The Single Condition That Made King Charles’ Balmoral Invite ‘Disrespectful’ to Prince Harry
King Charles had invited Prince Harry to Balmoral when the late Queen's health worsened, however, one thing didn't sit right with the latter.
When the Duke of Windsor abdicated the throne in 1936, he not only changed the future of monarchy but also fractured his bond with the royal family. Little would have anyone thought that the family would see a fracture of equal magnitude in less than 100 years. But it did in the form of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping away from the Firm and shifting to the US. The move greatly strained their relationship with King Charles, Prince William, and Kate Middleton, and the tension was palpable when the Sussexes visited the UK after Queen Elizabeth’s demise in 2022.
The late monarch was in Balmoral when her health worsened, and Charles called Harry to come down to Scotland to be there with his grandmother. On the other hand, he reportedly received a cold shoulder from William. The Duke of Sussex detailed the situation in his bombshell memoir, Spare, “(Charles) hung up — he had many other calls to make — and I immediately texted Willy to ask whether he and Kate were flying up. If so, when? And how? No response. Meg and I looked at flight options. The press started phoning; we couldn’t delay a decision any longer. We told our team to confirm: We’d be missing the WellChild Awards and hurrying up to Scotland.”
Charles called his younger son again, inviting him to stay at Balmoral. However, the call didn’t sit right with Harry, leading to an exchange of words between the father-son duo. “He said I was welcome at Balmoral, but he didn’t want... her. He started to lay out his reason, which was nonsensical, and disrespectful, and I wasn’t having it. Don’t ever speak about my wife that way. He stammered, apologetic, saying he simply didn’t want a lot of people around. No other wives were coming, Kate wasn’t coming, he said, therefore Meg shouldn’t. Then that’s all you needed to say," the Duke wrote.
To everyone’s surprise William, Middleton, Harry, and Markle undertook a royal walkabout together during the late Queen’s funeral service. Although the former Fab Four presented an united front, the change in mood was clear. The Sussexes though were in the UK only months before the tragic event, for the celebrations of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. They had brought along their two kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to meet their grandfather, and great-grandmother.
While the couple remained estranged from the royal family for years, it now seems that the wounds are finally healing. Harry and Markle reunited with Charles for a private meeting at Highgrove last month, and the King met his grandchildren for the first time in four years. But the Prince and Princess of Wales kept their distance from the joyous occasion and tended to their busy calendars instead.
Harry and William are seemingly not on talking terms. So it is unlikely that Archie and Lilibet would have met their first cousins, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis.
