After all those years of gappy-toothed birthday pictures, beaming as he stood sturdily in his shorts for his mother behind the camera lens, the moment has come. Prince George, 13, is flying the family nest, off to Eton like his father before him.

When he goes to board at the £63,000-a-year school in September, it’ll be a landmark moment – and a reminder of how rapidly William and Kate’s children are growing up.

At last week’s Trooping the Colour, Princess Charlotte, 11, was effortlessly at ease with the crowd – and even Prince Louis, now eight, was less his usual japing self.

In Montecito, their cousins, too, are growing fast. As Meghan’s Instagram posts show, seven-year-old Archie is a sporty daddy’s boy, while Lilibet, five, is developing a sassy side, as seen in the trendy Beyonce T-shirt she was pictured in last week.

But the last time that William and Harry’s children were even in the same country was four years ago, in June 2022. Californian-born Lili was just one year old.

On that occasion, the Sussexes had come for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, but sources say it’s thought very unlikely that the young Cambridges met Lili.

Indeed, William and Kate have reportedly only met Archie, their nephew a handful of times.

King Charles, meanwhile, met Lili on just that one occasion in 2022.

Since then, there have been no grandfatherly cuddles for Harry’s children.

It’s hard to underestimate the familial significance of this week’s claim – dropped, out of the blue – that when Harry travels to the UK next month to promote his Invictus Games, he will be joined by his wife and their children.

The first and most obvious question, surely, is: will Harry and his family be granted any time with the King?

One imagines this will be top of Harry’s list, since it is nine months since he last saw his father, whose ‘precautionary’ cancer treatment remains ongoing.

All the signals from the Sussex camp are that this trip is a grand opportunity for a reconciliation – a chance to begin to heal the wounds of ‘Megxit’, when the couple stepped back from their roles as senior members of the Royal Family and left Britain in a bid to become financially independent.

As apparently briefed by the Sussex’s publicity team – comprised of former journalist Liam Maguire in the UK and the LA-based Sunshine Sachs PR agency – to an Australian news website, Harry has indicated he hopes to re-introduce his children to their grandfather, which would be a monumental development in family relations.

Harry has apparently also ‘been assured’ there will be sufficient security for his family for his visit.

The source close to Harry said: ‘It’s been a real point of great sadness – for Harry especially – that he’s been unable to bring his wife and kids back to the UK safely to reconnect with friends and family, but anyone would understand his desire to put their safety first.

‘He would love to introduce the children to his wider family, to show them the UK, where he grew up – his homeland. That would be a natural thing for any parent.’

Other outlets were given a briefing supposedly from ‘an LA-based business associate’ of the Prince, which ran: ‘Harry says he’s coming back before the end of the year with the children with the express intent to reunite with his dad. The way in which he said it seems to make it clear that he believes that this is happening and will pave the way for a longer-term peaceful relationship between them.

‘He has wanted to have his kids meet their grandfather, especially after their summit in London last year. While there have been deep-seated trust issues around Harry, there is a sense now that all parties want peace.’

For all these emollient words, in royal circles the visit has been interpreted differently. Insiders are aghast at the prospect.

Although framed in heart-warming terms of a son wanting to make up with his beloved ‘Pa’ – and there’s certainly much to make up for, after those attacks in his memoir, Spare, as well as in endless interviews – Harry bringing his children to the UK has been interpreted as a ‘manipulative’ gambit and an act of ‘emotional blackmail’ against the King.

Strong words – but they are also echoed in California where two sources close to the Sussexes were equally stunned by this week’s announcement, calling it ‘a new low’.

This, they say, is nothing short of a gauntlet thrown down by Harry and Meghan.

A source said: ‘I don’t think this will be a reunion. It’s more of a trap. It’s a challenge.

‘They are saying: “Try and ignore us when we are here with the kids.” ‘If they don’t meet up [with Harry and Meghan], then they can say: “We came to you and we were ignored.”’

The stakes aren’t just to do with inter-familial relations, though. The tense matter of who funds the Prince’s security is also very much on the table.

After losing his court battle for state-funded security in May 2025 – something which enraged Harry – Ravec, the Government’s royal and VIP executive committee, then agreed to Harry’s private request to reassess his risk level. They are currently undertaking a full assessment before making a final decision.

The source reflected on this, saying: ‘It’s clear to me that Harry and Meghan are doing this to force their hand, so they have to give him security or else they are endangering the children.

‘This is a huge new low as a tactic – and it is going to backfire.’

It all means the stakes for Harry personally and financially (it has been estimated he now personally spends around $3million a year on his family’s security) on this visit to the UK couldn’t be higher.

