A meeting between King Charles and Prince Harry’s senior aides came amid a charm offensive by the Sussexes to turn around their negative public image, the Mail understands.
Harry and Meghan’s new chief of communications, Meredith Maines, met with Tobyn Andreae, the King’s communications secretary, at the Royal Over-Seas League (ROSL) a three-minute walk from Clarence House, the monarch’s London residence on Wednesday.
Also present was Liam Maguire, who runs the Sussexes’ PR team in the UK. Images of the rendezvous raised hopes of a reconciliation between Harry, 40, and his father, 76.
The extraordinary summit came after Ms Maines, who is head of Harry’s household in Montecito, California, flew to the UK earlier in the week for a series of meetings alongside Mr Maguire, their new ‘UK and Europe communications manager’.
These included British business and charitable partners, as well as a host of London-based press and television journalists.
Their itinerary suggests that the couple – Harry in particular – are launching a new charm offensive on the UK in a bid to turn around their negative public image.
The Mail understands it was subsequently suggested that a meeting with Buckingham Palace’s director of communications, Mr Andreae, might be possible while Ms Maines was in the UK.
This is not as surprising as it might initially seem.
Even after the Sussexes’ acrimonious departure from the Royal family, tentative ‘lines of communication’ were kept open between the palace press office and the duke and duchess’ PR team on occasional matters of importance.
However in recent years these have all but dwindled out in the wake of Harry’s repeated and increasingly vitriolic attacks on his family, as well as the institution of the monarchy.
His latest, with the BBC, in which he blamed his recent decisive defeat in the British courts over his ongoing security in the UK on an ‘establishment stitch-up’ and insensitively raised the issue of how long his father has to live, went down extremely badly in royal circles.
While understandably wary, it is understood that the palace believed a tentative meeting was sensible in the circumstances – if only to re-open those channels once again with yet another new Sussex PR team, following another series of enforced departures both in California and the UK.
There was ‘considerable surprise’ and a ‘weary resignation’ amongst senior courtiers to see details and pictures of Wednesday’s meeting, which was such a closely-guarded secret, published in the media at the weekend.
Senior officials on all sides have repeatedly declined to say whether Prince William’s team at Kensington Palace were aware that the meeting was going ahead, even if they were not represented.
One source stressed to the Mail that the relationship between father and son was ‘inevitably different’ to that of the siblings.
It has also been noted that while angry and not wishing at present to make any sort of personal overtures to his brother, William has on a number of occasions over the years made magnanimous gestures of kindness towards him, despite huge provocation, including inviting Harry and Meghan to meet mourners and collect flowers at Windsor Castle following the death of Queen Elizabeth.
Harry is next due back in the UK in September for the annual WellChild events, raising the prospect of meeting his father for the first time in 18 months.
The 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham is another opportunity for a public reconciliation. The Duke is said to have sent email invitations to Buckingham Palace in the hope that it will give the King sufficient time to fit the event into his busy schedule.
While the meeting was significant, it is understood it was largely to ‘open a channel of communication’ after Harry said in a BBC interview his father would not speak to him, and to discuss how to avoid media clashes and conflicts around calendar dates.
Harry and Meghan are said to be frustrated after the meeting was caught on camera in pictures published by the Mail on Sunday.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex denied leaking details of the rendezvous.
