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On the heels of King Charles III and Prince Harry not seeing each other during the latter’s recent visit to London, England, a commentator says the monarch knows there’s a certain level of “stress” that comes with seeing his youngest son. It’s something the king’s likely known for years, ever since a “hostile” phone call at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s death. 

King Charles likely realized the ‘stress’ associated with seeing Harry in September 2022 

Calling it a “shame” the father and son didn’t get together, commentator Jack Royston shared on the Royal Report podcast there’s still something Harry and King Charles have to deal with before they can have a stress-free in-person meeting, and that’s potential “floating anxiety.” 

The podcast host revisited a passage from Spare, Harry’s January 2023 memoir, in which the 39-year-old recalled a tense phone conversation during which the king spoke negatively about Meghan Markle as Queen Elizabeth’s health declined. (The possibility of a second memoir is believed to have the British royal family concerned.) 

“I would say, in the King’s corner, is Harry can be hot-tempered sometimes,” he said (via Newsweek). “I mean, all the Windsors can, Charles is no exception…he’s a man who gets frustrated sometimes.” 

“But there is one moment that sticks in the mind for me, which is that Harry blew up at his father as Queen Elizabeth II was dying because he felt Charles had spoken in a dismissive way about Meghan [Markle].” 

“I just wonder, really, whether Charles might have taken away from that experience a level of background stress about seeing Harry,” Royston continued. “A kind of generalized floating anxiety that something might go wrong. And it will be another negative encounter with lots of hostile emotions and him getting the blame.” 

What happened in the ‘hostile’ phone call and why King Charles may regret what he said

So, what did King Charles say about Harry’s wife, the Duchess of Sussex, on the phone call? According to Spare, Harry’s father told him he “didn’t want” Meghan around in the queen’s final moments. 

“Then came another call from Pa. He said I was welcome at Balmoral, but he didn’t want…her,” Harry wrote. “He started to lay out his reason, which was nonsensical, and disrespectful, and I wasn’t having it.” 

“‘Don’t ever speak about my wife that way,’” Harry told King Charles, who “stammered, apologetic, saying he simply didn’t want a lot of people around. No other wives were coming, Kate wasn’t coming, he said, therefore Meg shouldn’t.” 

“Then that’s all you needed to say,” Harry remembered telling his father at the time. 

“Those are actual quotes that Harry’s put in there of his end of the conversation, which basically was, I’d say, fairly hostile,” Royston said, noting King Charles never reacted publicly to Harry’s claims in Spare. Not to mention, Harry’s reaction may have been justified. 

“Charles may well have been being dismissive,” he said. “We don’t actually have any direct quotes from him in the book.” 

“Perhaps he may even think in hindsight that he could have worded it better. But in fairness, his mother was dying, and he must have been very, very shaken up by that. His mind must have been all over the place, you know, you must have had a lot of jobs to do as well.” 

King Charles may have ‘very difficult feelings about Harry’ 

“This is one of the tragic things, that grief has an administrative side to it,” Royston said of the phone call. “It has a kind of business end to it which confounds your emotional responses. And Harry will not be the only call that would have had to have been made.” 

“So he [King Charles] probably, at this time, just wanted to be with the queen,” he continued. “You know, he probably just wanted to spend this time with his mother in her final moments.” 

“In that pain, I can definitely see why that might have been a very, very difficult moment for him. And so, yes, there may well be still some very difficult feelings about Harry.” 

Harry was en route to Scotland when he learned his grandmother died, a moment he described in Spare. As for King Charles, he also reportedly learned of the queen’s death while making his way to Scotland. 

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