Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Want “A Capitulation and Apology by the Palace”

Apparently Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s invitation to the Coronation will be arriving imminently—and it will ultimately be up to the couple if they choose to attend. Before the “Will they or won’t they?” push/pull surrounding the Coronation, the same happened with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee last June, which they ultimately flew in to the U.K. from their home in the U.S. This time around, though, there is even more tension than last summer—which we didn’t think was possible, but happened after the December release of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan and, most especially, the release in January of Harry’s tell-all, Spare, which took numerous swipes at the royal family. Add to the mix that the Coronation—set for May 6 at Westminster Abbey in London—is also the fourth birthday of Harry and Meghan’s son, Archie, and, in a word? It’s complicated.

But it seems both sides want this family feud to end, and, according to The Daily Express, for Harry and Meghan, that will include a capitulation and an apology from the royal family to end the drama once and for all.

“The Duke and Duchess of Sussex accused royal aides of actively working against them and refusing to counter negative press coverage about them,” the outlet reports. “The couple is now expected to return to the U.K. and attend the King’s Coronation, but speculation is rife about the state of their relationship with the family.”

An insider says, “the problem is that [the Sussexes] want a capitulation and apology by the Palace, but when ‘recollections vary,’ that’s quite difficult.”

Harry in particular, in interviews surrounding the release of Spare, has called on the royal family to apologize specifically to Meghan for the treatment she received when she married into the institution in May 2018.

“It was all so avoidable, but they just couldn’t help themselves,” Harry said, adding that the royal family treated him as if he were “delusional and paranoid.” He continued, “You know what you did, and I now know why you did it. And you’ve been caught out, so just come clean.”

Royal historian Robert Lacey says the rift might take a while still to heal, but Harry and Meghan’s behavior during the Platinum Jubilee and the funeral of Her late Majesty showed that the Sussexes were able to set aside any drama to put forward a united front with the royal family when needed.

“It’s almost insulting to ask, ‘When are they going to kiss and make up?’” Lacey tells People, per The Daily Express. “There have been some very grave disagreements between them. But the Platinum Jubilee and the funerals of the Queen and Prince Philip did demonstrate that they could put personal enmity aside for the sake of the bigger cause. And that is what the Coronation will be all about.”

Royal expert Robert Jobson says that, despite the rumor mill churning that King Charles has called in the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to broker peace talks between members of the family and the Sussexes, “there has not been much connection,” Jobson says. “Even that Welby stuff is wide of the mark. There’s a lot of guesswork going on. My understanding is that there’s been no real contact whatsoever, so I don’t know where a lot of people are getting it from. I’m told that it’s not the case.”

Jobson says that peace talks might not happen until after the Coronation, as “the last thing they’ll want to be doing is having all sorts of reconciliation talks in the middle of a Coronation. The world doesn’t revolve around Meghan and Harry, even if they think it does. They’re focused on state visits to Germany and France, and then the Coronation.”

The drama continues to play out…