The “cruel” gesture of King Carlos III with Harry and Meghan in the first official photo of the royal family

In one of four official photos released on Monday by the British royal house, King Charles III is shown with the core of his family. And there are absences that attract attention: Neither Harry nor Andrew appear in it.

Harry’s non-inclusion has been interpreted as another sign of the disunity between the king and his youngest son after he and his wife Megan Markle They will break away from the royal family.

Even if for many it was a cruel gesture, Harry’s absence is logical. The official photo includes only the active members of the royal family.

That is why Charles III (from left) is accompanied by the Duke of Kent, the Dukes of Gloucester, Princess Anne (Charles’s sister) and her husband, Sir Tim Laurence, the Princes of Wales, Prince Edward (the King’s brother) and his wife Sophia, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and Princess Alexandra, cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth (who sat next to Harry at the Westminster ceremony).

Andrea, brother of Carlos III, does not separate after being dismissed from office due to his friendship with the man convicted of running a child trafficking ring, Jeffrey Epstein.

the real photos

The other three official photographs feature Carlos III and Queen Camila. They are a portrait of each alone and another of both posed together.

The person responsible for the images is Hugo Burnandthe King’s photographer since April 2005, when he worked on his wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles while still Prince of Wales.

Burnand was also responsible for the wedding snapshots of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011 and for the official portrait of Carlos for his 60th birthday.

a broken relationship

Meghan and Harry’s departure from the royal family was already noted at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral last year. However, everything went well between the marriage and the royal family at one point.

The first meeting between Meghan and the Queen was in 2017, during a relaxed lunch at the Royal Lodge, the residence of Prince Andrew. At Christmas of that year, Elizabeth II invited her nephew’s then fiancée for the first time to celebrate at the Sandringham estate.

The following year was their first act together, in Cheshire. There they shared a carriage aboard the royal train and even had breakfast together.

But since 8 January 2020, when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex grabbed the world’s attention with their resignation from the crown, Harry and Meghan have started to crack their relationship with the family.

The idea that Elizabeth II and Markle had strong crosses or that the Queen did not accept her nephew’s wife was always present in the “royal ecosystem”, but a heated argument between the two women was never confirmed.

In a remembered TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry and Meghan responded to Buckingham’s workplace harassment allegations against the Duke of Sussex’s wife.

“I don’t know how you can expect us to remain silent after all this time where there’s an active role played by The Firm (as it relates to the crown) in perpetuating the untruths about us,” Markle pitched.

Conversing with the American presenter, Meghan revealed she never knew how to adjust to her new life and felt silenced and isolated in the new role she had to take on.

One of the Dukes’ worst accusations against the British royals targeted one of the (until now unknown) members of the Queen’s inner circle who I would have had a racist gesture with them worryingly asking them what color would be the skin of Archie, their first child.

Although Meghan said in the interview that “the Queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me”, after the broadcast there was talk that it could have been Elizabeth II to ask her the questionable question.

The rumors were dismissed after a few days, as Harry claimed the Queen was not a part of those discussions. In fact, her daughter is named Lilibet after her grandmother’s childhood nickname.