It was the meeting that no-one thought would ever happen. Over drinks at the Royal Over-Seas League private members’ club, Prince Harry and the King’s top aides met for a ‘secret peace summit.’ It was an interesting development as there has been little interaction between the two households, and Harry has publicly said his father refuses to speak to him, but tellingly, there was no seat at the table for anyone representing the Prince and Princess of Wales.

I’m told there was no communication with their household at Kensington Palace and it’s unlikely that William and Kate even knew the meeting was happening. Instead, the couple were focused on their official roles at the French State Visit, welcoming President and Brigitte Macron at RAF Northolt and accompanying them to Windsor Castle where they were hosted for the state banquet.

Kate dazzled in Dior and Sarah Burton for Givenchy, her first state visit since recovering from cancer, in a welcome return to form after she missed Ascot. As patron of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, she also was on court to present the trophies to the winners. But a clear insight into her renewed priorities came when she visited the RHS Wellbeing garden at Colchester Hospital.

Revealing her current state of mind now her chemotherapy had ended, she said it was much harder than she’d ever anticipated. She told a group of fellow cancer patients: ‘You put on a sort of brave face; stoicism through treatment. Treatment’s done, then it’s like, “I can crack on, get back to normal,” but actually, the phase afterwards is really, really difficult…You have to find your new normal and that takes time. It’s a rollercoaster.’

Where once Kate might have been the peacemaker between William and Harry (as she was at Prince Philip’s funeral in 2021), her focus is now on her ‘new normal’ and her own family. ‘After everything that Catherine has been through, I think she’s just concentrating on herself and her family,’ one friend told me. ‘She and William have just put aside all the Sussex drama as they have more important things to think about.’

Harry’s public war of words against his brother and sister-in-law have certainly caused much pain – none more so than in his autobiography Spare. As Robert Jobson, author of Catherine, the Princess of Wales, tells me: ‘Don’t forget that Harry hasn’t just broken his brother’s trust, he’s broken Catherine’s trust too. He accused William of being a violent bully, was rude about Catherine and included all sorts of details in his book that made her look awful. She and Harry were very close in the past so she’s been heartbroken by what’s happened. Although she prefers harmony to discord, there are limits. William is in no mood for reconciliation with his brother, and I can’t see Catherine feeling any different.’

While Harry may say he wants to make up with his family, it’s clear that he’s only reaching out to his father, not his older brother or sister-in-law. There has been no communication with them, or with their aides. So what was really going on at the so-called ‘peace summit’? It was a positive first step that the King’s communications secretary and two of Harry’s comms chiefs met in London, and I’m told that they met with both Charles and Harry’s blessing.

But there’s a long road toward reconciliation between Harry, 40, and Charles, 76 – whose years-long rift has left communication between them all but nonexistent (the last time Harry saw or apparently spoke to his father was 18 months ago when the King was diagnosed with cancer). In reality, the meeting was a ‘casual drink’ between communications professionals, providing an ‘opportunity to connect and ensure a smoother working relationship in terms of scheduling conflicts’.

Still, this kind of dialogue hasn’t taken place in the recent past – and now, lines of communication appear to be reopening.

Ultimately, any real success from the talks at the will be measured by whether Harry and Charles themselves – not just their teams – can begin to repair their fractured relationship. Harry is expected to return to the UK in September, visiting the WellChild charity, of which he is still patron – which could also represent a chance to meet his father. The King had felt unable to see his son due to the High Court fight over losing his police bodyguards, but now that seems to be finished.

‘Any father would want to heal a rift, particularly when he’s not well himself,’ Jobson says. ‘He wouldn’t want it to go on indefinitely. This meeting was about keeping the backdoor of communication open, but there’s cause for optimism between father and son. But between the brothers, I’m not convinced either side is in any mood for reconciliation.’