One thing the Harry and Meghan saga will never be short of is plot twists. So news that the first couple of Montecito will soon rock up to re-bond with Britain is what the Greeks would have called a “peripeteia” – a change of circumstances or fate so dramatic that we might call it a 180-degree turn.
This is, however, the beginning of a new Odyssey, not its conclusion, and the odds are that it will encounter some areas of coolness. Harry will be getting a welcome on terms which have been agreed over the summer by his father. His relationship with his brother William, the Prince of Wales, is another matter altogether.
The breakthrough is a result of the monarch’s advanced age and recent illness, the Sussexes’ relentless drive to stay relevant after a lean period in the US, and a tentatively successful meeting with King Charles and Queen Camilla earlier this summer. The Palace is keen to underline that this is a private decision by the Sussexes and that the roles they relinquished as working royals will not change.
But on some level, Charles is accepting the urging I know that some close friends have offered. To have Harry as estranged as he was at the Queen’s funeral, and then the former Prince Andrew’s fall from grace, has been awful for the family and the legacy of a turbulent decade – and now is the time to begin to mend fences.
Assuming that Harry and Meghan act in good faith when they set up a home and send their children to school here – and top-notch schooling is a powerful driver for Meghan, who is a strong believer in education – the return should start off in a cheerful atmosphere, showcasing continuity across the generations.
But there is a serious sticking point – and that is that the heir to the throne’s personal approach, as well as the dynamics of his situation as the next-gen royal leader, are not the same as his father’s. This has not been one of the occasions where we have seen the Prince and Princess of Wales and King and Queen acting as a “quartet” – in the way that they did to agree the ousting of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from Royal Lodge at Windsor and ousting from the formal family. The summer tea invite of Harry to Highgrove was in essence a loyalty test that the conversation would remain private, but there was no sign of William’s involvement – rather the opposite. He has very clearly kept his distance from the olive branch and tensions are still so lively between the brothers that neither has made a move to appear friendly, even at a recent family funeral of an uncle in 2024.
Birth order primogeniture has produced such tension already that Harry allowed his memoir to be entitled – as in, the Crown needed an heir and a spare, and it is a lot nicer to be the first than the second. William sees himself carrying the heavy responsibility for the continuation of the monarchy into the next generations; the poor and at times downright aggressive fraternal relations brings that back into sharp relief and to public attention.
As long as the Sussexes were thousands of miles away, domestic focus was on William and Catherine (as Kate is nowadays keen to be called to underline her place in the succession order as the next Queen). The more frequent public outings of Prince George, and carefully curated images of him and his younger siblings as the succession line of the Windsors, has been a way of signalling that, whatever the rock and roll going on elsewhere, they stand for the future of the Crown.
Theoretically, that will not change – William and Catherine are the “working” royals and the returning duo are not. Any outing of Harry and Meghan however will raise the question of whether it clashes with the Waleses’ appearances – and explicitly, they want their children to be part of the reconnection with a focus on their British royal heritage. This could work if there were close attention to sequencing, clashes and the kind of “grid” used to ensure now that Charles and William’s communications are aligned. It is vanishingly hard to get right if the two other “principals” (in palace-speak) are at odds with each other or see the fundamentals differently.
We might say, as a small miracle has happened already, might it not also be time for a reconciliation between William and Harry and their spouses? The problem here is that the complexities of the falling out run deeper. As far as William was concerned, the duo not only turned their backs on the UK and the royals but then dwelt sorrowfully on repeated trauma. Read and Harry’s analysis is that the King and Queen were distracted and at times unfair. That is nothing, however, compared to the tongue-lashing dealt out there and in the Netflix documentary to the Prince and Princess of Wales.
The infamous bro-on-bro altercation in the kitchen detailed by Harry in the book was a serious physical scuffle between two men who should have been well beyond adolescent resort to fisticuffs – and the cause was tension over the two men defending their other halves’ reputations. A subsequent vengeful statement from Harry that he felt sorry for a brother locked in a royal “cage” implied that William, who is steely, dutiful and also notably proud, could not judge his circumstances for himself. I am told by friends of the Waleses that this jibe was particularly infuriating.
And that’s not to forget the tense relationship between Kate and Meghan, which blew up so spectacularly in the Sussex’s wedding preparations. From Meghan’s point of view, this was an indicator of the arch chill she came to loathe about the royal family. From the Wales’s perspective, it was an early warning system of trouble ahead and unaligned expectations from Meghan.
And having been alongside the Princess for her grueling cancer treatment and placed yet more emphasis on the family having a peaceful private life to offset the pressures of their roles, William is even more watchful of her wellbeing. I do think that has intensified since I attended their wedding – and watched a couple clearly in love but very much aware that they needed to preserve a “front” of formality.
These days, anyone watching the Wales’s interactions sees a couple watching out for one another – to the extent that William was clear he would brush off criticism of spending more time at home during her cancer recovery. For all their affability, William and Kate are strong characters with strong views of how they want to run their worlds, which is one reason their press and household operations remain very separate from the rest of the family.
The fact that the monarch and his spouse have decided to give a repentant Harry another chance does not signal that this is a shared view with the Waleses, even if it has to be accommodated – but the prospect of doubles tennis on the windy courts of the royal residences with all the children cheering along looks remote.
One way or the other, there will be a new dynamic. It will lead to comparisons in popularity and re-awaken the generation gap – younger Britons being a lot fonder of the Sussexes than the Waleses. So everyone will have to be magisterially grown-up and tolerant of the others’ point of view to avoid yet more royal disruption. It would definitely be a royal optimist who would put money on that.