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The royal family

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Is Harry and his family coming to the UK or not

1000 replies

Viviennemary · 01/07/2026 17:08

Nobody seems to know for sure. Why should we care. Maybe he doesn't even know himself yet. He can't seem to do anything without attracting lots of press articles.

OP posts:
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11
upinaballoon · 11/07/2026 08:40

If they do take the two children to see Diana's grave, I don't think that is mawkish or silly or awful in any way. It seems completely reasonable. In all of those cases, whether it's a prince or a pauper, it's not the taking of the children to a grave that matters but what they are told.

diddl · 11/07/2026 08:42

It wouldn't surprise me if they want a way back in but in what capacity who knows?

Surely no one thinks that either of them being working royals would fly?

I also wouldn't think they would want to uproot the kids, certainly not to schools in England that might be considered "suitable"?

Which leaves money-for nothing?

HurrahforHollywood · 11/07/2026 08:58

diddl · 11/07/2026 08:42

It wouldn't surprise me if they want a way back in but in what capacity who knows?

Surely no one thinks that either of them being working royals would fly?

I also wouldn't think they would want to uproot the kids, certainly not to schools in England that might be considered "suitable"?

Which leaves money-for nothing?

I meant schools in the US.

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 09:06

upinaballoon · 11/07/2026 08:40

If they do take the two children to see Diana's grave, I don't think that is mawkish or silly or awful in any way. It seems completely reasonable. In all of those cases, whether it's a prince or a pauper, it's not the taking of the children to a grave that matters but what they are told.

I think it's knowing how Meghan performed when she first visited the grave. Harry recounts it in Spare.

WoodchipAnnie56 · 11/07/2026 10:05

PotolKimchi · 11/07/2026 06:41

I said this on another thread. I agree with @Rhaidimiddim that ultimately this is a victory for the RF. It washes away all the bad press about the accommodation at BP. King Charles looks like a kind man. It was a significant gesture that Camilla whom Harry has trashed so publicly was explicitly by his side as the Queen.

It's exploded the myth that they can't come to the UK without security or that Harry is at risk. That's dead in the water.
It's clear to the whole world why they are here, esp after the court case, it has nothing to do with Invictus but because they ultimately need a financial bailout and to remind the world they are Royal.

And Meghan has had to swallow humble pie. This was a terrible racist nation, and she married into a terrible family. And after a string of commercial failures, she has been forced to come back, and have a private meeting with that same family and in fact, as is clear from the comms chaos of this week, essentially beg for this meeting.

I will be very very curious to see what media/comments emerge from the Althorp evening. If at all.

But if H&M now trash the RF again in an attempt to make a quick buck, no one will believe them in the US. This visit will be remembered for their comms chaos and for them coming back broke and desperate for the RF to see them.

First of all, just because they have come to the UK once and had no incident, that doesn’t completely lay to rest all security worries forever.

Second, I think it’s really important to be accurate, that when you say Harry “trashed” Camila to look at precisely what he did say.

Harry summarised what he said in the book Spare to 60 minutes, Good morning America and to journalists such as Tom Bradby and Anderson Cooper and he said more or less the same thing in each interview;

“She’s my stepmother. I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother,” he said, then continued, “I see someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to improve her own reputation and her own image for her own sake.”

And seeing as there is strong evidence that Camilla allegedly does have strong relationships with certain press powerful press contacts through the triangle of Rebekah Brooks, Mark Bolland and his husband Guy Black, and through individuals such as Jeremy Clarkson, possibly Piers Morgan. and the oh so deferential Gyles Brandreth, I think it’s fair to say that that is not an entirely inaccurate assessment from Harry.

Harry went on to say about Camilla and the press;

“There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street,”

And to Anderson Cooper he said;

“I had complex feelings about gaining a step parent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar,” Harry writes in Spare. “In a funny way I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy?”

So I don’t think those comments are outrageously controversial tbh.

And frankly, if my father had been having an affair with another woman throughout my parents fifteen-year marriage, then I think what he has said about Camilla is pretty mild tbh.

What annoys me on these RF thread and in the press is that Camilla is now made out to be this quiet, calm, humourous, respectable figure, but generally on Mumsnet as a whole people who have affairs are castigated for it!

