“I think he’ll be really upset, not just about missing out on the meeting but also on what it means for the future. I’d be interested to know if Meghan messaged the King personally to apologise.”

King Charles understood to have met Prince Harry’s children at Highgrove

Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet believed to have had private reunion with king

King Charles has enjoyed a private reunion with the grandchildren he has not seen for four years, it is understood.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, were hosted by Charles and Queen Camilla at the king’s private residence, Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, on Friday afternoon.

The last time Charles saw Archie and Lilibet was during the late queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations in 2022.

A family reunion had been speculated when it was announced that Prince Harry would be promoting his Invictus Games in the UK this week.

But despite initial plans for Meghan to join him at some public engagements in Birmingham, a last-minute change of plan meant she pulled out. It is not known when she arrived in the UK. The couple were understood to have been on holiday in Portugal with their children prior to arriving in the UK.

The reunion follows a bumpy week for Harry, including a high court judge’s dismissal of his claim against Associated Newspapers Ltd over unlawful information gathering on Tuesday.

Harry’s arrival was also preceded by a row over the refusal of taxpayer-funded security for the family while in the UK, and the withdrawal of an offer of accommodation at a royal residence. It led to the Sussexes changing their plans and the decision that Meghan and the children would no longer travel to London.

Harry’s request for him alone to stay one night at Buckingham Palace was then refused, with the Sussex side briefing it was because of the impending court judgment, and the palace understood to have been insistent his request was too late for appropriate security and staffing provision.

No details were being given of Friday’s Highgrove meeting, but it marks a clear step towards healing the very public rift between Harry and his father since his public criticism of his family and the institution of the monarchy in a series of television interviews and his bestselling memoir Spare.

He criticised his father, his stepmother, Camilla, brother, the Prince of Wales, and sister-in-law, Catherine, in his Oprah and Netflix documentary interviews and in Spare, after stepping down from the working monarchy six years ago.

His rift with Prince William shows no sign of abating and the family reunion took place on the same afternoon William was playing in a charity polo match at Windsor.

In February 2024 Harry made a transatlantic dash from his California home to Britain to see his father after the king’s cancer diagnosis, which may have led to the first steps in a reconciliation between the pair.

Harry has previously spoken of his wish to reunite his children with his father. He and Charles are understood to have regularly spoken on the phone in recent months.

Meghan has not visited the UK since in September 2022, when the couple flew in for a series of charity engagements that coincided with the death of Elizabeth II.

Prince Harry, Meghan visit King Charles after security controversy

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, visited King Charles on Friday after a week of controversy surrounding security in the U.K.

Harry, Meghan and children Prince Archie and Princess Lillibet were hosted by King Charles and Queen Camilla at Highgrove House, according to Buckingham Palace. The palace said it was a private family visit and thus no details or photos would be shared.

Harry and Meghan had planned to come to the U.K. as part of a visit tied to the Invictus Games, a sporting competition for injured veterans started by Harry, a veteran himself. But CBS News’ international partner BBC News reported the prince was reconsidering bringing his family on a trip to the U.K. scheduled for July because his request for taxpayer-funded police protection was rejected by British authorities.

Harry visited the U.K. alone over the last week, with the Sussexes’ representatives telling CBS News that the prince, “continues to explore every available option to enable the visit to proceed safely and to give his children the opportunity to enjoy the UK.”

After stepping down from his public role and moving to California, Harry and his family had their security downgraded, however, and it is now determined on a case-by-case basis by the U.K. government’s Royal and VIP Executive Committee.

In addition to tension over moving to California and stepping down as senior royals, the prince’s tell-all book, “Spare,” and their interviews and a documentary, in which they were highly critical of their treatment at the hands of the royal family, have created a bumpy relationship with his father and brother, Prince William.

It was a rough week in general for Harry, who lost a long-running legal battle Tuesday against the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

Harry was among several claimants in the case — along with Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley — who accused the publisher of the popular tabloids of unlawfully gathering information about them through methods such as phone tapping, intercepting voicemails and impersonating people to obtain personal information.

However, the U.K. High Court dismissed the claims, saying they could not be proven.

In a similar case, the publisher of The Sun newspaper paid the duke “substantial damages” in an out-of-court settlement last year and profusely apologized for hacking his phone to find out information.

Now we know how much tax King Charles pays, and it is very little

The monarch’s declaration does not tell us much, except that his bill is lower than for people with much smaller fortunes

The veil of secrecy that surrounds the royal finances was nudged aside a little on Thursday to allow the release of a new piece of information. We learned for the first time how much the king’s annual tax bill comes to.

This was not a full tax return. It was a two-sentence declaration, stating his tax payable amounted to £12.9m in 2024-25, and a slightly smaller sum the year before. His total tax payable since accession comes to £30m.

It has been a long time coming. Unlike other citizens, the monarch is not liable for tax, but the king and his mother before him started paying it voluntarily in 1993.

The declaration was short on detail. We don’t know what his total income was for those years. We don’t know the total value of his private fortune. And we have no idea how much his tax bill was reduced by for expenses such as those incurred performing royal duties.

The small nugget of new information has brought to light one startling fact though. The king’s tax bill is low, even when compared with those who have smaller fortunes.

