“The Heir and the Spare—there was no judgment about it, but also no ambiguity. I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy. I was summoned to provide backup, distraction, diversion and, if necessary, a spare part. Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow. This was all made explicitly clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced thereafter.”1
Prince Harry has been a victim of intrusive harassment by newspapers, which behaved like criminal organisations. His successful retaliation is very lucrative. Obviously this ‘business’ opportunity is time limited. There are only so many years that the horrors of his childhood and youth can be mined for payouts.
He now fully appreciates a new horror: primogeniture.2 His best-selling memoir was called Spare. The quote above is his insight into the actualité of being the younger son of the heir to the monarch. Inheritance, for British aristocrats, is predicated on social mobility for younger sons: downward social mobility!
The eldest son of a British aristocrat is the winner who takes all. Younger sons are ‘spares’ who are there to replace the eldest son if they die. (They come off the substitutes bench, as it were.) However, that opportunity only kicks in if the eldest son is childless. Harry’s brother, William, has three children and Harry is now fifth in line to be king.
Prince Harry has plunged from second to fifth in the list of successors to King Charles.3 He isn’t even a Spare now. The government’s refusal to provide police protection for him whilst he’s in Britain is a vivid illustration of his loss of status,
“Friday’s decision means Prince Harry’s security will remain outside the automatic, high level of protection which is provided for senior royals.”4
High profile police protection is a prop for Harry’s self-esteem. Armed police protecting him 24/7 is ego boosting as it confirms his special status. Not having it means that his despised role as a Spare has been further diminished.
If he’d paid attention to primogeniture, Harry wouldn’t be quite so hurt and shocked. He isn’t a good student and he is hurt and shocked. History is full of stories of aristocratic brothers and the implications of primogeniture,
The extent of that privilege, in terms of sheer economics, is indicated by the example of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, who inherited an estate worth over £16,000 a year5 at the age of only 17 [in 1801]. His five younger brothers and one sister each received a single payment of £2,000, which, prudently invested, would have only garnered an annual income of around £100, far less than even the most abstemious individual could subsist on if they were to retain any pretensions to gentility.
The earl’s siblings were brutally removed from the aristocracy. Even though they had been born aristocrats, they now relied on their brother’s good will for patronage. Whatever sense of entitlement they might have had, they were ejected from the upper reaches of the aristocracy. They had to get a job, or in the case of a woman, a husband. Jane Austen summed it up brilliantly,
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.6
Prince Harry is a slow learning aristocrat who didn’t realise the game was rigged.
He should get over it.
Notes
1 prince harry ‘spare’ quote’ – Search
“….the right of succession belonging to the firstborn child, especially the feudal rule by which the whole real estate of an intestate passed to the eldest son.” primogeniture meaning – Search
In the late 20th century gender equality maintained the concept but included women in the inheritance process.
3 “…the British line of succession is led by King Charles III, followed by his son Prince William, and then his grandchildren, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.” british line of succession 2025 – Search
4 Prince Harry loses legal challenge over security – BBC News
5 ‘Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune’ by Rory Muir review | History Today See also George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen – Wikipedia £16,000 p.a. is equivalent to £10,320,000 in 2025 money Inflation calculator | Bank of England
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