King Charles is reportedly ready to reconcile with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry.
Dr. Ed Owens, author of After Elizabeth: Can the Monarchy Save Itself?, has said while the monarch is ready to reconcile, it is ultimately down to the Sussexes to make the first move.
He told GB News: “He is demonstrating he is ready to reconcile and that ultimately, the onus is on them to make a decision as to whether they want to heal the wounds that have opened up between them and the rest of the Royal Family.
“The King has done that quite successfully so far. He’s held the moral high ground. He’s presented himself as a conciliator. That is the best way to maintain his reputation as a public figure.”
Relations between the Sussexes and Royal Family have been tested with a string of allegations emerging in the prince’s memoir, Spare, and the couple’s Netflix docu-series, Harry & Meghan.
Dr Owens said: “The most important thing here is how he (King Charles) is viewed by his own public. The King obviously wants to maintain a positive reputation with the British people.
“In that respect, the easiest solution is for him to try and maintain and keep hold of the moral high ground. So far, he’s done that. He’s done that by making it clear, sometimes through back channels.”
The writer said the King has been using press stories from the palace to keep the door open to Harry and Meghan, should they decide they want to return.
Dr Owens said Charles’s hands are “somewhat tied”, because Meghan and Harry want an apology from the Royal Family for the way that they claim they were treated.
He added: “That would be essentially to concede that the Royal Family had done something seriously wrong in the first place.”
Since stepping back as senior royals, losing their HRH status and moving to North America, Harry and Meghan’s relations with the Windsors has been under considerable strain.
Harry had claimed his father was no longer receiving his calls in the wake of their move while in an interview with US talkshow host Oprah Winfrey the Sussexes alleged an unnamed member of the Royal Family had asked about the skin colour of the couple’s then unborn son, Prince Archie Harrison. The couple later rolled back on that claim.
In his memoir, Harry also alleged Prince William had physically attacked him, pushing him over and causing him to fall onto a dog’s bowl in a row.
Harry also wrote that he and William had urged their father not to marry Queen Camilla and that King Charles did not hug him when Diana, Princess of Wales, died.
There were rumours of “peace talks” between Harry and his estranged father ahead of the prince’s solo trip to the UK last month, but it was reported they did not meet.
