After leaving the UK for the US over two years ago, and launching a tirade of accusations against the royals in the following months, it looked like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had completely severed their palace ties.
However, it was revealed two weeks ago that Harry, 38, and Meghan, 40, had met with the Queen and have even been invited to appear on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to launch her Jubilee celebrations next month – which royal experts predict they’ll use to salvage their royal status in America.
The news of their potential high-profile visit to the UK – a trip that could see Harry and Meghan accompanied by their children, Archie, three this week, and 10-month-old Lilibet – comes after the couple’s 15-minute flying visit with the Queen last month. This was made during a brief stop-off in the UK on their way to The Hague, where Harry was hosting the Invictus Games, before they flew back to the family’s £11million mansion in California last week.
But while the reunion could mark the start of healing the strained relationship between the couple and the royals, insiders claim that not everyone within the family’s inner circle is pleased by Harry’s “hero welcome”, with an insider telling Closer how Prince William is unimpressed by his younger brother’s actions. “William finds it nauseating that Harry and Meghan seem to think they can waltz back after all the damage they’ve caused,” says the source.
And confirming that tensions between William, 39, and his wife Kate Middleton, 40, and Harry and Meghan are still very much ongoing, the source adds, “As far as William is concerned, he has no desire to play happy families with Harry and Meghan when it suits them.
“He has seen first-hand the chaos they have caused. Both he and Kate have a strong sense of what is right, and as far as they’re concerned, it takes more than a fleeting visit to undo all of the pain and heartache they have caused, which they are yet to publicly apologise for.”
Harry and Meghan’s damning accusations against the royals in their interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, when they accused a senior royal of racism and painted Kate as a bully who made Meghan cry ahead of her wedding, sent shockwaves across the globe, despite denials by the royals.
And while at the time even the usually reserved Prince William retorted to reporters, “I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I will do”, it was Kate who adopted the Queen’s longstanding mantra of “Never complain, never explain.”
But with Harry’s apparently barbed comments against the royals continuing last week when he sensationally revealed, “I’m just making sure she [the Queen] is protected and has got the right people around her”, royal biographer Duncan Larcombe – author of Prince Harry: The Untold Story who has joined the Prince on many royal tours – believes that while Kate and William are unlikely to do a tell-all, Harry and Meghan should be wary.
Duncan says, “William and Kate may as well sit back and watch Harry and Meghan metaphorically hang themselves with their own rope.
“They’ve kept a dignified silence and they’re focused on what their job is as working royals. They’ve risen above Harry and Meghan’s ‘truth bombs’ and so far it’s paid off.
“I have it on good authority that William and Kate were tempted by the offers to have their say with a tell-all in the immediate aftermath of Oprah. They are obviously offered interviews all of the time.”
But Duncan reveals it was the Queen herself who took the family under her wing, and has remained a huge influence on Kate and William since.
“I think what happened after Oprah is that the Queen took personal charge, and the statement the palace released reassured William and Kate that it’s the long game that matters, not scoring points,” he says.
“It’s as if the Queen had said, ‘If they want to throw mud at you, William, then let them, because if you retaliate, you’re just as bad as each other. Don’t sink to their level.’
“And, after 70 years, the Queen is as popular now as the day she was crowned, so it shows the arrogance and ignorance of Meghan and Harry to ignore the way she conducts herself.”
However, Duncan says that while William and Kate are watching Harry and Meghan self-destruct and their popularity plummet, Harry’s bombshell memoir – which is part of a £16million book deal and set to be released this autumn – could see the couple forced into pushing back.
The two couples, who were once dubbed “the Fab Four”, also shared household staff for a year after Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Prince William is reported to have described his sister-in-law’s behaviour to their team of civil servants as ‘merciless’.
Duncan adds, “Silence is golden for William and Kate, but they know Harry and Meghan’s secrets.
“They have shown a great amount of restraint, but what will happen when Harry’s book is released? We just don’t know.”