Being on speaking terms with his father again doesn’t guarantee Prince Harry a spot in King Charles’ monarchy, insiders say. The Duke of Sussex met the King for a 54-minute conversation at Clarence House earlier this month and father and son appear to be on the road to mending their fractuous relationship after years of acrimony. The King’s renewed communication with his youngest son doesn’t mean Harry will be readily welcomed back into the fold, however, partly because of a rule brought in by the late Queen, stipulating that members of the firm don’t undertake official duties while being paid for work elsewhere.
Since stepping back from his duties in 2020, Harry has raked in the cash from lucrative Spotify and Netflix deals and been paid handsomely for speaking engagements. The position he has carved for himself outside of the Royal Family, in short, wouldn’t be compatible with the role he might hope to return to in the UK. “The King has been absolutely clear in upholding his late mother’s decision that there can be no ‘half-in, half-out’ public role for members of the family,” a source said, as per The Telegraph.
While the Duke has not decisively said he wants to return to the UK, reports suggest he is hoping to make increasingly frequent public appearances in Britain, in the vein of his trip in early September, when he visited charities and attended an award ceremony.
Sources also told the Mail on Sunday that the Sussexes’ team were “tenatively discussing” increased meetings between Harry and King Charles, potentially including a joint appearance to signal “public unity”.
The apparent gestures towards resuming aspects of his life as a senior royal have attracted criticism, especially after the dramatic severing of ties with his UK family following his move to the US with wife Meghan, through airing their public laundry in his memoir Spare in 2023.
It was after the couple announced they were stepping back from their duties that the Queen said members of the firm could “no longer formally represent” her after choosing to become financially independent.
She gave them her blessing to maintain their “private patronages and associations”, however, including through the Invictus Games, the multi-sport event for veterans that Harry founded in 2014 and will return to Britain for in 2027.
Whether or not he is hoping to inch his way back into the fold, Harry appears glad simply to have smoothed things over with his father, after memorably regretting the rift between them during a BBC interview in May, in the midst of a battle over his government-funded police protection.
Speaking at the time, he said: “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.”
The 41-year-old told The Guardian this month, shortly after his one-on-one with the King: “The focus [this year] really has to be on my dad.”