London — Prince Harry made a rare trip back to the United Kingdom this week, and while most of the visit was filled with public events at charities the Duke of Sussex supports, he also met with his father, King Charles III, for the first time since February 2024.
Harry has said previously that he wants to rebuild his relationship with his family, which has been strained since he and his wife Meghan formally stepped down from their roles as working royals and moved to California.
This meeting was at Buckingham Palace, the monarch’s official residence in London. CBS News has been told they met privately, for tea, but that all other details of the encounter were private.
Speaking to reporters at an event later, Prince Harry said only that his father was “doing great” amid his ongoing treatment for an unspecified form of cancer.
While Harry hasn’t been a “working royal” for a couple years, he seemed keen to show on this visit to his home nation that he is still prince charming.
The four-day visit was a clear effort to show he hasn’t lost any love for the causes he holds dear, including supporting sick children and wounded military veterans.
Absent on this trip were Harry’s wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their children, Archie and Lilibet.
In an interview with CBS News’ partner network BBC News in May, Harry said he couldn’t envision bringing them all back to the U.K. with him since he has lost a legal bid to have his downgraded state security detail restored.
Harry said his battle with the U.K. government to get full state-security restored for himself and his family during visits back to Britain caused a rift between himself and his father.
“Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff, but it would be nice to reconcile,” he told the BBC.
That reconciliation may have begun on Wednesday. Harry arrived at Buckingham Palace in the afternoon and was seen leaving less than an hour later.
The father and son relationship is not the only bond that has been strained by the circumstances of Harry and Meghan’s departure — and the prince’s tell-all book “Spare,” and their interviews, and a documentary, in which they were highly critical of their treatment at the hands of the royal family.
It has been even longer since Harry met with his brother, Prince William, who is next in line to sit on the British throne.
This week, Prince William and Harry appeared at charity events at the same time, only about 10 miles from each other. But those who follow the royal family say they remain far apart.
“William and Harry haven’t seen each other in person since 2022, since the late queen’s funeral. And I believe they haven’t spoken personally for the same period. So, there’s been no contact,” Roya Nikkhah, the royal editor for the Sunday Times newspaper, told CBS News on Tuesday. “There’s no chance that William and Harry are going to meet up anytime soon… There is no desire on either side to do that. You know, the brothers haven’t seen each other for such a long time and relations are as bad as they’ve ever been — non-existent.”
