After years of tearing each other apart, will Princes Harry and William finally reconnect?
The arrival of the Duke of Sussex this Tuesday, February 6 in London to visit Charles III, suffering from cancer, in any case revives the hope of a reconciliation within the royal family.
It must be said that the youngest son of the King of England left Los Angeles without wasting time, immediately after the shock announcement of his father's cancer, discovered during his prostate operation around ten days ago.
He was spotted Tuesday midday at Heathrow Airport in London.
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As during his lightning visit for Charles' coronation in May 2023, Prince Harry, at odds with his father and especially his brother William, seems to have come alone from California, without his wife Meghan Markle and their two children, Archie and Lilibet.
“Is it time for Harry to return home?” asks the tabloid
The Mirror
which, like most British newspapers, devotes long articles to a potential reconciliation between the Windsors, in the midst of troubled times for the British monarchy.
Also read: Richard Fitzwilliams: “That Prince Harry arrives quickly in England is not an indicator of the seriousness of Charles III's cancer”
End of the fratricidal war?
The burning question is whether Harry will also meet William, whose wife Kate is also recovering from an unspecified abdominal operation, the source of much speculation.
“While Charles is torn by the conflict between his sons and hopes for a rapprochement, William is convinced that trust (...) has been completely broken,” said royal commentator Richard Kay in the
Daily Mail
, quoted by the AFP.
If the king continued to express affection for his youngest son, for example telling him of his “love” in his speech the day after the death of Elizabeth II, his brother apparently did not not digested having been harshly crushed in Harry's memoir,
Spare
(
The Substitute
, in French).
The Duke of Sussex is particularly critical of his eldest, whom he describes as angry, and recounts his pain at having been his “shadow, (his) understudy, (his) plan B” all his life.
In these pages he also implies that William did not marry his wife Kate for love.
Also read: Prince Harry, the eternal number 2
LISTEN TO SCANDALS
The last time the princes appeared together was in September 2022, for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, and according to Richard Kay, William and Harry have not exchanged "a word" in months.
Before the publication of
Spare
, the relationship between Lady Di's two sons, very close in the past, had already deteriorated profoundly, with tensions and conflicts against a backdrop of constant pressure from the British tabloid press.
The couple Harry and Meghan ended up slamming the door of the royal family and renouncing their obligations to go into exile in the United States in 2020, sharply criticizing the British monarchy in interviews and a documentary series on Netflix.
During an interview with the influential American presenter Oprah Winfrey, they notably claimed that members of the royal family had wondered about the skin color that their son Archie would have.
Without revealing the identity of the said people.
But at the beginning of December, the names of King Charles and Princess Kate were mentioned in the Dutch version of
End of reign
, the latest book by journalist Omid Scobie (a close friend of Meghan and Harry) on the Windsors, quickly withdrawn from sale by its publisher in the name of a “translation error”.
“The royal family must stick together”
In the meantime, it has been almost four years since Prince Harry, in virtual exile, fled his family.
Last year, he only returned to the UK twice: for his father's coronation and in June for one of the many trials pitting him against the British tabloids, against whom he is waging a battle unnamed judicial officer.
Despite the distance that has established between the brothers, “the royal family, like any other family, must stick together” in the face of the ordeal of cancer, and a rapprochement, even timid, could take place in the coming weeks , estimates royalty expert Richard Fitzwilliams, interviewed by AFP.
“The only thing they still have in common is their love for their “Darling Dad”, the only parent they have left,” also underlined Camilla Tominey, another specialist in the monarchy, in
The Telegraph
.
The reconciliation of the Windsors may have come.