Who cannot sympathise with King Charles as he faced the dilemma of whether to meet the Duke of Sussex during his stay in London this week?

Even though Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have caused King Charles distress with their public criticisms, demands, and breaches of trust, Harry remains the King’s cherished son. It’s understandable that the 76-year-old monarch would want to see him, especially as he continues his cancer treatment.

However, Charles isn’t just a father; he’s also our sovereign, and I fear he might be erring by placating Harry, given his reprehensible actions towards the Royal Family, particularly against Queen Camilla, as depicted in the Duke’s memoirs, and towards Prince William and Catherine.

Ever the diplomat, the Princess of Wales will likely comprehend her father-in-law’s wish to keep connections with his younger son, but it might be painful to hear Harry’s public relations team boasting about the meeting in the days ahead.

If Harry does not want to wait another 19 months for his next get-together with his father, there is one thing he must do, courtiers tell me, and it could be his greatest challenge. He has to learn to keep quiet.

The biggest barrier to the resumption of contact with the King was Harry’s apparent addiction to publicity. Where as a teenager he found solace in the use of illegal drugs such as cannabis, now Harry seeks comfort moaning and groaning to the BBC or other favoured outlets prepared to feed his now-habit.

The Duke of Sussex must ‘learn to keep quiet’, courtiers tell Richard Eden

Prince Harry arrives at Clarence House on Wednesday for his first face-to-face meeting with the King in over a year

‘Never complain, never explain’ was the unspoken mantra of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth, but Harry loves complaining almost as much as he seeks to explain.

Long before the Duke set off from Los Angeles for this week’s visit to his native Britain, certain journalists were briefed that he hoped to meet his father. Harry had done everything he could to lay the groundwork for a reunion, we were assured. His newly appointed ‘chief communications officer’ Meredith Maines had even flown over from Los Angeles a couple of months before him to meet the King and Queen’s communications secretary Tobyn Andreae, a former colleague of mine at the Daily Mail.

It followed a similar briefing before the King’s 75th birthday in 2023 when the BBC was informed by ‘well-placed sources’ that Harry would contact his father by telephone. Within hours, those same ‘well-placed sources’ were providing fulsome accounts of the phone call, including such poignant details as Harry and Meghan’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, singing Happy Birthday to the grandfather they had scarcely met.

‘Harry needs to prove that he can be trusted to keep private conversations private,’ a royal source told me. ‘How can he expect his family to speak to him if they are worried that what they say might be repeated – or twisted – in the future?’

Richard Eden writes: ‘I worry that [the King] is making a mistake by appeasing Harry after his appalling behaviour towards the Royal Family, in particular to Queen Camilla, who was traduced in the Duke’s memoirs’

His brother knows all too well how the most intimate conversations can be reported and used by Harry and Meghan for their own commercial ends. The Duke’s memoir, Spare, is full of recollections of exchanges between him and Prince William and Catherine that they never dreamed would end up in print. The couple have spent a quarter of a century avoiding pesky journalists only to discover one of the people revealing their ‘secrets’ is a member of their own family.

Royal concerns about the Sussexes’ public relations drive have, I’m told, been heightened by this week’s visit. The decision to announce that Harry had made a substantial donation of £1.1million to BBC Children In Need was seen as ‘crass’, particularly as it was made public on the same day that William was visiting a south London youth charity, Spiral Skills, supported by his homeless project Homewards.

The BBC described the donation as a ‘huge amount of money from the personal pocket of Prince Harry’. The Corporation’s senior royal correspondent gushed: ‘What this donation does is reinforce Prince Harry’s commitment to the UK and the charities he supports. It roots him here. Will it now also be accompanied by a meeting with his father later this week?’

A royal source told me: ‘Members of the Royal Family often make personal donations to charities, but when they do so, they do not boast about the amount given.’

There is a danger that Harry’s undoubtedly genuine wish to support good causes will end up looking like part of a PR drive to win over the press and public.

The big test of Harry’s seriousness about rekindling relations with his family is if we hear details of the reunion at Clarence House over the coming weeks.

And if he is to have any hope of mending fences with William and Catherine, he must apologise to them for his behaviour over recent years, both publicly and privately.