Yet there’s one gaping hole in the ‘reconciliation’ narrative as billed by the Prince’s side: nobody is aware of a meeting with the King in the diary, not for Harry, nor his wife or children.

The King does not, despite reports to the contrary, share details of his diary with the Sussexes so they have no idea of his commitments in July. They simply don’t know how busy he is, or where he will be.

‘He might suddenly find he’s very busy then,’ said a source.

It also remains to be seen whether other members of the family will meet Harry and his clan. Will Princess Eugenie, to whom Harry is close, reach out so they can share their travails? A source in royal circles said the Palace reaction to news of the visit was a weary one: ‘Will they ever learn?’

They added: ‘They do not want to get involved with saying anything when it comes to the couple as they have a red line.

‘If they start briefing it goes in a bad direction. They won’t do it and they won’t be seen to do it because they don’t want a war of words.

‘But the feeling in royal circles is that this is manipulative. It seems like no coincidence this comes when they are expecting a decision from the Home Office on security. They are genuinely bewildered that anyone would think that this is the way to proceed if you want to repair relations. This feels like emotional blackmail.’

Indeed, a source said that the King – who last saw his son for just under an hour in September 2025 – is a Christian man who will always choose forgiveness and reconciliation. Yet he remains wary as he feels he cannot be seen to pre-empt or countermand a Home Office decision. They said: ‘The King is not an uncaring man. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see his grandchildren. But he doesn’t want to do anything which can be weaponised against him in the security row. Everyone is very wary.’ However, those fears of ‘weaponisation’ are surely all the stronger because of the many barbs aimed at the Windsors from Montecito.

Put simply: forget security –surely Harry has stayed away from his family because he’s not been welcome?

A source said: ‘The feeling is that the question of Harry and a meeting overshadows all the King’s work. In terms of the meeting, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

‘The narrative becomes about the personal family dynamics and that is what they don’t want.

‘He made a rod for his own back meeting him the last time; the King felt bounced into it.’

Little wonder, perhaps, that some are viewing the addition of Archie and Lili to the travelling party as the ultimate ‘bounce’. The source close to the Sussexes was particularly scathing about their intentions in this domain: ‘Recently we are seeing more and more content of the kids as Harry and Meghan become less and less relevant.’

Certainly, we have been awarded more regular glimpses of Archie and Lili through Meghan’s social media accounts – artful pictures from behind, or with Lili’s long hair covering her face.

However, extraordinarily, there are now indications that the uber-protective Harry is planning to bring the children to ‘public-facing events’ when they visit the UK – such as the launch on July 10 of the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games, which takes place in Birmingham in 2027.

Having fiercely protected their identities from birth, it’s claimed by some in the Sussex camp that Harry is planning to launch Archie and Lili into his world of ‘service’ when they are here – rather like William’s three were seen at Trooping the Colour last week.

That’s a prospect which makes his enemies shudder. Such a move would surely provoke global attention and possibly mark a high-water mark of influence.

One source says: ‘Nobody understands how this can happen given Harry’s feelings about having been used as a child in the service of the monarchy.

‘But it looks like July could be the big reveal of [Archie and Lili’s] faces.’

The family are making no flying visit, either. The Sussexes are thought to be arriving in the UK on July 6 and will stay for about two weeks, also taking in events for other charities with which Harry has links, such as Scotty’s Little Soldiers and WellChild.

The publicity around Archie and Lili’s presence would be both stratospheric and sustained.

It’s quite a turnaround from the BBC interview Harry did last year, after he lost his court battle for security, in which he said: ‘I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point.’

He also claimed he could ‘only come to the UK safely’ if invited by the King, as he would then be included within royal protection.

And yet here the four of them are, England-bound.

The Daily Mail understands that as has previously been the case, Harry and his family have been offered accommodation on the royal estate for use during a potential visit. He has previously been offered accommodation at Buckingham Palace but turned it down claiming it wasn’t secure enough. It is not clear whether any other residence will be offered.

No response has yet been received by the palace to the offer of accommodation.

The Home Office will not comment on the Prince’s security but the understanding is that nothing has changed – yet.

A source in royal circles said: ‘They are expecting a decision on security soon. The situation with it has not changed.

‘He seems to just be trying to put a good spin on it, but as it stands he will get a bespoke security package based on need.

‘That was always the case [since he stepped away from being a working royal in 2020].

‘The whole issue before was him saying that the bespoke offering is not good enough.’

After the downgrading of their Netflix deal and a fall in visitors to Meghan’s website, another source described the development of the UK visit in more blunt terms: ‘Forcing their hand on security is another step to get back in the fold because they are broke.’

So what do they hope the visit will achieve? An attempt at family unity? A strategic operation over security arrangements? A high-stakes attempt to undo the shackles of Megxit?

Or some hellish combination of all three?