Not since Yalta has the world seen such a controversial summit.
The seemingly impossible happened over the weekend, with senior aides to King Charles and Prince Harry meeting to broker a potential reconciliation — reportedly leaving Prince William livid.
‘It’s no coincidence that William and Catherine did not have a representative’ at the meeting, a friend of the couple told the Daily Mail.
Nor is it any secret that William remains deeply and irreparably distrustful of his prodigal brother.
We have since learned that William and Kate are, as ever (wink wink), treating the incipient reconciliation ‘with extreme caution.’
‘The fact that it ended up in the newspapers,’ said their friend, ‘tells you all you need to know.’
Indeed — that’s one of the tantalizing mysteries here.
Who leaked the summit, which curiously occurred in a public place, in full view of paparazzi?
The seemingly impossible happened over the weekend, with senior aides to King Charles and Prince Harry meeting to broker a potential reconciliation – reportedly leaving Prince William livid
‘It’s no coincidence that William and Catherine did not have a representative’ at the meeting, a friend of the couple told the Daily Mail
Nor is it any secret that William remains deeply and irreparably distrustful of his prodigal brother
History would suggest it was the Sussexes — who are said to be ‘frustrated’ by the leak. But clues also point to the King’s camp.
Meeting at a private members’ club whose patron is King Charles — a club just three minutes from Clarence House, the King’s private London residence — were Meredith Maines, Harry’s chief communications officer; Liam Maguire, the Sussexes’ PR chief in the UK; and Tobyn Andreae, the King’s communications secretary.
All three otherwise unrecognizable people gathered at a table, on a balcony, in full view of photographers who just happened to be there.
If this staging was pre-arranged by Charles — my, how we have taken a page out of the late Diana’s playbook.
It would also be a stunning rebuke to William, the dutiful son who was left alone to shoulder the weight of royal responsibility as his father and wife both suffered cancer diagnoses.
William’s rage is all too understandable.
Harry is a forever mess – a 40-year-old man-child who has betrayed the family repeatedly, who made the remaining days of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II utter miseries, who allowed his wife to tell Oprah that there were ‘racist’ royals and whose cheerleader Omid Scobie somehow let Charles and Kate be named as said racist royals.
Yet Harry, despite tantrum and treachery, gets chance after chance without so much as issuing a single public apology.
William, meanwhile, has no such luxury. He cannot put a foot wrong, yet gets further punishment while Harry, with this summit, receives another unearned reward.
So while William and Kate and two of their children were at Wimbledon this weekend – Kate having received a standing ovation when she attended solo on Saturday – his father, symbolically and metaphorically, may have just gone behind his back.
The back of the son who is doing all he can to preserve the future of the monarchy, while Harry and Meghan have seemingly done all they can to destroy it.
This is Biblical, truly. The stuff of Cain and Abel.
From Charles’s point of view, however, his own cancer battle has clearly imposed a ticking clock.
If he wants to have any relationship at all with his younger son and the two grandchildren he barely knows, now is surely the time – even if it risks incurring William’s wrath.
And therein lies the shadow rivalry: As William takes on more public duties for the aging King, he increasingly becomes the face of the monarchy and accrues his own soft power.
And Harry well knows that once William is King, he and Meghan will have no way back. For him, too, it’s now or never with Charles, no matter how confusing Harry’s messaging may be.
Recall that just two months ago, Harry gave a bombshell interview to the BBC after a British court denied him, yet again, taxpayer-funded security.
He wildly claimed that after Megxit ‘my life got devalued from the highest score to the lowest score overnight.’
Herein lies the shadow rivalry: As William takes on more public duties for the aging King, he increasingly becomes the face of the monarchy and accrues his own soft power
And he went on to effectively imply that the Royal Family wished him harm – but that he’d nonetheless love to get back in their good graces.
‘The people that wish me harm consider this a huge win,’ he said, adding that the King ‘won’t speak to me because of this security stuff.’
Makes sense, right?
He also indecorously implied that Charles could die at any moment.
‘I don’t know how much longer my father has,’ Harry said.
Little wonder William keeps his distance.
Were Charles to let Harry back in — and we know Meghan is part of that package deal — he may do well to recall the fable of The Scorpion and the Frog, in which a scorpion wants to get across a river and asks a frog to carry him.
The frog asks: ‘Why would I do that? You’re a scorpion who can kill me with one sting.’
The scorpion says: ‘Why would I do that? If I kill you, we both drown.’
So the frog agrees to carry the scorpion, who stings the frog halfway across the river anyway. When the frog asks why, the scorpion says: ‘I couldn’t help myself. It’s my nature.’
In the end, both are taken under.
To my mind, this may be the most salient metaphor for a newly fragile, still negotiated peace with House Sussex: Once a scorpion, always a scorpion.
