King Charles and Prince Harry Spoke the Night Before the Coronation, the King Hoped Harry Would Stick Around After the Ceremony

(Image credit: Getty)

published 13 May 2023

It has been one week since King Charles’ Coronation, and behind the scenes details continue to emerge about the historic event. According to Us Weekly, Charles and son Prince Harry—in town for just 28 hours to attend his father’s ceremony—spoke the night before the Coronation: “My understanding is he [Harry] didn’t have any interactions with the Prince or Princess of Wales, but that he did have a conversation with his father the night before,” Nick Bullen, editor-in-chief of True Royalty TV, told the outlet.

Harry arrived in the U.K. that Friday, May 5, and no one knew Harry’s plans for Saturday afternoon after the ceremony at Westminster Abbey until Saturday morning, Bullen said.

“Until the morning, nobody really knew what Harry’s plans were going to be for that afternoon,” he said. “I think everybody knew he had a plane to catch. Everybody knew he was intending to get home, but there was a hope, I think, that he might be part of some of the family celebrations back at the Palace. So I think that there was a sadness that he wasn’t part of the fuller day but, you know, they all knew he was going to get [on] that plane.”

As Marie Claire reported last Saturday, Harry was invited to a luncheon at Buckingham Palace after the ceremony, which ultimately saw the King toast his grandson (and Harry’s son) Prince Archie, who coincidentally turned four years old that same day.

In addition to skipping the post-ceremony luncheon, it seems Harry also skipped a pre-ceremony dinner the night before, Bullen said. “There was a dinner on Friday night at a private member’s club in London called Oswald’s that a lot of the rest of the family went to,” he said. “The Yorks went to it, Princess Anne went to it with her children. A lot of the extended royal family were at this private dinner, and there were no shots of Harry arriving at that dinner. It looks like he didn’t go. Maybe he came into a back door, who knows? But it appears that he kept a very, very low profile during the whole piece.”

And it could be a while before Harry returns to the U.K., especially as his and wife Meghan Markle’s U.K. home, Frogmore Cottage, no longer belongs to them. “There seems to be no reason for him to come back to London anytime soon,” Bullen said. “Meghan certainly is showing no interest in coming back But I think what’s interesting is it’s possibly the beginning of the end of the Sussex interaction with the royal family.”

Meghan, of course, opted to stay behind in California with their kids Archie and Princess Lilibet, and Harry arrived home Saturday evening to tuck his son, the birthday boy, into bed.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.