SARAH VINE: Harry isn’t offering any kind of olive branch, he’s doubling down on his bets

Prince Harry’s visit to the UK last week (to attend the memorial service for his aunt Jane’s late husband, Lord Fellowes) is not a sign of a rapprochement with his estranged family. If anything, it seems to have only widened the rift.

Not only did he and his brother Prince William not exchange a single word in church, but perhaps more tellingly, he stayed with his uncle, Charles Spencer, at the family’s country house, Althorp, in Northamptonshire.

You may be wondering why shouldn’t Prince Harry staying with his uncle? After all, his mother is buried at Althorp, meaning a part of him will always call it home.

That’s true. But the way the information came to light – via an American publication with established ties to the Sussexes – is certainly intriguing.

Prince Harry could easily have stayed at one of the royal residences for this visit. The king has made it clear that his door is always open to his youngest son.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

But not only did Harry choose not to do so (in fact, he didn’t see his father at all during the trip, despite the king still being treated for cancer), he also made sure to stay with Earl Spencer.

It is fair to say that there is no love lost between the monarch and the Earl. Anyone who remembers Earl Spencer’s magnificent speech at Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997 knows that.

He has always held the king – and by extension the royal family – responsible for his sister’s torments, and he is not entirely wrong. Princess Diana was in some ways mistreated by Charles; in other ways, however, she gave as much as she got.

Nevertheless, Harry clearly holds a more one-sided view, and has made as much of it in his various on-screen and print attacks against his father. Indeed, many of the Duke’s troubles, particularly in recent years, likely stem from what he sees as his father’s ultimate betrayal of his mother.

He not only needs someone to blame for his loss, but also someone to punish.

At first it was just his father and, secretly, Queen Camilla. But now Prince William is being punished (along with Kate) for their decision to put duty above all else.

Althorp in Northamptonshire, where Princess Diana is buried and Prince Harry stayed during his trip to the UK last week

Like many people who carry deep pain within them, Prince Harry knows how to hurt. The last few years have been one long, drawn-out exercise in lashing out at those he feels have wronged him.

Even his late grandmother, Elizabeth herself, was not exempt from his bitterness. He made her last years on this earth very difficult indeed.

The more William focuses on his duty, the more Prince Harry looks the other way and joins his mother’s bloodline, the House of Spencer.

He’s always had the look of that side of the family, with that red hair that reminded him so much of his uncle’s, and now he’s showing where his loyalties lie.

This rejection of his father and brother sends a clear, unambiguous message. Prince Harry is not extending any kind of olive branch; he is doubling down on the stakes.

How the Earl feels about this is anyone’s guess. He has himself been going through a lot of emotional turmoil of late, with the publication of his recent memoir, A Very Private School, in which he wrote about the relentless abuse, sexual and physical, he suffered as a boy at Maidwell Hall school.

He has said that the process of reliving those horrors caused him to have a “breakdown”; he also recently divorced his third wife. Should he really be dragged into this?

Charles Spencer with Prince Harry in 2021

Probably not. But it may be too hard to resist, given the history between the two families. There is no doubt that the Spencers have always considered the upstart Windsors somewhat inferior in aristocratic terms.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Prince Harry, who is struggling in California and has fewer and fewer opportunities to work, doesn’t gradually build a stronger bond with his mother’s family, with whom his relationship is much more direct.

Even the demanding Duchess of Sussex could be convinced of the virtues of the Althorp estate, which has all the pomp and circumstance of a royal residence but without the obligations, public attention or restrictions.

There are undoubtedly excellent jam making facilities in the servants’ kitchens and you can imagine that Princess Diana’s island provides countless fantastic photo opportunities that will delight those back home.

If the Sussexes wanted Archie and Lilibet, now aged five and three, to go to school in the UK, Althorp wouldn’t be a bad base for them. The children would surely be very happy there, frolicking around the same grounds as a young Diana, running through the same marble corridors.

We’ll see. But if Harry really wants to spend more time in the UK without having to compromise or eat humility, then Uncle Charles might have the answer.

Now that’s an idea.