Prince Harry is still technically a "senior royal," but left working for the monarchy, and the U.K. as a whole, in early 2020, with Meghan Markle and Prince Archie. Despite the animosity that has followed since then, the former frontline prince likely misses this one certain aspect of his previous calling.
"The one part of being a working role that Harry really misses is the chance to meet the public — however insecure he feels as a royal, he has always felt totally secure as a celebrity," royal expert Tom Quinn shared "This has its origins in the fact that when he was a teenager, he had to employ a full-time secretary just to deal with his fan mail."
He continued: "Harry always enjoyed royal walkabouts and the chance to meet an adoring public. And to some extent, they still are adoring — outside St Paul’s for a short while as Harry shook hands and smiled for his fans, the crowd sang 'we love you, Harry.'"
Harry's reception on the steps of the historic church was the complete opposite of what he experienced with Meghan in the same spot in June 2022. After a Service of Thanksgiving for the now-deceased Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee, the pair were loudly booed by crowds as they descended the stairs.
St Paul's is also the destination where the royal rebels' mom, Diana, Princess of Wales, married a then-Charles, Prince of Wales, in what one royal historian called "the most extravagant British royal wedding since the Middle Ages." The pair initiated one of the monarch's worst-ever scandals, "the War of the Wales' in the early 1990s, and divorced in 1996. Although iconic, this is one cathedral that seems to have bad luck for the House of Windsor.
This follows news that suggested the California Duke reportedly asked His Majesty for the second visit "over a month" in advance.
"If the King wanted to see Harry, he would find time very easily," royal historian Hugo Vickers dished. "You can never be too busy to see your son."
"The King has left the door wide open, but obviously not that wide," a royal source spilled about the situation. "But they absolutely can stuff things in his diary and juggle things around."
Quinn stressed that as long as the former popular prince stays "isolated in California, the more he will miss interacting with the public." The author further observed: "The public may not have warmed to Meghan, but they always loved the sad, lonely boy who walked behind his mother’s coffin and they still see him as a sad lonely boy today."
Daily Mirror reported on Quinn's remarks.
