely remarked to the BBC that, “I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff.” Offense was taken at both the lack of discretion and implied suggestion—one occasionally whispered in other circles, too—that the royal communications team has not been entirely frank about the severity and prognosis for Charles’s illness.

Meghan, of course, will never live in Britain again full-time. Even as she remarked on With Love, Meghan that she missed Magic FM, she has built a new and apparently happy life for herself and her children in Montecito. The sensational 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, where she accused the royal family of racism and bullying, and the 2022 Netflix special Harry and Meghan made her contempt for the royals and their treatment of her clear. There are no signs that these feelings have changed. Yet Harry appears to be wavering. He has acknowledged that writing Spare was unforgivable in the royals’ eyes, but has also said, “I would love a reconciliation with my family.”

Taken at face value, this week’s trip back to Britain represents the early, cautious steps toward reconciliation—and perhaps the first positive headlines Harry has had in a while. Yet with William implacable and the king distant both geographically and personally, the Duke may be disappointed if he hopes that his longed-for reconciliation is likely to happen this side of hell freezing over.