Why the King Encouraged Harry’s Return · Storyflo

A friend of King Charles III has told The Daily Beast that Harry was “informally encouraged by King Charles to return to the U.K. because the King believes that the royal family is stronger united.”

The friend added: “The King’s faith has played a part but ultimately this is a strategic decision for the good of the family. The stand-off needed to be resolved.”

The friend added that nothing “concrete” would have been possible without a complete resolution of all Harry’s court cases and said they considered it “vanishingly unlikely” Harry would appeal his thumping civil defeat by the publisher of the Daily Mail that has landed him and his seven co-plaintiffs with a potential £35m ($50m) bill.

Asked if William approved of his father’s tacit consent to Harry coming home, the friend said that the King had made it clear William and the future of the monarchy was the King’s “top priority.” The friend wouldn’t be drawn into a discussion of any “differences of opinion on specifics” between the monarch and his heir, saying only that William and Catherine were a credit to the monarchy and that Charles was “immensely proud” of them.

The comments represent the first time a close ally of the King has spelt out any details of the King’s strategic thinking, and offered anything other than an emotional justification or response to Harry’s return home.

The thoughts were relayed to me in response a recent series of articles and videos I have published calling on the King to provide clarity vis-à-vis Harry’s situation, and saying that is is absurd that the King has remained hidden away in Scotland enjoying the grouse season and attending shoot lunches while the debacle unfolds.

I have argued that the King should have returned to London to signal that he understood how gravely offended his people are by Harry’s return without an apology, and that some significant censure (such as, for example removing by fiat the family’s HRH’s which are already in abeyance) would reassure the public that Harry is not being positioned for an advantageous new settlement.

One former courter told me they were unsurprised that the King’s response was to “lose himself among the Highland heather and hills” and “bury his head in Duchy lemon posset.”

The entire point of a constitutional monarch is to unify the nation and provide a cohesive head at the top of it and yet on the single most divisive royal question of his reign (what is Harry’s role? Is he a working royal, a private citizen, a counsellor of state, all three at once?) he has said absolutely nothing. He has let a Labour MP call Harry a hero, let a former Home Secretary lobby for his security, let his son’s friends and media employees brief the newspapers, his head filled instead with the sound of Purdey shotguns being discharged!

The late Queen understood, when faced with an analogous crisis, that Andrew had to go. One source told me that she was the head of a family and the head of an institution, but that when the two knocked against each other, the institution always came first. Firing Andrew extracted a huge emotional toll on her.

There are terrible parallels with the frozen royals sequestering themselves in Balmoral after Diana’s death in 1997, but this time there is no noble cause of children to protect.

The old friend noted the extraordinary engagement from my audience on the articles and videos so it is good to know that somebody, somewhere is listening to me—and you!

The friend’s breezy assurance that the King is keeping William’s interests top of mind cut little ice with a friend of William’s who declined to discuss the matter at all, continuing the Wales’ policy of ignoring Harry and Meghan’s provocations both on and off the record. This policy of total disengagement, which was instituted after Caterine’s diagnosis, has been enormously successful for the Wales’ who have seen their personal popularity rankings climb to the high 70s over the past year. It may be harder to continue with it, however, with Harry and Meghan back on UK soil.

The couple are believed to be staying with hedge fund billionaire Ian Wace. Locals I’ve been on the phone with about the new arrivals are by turns amused, entertained, appalled and titillated by their new neighbors.

One source said: “A lot of them simply can’t wait to see if Meghan really is as ghastly as everyone makes out.”

Another source, a friend of other royals (but not the King) told The Royalist: “If the King didn’t want Harry and Meghan here, they wouldn’t be here. Words would have been dropped in the right ears to ostracize them and the newspapers would have been briefed that the King was not on board with it. That is very definitely not happening. The King clearly wants them to be happy and settle here, and he and his staff are doing nothing to obstruct that. It’s a huge opportunity for Harry and Meghan to start again.”

Another source said that Theo Rycroft, the King’s deputy private secretary, was helping to mastermind the King’s response to Harry’s return.

Rycroft is in the running to take over from arch-hawk Sir Clive Alderton, who announced his resignation three weeks before Harry and Meghan’s return. At the Royal Ascot race meeting some hawks, I am told, openly described Harry’s attempts to get security for his family return to the UK in July (which can now very clearly be understood as the amuse-bouche to this week’s main course) as “emotional blackmail.”

This is what I write on the matter on June 21 this: The hawks, led by Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s private secretary, believe that Harry’s behavior is unforgivable and that the monarchy will be harmed if Harry and Meghan are replatformed by the king. William sides with them. They are described by Harry as the “men in grey suits.”

The doves, led by former diplomat Theo Rycroft, Alderton’s deputy (who is expected to succeed him in the fullness of time) are aligned with the King’s wish to reconcile with Harry and let bygones be bygones in service of the Victorian myth of the model family.

[The hawks] allege that the king was “bounced” into meeting Harry when they had tea at Clarence House last September.

Let me be very clear about this: the King was not “bounced” into that meeting. He invited his son to Clarence House and served him his favorite chocolate biscuit cake.

You may remember the hawks didn’t much like that meeting at the time, briefing newspapers that Harry had mistaken a cup of tea for the “treaty of Versailles.”

Well, the hawks are well and truly finished now. The King may find that the British people, by whose consent he reigns, are less easily persuaded than his paid employees by the arguments of the wisdom of reconciling with and forgiving someone who hasn’t even got round to apologizing.

Why the King Encouraged Harry’s Return · Storyflo