Can King
Charles Heal a Royal Family Crisis Before It’s Too Late?
Prince
Harry’s desperate plea to reconcile with his father highlighted a rupture that
could undermine the monarchy’s attempts to model unity.
Mark Landler
By Mark
Landler
Reporting
from London
May 11, 2025
King Charles
III was busy last week marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over
Nazi Germany and preparing to fly to Canada to open its Parliament later this
month. But his public schedule was eclipsed yet again by a highly publicized
eruption from his estranged younger son, Prince Harry.
It has
become a familiar pattern for the 76-year-old monarch. Two years after his
coronation, his reign is shaping up as both eventful and oddly unchanging in
its core narrative: that of a beleaguered father managing a messy brood.
Harry’s
emotional plea to be reconciled with his family — made in a recent interview
with the BBC, in which he mused about how long his cancer-stricken father had
left to live — resurfaced bitter ruptures within the royal family, which has
yet to find its footing in the still-fledgling Carolean era.
“There is an
overhang in the way we see Charles’s reign,” said Ed Owens, a historian who
writes about the British monarchy. “It hasn’t really gotten going, nor are we
sure how long it will last.”
To be sure,
the king has done a lot. Despite undergoing weekly treatments for cancer
diagnosed last year, he traveled to France, Australia, Poland and Italy. He
found time to curate a playlist for Apple Music (Kylie Minogue and Bob Marley
feature), played host at state banquets and posed for portraits.
But Harry’s
comments, which came after a legal defeat over his security arrangements in
Britain, dragged attention back to the rift that opened in 2020 when he and his
wife, Meghan, withdrew from royal life and moved to California.
Some royal
watchers warn that unless Charles finds a way to heal that rift, it could
define his reign, undercutting the messages of tolerance and inclusiveness that
he has long championed.
“When
history comes to be written about the king, this will reflect badly on him,”
said Peter Hunt, a former royal correspondent for the BBC. “He represents an
institution that is about family, unity and fostering forgiveness. His role is
to bring people together, and yet he can’t bring people together on his
doorstep.”
Buckingham
Palace has declined to comment on the king’s relationship with his son. But it
pushed back on Harry’s contention in the BBC interview that his father could
have done more to spare him the loss of automatic, publicly funded police
protection when he visits Britain.
“All of
these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with
the same conclusion reached on each occasion,” a spokesman for the palace said
in an unusually tart statement.
An appeals
court ruled on May 2 that a government committee had acted properly in denying
Harry automatic protection after he stopped being a working royal. He said he
does not think it is safe to bring his wife and children home without such
security.
The palace
appealed to journalists not to focus on the family drama during a week
dedicated to V-E Day commemorations. Far from calming the waters, Mr. Hunt
said, that had the effect of keeping the spotlight on Harry longer than
necessary.
“It’s a
private issue but they are using the full weight of the institution to respond
to him,” Mr. Hunt said.
Harry
remains estranged from his older brother, Prince William, as well as his
father, which adds to the portrait of a family divided and diminished. When the
royals gathered on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch a flyover of war
planes last week, their ranks were noticeably sparse.
The king’s
younger brother, Prince Andrew, is still in internal exile, following the
scandal over his ties to the disgraced sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew’s
history also resurfaced in recent weeks with the death of Virginia Giuffre, a
woman introduced to him by Mr. Epstein, with whom he later settled a sexual
abuse lawsuit. Her family said she died by suicide in Australia.
For William,
the loss of Harry and Andrew, as well as his father’s illness, has thrust him
into a more conspicuously public role.
He met with
President Trump last year at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He
rode on a tank during a visit to British troops in Estonia. And he represented
his father at the funeral of Pope Francis last month, which came only days
after Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, met Francis at the Vatican.
“William has
sometimes been seen as work-shy, but we see him gravitating toward bigger, more
media-friendly events,” said Mr. Owens, the historian. “He’s burnishing his
reputation as a statesman.”
William has
put much of his energy into a program to tackle homelessness in six cities
across Britain and Northern Ireland. Like his father, he continues to be active
on climate change, though Mr. Owens said both had modulated their voices as
net-zero targets have become politically fraught.
The heir to
the throne made perhaps his biggest splash with the British public when he
offered astute sports commentary last month before a Champions League game
pitting his favorite soccer club, Aston Villa, against Paris Saint-Germain. One
of the hosts, Rio Ferdinand, joked that he could take his job.
The job that
William does not want, at least for now, is his father’s. But fears over the
king’s health have made talk of succession inescapable. In late March, Charles
was briefly hospitalized after a reaction to his medication. The palace
insisted it was a minor bump on the road to recovery, but it set off alarm
bells at British broadcasters, for whom the passing of a monarch sets in motion
substantial coverage.
Nothing in
the king’s calendar suggests he is slowing down. If anything, he has embraced
his duties with a zeal that royal watchers say is either evidence of a robust
recovery or the mark of a man who knows he has limited time.
When he
opens Canada’s Parliament on May 27, it will be no ordinary royal visit.
Charles, who is king of Canada, will be a symbol of Canadian sovereignty at a
time when Mr. Trump is calling for it to become the 51st American state.
By all
accounts, Charles relishes his role as an agent of British soft power. He
recently played host to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and sent Mr.
Trump a letter inviting him on a second state visit to Britain.
But such
high-profile engagements, royal watchers say, do not disguise the fact that his
illness has hindered him from pursuing the kinds of reforms to the British
monarchy that many expected after his coronation.
“The man has
had the wind taken from his sails,” Mr. Owens said.
Mark Landler
is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well
as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a
journalist for more than three decades.
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