Prince Harry returns to U.S. after Charles visit, doesn’t meet with William

Prince Harry flew more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometres) to see his father after King Charles III was diagnosed with cancer. But Harry did not see his estranged brother, William, during a visit that lasted scarcely 24 hours.

The royal brothers remain emotionally and physically an ocean apart.

British media published photos of Harry at Heathrow Airport on Wednesday afternoon, just a day after he arrived at the same airport on a flight from Los Angeles.

He appeared headed back to life in California after a U.K. visit in which he spent less than an hour with his father at Clarence House, the king’s London home. Any meeting between the brothers would typically be confirmed by palace officials.

William, meanwhile, returned to public duties for the first time since his wife, Kate, was admitted to a London hospital on Jan. 16 for abdominal surgery. She spent almost two weeks at the private London Clinic and is recovering at home. William handed out medals to notables and local heroes at a Windsor Castle ceremony in the morning and was due to attend a charity dinner on Wednesday evening for London’s air ambulance service.

Images from the day are more grist for the popular British media tropes: dutiful William, flyaway Harry.

Behind that simplistic summary are two royal brothers — bonded in bereavement by the death of their mother, Princess Diana, when William was 15 and Harry was 12 — whose paths have diverged dramatically.

While William, the heir, was destined from birth to be king, Harry, who is fifth in line to the throne behind his brother and William’s three children, has often appeared to struggle with the more ambiguous role of “spare.”

He chose Spare as the title of his 2023 memoir, which recounted a lifetime of sibling