PRINCE Harry has been pictured at an Invictus event after his bombshell reunion with King Charles.
The Duke of Sussex was due to arrive at his glitzy bash, hosted at The Gherkin at 6.45pm but turned up at 7.24pm due to the meeting at Clarence House.
Harry has been pictured at an Invictus event after his bombshell reunion with King Charles[/caption]
The Duke said of the King ‘Yes he’s great, thank you’[/caption]
Prince Harry speaking to Dominic Reid OBE, former CEO of the Invictus Games Foundation at the inaugural Invictus Horizons reception[/caption]
The King and Harry had their first face-to-face chat for 19 months – and it lasted less than an hour.
They had a “private tea” after the King managed to squeeze him into his diary in between three important official audiences and State work.
The Duke of Sussex said of the King “Yes he’s great, thank you,” as he attended his Invictus event in London.
Harry was also late to his event after heavy traffic in central London this week as a result of an ongoing Tube strike.
The Duke, who stepped down as a senior working royal in 2020, no longer benefits from blue-light police escorts which would have whisked him through any travel chaos.
He made his guests laugh when he said: “I think this whole thing has been delayed slightly, so at this point you’re all hammered – which was part of the plan all along, stuck up here at the top of the Gherkin.”
It comes after Charles, 76, broke from his Balmoral break and jetted down to London yesterday afternoon to hold a series of royal worm.
He was seen being driven into Clarence House at around 3.45pm and held a meeting with the Privy Council then carried out an investiture with 95-year-old Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg at 4.15pm.
His son Harry, 40, was seen in the backseat of his Range Rover being driven into the King’s home through the gates at 5.21pm.
The pair, who have not met since Harry flew over when the King had been diagnosed with cancer in February last year, chatted and shared tea, sources said.
But Harry was seen being driven away at 6.14pm – meaning he flew 5,000 miles from Los Angeles to spend just 53 minutes inside his father’s home.
However the meeting was almost double the 30 minute meeting the King gave Harry last year.
Charles had left Balmoral and pictured boarding a royal jet shortly before 2pm and landing at RAF Northolt an hour later – without the Queen.
Prince William was also not at the tea party as he was travelling back from an engagement at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium marking World Suicide Prevention Day.
While just 20 minutes before Harry arrived at Clarence House Sophie the Duchess of Edinburgh was seen leaving.
Tellingly, Harry and his driver and Barack Obama’s former bodyguard Christopher Sanchez were made to use the visitor’s entrance.
And they not driven in through the gate on The Mall which was used earlier by the King and Sophie and for members of the Royal Family.
The Sun previously exclusively revealed Harry was travelling to the UK this week without knowing if was going to visit his father – but was willing to meet him if he was invited.
The Duke shared a private tea with his father[/caption]
Prince Harry arriving at Clarence House[/caption]
The father and son have not seen each other in 19 months[/caption]
Sources close to the King and Prince Harry remained tight-lipped about the meeting.
Both Harry and the King’s spokesman confirmed the pair had met for a “private tea” at Clarence House and refused to comment any further.
It comes almost two months since Harry’s spin doctors were photographed meeting the King’s communications chief on the balcony of a private members club.
After arriving at Clarence House earlier the King held a meeting with the Privy Council.
Then, Charles looked happy and relaxed as he was pictured making Manfred Goldberg an MBE for his services to Holocaust remembrance and education.
Mr Goldberg, 95, was one of the individuals to feature in the King’s Holocaust survivors portraits project and his portrait now hangs in the East Wing at Buckingham Palace.
Just 15 minutes after Harry was seen driving away from Clarence House, the King held an audience with the premier of South Australia Peter Malinauskas.
Charles is set to return to Balmoral tomorrow meaning Harry only had a small window to see his father.
‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED’
By Matt Wilkinson, The Sun’s Royal Editor
FOR all of Harry’s multiple appearances in front of the camera this week he only had one Mission:Impossible – to be seen meeting his father.
