The tender moment was not photographed, or at least no image of it was released to the public. But after years in which few believed it would happen, King Charles finally welcomed his grandchildren Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, whom he had not seen in four years because of the continuing rupture with his son, Prince Harry, and Harry’s wife, Meghan.
The meeting did not mean that the family conflict was over. Nor is it clear that the relationship has truly improved.
The estrangement has been marked by years of damaging interviews, documentaries and Harry’s memoir, in which he criticized the king, Queen Camilla and the wider royal family. At times, he also appeared unwilling to meet his father.
But there is only one father, and only one grandfather. In this case, that grandfather is 77, living with cancer and burdened by a relationship with his younger son that has largely played out through official statements, unnamed associates and media briefings.
Perhaps that explains why Meghan and the children joined Harry in Britain last week after days of rumors and contradictory reports. Harry had arrived earlier, but it remained unclear whether the full family visit would happen, largely because of the continuing dispute over the security arrangements he demands during visits to Britain.
In the end, the reunion took place at Highgrove, Charles’ country residence in Gloucestershire. The King and Queen Camilla hosted Harry, Meghan and their children in what one can safely assume was a thoroughly royal gathering.
Yet even that rare family moment failed to alter the broader picture. Soon afterward, both sides returned to communicating through statements, briefings and intermediaries, underscoring how far the rift between Harry and the royal family remains from resolution.
Four years after Charles ascended the throne, and six years after “Megxit” began the public break between Harry, Meghan and the monarchy, the king still appears unable to resolve the greatest family crisis of his reign.
And it is hardly the only storm darkening his crown.
A lifetime spent waiting
Even those who do not closely follow the royal family know that Charles spent what felt like an eternity as the Prince of Wales, waiting through decades of speculation and expectation for a crown that seemed reluctant to arrive.
Only after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, at 96 in September 2022 did his accession become a reality.
(Photo: WPA Pool, Getty Images)
Even then, some had long wondered whether the crown might bypass him and go directly to his eldest son, Prince William.
During the final years of Elizabeth’s life, the monarchy endured one of its most destabilizing crises: Harry and Meghan’s departure from royal duties, their move to the United States and their subsequent accusations that they had been treated with racism, humiliation and coldness by members of the royal family.
Nevertheless, within hours of the queen’s death, the Accession Council gathered at St. James’s Palace and formally proclaimed Charles king.
His starting position was never easy.
Large sections of the British public had never forgotten, or forgiven, the suffering associated with his marriage to Princess Diana. Before taking the throne, Charles promised to slim down the monarchy, reducing the number of relatives performing official duties and, by extension, the amount of public money supporting Britain’s most famous family.
One of the first people forced to confront that approach was his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Already disgraced over his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew was stripped of royal roles, forced to leave his longtime residence and made increasingly dependent on his brother’s goodwill.
Charles and Camilla met their grandchildren at a residence outside London
(Photo: Lorna Roberts, Shutterstock)
“The relationship between Charles and Andrew suffered a severe blow when Charles revealed his intention to significantly reduce the number of senior working royals,” royal expert Katie Nicholl told the Daily Express at the time.
Years later, Andrew’s relationship with Epstein continues to haunt Charles and the monarchy as disturbing emails and other documents shed further light on the connection between the two men.
In February, Buckingham Palace issued a statement saying the king had demonstrated, through “unprecedented words and actions,” his deep concern over the continuing allegations surrounding Andrew’s conduct.
The palace said the specific allegations were a matter for Andrew but pledged to support any police investigation, adding that the king and queen’s thoughts remained with victims of all forms of abuse.
Days later, six police vehicles arrived outside the Sandringham estate and the former prince was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, according to police.
Charles responded by promising his full cooperation with what he described as a fair and proper investigative process.
“As this process continues, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further,” he said. “In the meantime, my family and I will continue our duties and our service to you.”
The scandal that will not release its grip
That long-awaited public service has struggled to escape the suffocating hold of the Andrew affair.
Andrew continues to embarrass his elder brother and the institution he leads, while critics argue that Buckingham Palace had ample opportunity to act sooner.
“Six years ago, Buckingham Palace knew Andrew was a problem and that he could face a criminal investigation, and they simply ignored it,” said Jess Michaels, a former dancer who says Epstein sexually assaulted her in 1991 when she was 22.
Harry and Meghan with a young Archie. They said the royal family and Charles treated them in a ‘racist, humiliating and cold’ manner
(Photo: Dominic Lipinski, Getty Images)
She pointed to Virginia Giuffre, one of Andrew’s most prominent accusers, who reached an out-of-court settlement with him and died by suicide in April 2025.
“Virginia Giuffre told the truth and did not live to see them acknowledge it,” Michaels said. “It breaks my heart, and it should break everyone’s. This is what institutions do. They protect powerful people and leave victims defenseless to face the difficult truth.”
Royal historian Andrew Lownie, who published a biography of Andrew and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, has also accused the royal family of ignoring warning signs until public pressure became impossible to resist.
“The documents indicate that he continues to lie about his relationship with Epstein,” Lownie said. “I think the royal family knew very well about these matters.”
He said intelligence-related concerns had been reported to Buckingham Palace, but argued that the institution historically ignored damaging stories until they became public.
“The royal family had many opportunities to punish Andrew and remove him from his roles,” he said. “In the end, they acted only because of public and media pressure.”
Despite those accusations, Charles appears to have retained considerable public support.
