King Charles gets “frustrated” when his “public duty” gets overshadowed by ongoing controversy surrounding the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a source has reportedly claimed.
The King’s decision not to remove Harry as an official counsellor of state may have avoided the potential fallout of doing so, but means discussions over the Prince’s place in the UK continue even as Charles aims to show his statecraft abroad.
The new monarch has undertaken key diplomatic visits to both France and Germany in the last year – with the former particularly showing the King’s strong connections abroad, given his “bromance” with Emmanuel Macron.
But writing for the Times, Roya Nikkhah claimed Charles’ “private problems continue to make the headlines” despite his work.
She quoted an unnamed source close to the King who allegedly said: “It frustrates him that personal issues intrude on the public duty.
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“He’d much rather the focus was on his work, not the soap opera of the private life.
“It is always frustrating when family dynamics overshadow the public role.”
Key is the decision to keep Harry as a counsellor of state, which makes him one of seven Royal Family members who can deputise for the monarch in the event of them being abroad or unwell.
Counsellors of state must have a UK domicile, according to the law – but Harry no longer does, since the King asked the Sussexes to leave their Frogmore Cottage following their move to the US.
According to Ms Nikkhah, the King does not want to remove Harry – or Prince Andrew, who similarly is no longer a working royal – as counsellors of state to avoid escalating family tensions.
An unnamed friend of Charles’s told the outlet that removing Harry would be “seen as an act of antagonism”.
Instead, an option reportedly being floated is to lease a property on the royal estate to Harry and Meghan, with Kensington Palace a possibility.
However, Buckingham Palace has denied that this is being considered, with a spokesman saying: “These claims are not true.”
Offering Harry somewhere to stay in this way whenever he visited the UK would also help the issue of the Prince’s security.
Harry has been public about his anger at having his family’s royal security benefits removed when the couple moved initially to Canada in 2020.
The couple were left to find and fund their own private security, despite Harry allegedly pleading for the arrangement to continue, he said in the couple’s joint Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan.
But the Prince lost his bid for a second legal challenge against the Home Office over his security arrangements when in the UK in May. A High Court judge refused Harry permission to secure a judicial review over a decision to prevent him from paying privately for a police security detail.