The Duke has faced every camera possible since landing on Monday and followed the late Queen’s mantra being seen to be believed rather than his post-Megxit stance of being seen to be aggrieved.
Charles gave him only one small window of opportunity as he was due to fly down from Balmoral on Wednesday afternoon for a series of audiences.
And Harry, who had a three-hour gap in the afternoon between events nine miles either side of London during Tube strikes, grabbed it.
It is not important that the meeting between father and son only lasted only 53 minutes – which is almost double the time he got 19 months ago.
It is not even important to know what they spoke about during their ‘private tea’.
What is important for Harry is that he makes the world aware that the King invited him for tea and he accepted.
This is no end of a rift, it isn’t heralding Harry’s return to the UK and is not the King forgiving his son for five years of trashing the Royals.
But Harry has barely paused for breath this week including hugging with sick children, giving a jig at a community centre, making several speeches and even donating £1.1m to Children In Need.
And if he had flown home today without seeing the King it would for Harry the trip would have been a failure and a disaster.
Instead for the California-based royal who has thrown on his family for the past five years he will feel its mission accomplished.
Prince Harry had earlier appeared at Centre for Injury Studies (CIS), part of Imperial College London, to speak about children injured in war.
His foundation Archewell donated $500,000 to projects supporting injured children from Gaza and Ukraine, including helping the World Health Organization with evacuations and work developing prosthetics.
In a statement Harry said: “No single organization can solve this alone.”
“Gaza now has the highest density of child amputees in the world and in history. It takes partnerships across government, science, medicine, humanitarian response and advocacy to ensure children survive and can recover after blast injuries.”
He left shortly after 3pm ahead of his face-to-face with the King.
Despite meeting his father the rest of the Royal Family avoided Prince Harry who leaves the UK tomorrow.
While the private tea was taking place Prince Wiliam was on a train back from Cardiff where he launched a new mental health centre in Cardiff’s Principalyity Stadium to mark Work Suicide Prevention Day.
Speaking at the event The Prince of Wales has said society needs get back to “people really seeing each other and reaching each other”,
The Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales has launched partnership with Jac Lewis Foundation and Welsh Rugby Union to establish a new mental health hub.
The Jac Lewis Foundation was founded in memory of Jac who died aged 27 by suicide in 2019.
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine, told The Sun: “Charles had to see his son at some point.
“He isn’t going to get any younger and he wants to meet his grandchildren as a family man and father.
“For this entire trip, Harry has been trying very hard to get on everyone’s good side with events and donations.
“Part of their meeting must have just been to break the ice. That he is willing to welcome Prince Harry into his home shows Charles’ soft side.
“It’s very difficult to have an in depth conversation if you haven’t seen someone for so long, especially when you haven’t spoken for 19 months.
“It would have been very hard to jump into a very intense or detailed conversation, so they may have just stuck to niceties.
“It’s still a positive step, but a necessary step, because to have such a strained relationship and so many headlines about their rift, it’s damaging to the Royal institution.
“I think Charles would have to be very careful about what he says and it would have been unwise if he had this meeting without anyone else in the room.
“The King can’t risk Harry going and saying something in an interview, because it could become another example of ‘Recollections may vary’”.
Harry and the King last met in February 2024 just dats after Charles revealed he had cancer.
The duke jetted 5,000 miles from California to see his dad but was given only 30 minutes of his time.
The King delayed his helicopter to Sandringham so he could see Harry.
But the US-based duke was stopped from joining his dad at the Norfolk estate where he was recuperating after treatment.
It is understood Charles had been reluctant to speak to his son while he was suing the Home Office and demanding taxpayer-funded security.
Harry lost his case in May but stunned the royals with an ill-advised BBC interview blasted the King, courts and UK.
A spokesman for the King and Duke of Sussex declined to comment.
The last time Harry saw King Charles was February last year[/caption]
The reunion lasted for 55-mintues[/caption]
