It promised to be a moment to mend fences.
Prince Harry, his wife Meghan and their two children were set to return to Britain for the first time in years. The planned visit, officially to promote Harry’s charity competition for military veterans, carried the tantalizing possibility of a reunion with King Charles III, and perhaps even of a photo op with his grandchildren. That would be the latest step in the gradual détente between Charles and his second son, after Harry and Meghan renounced their royal titles and moved to the United States in 2020.
But the visit has so far been overshadowed by confusion over the details of Harry’s travel plans. A flurry of briefings from Buckingham Palace and the prince’s team in recent days — including contrary claims about whether the prince would stay at Buckingham Palace or not — has laid bare just how out of sync the two sides seem to be. The drama has left the public and the British news media to gawk and gossip about what is happening behind the scenes.
Harry, 41, who arrived in Britain Monday evening, lives in California with his American-born wife Meghan and their children, Archie and Lilibet. The four have not been to Britain together since Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022. The last time Meghan joined her husband in the country was at Elizabeth’s funeral later that year.
Even before his father’s reign, the rift between Harry and the rest of the royals had grown deep. His legal battles against the tabloid press were a departure from the family’s longstanding tradition to “never complain, never explain.” And Harry and Meghan’s very public airing of their grievances — including in an Oprah interview, a tell-all memoir and a documentary, even as they repeatedly voiced a need for privacy — didn’t help.
But the visit offered a moment for a potential rapprochement. Harry and his family were expected to travel together to London — a journey that could present Charles, 77, and his grandchildren, aged 7 and 5, the opportunity to meet in person after years.
Now it is not clear whether Meghan and the children will come to Britain at all.
Harry’s team raised concerns when the British authorities confirmed last week that the family would not receive publicly funded security. In the days before the trip, the conversation across the news media turned to speculation as tense family negotiations appeared to play out in public.
“‘Weary, Wary’ Palace braced for Prince Harry’s U.K. trip,” read an online headline in the Daily Mail. “Prince Harry ‘Close to Tears’ Over U.K. Visit Security Situation,” read one in Vanity Fair.
Any lingering questions of whether Harry would cancel his visit at the last minute were resolved when he arrived in the country Monday evening, according to his spokesperson. But Meghan and the couple’s two children would not join him on the London leg of the trip, a person close to the family had previously said, and it remained to be seen whether they would take part in other portions of the visit later in the week.
Harry’s trip will begin in the capital and continue later in the week with a stop in Birmingham for the start of the one-year countdown to the 2027 Invictus Games, a competition he founded for wounded soldiers.
The verdict in a long-running lawsuit that Harry and several other celebrities filed against the Daily Mail publisher over accusations of phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering is also expected on Tuesday.
On Monday morning, Harry’s camp and Buckingham Palace offered conflicting accounts about whether he would stay at the palace. The BBC issued two back-to-back news alerts, first saying that Harry had accepted an offer to stay there, citing Harry’s spokesperson, and then, half an hour later, stating that the palace had said Harry would not be staying there after all.
The palace said that Harry had formally declined the offer of a stay at Buckingham Palace on Saturday, before changing his mind that same day. It added that the ruling on Tuesday in the prince’s case against the Daily Mail publisher added a complication, as it put the king, who is the head of state, at risk of appearing compromised.
Harry’s camp has pointed to security concerns as the root of the issue. The prince has been embroiled in a yearslong battle with the British authorities since they ruled that he and Meghan no longer qualified for publicly financed protection in Britain after they stepped down from royal duties.
Harry lost a legal challenge against that decision last year, and he has been waiting on another review from the committee that decides on security for senior royals.
His team cited the lack of an up-to-date security assessment as the reason the original travel plans were upended at the last minute, forcing him to make alternative arrangements. It wasn’t until those arrangements were in place that Harry was able to formally accept an offer of accommodation at Buckingham Palace over the weekend, his spokesperson said on Monday, saying that it was “disappointing” that the offer had been withdrawn. The spokesperson challenged the palace’s rationale that the expected court ruling was a factor, as its timing was known about last week.
This type of poor communication is not in the collective interest of the royal family or its brand, said Arianne Chernock, an associate professor of history at Boston University and an expert in the modern British monarchy.
“They are this family that has to live out their entire lives in the public eye and manage that,” Ms. Chernock said. “And they’re not managing that aspect very well at the moment.”
The British public can seem at times to simultaneously love, hate and love to hate its monarchy. Still, intense public scrutiny seems part of the bargain the royal family have made to ensure the institution continues, Ms. Chernock said.
On the sidelines of Harry’s visit this time, royal watchers speculated that he could make an attempt to further repair the rift with his aging father. Charles was diagnosed with cancer in February 2024, and Harry made an unusually public and emotional plea for reconciliation with his father during a BBC interview months later.
The king is still being treated for cancer, but last December he announced he would be reducing the frequency of his treatments. When Harry met with Charles last autumn, the two shared a private tea for almost an hour, in what appeared to be the first step toward ending their estrangement.
Charles has spent recent years navigating seemingly endless family dramas. Among them is the spectacular and damaging fall from grace of his younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was arrested earlier this year as part of an investigation into his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
At the same time, Charles has won plaudits for his diplomacy. In April, he was praised for delicately navigating a state visit to the United States during a moment of intense international uncertainty.
“He proved on the world stage what a commanding statesman he could be, and he really did seem to be this adult in the room,” Ms. Chernock said. “It’s not that we forgot about all of the family dysfunction, but we kind of put it to the side for a minute.”