Prince Harry leaves after ‘private tea’ reunion with King Charles that lasted less than an hour
The Duke of Sussex’s Range Rover was seen pulling into the royal residence at 5.21pm – with suit-clad Harry in the back seat.
The Duke of Sussex had not seen his father since he flew back for 30 minutes last February, after the King’s cancer announcement.
The reunion today lasted 55 minutes, with Harry spotted leaving at 6.14pm.
However, the meeting was almost double the 30 minute meeting the King gave Harry last year.
It is understood the father and son shared a private tea together this evening.
Harry, meanwhile, was made to delay his arrival at an Invictus Games bash for more than an hour after becoming stuck in traffic after the chat with his father.
The Duke, who stepped down as a senior working royal in 2020, no longer benefits from blue-light police escorts which would have whisked him through any travel chaos.
The Duke said of the King “Yes he’s great, thank you,” as he attended his Invictus event in London.
He made his guests laugh when he said: “I think this whole thing has been delayed slightly, so at this point you’re all hammered – which was part of the plan all along, stuck up here at the top of the Gherkin.”
Charles had left Balmoral and pictured boarding a royal jet shortly before 2pm and landing at RAF Northolt an hour later – without the Queen.
Prince William was also not at the tea party as he was travelling back from an engagement at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium marking World Suicide Prevention Day
While just 20 minutes before Harry arrived at Clarence House Sophie the Duchess of Edinburgh was seen leaving.
Tellingly, Harry and his driver and Barack Obama’s former bodyguard Christopher Sanchez were made to use the visitor’s entrance.
And they not driven in through the gate on The Mall which was used earlier by the King and Sophie and for members of the Royal Family.
The Sun previously exclusively revealed Harry was travelling to the UK this week without knowing if was going to visit his father – but was willing to meet him if he was invited.
He has barely spoken to his family since Megxit in 2020, which saw him and Meghan step down as working royals and move to the US.
The Duke then slated the royals in his memoir Spare, including claiming he was knocked to the ground in a fight with William.
He also dumped on his family in a six-part Netflix series and Oprah Winfrey interview.
And after losing a multimillion-pound fight for taxpayer-funded security in the UK, Harry launched another scathing attack on his father, claiming the King “won’t speak to me”.
The Duke arrived at Clarence House in a black car at 5.21pm ahead of an expected engagement elsewhere in London later on Wednesday evening.
Speculation had mounted as to whether the royal pair would finally meet during Harry’s four-day trip.
Further hope for a reunion was sparked when the King arrived in London from Balmoral today.
Meanwhile, Harry was attending the Imperial College London’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies in west London.
The prince – who lives in California with his wife Meghan Markle – had a string of engagements in London into this afternoon and evening.
Harry remains estranged from his brother William, who has had several engagements this week, and was in Cardiff today visiting a new mental health hub to mark World Suicide Prevention Day.
Royal watchers will be waiting to see if Harry keeps quiet about his meeting with the King.
The reunion comes after senior aides to the King and Duke were pictured together in London this July, in what was reported to be an initial step towards opening channels of communication between the two households.
Harry has not seen his father in 19 months, despite the fact he has flown over from the US several times since for court cases and for the funeral of his uncle, Lord Fellowes, in August last year.
But his four-day visit will be his longest trip here since the passing of his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Harry touched down in the UK on Monday after he was spotted boarding a flight from LAX in California.
But the Duchess of Sussex did not join her husband for the trip.
Instead she stayed in California while she looks after their children Archie, seven, and Lilibet, four.
The Duke said earlier this year he was open for “reconciliation”, telling the BBC he did not know “how much longer my father has”.
But royal expert Hugo Vickers said the Firm will not be able to trust the Duke of Sussex for fear anything they say will be used in his next tell all.
Mr Vickers, author of several bestselling royal autobiographies, warned Charles to tread carefully around his son.
He says the firm “doesn’t trust” Harry after the Duke gave out personal information about them in his autobiography, Spare.
Faced with the prospect of a second bombshell book, the family remembers how Harry caused “a lot of harm”.
Hugo said: “It would be in his, and everybody else’s, interests if he could form some sort of personal reconciliation with his father.
“Because we know even from Prince Harry’s book that his father said ‘don’t make my last years miserable.’
“If something happens to the King and Harry has not reconciled with him, he’s going to be bearing more guilt and remorse.
“And he’s got enough on his plate already with the death of his mother and the things that he feels about all that.
“In order for that to happen, he is the one who has to apologise. He is the one who has to give assurances.”
