King and Queen meet with Prince Harry, Meghan and children

London: Prince Harry has taken his children to see King Charles for the first time in more than four years, bringing the family members together at a private country estate after weeks of speculation about the meeting.

Harry was joined by his wife, Meghan, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet, in the visit to see King Charles and Queen Camilla, with officials confirming the family gathering after it began.

But there was no sign of a meeting between Harry and his brother, Prince William, who stuck to his official schedule by playing a charity polo match near Windsor Castle as his wife, Princess Catherine, looked on.

Harry and Meghan maintained a degree of privacy over the family meeting on Friday (Saturday AEST) by ensuring no photographs were released.

While the couple released a photo of Lilibet when she turned five last month, they have limited public attention on their two children compared with the regular media coverage of the other young children in the royal family.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex retain their titles but gave up their royal duties to live in California with their children. Their frank disclosures about royal life in a Netflix series and a television interview with Oprah Winfrey have contributed to an ongoing rift within the royal family.

Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, last saw their grandfather when they visited with their parents for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022.

Harry arrived in Britain on Monday to headlines about a rift with his father over where he would stay, with royal sources saying the prince had been too slow to accept an invitation to stay at Buckingham Palace, which meant there were no staff and quarters for him.

The prince has been concerned about the security of his family and has been denied the full security detail accorded to other members of the royal family because he is no longer a working member of the House of Windsor.

In a late twist, it emerged that Meghan would join him in the UK with their two children for the last few days of the visit. Few other details have been revealed and there was no statement on where the family was staying.

The first full day of Harry’s visit was dominated by his total defeat in his court case against the publisher of The Daily Mail, when a judge ruled that he failed to prove his privacy invasion claims against the publisher.

The High Court ruled that the Duke of Sussex and celebrities including Elton John and Liz Hurley had failed to prove their allegations of phone hacking and other unlawful conduct, and it dismissed their claims on all counts.

Angry at the court ruling, Harry issued a statement with a fellow claimant, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, saying the judge had delivered a “complete and obvious whitewash” that ignored evidence of unlawful ploys used by journalists to uncover private information.

Sources close to Buckingham Palace said the attention on the court case was a factor in the decisions about whether Harry should stay at the palace.

Despite the loss in court, Harry continued with events to promote the Invictus Games, the major sporting competition he established in 2014 to help wounded military personnel. The next games will be held in Birmingham this time next year.

Appearing in Birmingham this week, Harry played pickleball as well as wheelchair football with Invictus team members. He also played laser run with television host Alison Hammond, a supporter of the games.

The prince and the TV host aimed at targets with laser guns before running around an indoor track, in a challenge broadcast on breakfast television.

At one point, Hammond said to the prince: “Your kids and Meghan must be so proud of you. Do they tell you every day?”

Harry replied: “They don’t tell me every day that they’re proud of me, but I’m proud of them, they’re proud of me. I love my family.”

The King last saw Harry in September last year when they met at St James’s Palace in London when the prince was on a brief visit, in what was their first face-to-face talk in more than a year.

Harry’s description of royals leaking information about other family members in exchange for positive coverage of themselves was one of the allegations in his memoir, Spare, and he was highly critical of his father’s second wife.

Harry blamed Camilla for passing private information to the media because she wanted to rehabilitate her image after her longtime affair with Charles when he was heir to the throne and married to Princess Diana.

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