
LONDON — While the world was waiting for Oprah Winfrey’s interview last month with Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the eyes of many Britons were on someone else: Prince Philip, Harry’s grandfather, who had been hospitalized several weeks earlier with a heart condition.
On the front pages of British newspapers in February, Prince Charles had been pictured leaving the bedside of Philip, his father — the son’s eyes bloodshot as he was driven away. The Daily Mail castigated Harry and Meghan for comments about their departure from their royal roles, which the tabloid cast as disrespectful in light of Philip’s illness. “Have They No Respect?” a headline screamed.
That period of national concern over Philip’s health lent the royal family sympathy during an unusual dust-up within the institution, one that pitted brother against brother as Harry, in the interview with Ms. Winfrey, accused his family of racism and emotional abandonment.
Philip’s death on Friday at age 99 opened a new and uncertain chapter in the turbulent life of the House of Windsor. It has the potential to mend fences, or to sow deeper discord.
private funeral being planned for Philip. Will Harry reunite with his brother, Prince William, after a monthslong feud? Will Meghan attend?
“Harry will come home, and a meeting between the brothers and perhaps, with luck, a reconciliation over their dead grandfather could be a possibility,” said Penny Junor, a royal historian.
Or not.
“It’s going to go one way or the other,” Ms. Junor said. “There’s a sort of war going on within the family, and being played out in public. It’s been everything the family doesn’t want.”
The heating up of those tensions during Philip’s hospitalization created an awkward split screen, which defenders of Buckingham Palace used to attack Harry and Meghan for doing anything that could detract attention from the patriarch’s health.