Prince William has flown to Balmoral to spend time alone with King Charles III on a ‘father-and-son mini-break’ for the third consecutive year.
The Prince of Wales travelled to Aberdeenshire on Tuesday afternoon to spend ‘an informal few days with his father privately’, a royal insider revealed today.
She said the trip was ‘not diarised with senior staff, but set aside to chat as sovereign and heir’. Kate is thought to have stayed at home in Windsor with the children.
The heir to the throne was photographed stepping off a private jet at Aberdeen Airport before getting into a waiting Range Rover after taking a flight from Liverpool.
William had earlier been showing his support for the families of the girls killed in the Southport attack as he visited their schools with the Princess of Wales.
Charles and William will have plenty on the agenda to discuss, not least after Prince Harry‘s trip to the UK earlier this month which saw him meet with the King.
The 54-minute chat at Clarence House was seen as a significant but tentative step towards repairing the troubled relationship between Charles and Harry.
But William and Harry did not see each other during the four-day trip amid an ongoing row between the estranged brothers, which shows no sign of healing.
Prince William steps off a private jet at Aberdeen Airport after landing on Tuesday afternoon
The Prince of Wales walks towards a waiting vehicle after landing in Aberdeen on Tuesday
News of the King and William’s time together this week was revealed by the Telegraph today, but Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the reports when contacted by the Daily Mail.
Charles and William will also likely discuss ongoing revelations regarding Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York and the couple’s friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Several charities severed ties with Sarah on Monday after it emerged she apologised to Epstein and called him a ‘supreme friend’ in April 2011 after publicly disowning him in the media.
The revelations came just days after the Yorks were pictured front and centre with other Royal Family members at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral at Westminster Cathedral on September 16.
As for Harry and Charles, until this month they had not seen each other face-to-face since February 2024, when the Duke made a transatlantic dash to the UK following the King’s cancer diagnosis.
The Prince and Princess of Wales speak to pupils at school in Southport earlier on Tuesday
Harry has previously expressed his hopes of reconciliation with his family amid his belief they may never forgive him after his public accusations.
Harry, who stepped down from the working monarchy in 2020, levelled a barrage of accusations at Kate, William, Charles and his stepmother Queen Camilla in his Oprah Winfrey interview, Netflix documentary, interviews and his autobiography Spare.
Harry previously claimed Charles was jealous of his wife Meghan Markle and Kate, did not hug him when he told him his mother Princess Diana had died and said he believed the King was ‘never made’ for single parenthood, but ‘to be fair, he tried’.
Charles, according to Harry, pleaded with his sons during a tense meeting after Prince Philip’s funeral: ‘Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.’
Relations between William and Harry have long been strained despite their former close bond with the shared trauma of the death of their mother in a car crash when they were 15 and 12.
Prince Harry at a Diana Award event in London on September 11 during his recent trip to the UK
The fallout is said to have begun before Harry’s wedding to former Suits star Meghan, with the Duke accusing William of being snobbish to his bride.
In the interview with Oprah, Meghan described how Kate made her cry ahead of her wedding – after reports had initially said Meghan had left Kate in tears at Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress fitting.
Another account in Harry’s candid autobiography Spare caused friction between the siblings, when he accused William of physically attacking him and pushing him into a dog bowl in a row over Meghan, and teasing him about his panic attacks.
He also alleged it was William and Kate who encouraged him to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005 and ‘howled’ with laughter when they saw it.
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King Charles and Prince William spend ‘father and son’ time together in Balmoral for third year in a row