Highgrove House, the King’s Gloucestershire residence, is just a 90-minute drive from the venue. Their Majesties and the Duke had no public engagements scheduled after 3.30pm, when the King wrapped up a job at Oxford University.
Sources confirmed the reunion was entirely private and that no images would be released.
The Duke has made no secret of his desire to reunite his children with his father. He is understood to have built bridges with the King in recent months, regularly speaking to him on the phone.
The pair have also been in touch in recent days amid the furore over the Sussexes’ travel plans, which were thrown into disarray when they were denied police protection.
Events took an awkward course this week after the King refused a last-minute request from the Duke to stay at Buckingham Palace.
His Majesty decided not to allow the Duke to stay at the Palace after his son’s plans were beset by indecision and delays.
There was also a desire to create distance between the Palace and the Duke’s £50m ($115m) privacy claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail, which he lost at the High Court on Tuesday.
The Duchess last visited Britain in September 2022, for a series of charity engagements that coincided with the death of Elizabeth II.
Three months earlier, the family had returned from California to celebrate the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Archie, who was born in London in May 2019, spent only six months in the UK before the Sussexes moved to Canada that November.
The June 2022 visit was the first for Lilibet, who had been born in the US the previous June.
The Duke briefly described their previous meeting in his memoir, Spare, revealing that Archie had made “deep, chivalrous bows” while his baby sister cuddled the late Queen’s shins.
He wrote: “Sweetest children, Granny said, sounding bemused. She’d expected them to be a bit more… American, I think? Meaning, in her mind, more rambunctious.”
– Telegraph UK
