After weeks of speculation, a decision was announced yesterday: Prince Charles and Prince Harry will not meet this week while Harry is in the UK for the Invictus Games 10th anniversary celebrations. (According to Page Six, Harry has been working for over a month to coordinate his father's schedule, but "has been turned down," the magazine reports.

Hugo Vickers, a noted royal historian and friend of the royal family, told Page Six, "If the king wanted to see Harry, he would find time very easily. He is never too busy to see his son."

As Harry's spokesman said in a statement released yesterday, Harry "understands his father's timetable and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon." Prince Charles had just returned to the public eye last week, nearly three months after announcing his cancer diagnosis on February 5; within 24 hours of the February announcement, Harry flew to England on a transatlantic journey, a flight of nearly 11 hours and over 5,000 miles, where he met his father for only for about 30 minutes. Still, even the brief 30 minutes was more than Harry was afforded on this visit to London, his first visit to the city in three months.

Vickers said that "if they were to meet, it would be a good idea to establish some sort of rapprochement." He suggested that there would be points in the King's diary that could be opened for Harry, including breakfast, but he chose not to do so. Another royal source said, "The King has left the door wide open, but obviously not that wide open." But they can absolutely cram things into his diary and adjust things."

Longtime royal photographer Arthur Edwards agreed with Vickers, telling The Sun that the king "managed to find time" to see Harry: "It's a great victory that the king is now back at work and back to business," Edwards said. 'Obviously, the King's time is packed and he has a lot of catching up to do. But I think he could have found time to see Harry if he had wanted to, but clearly he doesn't want to and Harry seems to have accepted that."

A source speaking to the Daily Express said, "Harry is, of course, very disappointed that he was not allowed to see his father this time. It is even more difficult to comprehend considering they are in the same city, at the same time, right under each other's noses."

Although Harry plans to meet his wife Meghan Markle in Nigeria after his visit to the UK, she is not currently with Harry in his home country. In addition to not seeing his father (and, according to Page Six, his brother Prince William, whom he has not spoken to in over a year), no senior royals are expected to attend Harry's celebration tonight, despite the fact that the Invictus Games are a landmark event in Harry's life. (The first Games were held in London 10 years ago, in 2014.)

"It's pretty smoldering," former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole told Tatler magazine. 'The prodigal son is not welcome. From a royal perspective, this is big medicine. Prince Harry must understand what it is, the clearest possible sign of the hurt caused. For the fifth in line to the throne [Harry], this is a royal earful. Actions have consequences, but seldom are they played out as blatantly as this one. But whatever one's view of the merits of Prince Charles' refusal of an invitation from his son, one opinion is almost universally accepted."