King Charles III was busy last week marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and preparing to fly to Canada to open its parliament later this month. But his public schedule was eclipsed yet again by a highly-publicized eruption from his estranged younger son, Prince Harry.
It has become a familiar pattern for the 76-year-old monarch. Two years after his coronation, his reign is shaping up as both eventful and oddly unchanging in its core narrative — that of a beleaguered father managing a messy brood.
Harry’s emotional plea to be reconciled with his family — made in a recent interview with the BBC, in which he mused about how long his cancer-stricken father had left to live — resurfaced bitter ruptures within the royal family, which has yet to find its footing in the still-fledgling Carolean era.
“There is an overhang in the way we see Charles’ reign,” said Ed Owens, a historian who writes about the British monarchy. “It hasn’t really gotten going, nor are we sure how long it will last.”
To be sure, the king has done a lot. Despite undergoing weekly treatments for cancer diagnosed last year, he traveled to France, Australia, Poland and Italy. He found time to curate a playlist for Apple Music (Kylie Minogue and Bob Marley feature), played host at state banquets and posed for portraits.
But Harry’s comments, which came after a legal defeat over his security arrangements in Britain, dragged attention back to the rift that opened in 2020 when he and his wife, Meghan, withdrew from royal life and moved to California.
Some royal watchers warn that unless Charles finds a way to heal that rift, it could define his reign, undercutting the messages of tolerance and inclusiveness that he has long championed.
“When history comes to be written about the king, this will reflect badly on him,” said Peter Hunt, a former royal correspondent for the BBC. “He represents an institution that is about family, unity and fostering forgiveness. His role is to bring people together, and yet he can’t bring people together on his doorstep.”
Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the king’s relationship with his son. But it pushed back on Harry’s contention in the BBC interview that his father could have done more to spare him the loss of automatic, publicly-funded police protection when he visits Britain.
“All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion,” a spokesman for the palace said in an unusually tart statement.
An appeals court ruled on May 2 that a government committee had acted properly in denying Harry automatic protection after he stopped being a working royal. He said he does not think it is safe to bring his wife and children home without such security.
The palace appealed to journalists not to focus on the family drama during a week dedicated to V-E Day commemorations. Far from calming the waters, Mr. Hunt said, that had the effect of keeping the spotlight on Harry longer than necessary.
“It’s a private issue but they are using the full weight of the institution to respond to him,” Mr. Hunt said.
Harry remains estranged from his older brother, Prince William, as well as his father, which adds to the portrait of a family divided and diminished. When the royals gathered on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch a flyover of war planes last week, their ranks were noticeably sparse.
The king’s younger brother, Prince Andrew, is still in internal exile, following the scandal over his ties to the disgraced sex predator, Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew’s history also resurfaced in recent weeks with the death of Virginia Giuffre, a woman introduced to him by Mr. Epstein, with whom he later settled a sexual abuse lawsuit. Her family said she died by suicide in Australia.
For William, the loss of Harry and Andrew, as well as his father’s illness, has thrust him into a more conspicuously public role.
He met with President Trump last year at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He rode on a tank during a visit to British troops in Estonia. And he represented his father at the funeral of Pope Francis last month, which came only days after Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, met Francis at the Vatican.
“William has sometimes been seen as work-shy, but we see him gravitating toward bigger, more media-friendly events,” said Mr. Owens, the historian. “He’s burnishing his reputation as a statesman.”
William has put much of his energy into a program to tackle homelessness in six cities across Britain and Northern Ireland. Like his father, he continues to be active on climate change, though Mr. Owens said both had modulated their voices as net-zero targets have become politically fraught.
The heir to the throne made perhaps his biggest splash with the British public when he offered astute sports commentary last month before a Champions League game pitting his favorite soccer club, Aston Villa, against Paris Saint-Germain. One of the hosts, Rio Ferdinand, joked that he could take his job.
The job that William does not want, at least for now, is his father’s. But fears over the king’s health have made talk of succession inescapable. In late March, Charles was briefly hospitalized after a reaction to his medication. The palace insisted it was a minor bump on the road to recovery, but it set off alarm bells at British broadcasters, for whom the passing of a monarch sets in motion massive coverage.
Nothing in the king’s calendar suggests he is slowing down. If anything, he has embraced his duties with a zeal that royal watchers say is either evidence of a robust recovery or the mark of a man who knows he has limited time.
When he opens Canada’s parliament on May 27, it will be no ordinary royal visit. Charles, who is king of Canada, will be a symbol of Canadian sovereignty at a time when Mr. Trump is calling for it to become the 51st American state.
By all accounts, Charles relishes his role as an agent of British soft power. He recently played host to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and sent Mr. Trump a letter inviting him on a second state visit to Britain.
But such high-profile engagements, royal watchers say, do not disguise the fact that his illness has hindered him from pursuing the kinds of reforms to the British monarchy that many expected after his coronation.
“The man has had the wind taken from his sails,” Mr. Owens said.
