Meeting between Duke of Sussex and the King feels like a positive step - even if full reconciliation is likely to take time

Thursday, 11 September 2025 03:22

By Rhiannon Mills, Royal correspondent

"Still 50/50" was the response I got when I asked last week if Prince Harry was going to meet his father.

As it got later and later on Wednesday it felt like the clock was ticking with Harry due to leave on Thursday.

The first positive sign was the King arriving back from Scotland, and then we started doing the sums to work out if the timings could work, with Harry due at an Invictus event at around 6pm.

Then it happened. Just before 5.30pm a car with Harry inside was driven into the grounds of Clarence House. He was in.

After five years of upset and pain for the royal family, and a year-and-a-half since the two men last met, this was huge.

Ever since Harry flew in from America on Monday there have been constant questions about whether they'd see each other.

His team have been less secretive about what he's been doing, allowing more cameras into his charity engagements, but the one topic they were avoiding talking about was his family.

And they stuck to that this evening. After Harry left Clarence House after around an hour inside, his team left the palace to confirm that father and son had had tea.

The meeting between Harry's team and the King's communications secretary earlier in the summer had already given us something of a sign that things might be shifting.

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It would have felt strange, and at worst a very deliberate snub, if they hadn't met on a trip that's felt more positive and upbeat compared with Harry's previous visits.

No one is kidding themselves that everything that's happened can be erased or forgotten, but it does signal what feels like a gradual reset from a man who publicly admitted he wants reconciliation with his family.

In May, after losing his court battle with the Home Office over security, Harry confirmed in an interview how bad the split with his family still was, saying they weren't talking to him.

Of course, with documentaries, interviews and his book Spare, a lot has been said and done since the Sussexes decided to leave royal life and moved to the States five years ago. And still the divide with his brother Prince William seems very raw.

Neither side is saying what was talked about over tea. But this meeting feels like a positive step forward, even if a full reconciliation is likely to take time.

Sky News