Prince Harry is set to undertake a solo pseudo royal visit to the UK from Monday – with four days of official engagements.
It will be his longest trip since he and Meghan visited in 2022 when Queen Elizabeth II died.
And it comes amid claims he would like to ‘reset’ his tattered relationship with his family.
But Buckingham Palace is remaining tight-lipped on whether King Charles will meet his estranged son.
It demonstrates the level of sensitivity around the feud between Harry and the Royal Family – exacerbated by his pursuit of His Majesty’s Government through the courts over the withdrawal of his full-time security.
The Duke of Sussex also deeply offended many by claiming his loss in the case earlier this year was an ‘Establishment stitch-up’ and publicly questioning how long his father had to live.
The pair have not seen each other since February last year, when Harry flew to the UK after it was announced that Charles had cancer.
He was not informed beforehand for fear of leaks and the pair met for just half an hour.
Prince Harry is set to undertake a solo pseudo royal visit to the UK from Monday – with four days of official engagements. Pictured: Harry with his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, at the the Invictus Games in Germany
Charles is currently at Birkhall, his Scottish residence, and will remain there until at least tomorrow, privately marking his mother’s death and his accession to the throne on Monday.
The King does have a number of private audiences and meetings this week that could, potentially, bring him back to the capital.
Prince William, who has taken a much firmer line on rekindling of relations with his brother, has official engagements elsewhere on every day of Harry’s visit.
On Monday, he has an engagement in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to commemorate the life of his grandmother on the third anniversary of her death.
On Tuesday he will be in London visiting Spiral Skills, a youth organisation in Lambeth which has received funding from his Homewards campaign to tackle homelessness in six trial areas around the UK.
On Wednesday, William will visit a mental health hub at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium to mark World Suicide Prevention Day.
Meanwhile, on Monday Harry will attend the WellChild Awards in London, a charity which supports youngsters affected by terminal and serious illness and their families.
He has been its patron for 17 years – even after stepping down as a working royal – and will present an award.
Buckingham Palace is remaining tight-lipped on whether King Charles will meet his estranged son (pictured together in September 2022)
On Tuesday he will visit the Community Recording Studio in Nottingham. His team says he will use the visit to announce a ‘substantial donation’ to charity Children in Need to support its work tackling violence impacting young people.
Harry has engagements on Wednesday and Thursday with other charities he is involved in, including the Invictus Games and the Diana Award.
A source said: ‘His visit is four days long and focusing purely on the patronages. [He is] keeping it positive, no courtrooms, just doing the stuff he loved to do and, hopefully, helping some of those causes closest to his heart.’
It comes as Harry’s friends repeated his recent assertions in The Sunday Times that he wants to come home more and, one day, ‘bring his family’.
One said: ‘He’s not given up hope. He really would like to come back to the UK much more.’
Another added: ‘He’s made it absolutely clear that he wants a reconciliation with his family. It’s on them now.’
But this has not gone down well with those in royal circles.
It comes as Harry’s friends repeated his recent assertions in The Sunday Times that he wants to come home more and, one day, ‘bring his family’
One source said: ‘It’s just not that easy to dismiss recent events or try to paper over the damage that has been done. Trust has been lost and will not be easy to recover.’
Earlier this year, Harry also told the BBC that he believed any visit to the UK came with significant risk of physical harm to himself and his family.
Asked how the prince squared his visit this week with these claims, a source close to him said: ‘Live threats against the duke continue to exist and he accepts they always will – an unfortunate inevitability.
‘For obvious reasons, we cannot discuss them in detail.
‘The level of risk the duke is prepared to tolerate personally is very different from what he is willing to accept for his family.
”Not wanting to expose his children to such threats is something any dad would understand.’
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