Prince Harry’s dash from LA to London to support his father may have raised the prospect of the Royal Family healing a four-year rift.
But few royal experts are convinced it will lead to a lasting reconciliation, with several claiming they consider that there are issues of trust between the Duke of Sussex and senior royals.
According to Dr Ed Owens, author of After Elizabeth: Can the Monarchy Save Itself? and The Family Firm: Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public, there may be fears among senior royals that confidential information about King Charles’s cancer diagnosis could be leaked to the media.
And the Duke of Sussex’s honesty with the press in the past means his presence may have been met with wariness, the author suggested.
Harry’s distance from the Royal Family may have been summed up by his departure from the UK, back to the US where his family live, just one day after arriving and a short meeting with his father.
On Monday, Buckingham Palace made the rare decision to announce details of a monarch’s health condition, revealing King Charles was suffering from a form of cancer and would begin treatment immediately.
The Palace did not, however, reveal what type of cancer the 75-year-old King has.
Dr Owens says: “I think all of the Royal Family will be careful when dealing with Harry given that he has had a propensity to reveal certain conversations that would have otherwise remained private through his interviews, through his books, through his exposés over the last couple of years.”
However, Dr Owens also believes it could be difficult for Harry not to be given the full details of the King’s illness and treatment.
“These difficult moments do require people to put aside petty differences and past animosities,” he says, adding: “So, in that respect they may think that the situation requires a greater sort of honesty and transparency than might have otherwise been the case.”
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine and author of Prince Philip Revealed: A Man of His Century, agrees it is unlikely that Harry will be kept out of the loop.
“I’m sure they give Harry the full details,” she says. “It would be difficult not to.”
After being told of his father’s diagnosis by the King himself, Prince Harry boarded an 11-hour British Airways flight from his home in Los Angeles to head to his father’s side.
On Tuesday afternoon a small convoy of cars, including a security detail, were seen driving up The Mall as Harry headed to Clarence House, the preferred residence of King Charles.
After what is understood to have been a brief meeting of between 30 and 45 minutes with his youngest son, the King and Queen Camilla waved at well-wishers as they were driven out from Clarence House along The Mall. Soon after a helicopter, took off from the gardens of Buckingham Palace to take King and Queen to the royal residence in Sandringham, Norfolk.
There have been suggestions from royal experts and across the media that the brief meeting may indicate that the King and his son find it difficult to be in each other’s company for long, but Ms Seward disputes this.
“If you’re the King, 20 minutes is usually the maximum you pledge to anyone, even members of your own family.”
Dr Owens does believe that while there will be some nerves around Harry’s presence, the King’s illness could represent an opportunity for a reconciliation between him and the rest of the Royal Family.
“Clearly this is a reminder that despite the difficulties of the past four years [after Prince Harry stepped back as a senior royal],” he says. “There are certain things like serious illness that can lead to families coming back together, putting aside emotional differences, given the existential nature of what is going on in this case.
“Is it going to lead to a significant improvement in relations? Probably not. But at the same time, if it encourages some kind of reconciliation between father and son that will be significant in its own right.”
In Ms Seward’s opinion, there is no sign of Harry and his family reconciling in the near future.
“I don’t think so,” she says. “There just isn’t time. Healing rifts takes time and I just don’t think it is going to happen this time around.”
Harry Mount, author of How England Made the English, is also doubtful about how successful a reconciliation between Harry and his family will be, especially with his brother, William.
In a column for i, Mr Mount writes: “The wounds made by the Sussexes are too deep – and so relentlessly delivered to the Prince and Princess of Wales, as well as the King and the Queen – that any real kissing and making up seems highly unlikely.”