In a recent survey, 55% of Britons said they were satisfied with his handling of the Andrew affair, while 9% said he had not done enough. Another 38% said the royal family as a whole had handled the crisis as well as it could.
The disgraced Prince Andrew, now entirely dependent on his brother
(Photo: Euan Cherry, Shutterstock)
The money questions
Andrew is only one of the many fronts Charles has been forced to manage.
Another concerns a donation revealed in July 2022 from relatives of Osama bin Laden, the former al-Qaeda leader who led the organization during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was killed by U.S. forces a decade later.
Reports said Charles accepted the donation for one of his charities from Bakr bin Laden and his brother Shafiq, both half-brothers of Osama through their father, Yemeni-born billionaire Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden.
There is no substantive evidence that Bakr or Shafiq were directly involved in terrorism or terrorist financing.
Charles nevertheless accepted their donation to the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund after meeting Bakr at Clarence House in 2013. Although there was no suggestion that accepting the money was a criminal offense, The Sunday Times reported that several advisers had urged Charles not to take it from the wealthy Saudi family.
Sir Ian Cheshire, chairman of the charitable fund, said the decision had been made by the trustees, not by Charles himself.
The disclosure triggered intense criticism and raised questions about the judgment of the man who would soon become king. Critics asked how someone seeking to lead an institution built on public trust could accept such a sensitive donation. His defenders stressed that the money went to charity and that there was no legal barrier to receiving it.
Either way, the episode gave the monarchy’s critics fresh ammunition and showed that Charles’ personal decisions had created controversy long before he reached the throne.
Only a month before the bin Laden disclosure, The Sunday Times reported that Charles had accepted 3 million euros in cash from former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.
According to the report, the money was transferred during three private meetings between 2011 and 2015 and later donated to the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund.
Again, no law was found to have been broken. But accepting such large sums in cash prompted public criticism and revived questions about Charles’ judgment.
The king’s most personal battle
If the financial controversies damaged Charles’ public image, his greatest challenge is far more personal, even if his position makes it inevitably public.
In February 2024, Buckingham Palace announced that the king had been diagnosed with cancer, shocking Britain.
King Charles and Queen Camilla during a speech in Parliament in London
(Photo: AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool)
The palace said that during treatment for a benign enlarged prostate, doctors had identified a separate area of concern and subsequent tests had revealed a form of cancer.
Two and a half years later, the public still has not been told what type of cancer the king has.
Charles was hospitalized for a period in early 2025, and Harry told the BBC that May: “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”
The Daily Beast reported that Charles was living with incurable cancer, while Daily Telegraph royal commentator Camilla Tominey said his health struggles meant he would never move into Buckingham Palace.
“The king will die with cancer, but not necessarily from cancer,” she wrote.
The palace firmly declined to address those claims, while royal aides continued to insist that Charles was “continuing to beat cancer.”
Charles himself has spoken of the frightening experience of diagnosis and the unexpected compassion it can reveal.
“The darkest moments of illness can be illuminated by the greatest compassion,” he said. “Every diagnosis, every new case is a daunting and sometimes frightening experience for those individuals and those who love them. But as someone who has joined that statistic myself, I can say it can also be an experience that brings the best of humanity into focus.”
In a festive address last December, he asked the public to join him in thinking of and praying for the hundreds of thousands of people across Britain diagnosed with cancer, as well as the millions who love and care for them.
He also praised early detection, saying it had allowed him to continue living a full and active life while receiving treatment.
“Thanks to early diagnosis and following my doctors’ instructions, the timetable for my cancer treatment can be reduced in the new year,” he said.
A king required to remain silent
Charles has spent much of his adult life openly expressing views on environmental protection, agriculture and climate change.
Becoming king required him to adopt near-total political neutrality, avoiding any appearance of partisan interference.
He has worked alongside changing prime ministers, represented Britain during wars and diplomatic crises and tried to guide the monarchy through a period of political turbulence. His traditional role is to ensure orderly transfers of power and project stability, even while his own family and institution have often appeared anything but stable.
On one issue, however, Charles did not remain entirely silent.
After the October 7 terror attack and the surge of antisemitism across Britain during the Gaza war, he condemned the “barbaric acts of terrorism in Israel.” His spokesman said he was “appalled” and that his thoughts and prayers were with the victims and their families.
As the war continued, the king also had to balance his sympathy for the victims of terrorism with his position as head of state in a multicultural country.
As president of the British Red Cross, he met aid organizations, received briefings on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and contributed to relief efforts.
At the same time, Buckingham Palace avoided publicly addressing the Israeli hostages, prompting criticism from parts of the British public and media.
In January 2025, Charles became the first British head of state to visit Auschwitz, attending events marking the 80th anniversary of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp’s liberation.
Before the ceremony, he met Holocaust survivors in Poland and said: “We have an important task remaining: to remember the evil of the past.”
The visit also carried a personal family connection.
His grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, the mother of Prince Philip, sheltered a Jewish family in her Athens home during the Nazi occupation. She was later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.
The crown he waited for
It is a great deal for one 77-year-old Briton to carry, whether on a plate or a silver tray.
Charles’ decades-long longing for the throne finally delivered a reign far more complicated and turbulent than he could have imagined.
Instead of a period of royal grace, he has faced a fractured family, public scandal, disputed donations, wars, political instability and cancer.
Four years after becoming king, Charles appears, like Britain itself, far from stability, calm or comfortable retirement.
At this point, he may no longer agree with the old Mel Brooks line: “It’s good to be the king.”
For Charles, it has mostly been very complicated.