Last weekend, the Times claimed that Prince Harry was “willing to return” to the UK to take on a temporary royal role while his father is being treated for cancer. Spoiler: the Times did not get this story from sources close to Harry, it came from either Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace, and my money is still on BP. Many of us believe that King Charles was trying to light a fire under the Baldy’s ass, like it was a blatant threat: get out there and do something or I’ll ask Harry to come back. Prince William has been throwing a tantrum about it all week. Now the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden – who is vying to become the New Dan Wootton – has shared his lukewarm exclusive on this salty storyline.
King Charles is keen to mend fences with his younger son but there can be no return to royal duties for Prince Harry unless he quits money-making enterprises and issues an apology. That’s the view of Richard Eden – who says that elder brother Prince William is unbending on the issue. Writing in the latest edition of his Palace Confidential newsletter, Eden concludes that recent events provide a foretaste of life for Harry when William is on the throne. The younger brother, he says, is likely to be isolated.
‘What I hear is that, while the King is keen to mend fences with his younger son, Prince William is adamant that the Royal Household should stick with the Sandringham summit agreement with Queen Elizabeth of 2020,’ writes Eden. As the late Queen put it, in that agreement Harry and Meghan ‘made clear that they do not want to be reliant on public funds in their new lives’.
Eden believes recent suggestions saying the Duke of Sussex was willing to return to a temporary royal role in support of his father were well-sourced. In an attempt to help to heal the rift in the Royal Family, King Charles and Prince Harry were said by The Times to have had several ‘warm exchanges’ since Charles received his cancer diagnosis. The duke was understood to have told friends that he would step into a royal role while his father was unwell.
Yet the response from sources in Britain, rather than California, was ‘swift and brutal’, writes Eden.
‘The King, my colleague Rebecca English was told, was firmly of the opinion that there was no way back for Harry as a working royal “in any way, shape or form”. Now, Harry wants to return to royal duties, in some form, I am told. But this week he’s been given a taste of what to expect when his brother is King – isolation. There is no way that the Sussexes will ever be allowed to rejoin ‘The Firm’ when William’s on the throne, unless they give up money-making and apologise for their behaviour over the past few years. I won’t hold my breath.’
Once again, such projection – Harry is not isolated, he has his wife, children, friends, colleagues and several jobs which keep him busy, engaged and on the move. He also still has a relationship with his father and he’s close to his cousins and the Spencer side of his fam. Meanwhile, William is surrounded by dim-witted sycophants, he wouldn’t even bother to see his father after Charles’s cancer diagnosis and no one has seen William’s wife in two months. “Isolation,” the bald one cried. Anyway, it’s fascinating that even a boot-licker like Eden fully admits that Charles and Harry’s relationship has improved. Which is probably why you-know-who has been rage-briefing everyone in shouting distance for three f–king weeks.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.