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There is one grand mystery around King Charles III’s coronation, on May 6: Will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle come? How will they approach being there, or—if they decline their invitation—not being there?
The couple and the royals are both mulling different perspectives of the same questions. If they show up, will they face a harsh or warm public reaction? And how brutal will their royal sidelining be when it comes to seating and their presence—or absence—at key moments?
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If they do not show up, that will send its own message, but both Meghan and Harry and the royals alike may feel that the public, after all the recent charged, accusatory interviews and memoir revelations, would not be that surprised if they were a no-show. Harry has laid out family tensions in raw, colorful detail, after all.
One former friend of Harry’s and William’s, who remains friends with William but has had minimal contact with Harry since he left the U.K., told The Daily Beast that the “general assumption” among the family is that the couple will be there.
A personal friend of the king’s told The Daily Beast the king is assuming Harry and Meghan will attend. They said they believed it was unlikely that Harry and Meghan would be offered behind-the-scenes sweeteners such as guarantees of prominent seating.
“There are 2,000 people to seat so I’m sure they will be happy to sit wherever they are put,” the friend said.
The Telegraph reports that Harry wants to be by Charles’ side on “pretty much the most important day,” and also hopes to repair their frayed relationship. A final decision, sources say, will be taken once the invite physically arrives in California. The Spectator reports that Meghan feels “excluded” from the coronation plans, which could mean the Sussexes may not attend as a result.
Harry and Meghan fled the monarchy in 2020 in fear of their lives (according to Harry), then devoted the following three years to well-remunerated criticism of the institution and its principals.
Charles decided to begin his reign by serenely rising above it all, resisting the temptation to figuratively behead, or send tower-wards, his troublesome offspring. Despite every opportunity and excuse to exclude them, Harry and Meghan will be invited to the coronation, The Daily Beast understands.
This is not a case of an indulgent father overlooking his son’s faults (or, rather, not just that). The role of the monarchy—at least the royal family believes; their detractors disagree—is to act as a unifying, consensus-building force in the nation. The extension of an invitation to Harry and his wife, whom Charles made a point of saying he loved in his accession address, is a familial, personal demonstration of this pivotal regal principle.
The Palace successfully occupied the moral high ground by making no (public) attempt to rubbish Harry’s memoir, Spare, and has now maintained it by making it clear that Harry and Meghan will, of course, be invited to the biggest family gathering and global pomp-fest of the year.
Rather cleverly, this has had the effect of making it appear that the Palace regards the revelations in Harry’s book as a trifling matter, perhaps a matter of youthful impetuousness, so insignificant that they are now quite forgotten, if indeed they happened at all.
The question has now become not what the Palace ought or ought not to do, but whether Harry and Meghan will accept the invite.
Harry is in a slightly awkward situation here, having made what some would call a strategic error by putting conditions on his attendance at the coronation. Asked directly by ITV News anchor Tom Bradby if he would attend, Harry replied: “There’s a lot that can happen between now and then, but you know, the door is always open, the ball is in their court. There is a lot to be discussed, and I really hope they are willing to sit down and talk about it.”
The royals have not offered a meeting and will not do so, The Daily Beast understands. A friend of the king last week told The Daily Beast that Charles was simply too busy to have a one-on-one meeting with Harry. But the truth, many suspect, is that Charles is unwilling to debase the crown by begging Harry’s forgiveness when he feels he has nothing to apologize for. There are also concerns that private meetings could be later served up for public consumption, as several were in Spare.
The couple themselves appear to be engaged in the process of building ladders to climb down, apparently briefing the Daily Telegraph that they have not, after all, ruled out attending the coronation despite there being no prospect of the apology Harry suggested was a condition of their attendance occurring. A source in their camp told the paper—one of the few British outlets with which they still engage—that they have not made a decision about whether or not to attend.
“It’s complicated,” a friend told the paper, “There are a million different variables. Anybody could understand the predicament.”
The couple will not make a decision until an invite is received, the Telegraph’s source claimed, saying, “They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it… They do not have any insight. They’re in limbo.”
Perhaps the only thing that might stop the couple attending is the fear of being booed. A mass public booing of the couple as they arrive at Westminster Abbey would lead news bulletins and undoubtedly be a global humiliation for them.
It can’t be ruled out given the couple’s floundering popularity ratings in the U.K., where they are regarded by many as treacherous.
There is evidence that their popularity ratings in the US are following a similar trajectory. A new survey for Newsweek found that the couple are now more disliked in America than Prince Andrew, using the standard favorability-minus-unfavorability formula. South Park just lacerated the couple’s alleged desire for privacy set against their constant publicity seeking. Meghan has felt “upset and overwhelmed” by the portrayal, sources told The Spectator.
Royal commentator Duncan Larcombe, a former royal editor of the Sun, told The Daily Beast: “It’s always instructive to focus on what we do know. It has been very strongly suggested that they will both be invited, and we also know that there is a strong commercial imperative for them to attend as their entire brand is predicated on their connection to royalty. Also, if they are invited and don’t come, they will look petty for snubbing Charles’ big day. So you’d have to say the odds are that they will be there.”
Larcombe said he suspected that as Harry and Meghan have no official role in the ceremony, they would be seated in the second tier of family, “with the likes of the Duke of Gloucester,” as they were at Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee.
Buckingham Palace and Archewell did not respond to a request for comment about Harry and Meghan’s attendance at the coronation.
