‘Complete silence’: Brutal reason King Charles won’t take Harry’s calls

The King is refusing to speak to his son as they do battle over one possibly life and death issue, according to heartbreaking new reports.

There was once a time when a king with a troublesome son had options. Send him off on the Crusades or maybe to the farthest reaches of the Commonwealth to let the locals touch the hem of his lightweight linen suit. (Daughters were for marrying into Scandi royal families, embroidering useless decorative pillows and drowning in ennui).

King Charles, faced with a problematic son of his own, clearly has none of these options, not least because Harry prefers a highly washable polo shirt these days over a suit.

So what does he have that a Henry or an Edward back in the Middle Ages didn’t? The option to furiously pantomime the word “no” every time his aides answer a phone call from his son.

In the last four and a half years, I have no idea how many times I have typed the words, “have gotten worse” and yet I have no choice today but to put my hands on my keyboard and do just that.

We now have two new reports that really get under the hood of the relationship between His Majesty and the duke and it would seem their relationship has “completely collapsed” and that “Charles is currently refusing to take Harry’s phone calls”.

That’s according to the always superlative Tom Sykes in the Daily Beast, who reports that there has been “a catastrophic breakdown in trust” due to the ongoing fight over Harry’s UK security arrangements.

The relationship between Charles and Harry has ‘completely collapsed’. Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images

The King reportedly ‘no longer takes his son’s calls or answers his letters’. Picture: Euan Cherry/Getty Images

A People cover story backs this all up, with their own sources close to the duke saying that the 75-year-old sovereign “no longer takes his son’s calls or answers his letters”.

“He gets ‘unavailable right now’,” a friend of Harry’s told the mag.

“His calls go unanswered. He has tried to reach out about the King’s health, but those calls go unanswered too.

“The issue has created an impenetrable wall between Prince Harry and King Charles, with the conversation shifting from frustration to ‘complete silence’ from the sovereign.”

The situation is this. Since birth, Harry has had official state protection, specialist officers provided by the Metropolitan Police, as do the other senior members of the royal family, all of which happens at the taxpayers’ expense.

Then he married Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and she did too, very much needing it given, according to the former assistant chief of the Met, the duchess had “absolutely” faced genuine threats from the far-right to her safety.

Then came Le Grand Megxit and the Sussexes, as they seem to see it, were forced off the official royal roster, their preference for a half-in, half-out model met with one of the late Queen’s most disapproving looks.

So the couple hightailed it off to North America to authentically feel their feelings and Google mortgage brokers, at which point RAVEC, the independent committee that oversees the security for the Windsors and political bigwigs, met and decided the duke and duchess no longer qualified.

Harry and Meghan, given they would no longer represent the Crown, were suddenly, for all intents and purposes, private individuals with grand titles.

Harry is concerned about the safety of wife Meghan and their kids Archie and Lilibet. Picture: Alexi Lubomirski/The Times

Since then, Harry and his family have gotten what a Palace source says is a “bespoke security package”, and that means that each of his trips back to the UK are “subject to a rigorous and appropriate review process conducted by RAVEC”.

The duke must now give 28 days notice of his travel plans and provide a detailed itinerary, which is reportedly the same requirement for other high profile people heading towards the UK. He can bring his paid-for US bodyguards with him, but they can’t carry guns and don’t get the same intelligence as on-the-books government protection officers do.

In 2022, Harry launched a High Court challenge to the RAVEC decision and a second over whether he could personally pay for official security. Last year, lawyers for the duke made the case he had been “singled out” and treated “less favourably”.

The Duke of Sussex has now lost both cases, at a cost of $1.9 million, though he is appealing the main ruling.

Got it? (There will be a short quiz at the end of this story).

The recent “catastrophic breakdown” in things between Charles and Harry is down to the fact that the duke reportedly thinks that his father could pull some strings and have RAVEC reinstate his security.

The message out of the King’s camp, however, basically comes down to, “doesn’t the lad understand what the words ‘independent committee’ mean?”

A source close to Harry has now told the Beast, “The threat is very real. He needs protection. The idea that the security forces wouldn’t allow anything to happen is a very glib dismissal of the reality of the threat the family faces.

“The threat level hasn’t changed since he stepped back from the royal family, if anything it has got worse because of the tabloid campaign against him and his wife.

“If the king wanted, he could do this for his son.”

Likewise, People’s Sussex camp source said: “Harry is frightened and feels the only person who can do anything about it is his father. Harry is determined to protect his own family at all costs”.

A source close to Harry has claimed the threat facing his family ‘is very real’. Picture: CBS Sunday Morning

However, a Palace source told the US mag that the idea that the decision about his son’s security is up to the King is “wholly incorrect”.

It all sounds positively Judge Judy-worthy. (Well, the Sussexes do make telly for a living now …) And that’s before we even get to the real twist in all of this he-said, he-said.

In another Sykes piece for the Beast, a Palace insider has laid out a much, much more Machiavellian reason why the King won’t step in to help his son.

“The last thing the Palace want[s] is Harry and Meghan turning up unannounced on a regular basis or setting up a rival royal court in the UK,” the source told Sykes.

“As things stand now, they have to … pre-agree with the cops where they are going to be, or might be, at all times. That suits the Palace down to the ground.”

Well, I suppose that degree of (allegedly) underhanded manoeuvring would at least impress Charles’ Middle Ages kingly forebears. What makes this all even sadder is that, back in February when it was revealed that the King had cancer, there had been hopes that his diagnosis might constitute a turning point in their fraught relationship and trigger some sort of rapprochement.

Sigh. Instead, things seem to have deteriorated further.

One final point. Despite who ultimately gets to make the call about what sort of UK protection Harry and Meghan and their family get when they are in Britain, the events of the last week have only strengthened their argument, with rioting having swept the UK and laying bare the shocking depth of far-right feeling – and, let’s speak plainly here, some proper original flavour racism.

If Judge Judy was ruling here, a woman who takes no bullsh*t, I reckon it would be an easy call for her to make.

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 ‘Complete silence’: Brutal reason King Charles won’t take Harry’s calls