King Charles and Prince Harry were within 3 miles of each other – but the two still haven’t met

Entertainment

By Nika Shakhnazarova

King Charles and Prince Harry were less than 3 miles apart on Wednesday – but the two men have never seemed further apart.

The Duke of Sussex, 39, returned to London this week to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games.

But hopes of a royal reconciliation were dashed later in the day when Harry’s representatives confirmed to the Post that he would not meet his estranged father due to the king’s “busy” schedule .

And on Wednesday, the rift between the estranged duo was on clear display when the king hosted a garden party – his first since his cancer diagnosis – at Buckingham Palace for some 8,000 guests.

At the same time, just 2.6 miles away, Harry was giving a reading at St Paul’s Cathedral in London to mark a decade since the first edition of the Invictus Games in the capital.

At the palace, the monarch, 75, was joined by his wife, Queen Camilla, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Princess Anne, and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.

Harry, for his part, arrived alone at his event.

Inside, he was joined by relatives of his late mother, Princess Diana, including his uncle and aunt Earl Spencer and Lady Jane Fellowes, who greeted the Duke with a hug.

Harry appeared to be in good spirits as he beamed from ear to ear upon his arrival, greeting excited fans lining the streets of London.

He then joined the competitors and Invictus staff for a reception in the cathedral crypt, before plunging into endless meetings for the rest of the day.

Prince William did not attend either event, but instead celebrated a royal engagement at Windsor Castle on Wednesday morning, spending the day with his wife Kate Middleton, who has cancer, and their three children.

And the chances of a royal meeting on Thursday are equally slim, since the king has a royal engagement in Surrey, south of London, where he will meet personnel from the army’s Royal Engineers.

Charles, who is Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Engineers, will spend the day with service members and their families before speaking to members of the 8th Engineer Brigade.

The king juggled his royal duties while receiving outpatient cancer treatment this week.

Harry, for his part, will leave his native soil on Thursday to join his wife, Meghan Markle, in Nigeria.

The duo, who left royal life in 2020 and crossed the Atlantic, were invited to Nigeria by the West African country’s chief of defense staff – its most senior military officer .