Royal photograph that could break the internet

Here’s an idea: Could King Charles, a man who loves Strauss, 18th century watercolours, and having the crusts cut off, be about to break the internet? Sorry TayTay and your big top Madison Square Garden wedding with a budget larger than Spain’s GDP and with the ungodly need for couture cat cumberbunds – a 77-year-old in ironed under pants might be about to steal your prize.

How? A photo that could happen in the coming weeks that would sweepingly rewrite the royal story and effectively undo Megxit.

Could we see, in two weeks time, Buckingham Palace share the first ever official image of His Majesty with his American grandchildren Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet? And maybe, just maybe, with their parents Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex too?

This shot’s meaning would be clearer than the King’s hatred for any architecture done after the invention of the slide rule and it would signal a line being drawn under the tortured Days of Our Lives-ian soap that has consumed the House of Windsor since 2020.

Such a photo would represent a familial VE Day but with chocolate biscuit cake, the royal equivalent of Donald Trump posting a photo of him sharing a 24-piece chicken bucket with whichever death culty Khamenei is now in charge of mowing down student protesters and sneakily buying black market uranium.

How realistic is it that Buckingham Palace might release such a portrait of the King and Archie and Lili, their faces clearly shown for the first time ever? For now it’s in the ‘just maybe’ category but even the fact we are contemplating it is a clear sign of how much could be about to change in London/Montecito relations.

We are now less than two weeks away until the duke and duchess and their young children touch down at Heathrow together for the first time in four years, setting the stage for the biggest royal reunion since Richard the Lionheart got home from the Crusades.

Technically the Sussexes are in the UK for one-year-to-go events for the 2027 Birmingham Invictus Games but all the auguries are pointing to this trip also being used for some sort of meeting between the King and the Sussex family.

In the last four years, Charles and Harry have only seen each other twice – once for 30 minutes after Charles’ 2024 cancer diagnosis and for 50 minutes in October 2025 – while the King has not seen Meghan since Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in October 2022 nor Archie and Lili since June of that year. If it was anyone else, the King would probably need name tags.

However, the strongest signal that this next catch up could be upgraded to a big reconciliatory moment is that Charles has offered the Sussexes an unspecified royal property to stay in for the duration.

This arrangement would make the logistics of a meeting that much easier, not necessitating Harry to run the camera gauntlet outside Clarence House as he has done previously and thus denying the world the usual shot of him, dour and besuited, in the back of a dark Range Rover.

All of this means, when the Sussex visit begins, we will see ‘fence’ and ‘mend’ and ‘olive’ and ‘branch’ wheeled out ad nauseam.

While no meeting between the duke, duchess and their kids and Charles has been confirmed, the reporting suggests that both sides want some sort of family moment to happen. So the question then becomes, what next? If and when this family reunion happens, will we only know about it thanks to a polite confirmation from the Palace – or could it be marked by the King’s press office sharing the sort of photo that could break the internet? Of His Majesty tenderly hugging two small children who have no idea why this white-haired man keeps tearing up and offering them all of Devon if they eat all their broccoli?

Lending weight to the possibility is the personal part – the King is living with cancer and Harry has made no bones about wanting his kids to have some connection with his homeland, the country that has graciously provided them with grandiose titles to use on the playground.

Pragmatically and image-wise, both the King and the Sussexes are in the popularity doldrums and such an image would slingshot them to the top of the feed, a heartwarmingly tableau that would earn only marginally better press than if they found the cure for shingles.

For both sides a happy families photo would loud-hailer proclaim that they are moving on from all those years of dyspeptic finger-pointing about crap dads and skin colour and bias and trauma and alleged bullying and only getting two fishfingers as opposed to Prince William’s three.

For Charles, this photo would make him look like some sort blue beret-wearing peacemaker who is all about kindness and forgiveness, while for the Sussexes it would be a brand refresh and topping up of their royal aura and bankabilty.

However before we all get too carried away, there are some boring, cold-light-of-day considerations to weigh up too that might prevent a family photo being released.

The Home Office is yet to announce the result of security review they have undertaken of the Sussexes’ long disputed right to automatic police protection while in the UK. In the past, given Charles’ constitutional requirement of impartiality, His Majesty has steered resolutely clear of his son’s fight over his taxpayer-funded bodyguards so as to not to be seen to be putting his oar in.

In the same basket we have Harry’s $72 million court case against the Daily Mail for alleged illegal information gathering; the verdict is reportedly due soon. The King is reportedly squeamish about being seen as anything but Switzerland in legal matters.

Still, before we write this photo of as a fan-fic fever dream, there is some precedent. In 2018 for the Charles’ 70th birthday, the Palace shared a lovely photo of the King with Queen Camilla and both his sons and their families all yukking it up. This image – of the royal family as the idealised family – is one that Crown Inc has been pushing since Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were unwrapping their wedding presents. (’Oh look another ivory cruet set Vicky!’) Could or would Charles waste an opportunity to stage something like this?

One that is pretty much impossible, even if the Charles/ Sussex photo does happen – the Waleses will be nowhere near it.

Every single piece of reporting has made abundantly clear that William is more likely to take up competitive clog dancing or convert to Zorastrianism as to want to have anything to do with Harry.

They have reportedly not spoken since Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and things are so bad that the heir does not even want his brother at his coronation.

The sad reality is that the King will, never again be photographed with both his sons let alone their wives. Also, Archie, Lili, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have never and likely will never been be seen altogether aside from, hopefully decades from now, their grandfather’s funeral.

Come the King’s 80th birthday in 2028, no matter what transpires in July is it likely he will get a repeat of that sweet 208 moment.

Here’s at least one nice thought to leave you on: Archie and Lili, this July, are about to be introduced to one of life’s great treats – M&S Percy Pig sweets. They might not cure the world’s ills but a delicious hit of glucose syrup and modified tapioca starch can only help.

Daniela Elser is an editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with Australia’s leading media titles.