Thursday 15 September 2022 07:29 AM The Royals: Will Harry seize the opportunity for reconciliation his brother and ... trends now

Just as it had 25 years and eight days ago, the September sun shone down on William and Harry as they walked side by side behind their grandmother’s coffin. But everything else was different.

A quarter of a century before they were brothers united in grief at the sudden death of their mother and the fraternal bonds of shared loss seemed unbreakable.

Yesterday only their mutual sorrow at the passing of the Queen remained. Rarely has the relationship between princes once so close looked so strained, nor the gulf between them so wide.

There was no human barrier to separate them as there had been last year at the farewell for Prince Philip when the burly figure of their cousin, Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips, walked between them.

At their mother’s funeral they were just boys who could barely lift their gaze from the ground. Yesterday, they stared rigidly ahead, Harry hatless in his mourning clothes, William’s eyes hooded by the peaked cap of his RAF No 1 uniform.

Both carried themselves with dignity and respect, impervious to those watching on who hoped for some sign small sign of reconciliation, some exchange of brotherly love, a flicker of forgiveness even.

There was none.

Of course, the solemnity of the occasion could make such a gesture misplaced. Twenty-five years ago, there was a moment when Princess Diana’s cortege disappeared briefly beneath Horse Guards Arch before re-appearing on Whitehall.

Then there was a reassuring pat for William from his grandfather. This time there was no such release from the formality of it all and only Harry and William’s footfalls remained in lockstep.

Yet if there was an opportunity for this most tragic of rifts to be healed, this was surely it.

Four days earlier, as Harry and Meghan joined William and Kate to view the flowers and greet well-wishers at Windsor Castle, there was no disguising the coolness that now exists between brothers on whom the long-term future of the Royal Family once depended.

Where once they were a natural and spontaneous foursome, now they were awkward and uncertain. But at least they were together.

The question was, could Harry accept the olive branch he was being offered?

When Prince Philip died, Harry was a late arrival landing in Britain after a long flight from California — he found himself playing catch-up and missing out on the nation’s mood of loss and sadness. Attempts at reconciling with his brother failed and he was soon heading home to Meghan, then pregnant with daughter Lilibet, and son Archie.

This time there was no need for an urgent flight across the Atlantic — he was already here when the Queen died last Thursday.

It has meant he has been witness to the extraordinary outpouring of national grief and mourning that has gripped the country from the very beginning.

If ever he wished to re-evaluate the decisions he has taken, then there was no better place to start than on the Mall yesterday as he stood in silent reflection behind his father, the King.

How easy it would have been to confine the Prince and his wife to some minor role, tucked away as they were during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations as a mere support act. On that occasion the reality of their role as minor royals alongside the Queen’s cousins in the less prominent pews at St Paul’s Cathedral could not have been clearer.

And if the same had happened this week, wouldn’t they only have had themselves to blame? Their peevish complaints from their Montecito mansion, so often insensitive, have continued unabated. While looming over everything remains the spectre of Harry’s score-settling memoir.

Yet King Charles — and indeed William — have shown magnanimity. Rather than being excluded, Harry has been brought into the centre of things. His role yesterday was hardly obscure. Indeed he was afforded every courtesy of his position as the King’s son. He was in his rightful place alongside his brother and behind his father.

In Westminster Hall, he and the Duchess of Sussex lined up exactly as they should have in the order of succession behind William and Kate to pay their respects to the Queen’s coffin.

As for Meghan, she too was shown the respect that merits a monarch’s daughter-in-law.

While Harry walked with his brother, his wife travelled in a royal limousine with his aunt Sophie, Countess of Wessex. She was second in the convoy of royal cars behind the Queen Consort and Kate, the new Princess of Wales.

In the fine-tuned world of monarchy these are more than just symbolic gestures. Here, Harry was being shown his rightful place in the House of Windsor, should he ever wish to return and pick up the threads of his royal life.

What is clear is that he is not — at least not yet — being treated as the royals once treated another former much-loved figure who chose exile over duty. King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis — who was always denied an HRH title — was never truly welcomed in Britain after the abdication.

Does Harry realise that? Can he even see the distinction? Surveying the now thinning ranks of frontline royals, even he must realise how much his father, a pensioner King, and his brother need him.

The question is, will Harry seize the opportunity?