Thanks to painstaking investigations by the Guardian, in its 2023 cost of the crown series, the king’s private wealth, known as the privy purse, is estimated to be at least £1.8bn. This includes the Duchy of Lancaster estate – a £690m land and property portfolio handed from one monarch to the next and which provides him with income of £25m a year; and an even larger pile of other assets, such as cars, jewels, art and the private residences of Balmoral and Sandringham. We have very little idea how much the king holds in financial investments, or what the revenues from these are.

The tax the king pays covers all of the privy purse, all £1.8bn or more of assets.

Because we don’t know the total income, we are not able to check what the king’s effective tax rate is, but comparisons with other taxpayers raise questions.

A scan of this year’s Sunday Times tax list shows that the hedge fund boss Suneil Setiya, also estimated to be worth £1.8bn, paid £114m in annual tax. This is 10 times the sum the king paid in 2023-24.

The musician Ed Sheeran, whose fortune at £410m is a fraction of the king’s, paid £20m to HMRC. The author JK Rowling, worth an estimated £975m, was billed £47m on her earnings and gains.

Even the Manchester City footballer Erling Haaland, who is Norwegian, pays more than the king – his most recent tax bill was £17m.

Without more information about the size and shape of the privy purse, it is impossible to say why the king’s bill is so low.

What we do know is that the Duchy of Lancaster is not liable for the kinds of taxes that might be paid by a company or a trust. The capital gains made by buying and selling property, and the rents received from tenants, can all accumulate and be reinvested tax free, allowing the king’s wealth to grow more quickly than that of his subjects.

The privy purse could be described as operating like a mini-tax haven. The assets held by the duchy are untaxed, while the king’s other holdings are undeclared. The palace says the king voluntarily pays capital gains on his privately held wealth, and that the accounts are externally audited each year. They say this part of his personal holdings remains private, as for any other citizen. But no other citizen has such discretion over the tax they choose to pay.

Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet Reunite with Grandfather King Charles for the First Time in 4 Years

Archie and Lilibet, along with parents Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, had a rare reunion with their grandfather at Highgrove House

NEED TO KNOW

Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet have reunited with King Charles for the first time in four years

King Charles and Queen Camilla hosted Prince Harry, Meghan and the children at Highgrove House, the monarch’s country home in Gloucestershire, England

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s children last visited the U.K. in June 2022

Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet have had a long-awaited reunion with their grandfather, King Charles.

Buckingham Palace confirmed on Friday, July 10, that King Charles and Queen Camilla hosted Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and the couple’s two children that afternoon. The reunion took place at Highgrove House, the monarch’s private country residence in Gloucestershire, England.

No images are expected to be released from the reunion, and no further details will be provided, as it was a private family meeting.

PEOPLE understands Meghan and the children flew in from their vacation in Europe for the reunion.

It marked the first in-person meeting between Prince Archie, 7, Princess Lilibet, 5, and their grandfather, 77, in four years.

Archie and Lili are being raised in California, where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex relocated after stepping back as working members of the royal family in 2020, and the kids were last in their dad’s home country in June 2022. Then, the children joined their parents as they traveled to attend Queen Elizabeth‘s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, but Archie and Lili did not appear at any public events.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were vacationing with their children in Europe before Harry, 41, arrived back in the U.K. solo on July 6 for a series of charity events, including the one-year countdown event to the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham. While it was initially announced that Meghan, 44, and the children would join him in the U.K., security concerns put the plans in jeopardy. It was later announced that Harry would return to London without his family, but the possibility for them to come to the U.K. outside the capital remained open.

It was reported on July 9 that Meghan, Archie and Lili would travel to the U.K., but they are not expected to make any public appearances.

Prince Harry and King Charles each stepped out separately earlier in the day on Friday. Harry tried out some of the sports that will be featured at the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, about 85 miles away from Highgrove House, while the monarch visited Oxfordshire, about 50 miles from Highgrove House.

Meanwhile, Prince William was playing in a charity polo match in Windsor on Friday, supported by his wife, Kate Middleton. There are no known plans for the estranged brothers to reunite during Harry’s visit to the U.K.

The then-Prince Charles and Camilla previously spent time with his grandchildren during their 2022 trip to the U.K., which doubled as the first time Charles met Lilibet, who was born after the family relocated to California.

“It was a fantastic visit. The prince was delighted to see his grandson and meet his granddaughter for the first time,” a royal source said then, saying that it was “wonderful” to have the Duke and Duchess of Sussex back in the U.K.

“The Prince and the Duchess [of Cornwall] were absolutely thrilled to see them,” the source said, referring to Charles and Camilla by their titles at the time.

The insider added that the future King had not seen Archie “for a bit of time,” as he was a baby when Prince Harry and Meghan stepped back from their royal roles and moved to California in 2020.

“It was very special to have some time with him. He hadn’t met Lilibet, his granddaughter, and so to meet her for the first time was very emotional — it was a wonderful thing,” the source said of the family meeting.

Princess Lilibet was born in the U.S. in June 2021, and her parents celebrated her first birthday with a “casual, intimate backyard picnic” at their Frogmore Cottage home during their U.K. trip for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

Prince Harry last reunited with his father during a visit to the U.K. in September 2025. The Duke of Sussex was seen arriving by car at Clarence House, the King’s London residence, and spent about 55 minutes inside before departing.