The couple, who were in the UK when the Queen died on Thursday, joined Harry’s brother William and wife Catherine at Windsor Castle on Saturday. This was the four’s first public appearance together since 2020.
Dressed in black, the four watched the flowers left by the subjects on the occasion of the Queen’s death and greeted the public without revealing the state of the relationship between the couples. But the decision to appear together on camera meant a breakthrough in reconciliation.
The heir to the throne, William, has been reunited with his brother, who has criticized the family after stepping down from royal duties, according to reports in the British royal family press. Two days earlier, the situation was completely different: 37-year-old Harry arrived alone by car in Balmoral, Scotland, shortly after the Queen’s death. William and other family members, except for Kate, arrived early in the same car.
Richard Fitzwilliams, a royal expert, said on Thursday that the fact that the brothers arrived separately showed they were “far apart”. He added that Harry and Meghan had done “great damage to the royal family in recent months” with their comments.
Various paths
After the death of Diana, mother of the princes, in a car accident in Paris in 1997, the brothers shocked the world by walking behind her coffin in a funeral procession. William was 15 and Harry was only 12.
As adults, they seemed very close, an image that remained after William married his longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton in 2011. But after Harry’s marriage to American actress Meghan Markle in 2018, the relationship began to shudder.
Harry said in a 2019 interview that he and his brother were on “different paths”. A year later, he and Megan announced their move to the United States.
In an explosive March 2021 interview with the couple and Oprah Winfrey, Meghan claimed that Katherine had brought her to tears. They also claimed that a member of the royal family, whom they did not name, suggested the skin color of the couple’s unborn child, as Meghan is of African descent.
William reacted by saying that the royal family is “not at all” racist. Relations between the brothers were clearly distant when they met again last year to unveil a statue of their mother. Nor did they meet at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration in June.
Meghan recently told The Cut magazine that she now feels “free” to tell her own story, which some saw as a disguised threat to the monarchy.
