The Duke of Sussex met King Charles at Clarence House on Wednesday, marking their first face-to-face encounter in 19 months.
The private meeting, which lasted 54 minutes, followed Prince Harry’s public expression of hope for reconciliation with his family during a BBC interview in May.
Harry, 40, arrived at Clarence House in a black Range Rover at 5.20pm after visiting the Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College London earlier in the day. He departed at 6.14pm before attending an Invictus Games reception at the Gherkin, where he told reporters his father was “great”. Addressing guests at the reception, he joked about delays caused by tube strikes, remarking that the audience was “all hammered” as part of “the plan all along”.
The King, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, travelled from Balmoral, Aberdeenshire, to London for the meeting. The visit came on the penultimate day of Harry’s four-day trip to the UK.
On Monday, the Duke laid a wreath and flowers at Windsor Castle to mark the third anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, before attending the WellChild awards in his capacity as the charity’s patron.
The last meeting between father and son took place in February 2024, shortly after the King’s cancer diagnosis, during a brief visit by Harry from his home in California. That encounter, lasting less than 24 hours, was without the Duchess of Sussex and the couple’s two children.
Relations between the Duke and the King have been strained following Harry’s televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, his Netflix documentary, and the publication of his memoir Spare. Harry remains estranged from his brother, the Prince of Wales, who was in Cardiff on Wednesday visiting a mental health hub to mark World Suicide Prevention Day.
Harry has previously recalled his father’s plea to him and his brother after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral in 2021: “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”
In July, senior aides from both households were photographed together in London, in what was seen as an early step towards reopening communication.
Next week, King Charles is due to host US President Donald Trump at Windsor Castle for the president’s second state visit.