Even if you make an exception on the moral issue of infidelity because kings marry for the dynasty and not for love - something that is no longer true but anyway - don’t forget that once Charles married Diana and young children were on the scene, Camilla had the choice to remove herself from the situation and step away and go and live in a backwater in France or somewhere, as any person with a shred of decency would do. But she didn’t and I think that says a lot about the sort of person she is tbh.

Expecting William and Harry to be non-critical about her is a big ask tbh and of course Harry, who isn’t the heir, had more freedom to express himself on this point.

jeffgoldblum · 11/07/2026 10:17

You seem to have forgotten the multiple affairs Diana had throughout their marriage, starting with her bodyguard and then with the husbands of many other married women! , why don’t they deserve compassion? , or is saint Diana’s halo too bright to afford any criticism.
you also fail to acknowledge that Harry has himself been proven publicly to briefing the press himself from his days as young man onto his time as a working royal and now with his very own WhatsApp group chat with journalists!

Viviennemary · 11/07/2026 10:17

I wonder if they're a bit disappointed at no photos with the king and queen. Meghan and kids have been and gone with no fanfare.

OP posts:
Newname26 · 11/07/2026 10:19

Viviennemary · 11/07/2026 10:17

I wonder if they're a bit disappointed at no photos with the king and queen. Meghan and kids have been and gone with no fanfare.

I think that's been part of the condition. No photos, or certainly no photos published.

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 10:20

There's no evidence that Camilla briefed the press. Harry and Meghan continuously do this.
Not honestly nor with evidence.
Camilla certainly hasn't done nasty, sniping interviews or written a book criticising Harry. She could! But she won't.
There's the difference.

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 10:22

Oh and having a lunch with a group of people, including Gyles Brandreth, doesn't mean you're selling stories.
Camilla hasn't had a six part Netflix series bemoaning her life and blaming everyone else has she?

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 10:23

Newname26 · 11/07/2026 10:19

I think that's been part of the condition. No photos, or certainly no photos published.

I love that.
It's going to absolutely torment Harry and Meghan; a couple who just live for publicity! 👍

Batcats · 11/07/2026 10:30

WoodchipAnnie56 · 11/07/2026 10:05

First of all, just because they have come to the UK once and had no incident, that doesn’t completely lay to rest all security worries forever.

Second, I think it’s really important to be accurate, that when you say Harry “trashed” Camila to look at precisely what he did say.

Harry summarised what he said in the book Spare to 60 minutes, Good morning America and to journalists such as Tom Bradby and Anderson Cooper and he said more or less the same thing in each interview;

“She’s my stepmother. I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother,” he said, then continued, “I see someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to improve her own reputation and her own image for her own sake.”

And seeing as there is strong evidence that Camilla allegedly does have strong relationships with certain press powerful press contacts through the triangle of Rebekah Brooks, Mark Bolland and his husband Guy Black, and through individuals such as Jeremy Clarkson, possibly Piers Morgan. and the oh so deferential Gyles Brandreth, I think it’s fair to say that that is not an entirely inaccurate assessment from Harry.

Harry went on to say about Camilla and the press;

“There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street,”

And to Anderson Cooper he said;

“I had complex feelings about gaining a step parent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar,” Harry writes in Spare. “In a funny way I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy?”

So I don’t think those comments are outrageously controversial tbh.

And frankly, if my father had been having an affair with another woman throughout my parents fifteen-year marriage, then I think what he has said about Camilla is pretty mild tbh.

What annoys me on these RF thread and in the press is that Camilla is now made out to be this quiet, calm, humourous, respectable figure, but generally on Mumsnet as a whole people who have affairs are castigated for it!

Even if you make an exception on the moral issue of infidelity because kings marry for the dynasty and not for love - something that is no longer true but anyway - don’t forget that once Charles married Diana and young children were on the scene, Camilla had the choice to remove herself from the situation and step away and go and live in a backwater in France or somewhere, as any person with a shred of decency would do. But she didn’t and I think that says a lot about the sort of person she is tbh.

Expecting William and Harry to be non-critical about her is a big ask tbh and of course Harry, who isn’t the heir, had more freedom to express himself on this point.

