King Charles goes after ‘rude, childish’ Prince Harry

The conflict between Prince Harry and King Charles appears to be showing no signs of coming to an end.

Oh to have been on a fly on the wall inside the Buckingham Palace offices of King Charles last week.

It had only taken His Majesty’s younger son Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, to be back on British terra firma for a matter of hours for the first incoming round to land on the palace’s back lawn.

Prince Harry’s latest visit to UK soil didn’t include a meeting with his father, King Charles. Photo: by Kola Sulaimon / AFP

The weapon of choice, the one most beloved of royalty, even expat, often-pouty ones: The economical, pass-agg statement.

The impact: A dead-centre, bang-on hit.

At 2.30pm on that afternoon, Team Sussex had gotten out the crested letterhead and informed the press that Charles and Harry would “unfortunately” not be meeting during the Duke’s UK trip “due to His Majesty’s full programme”.

Don’t worry about Harry, you see, because “the duke of course is understanding of his father’s diary of commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon”.

Clearly, despite having moved to California, Harry remained as fluent as ever in royal doublespeak. Only the most “understanding” of sons, you see, would go out and tell the world how sanguine they were with their father choosing to peruse sheafs of dullsville Whilehall documents with a camomille tisane rather than actually wanting to see them.

The underlying message of the duke’s statement seemed clear – that His Majesty had rejected his emotionally-mature son’s gesture of outreach.

The palace, for their part, kept their power dry, their wigs on and their cards close to their chests. Until the weekend that is.

There have been conflicting reports about whether Prince Harry’s version of events were entirely accurate. Photo: Jonathan Buckmaster / POOL / AFP.

For Team Charles (the King Krew? The West End Massive?) the gloves seem to have come off with a series of stories coming out arguing that Harry’s version of events was, in essence, a case of some Californian alternative facts. Or to put it another way, cobblers.

What actually transpired when the duke was in Britain last week is now being hotly disputed with a series of friends of His Majesty popping their heads above the parapet to reject Harry’s take. Not only had, according to them, the Duke of Sussex not requested to see his father but Charles had offered him a place to stay, only to have the 39-year-old stay in ahotel instead.

If the late Queen’s trotted-out-to-the-point-of-death motto was “never complain, never explain” then the King would appear to have decided to junk that notion in one fell swoop – that along with all the corgi tchotchkes on every available mahogany surface inside Windsor Castle.

The phone lines between the better parts of London and Fleet Street’s royal desks have clearly been burning up. “The idea that [the King] refused to find space in his diary … well, let’s say recollections may vary once again,” a friend of His Majesty’s told the Sunday Times’ royal editor Roya Nikkhah.

The last time King Charles Photo by Jonathan Buckmaster / POOL / AFP)

After all, the friend pointed out, the King “did of course agree to see his son at the most vulnerable moment of his illness [in February], and at very short notice”.

Kate Mansey in the Times was also chit-chatting with intimates of His Majesty, with one telling her that the palace had been “left bruised” by Harry’s suggestion that he had been ‘snubbed’ by Charles.

The claim that the P-plate Netflix producer had asked his father to attend his Invictus service or to even see Charles “should be treated with a good deal of suspicion,” a friend told Mansey.

Then came a friend of both the King and Queen Camilla speaking to the Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes who made short shrift of “understanding” Harry and his statement.

The pal told Sykes: “No-one trusted him before, and they certainly don’t now. It’s rude, undignified and childish to make these attacks on his family when he knows they can’t answer back.

“Harry claims to love his family. He has a funny way of showing it. It’s reminiscent of how he spent the last months of Queen Elizabeth’s life saying how much he loved her whileattacking the monarchy to which she had devoted her life. Nothing has changed. We are back to square one.”

The longstanding rift between Harry and the rest of the royals appears far from being repaired. Photo: Jordan Pettitt – Pool/Getty Images.

The Sussex side has, however, pushed back, ‘insisting’ to Nikkhah that the duke had asked to see his father, pointing out that the very reason he was back in the UK – a St Paul’s service to mark ten years of the Invictus Games – had “long [been] on the radar” and that Harry must now give the Home Office 28 days’ notice should he want official protection in the UK. Ensuring it was a bumper weekend for royal friends, one of Harry’s told Nikkhah: “I can’t imagine that request [from Harry to Charles] fell through the gaps. Even if they didn’t get a request, which I don’t believe, could His Majesty not have made a request to see his son? It was widely known he was coming.”

Bloody hell. This is ‘Bex and a nice lie down’ stuff. Because how is it that even this simple question – did Harry put in a request to see his father? – is met with conflicting he said-he said claims flying all about the place? (And that’s leaving aside how broken things are that a son would need to put in a request, and probably fill in a bushel of forms in triplicate, to see his own parent.)

But stay with me here because things are about to get messier still. Just in case emotions and tempers and everyone’s blood pressure was high enough, we now come to the bed and breakfast and Beckham parts of this story.

The monarch might not have eagerly invited Harry around for one of Camilla’s trademark Bushmills-and-bangers nights but he did reportedly offer to at least put him up. The Sunday Times’ Nikkhah has reported that the King had offered Harry a royal roof-over-his headduring his visit- however Harry, now-US resident, instead chose to stay in a hotel.

Prince Harry hasn’t seen his father since news of Charles’ cancer diagnosis was revealed earlier this year. Photo: Kola SULAIMON / AFP.

Then we get to the incredible fact that while the King, for whatever reason, did not see his son last week he did make time to see David Beckham so they could amiably amble among his rose bushes at Highgrove House and bond over their shared love of a nice handmade pair of brogues.

The football legend was there to learn more about The King’s Foundation, the Times has reported, a meeting that “could also make uncomfortable reading for the Duke of Sussex.” Well, “uncomfortable” is one very polite way of putting it. Just to really add to the psychodrama here, Beckham and his wife Victoria were guests at the Sussexes’ 2018 wedding before reportedly falling out with them.

I swear, the plot of The Bold and the Beautiful has fewer twists and turns than royal family news does right now. If a long lost twin of Prince Edward popped up or it turned out that Princess Margaret had faked her own death to drink vodka tonics unmolested by repeated, bleating requests from Save the Children to open their next fête, I would not even blink.

Whatever exactly went down in London with Charles and Harry – who said what or requested such-and-such or who had reached out with which offer or proffered a trundle bed in an empty under-butler’s bedroom – does anyone really think we are now going to see Harry rushing back to the UK anytime soon?

The “clear message,” of last week, a royal source told the Beast, was “that Harry is not welcome to conduct official, quasi-royal events in the U.K. that distract from the monarchy’s message and agenda.” Sigh. You know how there are cold wars and there is such a thing as soft diplomacy? When it comes to the King and the Duke of Sussex, I think we have now reached a state of perma-bilateral perma-bickering. The phone lines of Chelsea could be about to get quite the workout.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as King Charles goes after ‘rude, childish’ Prince Harry