Hours after Harry confirmed his dad won’t see him, Buckingham Palace announced Charles is putting William in charge of Harry’s old regiment.
Anyone who thought the British royals’ recent health issues might make them stop feuding and come together as a family has seriously underestimated their commitment to holding grudges and engaging in petty drama.
For the past few years, Prince Harry has been living in California with his wife, Meghan Markle, and spilling tea about life in the royal family in multiple venues. But when King Charles was diagnosed with cancer in February, Harry rushed to London for a brief visit with his father. He said he planned to be back in the U.K. soon and would “see my family as much as I can.”
Harry is currently on one of those planned visits. He returned to London on May 8 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Invictus Games, a sports competition he founded for wounded veterans. But Buckingham Palace has made it pretty clear that the royals’ general stance toward the Spare memoirist hasn’t changed.
Charles is pretending once again that he’s simply too busy to see his son. This message was first conveyed via a leak to The Telegraph last week:
However, any potential meeting between the pair is likely to be brief as the King’s diary is “quite busy”, The Telegraph understands.
As former BuzzFeed News royal correspondent Ellie Hall explained amid the “Where is Kate Middleton?” debacle, this is how royal press offices typically comment without actually commenting:
Instead of going on the record, royal press offices will give briefings and in some situations provide information to a core group of royal reporters — with the caveat that these reporters won’t say that the information came from an official spokesperson. Phrases like “this reporter understands” or “this news outlet can confirm” are very common in stories about the royal family.
Questions about a royal reunion persisted as no one was satisfied by this tired, somewhat absurd excuse. And since Buckingham Palace would not say anything on the record, Harry took it upon himself to confirm that his father would not see him.
“In response to the many inquiries and continued speculation on whether or not the duke will meet with his father while in the U.K. this week, it unfortunately will not be possible due to His Majesty’s full programme,” a spokesman for the Duke of Sussex said on Tuesday.
“The duke of course is understanding of his father’s diary of commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon.”
Apparently, Buckingham Palace did not find this sufficiently humiliating. So just a few hours later, it announced that Charles had found time in his “quite busy” diary to formally put Prince William in charge of Harry’s old regiment, the Army Air Corp. Per The Independent:
“His Majesty the King will officially hand over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,” the palace said in a statement.
“In August 2023, following His Majesty’s Accession, the King was pleased to announce military appointments including that the Prince of Wales would become Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps. The role was previously held by His Majesty the King, as Prince of Wales, for 31 years.”
William was an air-ambulance pilot between 2015 and 2017 and was not involved in active combat. Harry served two tours in Afghanistan; the second was with the Army Air Corps from 2012 to 2013. The younger prince was expected to be named colonel-in-chief until he stepped back from royal duties in 2020.
William’s taking the role wasn’t a surprise. As the statement notes, the Palace said he would be the next colonel-in-chief of the Army Air Corps over a year ago. So did the announcement about next week’s rare father-son ceremony officializing the change really need to go out within hours of Harry’s statement? Probably not.
Still, it’s hard to say how much of this double snub came from Charles himself and how much is attributable to palace aides. Presumably, the king could see his son if he really wanted to, but he isn’t hitting “send” on royal press releases. Dubious excuses and nasty PR moves may be more attributable to “the institution” Harry thoroughly trashed in Spare.