Diana herself had multiple affairs through her marriage. Funny how Harry never mentioned them?

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 10:31

I respect Camilla for being good humoured and just getting on with things, in spite of all the terrible treatment, dreadful press and lies from the Sussex camp.
Yes, you're so right, @jeffgoldblum, Diana was no saint, Camilla no evil witch!

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 10:33

No, @Batcats, Harry never mentioned Diana's many affairs, and relationships with married men.
He said in an interview that he told his father not to marry Camilla.
Yet in another interview (book, magazine, whatever) he gets angry because his dad and brother told him to take his time and not rush into marriage with Meghan!

Batcats · 11/07/2026 10:38

Camilla by all accounts is a hardworking down to earth woman with a good sense of humour. The rest of the world bar some hard core Sussex supportersnd Harry have moved on since the 1990s and realise constantly holding a grudge on her isn't healthy. What was Charles meant to do after Diana died? Spend the rest of his life single and mourning?

PotolKimchi · 11/07/2026 10:46

@WoodchipAnnie56 Listen maybe he didn’t trash her. But he had to accept an invitation to see his father where she was there. In a property that is hers more than his. She is his Queen.
We know where the power balance lay here.

And maybe there will be future security risks but after the incessant drama via the WhatsApp group about security, it was a damp squib. When Harry came out of Chatham House it was just a mob of journos.

If the visit had been what it was in the end:

  • 2 public engagements relating to Invictus
  • 2 utterly private family events which frankly we (or anyone else) didn’t need to know about except for H&M to remind us that the RF will still speak to them. (Do you think William and Catherine should let the press know everytime they meet Charles??!)

It was a nothing-burger. After all the fuss and flailing and will they come and where will they stay. God. So tedious.

I mean what if they came in August, met Zara’s family and kids and had a serious of play dates, met the other cousins, never left Royal property and their vast grounds and flew back out. And NO ONE KNEW. AND THEY NEVER EVER TOLD ANYONE for the next few decades. Can you imagine that? No, of course you can’t. The fact that we cannot even fathom this is not because this isn’t possible (ultra wealthy people do things under the radar all the time) but because we find it unlikely that H&M would be able to do this. Or want to.

And therein lies the problem. The public perception of them is now of drama llamas.

SheinSussex · 11/07/2026 10:53

What I want to know is did Meghan bring her jam for Charles to try?

WoodchipAnnie56 · 11/07/2026 10:55

jeffgoldblum · 11/07/2026 10:17

You seem to have forgotten the multiple affairs Diana had throughout their marriage, starting with her bodyguard and then with the husbands of many other married women! , why don’t they deserve compassion? , or is saint Diana’s halo too bright to afford any criticism.
you also fail to acknowledge that Harry has himself been proven publicly to briefing the press himself from his days as young man onto his time as a working royal and now with his very own WhatsApp group chat with journalists!

Edited

I anticipated this standard response as it’s the one that is usually tripped out because it is in many royalists interest to paint Diana as a “slutty” unstable creature when actually Jephson, her private secretary, completely contradicted them and said Diana was extremely well organised , energetic, and tackled her charitable work with huge professionalism and as he worked closely with her for seven years then he should know. He also said there had been a strategic smear campaign against Diana which formed part of Bolland’s PR strategy to rehabilitate Camilla.

As for the moral judgements; why is it that Diana is the only one that catches all the flack when the men concerned (including Charles) are never criticised in this way?

Having made that point, let’s not forget that Diana was nineteen when she was engaged, twenty-one and twenty-three when she had William and Harry and when her marriage - which she had pursued in good faith but in which she was sorely deceived throughout - blew up… .

At least she got to the point where she was considered “moral” enough to marry a King, if those are the standards you are judging people on Jeffgoldblum?

Funnily enough I am just reading “Battle of the Brothers” by Robert Lacey in which he decribes the then young Camilla Parker Bowles née Shand as;

“a characterful lady noted for her sheer brass nerve” … “who was quite well known in society circles for being ‘a bit of a goer” and therefore not suitable by the standards of the time, to marry a prince. And of course Camilla was famously unfaithful to her dh when her dc were young, as was he to her,

So if you are going to judge people on those terms Jeffgoldblum then why just pick on Diana and not Charles and Camilla as well?

