The Harry and Meghan Show

A Brit explains…

Medium.com is primarily an american site. So I thought you yankees might like a few tips on this royal stuff. From a limey. As in ‘the horse’s mouth’ as you might say.

Over here in Blighty the big interview went out last night, one day later than in the USA. We know our place.

So here goes: In Britain we have a monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II. Every monarch needs an heir, and what you might call a spare. QEII ascended the throne in 1952 with her heir already in place.

He is Prince Charles, born in 1948. He is the guy who gets to be monarch when the current incumbent is no more. In the meantime he gets to be called Prince of Wales. Wales is the place to the left of England, underneath Scotland and to the right of Ireland. He is also Duke of too many places to mention.

The spare is the person who steps into the heir’s shoes if for any reason the heir is no longer around. When QEII became queen, she already had a spare, sort of.

She was Princess Anne. But in those days, being a girl was a big no-no. Which was ironic because the Queen was a girl. But still, the Queen did her royal duty by having another boy. His name was Prince Andrew, born in 1960.

In due course Prince Andrew married a lassie called Fergie and, well, lets not go into that too much. By that time he was no longer the spare anyway.

Prince Charles was naturally looking forward to the time when he would be King. And then he would need an heir and a spare of his own. So he married a lassie called Diana and had 2 sons. William and Harry.

William is Charles’s heir. Harry was Charles’s spare. But he isn’t any longer.

Harry is no longer Charles’s spare because William has had an heir of his own, Prince George. Who thus became Charles’s spare in Harry’s place. After Prince George, Prince William also had a spare of his own. Two spares in fact.

So to summarise: The Queen is the Queen. Prince Charles is her heir. Prince William is the Queen’s spare and Prince Charles’s heir. Prince George is William’s heir and Charles’s spare. All the while Harry has slowly been shunted down the line from spare to 6th.

I hope that has cleared all that up for you. There will be a test at the end, of course.

Historically speaking, being the spare has not been a particularly great gig. All you get is to be social superior to almost everybody. And lots of honours. And honorary military ranks for the asking. And lots of staff. Including a man to iron your underpants and choose your tie.

And of course money. Oodles of money. Nice people really don’t mention money in the context of royals. It is really rather sordid after all. But some non-royals absolutely love the stuff, so I mention it just for completeness.

Because being a spare is just so irredeemably awful, in recent history spares have not necessarily been terribly focused on making a good impression.

Spare after the Queen was originally her sister Princess Margaret, of whom the less said quite possibly the better. She died in 2002. You can google her if you really care.

Margaret was replaced by Prince Charles when he was born. He was only 4 when he stepped up from spare to heir so he didn’t really have much chance to spoil himself. But subsequently he did talk to his plants.

Prince Andrew was also relieved of sparedom before allegations of (allegedly) more entertaining (alleged) activities hit the headlines.

Prince William seems really rather boringly royal by the standards of the rest of them.

Prince Harry is shaping up as the spare that got away. But to America? Judgement in question there surely.

There was a rumour, that has never really totally gone away, that Harry was not in fact the child of Prince Charles. The suggestion is that his mother Princess Di, of whom no bad word must ever be spoken, was very fond of some other ginger bloke. Gingeriness being, of course, a trait that Harry has but Prince Charles does not.

I do not believe a word of this rumour. But as a patriotic Brit I do believe fervently that anyone who does believe it should have his head chopped off. And put on a spike outside Buckingham Palace. As was the tradition of old. Some old things are still the best, even if not so fashionable any more. Don’t you think?

In the meantime, the usefulness of a spare is in its very nature contingent and temporary. Even without such disgraceful tittle tattle. And so it might be said that once the need to be a spare has gone, you may as well clear off.

And if you are going to clear off, you may as well clear off to America. After all, America was founded by people with nothing to do, floundering around for a new life.

I wonder if Harry possibly just wants to see out his days playing football with David Beckham. Sponsored by somebodyorother.

God bless them all.