Prince Harry has three word response after King Charles meets son at Clarence House

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, said his father was "great, thank you" after the pair met for the first time in 19 months. The father and son reunited for a private tea at the King's London residence, Clarence House, this evening (September 10).

The prince, who stepped away from royal duties in 2020, left the residence almost an hour after he arrived, at 5.20pm, ahead of a reception at the Gherkin building in the capital for Invictus, part of the veterans' charity he founded.

Reports from the event said he appeared relaxed and upbeat as he mingled with corporate sponsors and Government ministers an hour after he left Clarence House. Asked how his father was by a reporter shortly after arriving at the Invictus reception, Harry replied: “Yes he’s great, thank you.”

The duke entered on the top floor atrium at the Gherkin, the final event of a packed day, during which his meeting with his father was sandwiched between that and an engagement at the Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College London in the morning. As he left Clarence House, the duke ducked down inside the car as camera flashes flared all around the vehicle.

Soon after, Buckingham Palace confirmed Harry joined Charles for tea, a regular break in the King's day. While Charles skips lunch, he takes a break for afternoon tea at around 5pm - his favoured Darjeeling with honey and mils - with sandwiches and cakes.

The 76-year-old monarch, who is still undergoing treatment for cancer, arrived in London from Balmoral on Wednesday morning, the penultimate day of his youngest son’s four-day trip to the UK. He was scheduled to take part in a Privy Council meeting at St James’s Palace, adjacent to Clarence House, in the afternoon, followed by a one-to-one investiture with Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg at 4.15pm in the Morning Drawing Room at Clarence House.

The family face-to-face followed, before the duke had to leave for his Invictus Games event and the King took part had an audience at 6.15pm with the Premier of South Australia, Peer Malinauskas.

At the reception,Harry gave a speech and began by joking about his long journey across the capital following his meeting, saying: "I think this whole thing has been delayed slightly, so at this point you’re all hammered – which was part of the plan all along, stuck up here at the top of the Gherkin."

Harry last saw the King in February last year when he made a transatlantic dash from his Californian home to the UK following his father's cancer diagnosis. It came after in recent years the prince levelled a barrage of accusations at the King, stepmother the Queen, brother Prince of Wales and sister-in-law the Princess of Wales in an Oprah interview, Netflix documentary, interviews and his autobiography, Spare.

Following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh - the King's father - Harry wrote how Charles pleaded with his sons not to "make my final years a misery".

But while the father-son relationship may be on the mend, Harry remains estranged from brother William, who has been busying himself with a flurry of engagements and was in Cardiff on Wednesday, visiting a new mental health hub on World Suicide Prevention Day.