Prince Harry’s royal rift widens amid new tragedy
Prince Harry has been further humiliated as speculation grows that he will return to the UK to mourn a loved one.
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King Charles is no longer answering his estranged son Prince Harry’s calls or responding to his letters as their rift deepens, friends of the California-based royal have claimed.
The issue of Prince Harry’s request for increased security has now led to a wall of silence between father and son, People magazine reports.
A friend of Prince Harry’s said: “He gets ‘unavailable right now. His calls go unanswered. He has tried to reach out about the King’s health, but those calls go unanswered too.”
Prince Harry last saw his father in person in February when they met for 45 minutes during his whirlwind visit to London following the monarch’s cancer diagnosis.
According to People magazine, the rift between Prince Harry and Prince William is “very bad” but not “irreparable”.
It is possible the royal will return to London for the funeral of his uncle, Lord Robert Fellowes, who has died aged 82.
Lord Fellowes, who was married to the late Princess Diana’s sister Lady Jane Fellowes and served for a time as the late Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary, died of undisclosed causes on July 29.
Plans for his funeral have not yet been made public.
“The death will be a huge blow to the Spencer family,” a former friend of Prince Harry’s told The Daily Beast.
“In normal times it would be unimaginable that Harry would not be there to support Jane. Of course he would want to be there. It will be a huge gathering of the Spencer clan. But these are not normal times and it may well be that everyone feels Harry’s attendance would just create too much drama. It will be very sad for him if he can’t make it.”
Taking to social media, Princess Diana’s younger brother Earl Spencer paid tribute to Lord Fellowes.
“My absolutely exceptional brother-in-law, Robert, is no longer with us.” Earl Spencer said.
“A total gentleman – in all the best meanings of that word – he was a man of humour, wisdom and utter integrity. I’m deeply proud to have been his brother-in-law.”
While Princess Diana was said “not to fond” of Fellowes, whom she regarded as one of the faceless “men in grey”, both Prince Harry and Prince William were said to have a good relationship with their uncle.
He was a guest at Prince William and Princess Catherine’s wedding at Westminster Abbey in 2011 and was also present at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding at Windsor Castle in 2018.
He also attended Prince Archie’s christening in 2019.
Fellowes had a close relationship with the late Queen, and was considered one of the late monarch’s most trusted advisers during his tenure between 1990 and 1999.
During that time, Fellowes advised the late Queen on the divorces of three of her children, and was widely credited with persuading the monarch to return to London after Princess Diana’s death in 1997.
Lord Fellowes was married to Lady Jane Fellowes for 46 years, until his death. At their lavish wedding in 1978, the late Princess of Wales served as a bridesmaid.
The couple went on to welcome three children: Alexander Robert, 41, Eleanor Ruth, 38, and Laura Jane, 44, who is Princess Charlotte’s godmother.
He rose up the ranks at Buckingham Palace to become deputy private secretary in 1986, before taking over the reins from Sir William Heseltine as private secretary four years later.
Fellowes left his post as private secretary to the Queen in February 1999 and returned to his previous position in the private sector, as a banker.
That year, he received the title of Baron Fellowes of Shotesham in the County of Norfolk in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
He sat as a Crossbench Peer — a member of parliament not belonging to a political party — until his retirement in 2022.
Despite leaving his role as private secretary, Fellowes remained technically a member of the royal household.
He remained an extra equerry to the late Queen until her death in September 2022 at age 96.
Extra equerries are honorary appointees who are rarely required to serve, but can be called upon to do so if needed by senior members of the Royal Family.
MEGHAN’S EXPLOSIVE FIGHT WITH WILLIAM
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Meghan Markle told Prince William to “get your finger out of my face” during a heated argument about Princess Catherine, according to a new biography.
The confrontation happened after the Duchess of Sussex claimed the Princess of Wales’ “baby brain” had caused her to forget a detail of her wedding plans.
During talks to resolve tensions after their honeymoon, Catherine reprimanded Meghan telling her they were “not close enough for you to talk about my hormones,” before William labelled Meghan as “rude”, according to the book.
“Meghan stood up to him and said, ‘Take your finger out of my face’,” royal author Rob Jobson wrote in his new book Catherine, The Princess of Wales: The Biography.
“Things had definitely cooled between them, if not soured.”
The revelation comes amid the news that Buckingham Palace has released a new set of royal values, which include a commitment to “stay curious” and “help shape a better world”.
“The new reign has given the royal household the opportunity to define a new expression of purpose underpinned by a refreshed set of values,” The Palace said in its annual report.
‘EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL’: MEGHAN AND HARRY’S THREAT TO THE KING
It comes as Harry and Meghan have been accused of using their children, Archie and Lilibet, as “leverage” to pressure King Charles into providing state security to travel to the UK, according to royal sources.
In a move described as “beyond contempt”, friends of the King said the alleged threat of never seeing his grandchildren was “emotional blackmail” to force the monarch into Harry’s battle with the UK government.
The 75-year-old King who is battling cancer has not seen Archie, 5, and Lilibet, 3, since the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.
“Harry has lost his security case in court, and is now trying the emotional blackmail route to get what he wants instead, cynically using the threat of Archie and Lilibet never meeting their grandfather again as a tactic to coerce the king into overruling RAVEC (Royal and VIP Executive Committee),” the courtier told The Daily Beast.
Palace insiders said Harry’s recent TV interview claiming it wasn’t safe to return to the UK was never about his wife, but was instead the Duke repeating threat he had already made in private.
“When Harry was being kicked out of Frogmore Cottage, one of his lines was that Charles would never see the kids again. This is him going public with that threat,” a friend of Prince Harry and William added to the Beast.
“This really isn’t about Meghan, who has no intention of ever coming back to England again.”
Prince Harry said in the interview that he feared his wife would be the target of an acid or knife attack if the family returned to the United Kingdom without state-sponsored police security.
King Charles’ close ally said that the idea the UK government would allow the Sussex family to be attacked on British soil was “absurd”.
“And Harry knows it,” they said.
“Using it as leverage, as a reason to withhold his kids from their grandfather, is beyond contempt. Charles is being treated for severe cancer, so even if he could find the time, he cannot just fly to Los Angeles at the drop of a hat, like Harry can — and actually did earlier this year — in the other direction.
A source close to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex rejected the accusation, saying that the threats to the Duke and his family were real.
“In recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats. While his role within the institution has changed, his profile as a member of the royal family has not,” the source added.
“The goal for Prince Harry has been simple — to ensure the safety of himself and his family while in the UK so his children can know his home country.
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Originally published as Prince Harry’s royal rift widens amid new tragedy
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