Harry and William marked Remembrance Sunday apart, six years on

Prince Harry marked Remembrance Sunday in a small English town while his father and brother led the main ceremony at the Cenotaph in London, six years into a rift commentators call past repair.

Harry, 42, attended an event in Brackley, Northamptonshire, north of London, where The Sun and the Daily Mail photographed the former Army captain in a dark suit and medals chatting with locals, as The Straits Times reported. His father, King Charles III, 77, in military uniform as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, laid a wreath of poppies at the base of the white Portland stone memorial in central London, accompanied by William, 44, and other senior royals. Queen Camilla, 79, and Princess Catherine, 44, watched from a balcony of the nearby Foreign Office.

The separation was not a scheduling accident. Harry and Meghan returned to Britain in August after six years in the United States and are believed to have settled in the Cotswolds, but they remain outside the working royal family they left in 2020. Remembrance Sunday is the one public moment each year when the monarchy’s military role is most visible, and Harry, who served two tours in Afghanistan and founded the Invictus Games, was not part of it.

Christopher Andersen, author of “Kate!,” told Fox News Digital that reconciliation is “not in the cards.” He said William views Harry as having betrayed the royal family and the monarchy, and that Harry’s return to Britain “rubbed salt into an already festering wound,” as WWBL reported.

“These are two extraordinarily strong and stubborn men who have, sadly, learned over the past few years that they can live without each other,” Andersen said. “If the death of their grandmother, their father’s coronation and the cancer battles of both the king and the Princess of Wales didn’t bring them together, it’s very hard to imagine what would.”

A source close to Harry and Meghan told People magazine that the couple is not planning to apologize to William and Catherine, People reported. The Daily Express had reported that the Sussexes hoped to apologize over remarks from their 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, including Meghan’s account that royals had raised “concerns and conversations” about how dark Prince Archie’s skin might be before his birth. The People source called the Express report “nonsense.”

People also reported that Harry has made progress with his father, but that there is “no movement, especially on William’s side.”

Harry has said publicly that he wants to reconcile. He told the BBC in May 2025 that he would “love reconciliation,” and he told GQ in October that “the most important thing is to reconcile. That’s the key point,” per GQ.

The brothers’ relationship has deteriorated since Harry and Meghan stepped back as working royals in 2020, citing intrusive press coverage and a lack of support from the palace. They moved to California, aired grievances in interviews and a documentary, and Harry published a memoir, “Spare,” in 2023. The return to Britain in August was read as a prelude to repair. The Remembrance Sunday separation suggests otherwise.

The gap between Harry’s statements and his brother’s silence is the story. Dick Arbiter, a former press secretary to the queen, said Harry should be the one seeking forgiveness. “He is not going to reconcile with his son as long as his son continues to rubbish the royal family and continues to talk about private meetings,” Arbiter said of the king.

British broadcaster Helena Chard said William once saw Harry as a supportive “wingman” and now finds it impossible to forgive him for leaving him to cope with the pressure alone. Hilary Fordwich, a royal commentator, said William “remains furious regarding his brother’s betrayal, insults and the damage he has wrought upon the family,” and that without a formal apology “there is no starting point.”

Andersen said Catherine has also given up on peacemaking. “Kate is very disappointed with her brother-in-law,” he said. “They were once so close, and I think she felt she could bring them back together. But Harry’s attacks on William and the rest of the royal family have, for the most part, made that impossible.”

The Sussexes are due in Brussels next week to speak about the dangers of social media to young people, per The Economic Times. It is the kind of public engagement they have continued since 2020, and it will take place while the family they left marks the season without them.

What I think

Two brothers who once walked behind their mother’s coffin together now mark the country’s war dead in different towns on the same Sunday, and the distance between them is no longer metaphorical. Harry was in Brackley. William was at the Cenotaph. Their father laid the wreath. The arrangement is the story.

The queen’s death did not fix it. The king’s cancer did not fix it. Catherine’s cancer did not fix it. The coronation did not fix it. Andersen is right that it is hard to imagine what would. The reason is stubbornness. Each brother believes the other should speak first, and neither will.

Harry says he wants reconciliation and says it again, in public, to anyone who asks. William says nothing, and his silence is read as a position. The commentators on William’s side frame Harry’s departure, his interviews and his memoir as successive betrayals, and they may be right. But a future king who will not speak to his brother is also making a choice, and those who call that leadership are making one too.

Remembrance Sunday is the wrong day to notice the split, and also the right one. Harry served in Afghanistan and founded the Invictus Games. He wore his medals in Brackley. The country honors its veterans one Sunday a year, and the veteran who is a prince stood in a small town while his family stood in London, and nobody arranged for them to stand together. That is what six years of not speaking looks like when it falls on a day that honors service.