Prince Harry’s Path to Reconciliation With King Charles Includes Making Peace With Queen Camilla, Royal Expert Says

As Prince Harry continues to work on his relationship with King Charles, there’s one “non-negotiable” he will have to confront: Queen Camilla.

In a new conversation with People, royal author Catherine Mayer said the path forward for the Duke of Sussex, 41, and his father, 77, is largely dependent on mending things with his stepmother, 78.

“She is a non-negotiable part of Charles’ life,” Mayer told the outlet. “There is no reconciliation with him without her.”

That was evident during the Sussexes’ family reunion with Charle. On July 10, Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle, and their children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, reconnected with both the king and Camilla at Highgrove House, Buckingham Palace confirmed to People.

The private meeting also marked the first time in four years that Charles had seen Meghan and his California-based grandchildren. The palace asserted there would be no photos released of the meeting, and that no details of what was discussed would be made public.

“It is better that people don’t know anything about these meetings,” a separate source close to the royal family told People following the reunion. “They should be allowed to rekindle those family ties.”

The meeting comes amid Harry’s rocky relationship with both his father and Camilla.

Speaking about Charles’ relationship with Camilla in his 2023 memoir, Spare, Harry admitted to having complicated feelings about his father’s 2005 marriage to the now-Queen, following her affair with the future monarch during his marriage to Harry and Prince William‘s mother, Princess Diana.

“I had complex feelings about gaining a stepparent, who I thought had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar,” Prince Harry said in his memoir, alleging that she leaked stories about him to the press in an effort to rehabilitate her image.

Now, Harry describes their relationship as “pleasant,” telling Good Morning America in an interview that same year that he doesn’t see her as the “evil stepmother.”

While the meeting was a long time coming and nearly didn’t happen due to security concerns surrounding the Sussexes and their kids, it was a welcomed family moment for the otherwise strained royal family.

“One of the strangenesses of the monarchy is that we are all encouraged to forget they’re human beings because they’re representatives of the institution,” Mayer told People. “But at its heart it is just a family — and this family has gone through extraordinary upheavals. Whatever you think of the monarchy, this is a moment most of us wanted to see happen.”