King Charles has been spotted for the first time since Prince Harry’s bombshell interview.
The monarch, 76, was seen smiling and waving to well-wishers as he attended a church service in Sandringham while he is staying at his royal estate in Norfolk over the weekend.
Charles, who was wearing a dark suit, was spotted in the back of a car as he was driven to St Mary Magdalene Church for the 11am Sunday service, but there was no sign of his wife, Queen Camilla.
It is the first time the King has been pictured since Harry complained in a BBC interview that his father ‘won’t speak to me’ and that he was the victim of an ‘Establishment stitch-up’.
In a widely criticised interview with the BBC, the Duke of Sussex also commented on his father’s cancer diagnosis, claiming he ‘doesn’t know how much longer he has left’.
Harry accused the Royal Household of interfering in his battle to have his UK police security reinstated – an allegation dismissed by both the Government and Buckingham Palace.
It comes after the duke lost his legal challenge over his UK security arrangements at the Court of Appeal on Friday. He could potentially appeal the decision, which would then put it in the hands of the Supreme Court.
After stepping back from official duties in 2020 and moving to California, Harry and his wife Meghan were no longer given the security provided for senior royals in the UK.
King Charles has been spotted for the first time since Prince Harry’s bombshell interview. He was pictured leaving church in Sandringham
The monarch smiled and waved to royal well-wishers as he attended the 11am service on Sunday
It comes after Prince Harry complained in a BBC interview that his father ‘won’t speak to me’ and that he was the victim of an ‘Establishment stitch-up’
Harry said it was too dangerous to bring his family back to the UK without police protection and took the government to court.
In February 2024, the High Court ruled this was ‘legally sound’. He challenged the decision at the Court of Appeal but lost again on Friday.
After the ruling, Harry told the BBC: ‘I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point.’
‘There have been so many disagreements between myself and some of my family,’ he added, saying he had now ‘forgiven’ them.
‘I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious.’
He said the dispute over his security in the UK had ‘always been the sticking point’.
And speculating on his father’s cancer battle, he said: ‘I don’t know how much longer my father has, he won’t speak to me because of this security stuff, but it would be nice to reconcile.’
Royal commentators have criticised Harry for speaking publicly about the rift and his father’s health.
King Charles, (pictured with his wife Camilla), who is still undergoing regular treatments as someone ‘living with cancer’
Harry and Meghan are pictured with their children, Archie and Lilibet, in California
Prince Harry (pictured with King Charles in 2019) said he wants to reconcile with his family
Majesty Magazine’s managing editor Joe Little found Harry’s comments about the health of Charles ‘quite alarming’.
Mr Little said: ‘From what Harry is saying, despite admitting that he has not spoken to his father for some time, I thought it sent out a bit of a mixed message, really.
‘Is Harry suggesting that the King isn’t as well as we are led to believe?’
Alisa Anderson, the former press secretary to the late Queen, also branded his comments about the King’s health ‘unhelpful’ amid continued treatment for an unspecified cancer.
She told Sky News the Royal Family would be ‘raising their eyes heavenwards’, adding: ‘That’s going to cause real concern and more speculation in the media and the wider public about what his diagnosis is, which is incredibly unhelpful going forward.’
Mr Little described the overall situation as ‘a very unfortunate state of affairs’ and is uncertain if it helps repair tensions since Harry and Meghan stepped away from being working members of the royal family.
He added: ‘I think for somebody who is seeking reconciliation with his father, his brother and his family, his royal family as a whole, I think the very last thing that he should have been doing was talking publicly.
‘He clearly feels aggrieved at the outcome of this legal action but there is a great deal to be gained by maintaining a dignified silence – sadly, as we know from from past events, this isn’t Harry’s way of doing things.
Members of the Royal Family depart Westminster Abbey after attending the annual Commonwealth Service in London on March 9, 2020
‘Maybe lessons just haven’t been learned from previous occasions where also silence would have been the very best thing to maintain.’
On whether a reconciliation could take place soon, he added: ‘It’s hard to see how that would be possible, but never say never.’
The rift between the Sussexes and the royal family opened significantly following their interview with Oprah Winfrey, during which they alleged a member of the family was concerned about their son Archie’s skin tone before he was born.
Then the duke claimed in his controversial memoir, Spare, that William had physically attacked him and that the King put his own interests above Harry’s and was jealous of Meghan.
In a series of interviews to promote the book, Harry attacked the reputation of Camilla, saying her willingness to forge relationships with the British press made her ‘dangerous’ and he said she tried to rehabilitate her ‘image’ at his cost.
Mr Little said: ‘The fact that all this has been aired in such a public way would not fill any family member with confidence about the future, because you would never be 100% sure that whatever private conversations you had with Prince Harry might not appear in print or in a podcast at some point in the future.
The Duke of Sussex at the Royal Courts of Justice on April 8 during his appeal against a High Court ruling preventing him getting automatic taxpayer-funded police protection in the UK
Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, pictured on Friday as he rejected Harry’s appeal
‘It’s a lot of damage to be repaired. Is the damage irreparable? It is hard to see a way forward with this really.’
Harry, who appeared emotional and close to tears through much of Friday’s TV interview, said he could ‘forgive my family’s involvement’, naming Charles, the Prince of Wales and his stepmother, the Queen, in events since he began dating his wife Meghan in 2016.
Mr Little thinks that ‘probably for them (the royal family), the situation is totally unchanged’.
He said: ‘This is Harry as they have seen him operate for the best parts of the last five years, with the Oprah Winfrey interview and then, or more recently, his book.’
When asked in the interview if Charles had been approached to use his influence in Harry’s legal problems, the duke appeared to imply the King was a hindrance, a comment likely to deepen the rift with his father and his brother, the Prince of Wales.
He said: ‘I’ve never asked him to intervene, I’ve asked him to step out of the way and let the experts do their job.’
