A friend of King Charles III has told the Daily Beast that Harry was “informally encouraged by King Charles to return to the U.K. because the king believes that the royal family is stronger united.”
The friend added, “The king’s faith has played a part, but ultimately this is a strategic decision for the good of the family. The stand-off needed to be resolved.”
The friend added that nothing “concrete” would have been possible without a complete resolution of all Harry’s court cases and that they considered it “vanishingly unlikely” Harry would appeal his thumping civil defeat by the publisher of The Daily Mail that landed him and his seven co-plaintiffs with a potential £35 million ($50 million) legal bill.
Asked if William approved of his father’s tacit consent to Harry coming home, the friend said that the king had made it clear William and the future of the monarchy was the king’s “top priority.” The friend wouldn’t be drawn into a discussion of any “differences of opinion on specifics” between the monarch and his heir, saying only that William and Catherine were a credit to the monarchy and that Charles was “immensely proud” of them.
The comments represent the first time a close ally of the king has offered any details about the king’s strategic thinking.
The thoughts were relayed to me in response to a recent series of articles and videos The Royalist has published calling on the king to provide clarity vis-à-vis Harry’s situation.
The Royalist has argued that the king should have returned to London from his grouse-shooting holiday in Scotland to signal that he understood how gravely offended his people are by Harry’s return without an apology, and that some significant censure (such as removing the family’s HRH titles, which are already in abeyance) would reassure the public that Harry is not being positioned for an advantageous new settlement.
One former courter told me they were unsurprised that the king’s response was to “lose himself among the Highland heather and hills” and “bury his head in Duchy lemon posset.”
But this is not the reaction of a unifying monarch. The late queen understood, when faced with an analogous crisis, that Andrew had to go. She was the head of a family and the head of an institution, but when the two clashed, the institution always came first. Firing Andrew, her favorite son, took a huge emotional toll on her.
There are terrible parallels with the frozen royals sequestering themselves in Balmoral after Diana’s death in 1997, but this time there is no noble cause of children to protect.
The old friend noted the extraordinary engagement from my audience on the articles and videos, so it is good to know that somebody, somewhere is listening.
However, the friend’s breezy assurance that the king is keeping William’s interests top of mind cut little ice with a friend of William’s.
They declined to discuss the matter at all, continuing the Waleses’ policy of ignoring Harry and Meghan’s provocations. This policy of total disengagement, which was instituted after Catherine’s cancer diagnosis, has been enormously successful for the Waleses, who have seen their popularity rankings climb into the high 70s over the past year. It may be harder to ignore Harry and Meghan now that they are back on UK soil.
The couple are believed to be staying with hedge fund billionaire Ian Wace and his wife, the former model Saffron Aldridge. Locals I’ve spoken with about the new arrivals are, by turns, amused, entertained, appalled and titillated by their new neighbors.
One source said, “A lot of them simply can’t wait to see if Meghan really is as ghastly as everyone makes out.”
Another source, a friend of other royals (but not the king), told The Royalist, “If the king didn’t want Harry and Meghan here, they wouldn’t be here. Words would have been dropped in the right ears to ostracize them and the newspapers would have been briefed that the king was not on board with it. That is very definitely not happening. The king clearly wants them to be happy and settle here, and he and his staff are doing nothing to obstruct that. It’s a huge opportunity for Harry and Meghan to start again.”
Another source said that Theo Rycroft, the king’s deputy private secretary, was helping to mastermind the king’s response to Harry’s return.
Rycroft is in the running to take over from arch-hawk Sir Clive Alderton, who announced his resignation three weeks before Harry and Meghan’s return. At the Royal Ascot race meeting some hawks, I am told, openly described Harry’s attempts to get security for his family’s return to the U.K. in July as “emotional blackmail.”
The hawks previously claimed that the king was “bounced” into meeting Harry when they had tea at Clarence House last September.
Let us be clear about this: the king was not “bounced” into that meeting. He invited his son to Clarence House and served him his favorite chocolate biscuit cake.
You may recall that the hawks didn’t much like that meeting, briefing newspapers that Harry had mistaken a cup of tea for the “Treaty of Versailles.”
Well, the hawks are well and truly finished now. The next challenge for the king is to win over the British people, by whose consent he reigns, to his more forgiving way of thinking.
Want more royal gossip, scoops and scandal? Follow all Tom Sykes’ reporting at The Royalist on Substack or listen to The Royalist podcast on YouTube.
