King Charles is said to be ‘perplexed’ by Prince Harry‘s claims that ‘men in grey suits’ are trying to sabotage their reconciliation.
The Mail on Sunday exclusively revealed today that the Duke of Sussex was understood to be infuriated with royal courtiers who he has accused of giving hostile briefings to newspapers.
Harry has blamed the unnamed Palace officials for leaking information about his 50-minute tea at Clarence House with his father – the first time the pair have met in 19 months – with a source close to the prince telling the MoS: ‘The men in grey suits should stay out of it.’
Yet those at the palace are ‘saddened and perplexed’ by Harry’s broadside.
A royal source told The Times: ‘The reality is that senior aides have been working behind the scenes to improve what is a delicate but important private family relationship.’
The increasingly bitter war of words between Harry’s camp and Palace officials erupted after this newspaper revealed last weekend that talks were under way between aides to gradually bring the King and his younger son together in a public show of unity.
The MoS disclosed that as part of cautious plans to foster a reconciliation, the Duke might take part in more public events in Britain, though not as a working member of the Royal Family.
Details of the talks came after Harry spent 50 minutes with the King at Clarence House earlier this month – their first face-to-face meeting in 18 months.
Prince Harry with the then Prince Charles at the World Premiere of Netflix’s Our Planet at the Natural History Museum, in Kensington, in 2019
But within hours of the MoS publishing its story, insiders began briefing journalists that Harry will never be allowed to return as a ‘half-in, half-out’ working royal – despite such a claim not appearing in this newspaper’s report.
In a waspish comment about the significance of the Duke’s meeting with Charles, one unnamed source suggested those in Team Harry had ‘mistaken a brief tea and a slice of cake for the Treaty of Versailles’.
On Saturday, in a further apparent escalation, The Sun newspaper claimed that Prince Harry’s meeting with his father had been ‘distinctly formal’ and that the Duke had later described the meeting as ‘very official, like an official visit’.
It cited insiders claiming that the ‘awkward exchange’ was carried out in a similar style to that of dignitaries visiting royal residences.
The newspaper pointedly reported that Charles’s meeting with his son was his shortest of the day and claimed there were no plans for father and son to be seen together in public.
When the newspaper declined to retract the quotes on Saturday, the Duke’s spokesman issued a stinging statement, saying: ‘Recent reporting of the Duke’s view of the tone of the meeting is categorically false.
‘The quotes attributed to him are pure invention fed, one can only assume, by sources intent on sabotaging any reconciliation between father and son.’
The spokesman also claimed that ‘presumably, those same sources’ had inaccurately told The Sun that Harry had handed his father a framed photograph of himself with wife Meghan and their children Archie, six, and Lilibet, four, to mark the reunion.
Prince Harry is seen leaving Clarence House after meeting his father King Charles III on September 10
The monarch was said to have given his younger son an early birthday present, six days ahead of his 41st birthday.
The spokesperson said: ‘While we would have preferred such details to remain private, for the sake of clarity we can confirm that a framed photograph was handed over, however the image did not contain the Duke and Duchess.’
Harry has long railed against senior Palace courtiers who he claims are behind negative stories about him and his wife Meghan.
In his excoriating memoir, Spare, he referred to a mysterious trio he named ‘Bee, Wasp and Fly’, who he said handled the tense negotiations that resulted in him and Meghan stepping down from public duties and moving to California in 2020.
‘I’d spent my life dealing with courtiers, scores of them,’ Harry wrote. ‘But now I dealt mostly with just three, all middle-aged white men who’d managed to consolidate power through a series of bold Machiavellian manoeuvres.’
Such criticisms echo those of his mother Diana who was said to have described courtiers who briefed against her during the breakdown of her marriage to Charles as the ‘men in grey suits’.