Theunamedcat · 11/07/2026 10:56

I think the palace played a blinder here all the criticism of Charles as a grandparent squashed as a parent squashed because people were screaming about him "refusing to keep the precious babies safe" he has shown he can and will keep them safe literally nothing has happened on his watch

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 11:19

SheinSussex · 11/07/2026 10:53

What I want to know is did Meghan bring her jam for Charles to try?

I think it's "fruit spread" rather than jam?
She probably did. I hope she was shown what a real scone is.

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 11:20

Theunamedcat · 11/07/2026 10:56

I think the palace played a blinder here all the criticism of Charles as a grandparent squashed as a parent squashed because people were screaming about him "refusing to keep the precious babies safe" he has shown he can and will keep them safe literally nothing has happened on his watch

They can't undo all the Sussex lies (how long would that take!) however, at least it's proven them completely wrong on this.

SheinSussex · 11/07/2026 11:31

OlympicWomen · 11/07/2026 11:19

I think it's "fruit spread" rather than jam?
She probably did. I hope she was shown what a real scone is.

😋

Batcats · 11/07/2026 11:46

The thing is on any thread do with Harry, whatever the subject people always to bring up Charles having an affair, Diana being chased paparazzi and Harry walking behind his mums coffin like they are any reason or justification for why a 41 year old should man be given what he wants and when.

Diana died 30 years ago. It isn't 1997 anymore, the world is a very different place. And Charles and Camilla have been married for 24 years. The world's moved on. For someone that bangs on about mental health, if Harry wants to spend the rest of his life consumed with bitterness and rage, that's on him. It doesn't mean his family, government or society have any requirement to pander to him.

jeffgoldblum · 11/07/2026 12:05

WoodchipAnnie56 · 11/07/2026 10:55

I anticipated this standard response as it’s the one that is usually tripped out because it is in many royalists interest to paint Diana as a “slutty” unstable creature when actually Jephson, her private secretary, completely contradicted them and said Diana was extremely well organised , energetic, and tackled her charitable work with huge professionalism and as he worked closely with her for seven years then he should know. He also said there had been a strategic smear campaign against Diana which formed part of Bolland’s PR strategy to rehabilitate Camilla.

As for the moral judgements; why is it that Diana is the only one that catches all the flack when the men concerned (including Charles) are never criticised in this way?

Having made that point, let’s not forget that Diana was nineteen when she was engaged, twenty-one and twenty-three when she had William and Harry and when her marriage - which she had pursued in good faith but in which she was sorely deceived throughout - blew up… .

At least she got to the point where she was considered “moral” enough to marry a King, if those are the standards you are judging people on Jeffgoldblum?

Funnily enough I am just reading “Battle of the Brothers” by Robert Lacey in which he decribes the then young Camilla Parker Bowles née Shand as;

“a characterful lady noted for her sheer brass nerve” … “who was quite well known in society circles for being ‘a bit of a goer” and therefore not suitable by the standards of the time, to marry a prince. And of course Camilla was famously unfaithful to her dh when her dc were young, as was he to her,

So if you are going to judge people on those terms Jeffgoldblum then why just pick on Diana and not Charles and Camilla as well?

You alone are judging the morals of people!
facts are facts! , the truth may be inconvenient to your narrative but that’s a you problem!
and I’m sorry if me actually remembering them makes your statements look hollow and one sided! 🤷‍♀️

IAmATorturedPoet · 11/07/2026 12:09

I think most people by now acknowledge that Charles and Diana should never have got married, they were not well suited.
All three had affairs.
Post divorce Diana moved on and had a happy life with her partners as did Charles and Camilla who have been happily married for over 20 years now.
Both women did and QC continues to do some excellent charitable work as does Charles.
William has, over the passage of time, accepted his father's relationship and can see that Camilla is good for his dad and that they make a good team.

So if you are going to judge people on those terms Jeffgoldblum then why just pick on Diana and not Charles and Camilla as well?

@WoodchipAnnie56 the poster you referred to (@jeffgoldblum) was not picking on just Diana, your post conveniently left out Diana and they were bringing that to your attention. You need to judge people on the same terms as Camilla and Charles and that includes Diana.

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