There is one other factor, however. In America, where the Sussexes’ celebrity has definitely been waning, how significant will be Harry and Meghan’s central role this week? How much will it have breathed fresh life into their flagging brand?

The answer, of course, is that the brand will have been transformed by their closeness to an epic event that has gripped the world. They have reafirmed their status as outsiders with a ringside seat at great historical occasions.

For months, rumours have trickled out from California that Harry is homesick, that he misses his friends, his old Army buddies and even the English countryside. ‘What does he do all day,’ is frequently asked by some of his oldest friends?

It is only fair to say that in Meghan and their children, he has a settled and extremely happy domestic life.

And it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that he is here because of his love and affection for the Queen and he has been sincerely sorrowful.

His moving statement about her ‘unwavering grace and dignity’ was testament to that.

But opportunity for members of the Royal Family rarely knocks more than once. Between them, his father and brother have offered him a way back and he has had more than a glimpse of the life he left behind.

There is a pragmatism here on Charles’s and William’s part: they need him. Slimming down the Royal Family is all very well, but in just two years it has lost much of its firepower: the disgraced Andrew, the absent Harry and Meghan, and now the Queen.

Soon those royal cousins, the Gloucesters and Kents, who did much of the unsung heavy lifting are likely to retire. There will be a need for more working royals, not fewer.

For Harry any step towards a royal re-engagement would mean significant compromise. Can he cancel the book, for example, and can he stop his wife’s endless critical and selfish interventions about how shabbily they were treated by the royals?

There would need to be compromise on William’s side, too — and he will not find it easy to forgive. As one royal friend told me: ‘You can apologise but you can’t unsay things you have said and Harry and Meghan have said an awful lot, much of it deeply hurtful.’ 

Just suppose some form of reconciliation came to pass, and Harry was prepared to resume his life here, where would that leave Meghan?

Could they find a new royal model that allows Harry to rejoin ‘The Firm’ and his wife to have a semi-detached role?

It could be done. A role of this sort developed over time for Princess Diana, who continued to support Charles at national events throughout their separation but followed her own path in terms of duties.

The difference of course is that Diana did not commercialise her life as Meghan and Harry have done.

And it is for this reason, tragically, that for all the positive signs the couple’s presence have triggered, not even the most optimistic of courtiers truly believe there is any way back for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Of course, they will be back for Charles’s coronation, but after that?

In the years ahead, failing to recognise the possibilities presented to them this week may turn out to be the couple’s biggest error yet.

Together again for the Queen: Harry and Meghan stand behind William and Kate in Westminster Hall lying in state service days after they reunited to meet mourners in Windsor 

By Martin Robinson and Mark Duell and Rory Tingle For Mailonline

William and Harry stood together with their wives Kate and Meghan on Wednesday as they put aside their bitter feud to honour the Queen for her lying in state service inside Westminster Hall.

While the brothers walked side-by-side for the poignant 38-minute procession from Buckingham Palace, their spouses travelled in separate cars, with Meghan accompanied by the Countess of Wessex and Kate joined by Camilla, the Queen Consort.

During the service, the 'Fab Four' stood in formation facing the coffin on its purple-covered catafalque, which was flanked with a tall, yellow flickering candle at each corner of the wide scarlet platform in the heart of Westminster Hall - the backdrop of some of the most famous moments in British history.

The Sussexes stood at the back of the group of royals, with Harry directly behind William and Meghan behind Kate. The touching moment is the first time the couples have been seen together since their surprise walkabout together at Windsor Castle on Saturday, and a rare show of togetherness.

The Queen's coffin entered Westminster Hall as the choir of Westminster Abbey and the choir of His Majesty's Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, sang Psalm 139. When the Queen arrived, Charles, William and Anne saluted. Harry and Prince Andrew - barred from wearing military uniform - bowed their head instead.

The Archbishop of Canterbury then read the opening prayer, which the King led the royals in reciting. The family stood silently for the short service that the late monarch had put together with the Church of England before she died aged 96.

After the congregation was dismissed, cries of 'God save the King' could be heard as the King and the Queen Consort left Westminster Hall as Big Ben rang out at 3.30pm. Royal couples left the building side by side, with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex holding hands and the Princess of Wales rubbing her husband's arm reassuringly.

From 5pm

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