Prince Harry moved his family back to the UK nearly a fortnight ago, but the ripples of the shocking development are still being felt.
Amid speculation about his status within the monarchy and unconfirmed details surrounding his residence, career and more, King Charles made it clear this week that he will remain a non-working royal, a standing he chose after stepping back from royal duties in 2020.
Highlights
- Speculation about Prince Harry’s parentage resurfaced amid King Charles’ decision to keep him a non-working royal.
- Henry Herbert and James Hewitt have both been floated online as his potential biological fathers.
- Harry previously described the claims as “hurtful, mean and cruel.”
However, the decision appears to have caught some people off guard, sparking speculation over whether the King's unwelcoming stance toward his son could stem from a more startling possibility: that the Duke of Sussex may not be his biological child.
Several X threads have revisited claims that Harry could in fact be the child of either Henry Herbert, the 17th Earl of Pembroke, or James Hewitt, a retired British Army officer, both of whom Princess Diana was linked to at different points in her lifetime.
Harry's striking resemblance to Henry Herbert has netizens convinced they're related
“A DNA test needs to be done. Harry is almost identical to this man,” an X user captioned a collage of a digitally modified image of Henry Herbert and Prince Harry.
The post showed both men photographed from the same angle, with strikingly similar ginger hair and beards.
They also appeared to have similar smiles, noses, and oblong face shapes.
“I’ve been saying this for years. He’s not a royal,” one person said in response.
“Everyone knows this. That is why he is treated like trash in the royal family,” another added.
However, royal biographers and historians have dismissed the theory as baseless, with Andrew Morton’s 1997 book Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words detailing how the palace and press subjected any man seen with the princess to intense scrutiny.
Some believe James Hewitt could be Harry's father
James Hewitt became Diana's horse-riding instructor after the pair met at a cocktail party hosted by her lady-in-waiting.
Their connection quickly evolved into a passionate affair, which Diana described in a 1995 BBC interview.
Their romance, however, was tested by Hewitt's repeated deployment to war zones before ultimately fizzling out around 1991.
Hewitt, notably, is a redhead, and that detail has been enough for the internet to speculate that he is Harry's biological father.
“I’ve always believed that Harry is James Hewitt’s son,” one person said.
“This is old news,” another added.
The theory, however, doesn't hold up chronologically, as Hewitt and Diana met only two years after Harry's birth.
Prince Harry addressed the rumors himself while testifying in his privacy breach lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers in 2023, saying that the press coverage of such stories had damaged him to a certain extent.
He corroborated during the same testimony that his mother had not met Hewitt until 1986, a timeline he said he “only learned of around 2014.”
Harry called the stories “hurtful, mean and cruel” and said they left him “questioning the motives” behind them.
“Were the newspapers keen to put doubt into the minds of the public so I might be ousted from the royal family?” he asked.
King Charles has ruled out Harry's return to the royal fold for now
“It is well known that in January 2020 the Duke and Duchess stepped down from undertaking representative duties on behalf of The Sovereign and are no longer working members of The Royal Family,” a Monday, September 7, letter signed by the Lord Chamberlain, the senior-most officer of the royal household, read.
“This position, distinct from the State and Royal duties undertaken by the working Royal Family and with the personal latitude it brings the couple in respect of financial independence and protection of their privacy as they would wish, will continue to be fully respected,” it added.
A Buckingham Palace source confirmed that the letter was put into the public domain because it would have leaked anyway, and that they wanted to avoid claims of secrecy around its contents.
The letter from the Lord Chamberlain went on to say that Harry and Meghan's “styles as His and Her Royal Highness remain in abeyance.”
It added that their charitable work would be “a personal matter for them both and undertaken in a private capacity,” and that “in short, their position is akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests.”
Harry and Meghan were “surprised” by the letter ahead of a security arrangement meeting
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were reportedly “surprised” by the timing of the letter clarifying their non-working royal status.
A spokesperson for the couple, according to the BBC, also said on Tuesday that they questioned why they had not been told about the public disclosure in advance.
In another development, the committee that decides on the family's security arrangements is understood to be meeting this week.
This could be a significant day for Harry, who has been fighting for years to have taxpayer-funded security reinstated for him and Meghan when they are in the UK.
With the family now based in the UK full-time, it remains to be seen whether the committee, which has previously been reluctant to grant him the privilege, will feel pressured to change its stance.
“How inclusive of the royal family,” a social media user quipped amid claims that Harry could be an outsider
