The sad state of Prince Harry and Duchess Kate’s relationship is revealed: Opinion

Lifestyle

Daniela Elser, News.com.au

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, has had an exciting few years when it comes to frequent flyer points.

This week, he will add to that total by flying between Los Angeles and London in first class.

While his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, may have been able to avoid jet lag and a battle with a country with which they both have statistically serious ties, this will be Prince Harry’s 11th return to his homeland’s shores. It will be a trip. In just over three years.

I’m sure he has a pretty good understanding of LAX’s duty-free service.

This week, the Duke of Sussex will take a more than 10-hour flight back to the UK to attend a service at St Paul’s Church on May 8, marking the 10th anniversary of the hugely successful and widely praised Invictus Games.

This should be a victory lap for the 39-year-old and a nice ending after changing the lives of countless people over the past decade.

Instead, Harry faces a different journey home.

Since the duke’s last visit to England in February, after King Charles announced he had cancer, the royal world has been tilted by Duchess Kate’s similarly horrifying and ominous announcements.

The truly devastating news that Her Majesty and the Princess are battling cancer means Prince Harry’s usual 48-hour sprint may not be possible this time.

Generally, these British dashes follow a somewhat predictable pattern.

The Duke will arrive there by plane, with tabloids monitoring his flight, much like the NSA tracking Edward Snowden, and will be taken from Heathrow Airport in a private car.

Later, Harry is taken to London in the back of a Range Rover, looking wild and as if he deeply regrets choosing fish over chicken.

The duke then spends anywhere from 24 to 48 hours in the UK, performing one or two very specific events before turning around and sprinting back to the royal United States in good spirits.

What on earth is a cannabis-stirring duke to do when he returns from exile?

On the other hand, Harry not seeing his sick relatives will do little to help his sharing, caring image. He says he and Meghan are far more emotionally attuned and sensitive than the stony Windsors.

Meanwhile, it sounds like Kate has all but deleted her number, but the King has no interest in the Duke’s sudden arrival raving about the healing powers of the colony.

Duchess Kate’s attitude towards any meeting with Prince Harry seems best summed up by the words Princess Anne told the kidnappers who tried to snatch her in 1974: “It’s not going to be bloody.”

Her friend and husband Prince William told Ms Sykes: William and Catherine felt completely betrayed by Harry’s memoir, The Spare.

They won’t talk to Harry and Meghan, and they certainly won’t start talking to Kate when she’s at her most vulnerable.

Hours after revealing in late March that the princess was undergoing preventive chemotherapy, the Sussexes ignored the princess’s title, did not name William or any of their children, and spoke out about the princess’s “health and healing.” issued a statement wishing for

Friends of former Prince Harry and current Prince William told Mr Sykes that he shouldn’t expect a heart-warming meeting or tearful reunion like the Wales-Sussex Yalta meeting over the princess’ health issues.

“[Harry is] He was just a man who pitched his story to a newspaper company. There’s no message here or there that says, ‘Get well soon,’” the friend told The Beast. “But the whole situation no longer takes a tremendous amount of their mental energy. William and Kate accepted it and moved on.”

The Duke of Sussex faces a slightly warmer welcome from his father than the outright, perhaps mutual, snub in Wales.

The Telegraph’s Victoria Ward reported that the king “will make time to see his son if possible”, which reflects how keen the 75-year-old monarch is to spend time with his TV-loving son. This indicates whether or not there are any.

More than a week before Prince Harry has to start packing his carry-on suitcase, Buckingham Palace is already buzzing about how full Prince Charles’ schedule is when Harry is in the city. It was

(Harry hopes there won’t be an Estonian trade mission where the post-Brexit, beleaguered Foreign Office suddenly requires the King’s presence on or around May 8.)

Ward wrote that even if father and son managed to stay in the same room, Charles’ schedule is “so busy” that it wouldn’t be long and meaningful.

When it comes to practicing expectation management, this is very possible.

What’s so unusual about it, and what still boggles my mind, is that around this time six years ago, not only Britain but the world was incredibly excited about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding.

When they got married on May 19th, it was such a happy, sunny day that the word “fairy tale” was needed to describe the absolute and exhausting death.

Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan, almost everyone with a keyboard and a column agree, were the monarchy’s great hope.

Yet when the Duke of Sussex arrives in London this week, he will not only find his father and sister-in-law have little to no time to see him, but will be forced to stay in a hotel. He lost access to the royal roof above his head and was stripped of police protection.

John Donne wrote that no man is an island, but what duke could burn every bridge in sight? That’s a completely different issue.