Prince Harry's Blow-up Over Meghan Leaves King Charles Cautious

Prince Harry's blow-up at King Charles III over the phone regarding Meghan Markle at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's death could likely have left the king with a level of "anxiety" when communicating with his son, according to a new episode of Newsweek's The Royal Report podcast.

During Harry's visit to Britain to attend an Invictus Games event this month, the prince's spokesperson shut down speculation that he would spend time with his father who is being treated for cancer, stating that the reason they wouldn't meet was "due to His Majesty's full program."

The spokesperson added that: "The Duke of course is understanding of his father's diary of commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon."

The news that Charles and his youngest son wouldn't reunite during a rare opportunity where both were in the same city at the same time put fans' hopes of a royal reconciliation among the feuding Windsors in doubt.

Newsweek's chief royal correspondent, Jack Royston, told Royal Report listeners that the move was a "shame" but suggested a number of obstacles need to be overcome before the father and son reunite on easy terms, one of which may be Charles' possible "floating anxiety" after Harry reacted angrily during a phone call at the time of his accession.

"I would say, in the King's corner, is Harry can be hot tempered sometimes. I mean all the Windsors can, Charles is no exception...He's a man who gets frustrated sometimes," he said.

"But there is one moment that sticks in the mind for me, which is that Harry blew up at his father as Queen Elizabeth II was dying because he felt Charles had spoken in a dismissive way about Meghan. And I just wonder, really, whether Charles might have taken away from that experience a level of background stress about seeing Harry, a kind of generalized floating anxiety that something might go wrong and it will be another negative encounter with lots of hostile emotions and him getting the blame."

To illustrate this, Royston quoted a section of Harry's hit 2023 memoir Spare, in which he recounted a phone call made by Charles, telling his son to travel to Scotland as Queen Elizabeth's death was imminent.

Harry told readers that Charles had spoken disrespectfully about Meghan during the call to which he took offense.

"Then came another call from Pa. He said I was welcome at Balmoral, but he didn't want...her," Harry wrote.

"He started to lay out his reason, which was nonsensical, and disrespectful, and I wasn't having it. 'Don't ever speak about my wife that way.' He stammered, apologetic, saying he simply didn't want a lot of people around. No other wives were coming, Kate wasn't coming, he said, therefore Meg shouldn't. 'Then that's all you needed to say.'"

Harry's admission of becoming hostile to his father at the time he not only faced losing his mother but also taking on the burden of becoming king, may have left Charles wary, according to Royston.

"Those are actual quotes that Harry's put in there of his end of the conversation, which basically was, I'd say, fairly hostile," he told listeners, however, went on to add that Harry's reaction may well have been justified as not only was Charles not quoted in the book, but he also didn't give any public reaction to it or its content and claims.

"Charles may well have been being dismissive," he said. "We don't actually have any direct quotes from him in the book...perhaps he may even think in hindsight that he could have worded it better, but in fairness his mother was dying and he must have been very, very shaken up by that.

"His mind must have been all over the place, you know, you must have had a lot of jobs to do as well.

"This is one of the tragic things, that grief has an administrative side to it, it has a kind of business end to it which confounds your emotional responses and Harry will not be the only call that would have had to have been made. So he probably at this time just wanted to be with the Queen. You know, he probably just wanted to spend this time with his mother in her final moments and in that pain I can definitely see why that might have been a very, very difficult moment for him.

"And so, yes, there may well be still some very difficult feelings about Harry."

Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry and Buckingham Palace via email for comment.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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