On February 6th, Prince Harry arrived at Heathrow with his personal security, and a police escorted him to Clarence House. He met with his father alone for about 30-40 minutes, then King Charles left for Sandringham and Harry stayed in a hotel for one night before flying back to America. Since the 5th/6th, Prince William has been in a frenzy, shrieking to anyone and everyone that he refuses to see his brother, he loathes his brother, his brother needs to apologize to him, Harry will never be allowed to come back and Harry should never have visited their father. It was especially weird because, before that visit, William had practically been in hiding for weeks and William didn’t even see his father in person until, like, two weeks after Charles was diagnosed with cancer. Well, I pity William’s new private secretary, because now that guy is trying to do some cleanup on William’s already-catastrophic 2024. Some highlights from Tom Sykes’s latest piece in the Daily Beast:
William is totally relaxed about Harry, you guys: Sources say William does not object to his father’s apparent wish to reconcile with Prince Harry on a personal basis, and was “entirely relaxed” about the king’s meeting with Harry in London earlier this month after the king was diagnosed with cancer.
William finally saw Charles in person: Charles and William did meet at Sandringham last weekend, The Daily Beast understands, two days before William released a bombshell statement calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
William swears he has a good relationship with his father: A friend of William’s told The Daily Beast: “I think William is particularly grateful things are so good now because it’s fair to say the relationship between William and his father when he was younger was strained. William and Harry had an extraordinary upbringing, with the trauma of their mother’s death overshadowing everything. Charles was this old-fashioned, quite distant figure who seemed much more interested in work and duty and what the press thought of him than parenting. That forged an incredibly strong bond between Harry and William, which was why it was such a shock when Harry turned on him so publicly. The Harry debacle definitely drew them together, but since Charles became king and he became Prince of Wales, the relationship has moved to a different level. Charles values William’s support. They are closer now than they have ever been.”
How William feels about Charles’s desire to reconcile with Harry: “William is a strong-minded character, but the reason everything is working is because he respects his father’s rank. He wouldn’t dream of telling the king how to run his personal life. He doesn’t want to see Harry because he thinks it would all just be put in the next book or TV interview, which is what happened this time, but he is entirely relaxed about his father meeting with his son. They both agree there is no prospect of Harry returning to represent the royal family, despite what Harry may want—and that is the important thing as far as William is concerned.”
Whether William got permission from Charles for the Gaza comments: “William has made no secret of his desire to have greater impact, and in many ways the ground has been prepared by Charles’ activist tendencies when he was Prince of Wales. William would have needed the government’s sign off to make these comments, not his father’s, who would not be in the business of vetoing what William can and cannot say anyway. Ultimately, this message was endorsed by the government so it would have been in Charles’ red boxes. He would have known it was coming, and we can only presume he didn’t object.”
What a friend of the king says now: “It’s absolutely not fair to say that Charles was a cold or disinterested dad. He’s a very warm man and worried endlessly about the impact of everything that happened in their childhoods on the boys, but the diagnosis has come as a huge shock, and instinctively something like this makes you appreciate and draw together with your family.”
“William would have needed the government’s sign off to make these comments, not his father’s, who would not be in the business of vetoing what William can and cannot say anyway” – I take this to mean that Charles actually did tell William not to arrogantly insert and center himself in a sensitive international situation and William screamed “I’ll do what I want!” As for William being “entirely relaxed about his father meeting with his son,” lmao, all evidence to the contrary. William really believes that he can stupidly telegraph his childish rage for weeks/months/years and then suddenly declare “but he’s totally relaxed about Harry, he doesn’t even care anymore!” Anyway, these two are stuck with each other and they both completely deserve it.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.