From the Buckingham Palace balcony to the close of Platinum Jubilee weekend and beyond, Queen Elizabeth II dished out short and sweet replies. According to Prince Harry’s Spare memoir, her snappy retorts continued in private. Ahead, the “one thing” the late monarch told the Duke of Sussex about King Charles III in 2020.
King Charles told Prince Harry any discussion on a new working arrangement would have to wait, according to ‘Spare’
In his Spare memoir, which debuted on Jan. 10, 2023, Harry revisited the days leading up to his and Meghan’s 2020 announcement they intended to step back as senior “working” royals. Particularly, how he ran the idea of coming up with a different working arrangement by Queen Elizabeth and King Charles.
Initially, Harry put the idea in writing, as requested by his father, which soon “caused a huge stink” when it leaked. Despite being apprehensive about doing so again, Harry ultimately did as asked via a “watermarked letter.”
Harry wrote: “In the first days of January 2020, I sent him a watermarked letter broadly outlining the idea, with bullet points, and many details. Throughout the exchanges that followed, all marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL, I hammered the essential theme: we were prepared to make any sacrifice necessary to find some peace and safety, including our Sussex titles.”
Later, Harry called the king “to get his thoughts,” but he “wouldn’t come to the phone.” Then came a “long email” from his father saying they’d have to “discuss the whole thing in person” soon.
Harry shared that he and Meghan had plans to be back in the U.K. in the coming days to see “Granny.” But, according to Spare, the king told his youngest son he was currently in Scotland and couldn’t “get there” until the end of the month.
“I really hope and trust that we will be able to have further conversations without this getting into the public domain and it becoming a circus, I wrote,” Harry recalled. To which his father replied “with what felt like an ominous threat” — “You’ll be disobeying orders from the monarch and myself if you persist in this course of action before we have a chance to sit down.”
Prince Harry recalled Queen Elizabeth telling him King Charles ‘always does what he wants to do’ in ‘Spare’ memoir
Queen Elizabeth remarked to Harry on the king’s staying in Scotland during a phone call on Jan. 3, 2020.
“I told her explicitly that we hoped to discuss with her our plan to create a different working arrangement,” Harry wrote. “She wasn’t pleased. Neither was she shocked. She knew how unhappy we were, she’d seen this day on the horizon. One good chat with my grandmother, I felt, would bring this ordeal to an end.”
“Granny,” he wrote, told him she was “free all week” before inviting Harry and Meghan to spend the night at Sandringham.
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Then came the subject of King Charles. “Are you planning to see your father too?” the queen asked Harry, to which he replied, “I asked, but he said it’s impossible. He’s in Scotland and can’t leave until the end of the month.”
The queen, Harry wrote, “made a little sound” like “a sigh or a knowing grunt,” causing him to “laugh.”
“I have only one thing to say about that,” the now-father-of-two remembered the queen saying. “Your father always does what he wants to do.”
Later in Spare, Harry recalled receiving a “frantic note” saying “Granny” wouldn’t be able to see him after all. He and Meghan were not to come to Sandringham, and a meeting would be arranged later in the month. The queen, Harry claimed, said in a “strange” phone call her staff had informed her things had come up.
The so-called “Sandringham Summit” later followed with a discussion on “five options” for Harry and Meghan’s exit.
Prince Harry revealed he hasn’t spoken to King Charles in ‘quite a while’ during a January 2023 interview
The Duke of Sussex shared in a pre-recorded 60 Minutes interview on Jan. 8 that there’s little communication between him and his father.
“Do you speak to your dad?” journalist Anderson Cooper asked (via CBS News). “We aren’t — we haven’t spoken for quite a while,” Harry replied. “Um, no, not recently.” Harry also shared the same could be said for his brother, the Prince of Wales.
Harry last appeared publicly alongside King Charles and William at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in September 2022. The next chance for a possible reunion is King Charles’ coronation. It’s unclear whether or not Harry and Meghan will attend, however, some royal experts and commentators believe they’ll be invited.
