Prince Harry met King Charles at Clarence House in London earlier today.

Prince Harry has spoken for the first time about his huge meeting with King Charles earlier today as hopes rise over a long-awaited royal reconciliation between father and son. The Duke of Sussex spent just under an hour at Clarence House in London this evening for the first meeting with King Charles in over 18 months.

He left at around 6.15pm as he made his way to reception for an event linked to the Invictus Games, which he launched in 2014 as a tournament for injured service personnel and veterans. During the event, Harry said of the King with a five-word response: “Yes, he’s great, thank you.” The Duke of Sussex made the remarks when he was asked about his father by a reporter shortly after arriving at The Gherkin in City of London.

The Duke, who entered on the top floor atrium to stunning views across London, appeared relaxed, smiling and upbeat as he mingled with corporate sponsors and government ministers ahead of a speech outlining the future 10 years of his Invictus movement.

Prince Harry had travelled directly to the event after seeing his father at Clarence House. The pair’s long-awaited face-to-face meeting, which lasted just 54 minutes, comes after Harry publicly expressed hopes of a reconciliation with his family in May during an interview with BBC America.

Harry was driven through the gates of the royal residence on Wednesday afternoon following an earlier engagement at the Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College London.

He arrived at Clarence House in a black Range Rover at 5.20pm and left at 6.14pm ahead of the evening engagement. The King, who is still undergoing treatment for cancer, arrived in London from his Balmoral Estate on Wednesday, the penultimate day of his youngest son’s four-day trip to the UK, which increased speculation that the pair would meet.

Harry was due to arrive at his Invictus Games reception in the City of London at 6.45pm but organisers said he was running late, before he finally arrived at 7.24pm.

It is believed Harry travelled to the event straight after seeing his father, but traffic has been very heavy in central London this week due to an ongoing Tube strike.

Harry remains estranged from his brother, Prince William, who has been busy after the summer break with a flurry of engagements this week, and was away in Cardiff today, visiting a new mental health hub on World Suicide Prevention Day.

The Duke of Sussex, who quit royal duties alongside his wife in 2020, has levelled a barrage of accusations at the King, the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Wales in his Oprah interview, Netflix documentary, interviews, and his autobiography Spare since moving to the US.

In July, senior aides to the King and Harry were pictured together in London in what was reported to be an initial step towards opening channels of communication between the two households.