All the Ways Prince Harry’s Memoir ‘Spare’ Could Blow Up King Charles

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In choosing the one-word title Spare for his memoir, Prince Harry has served clear notice that the reserves of seething anger he has expressed toward his family in various interviews since he left royal life will be fully excavated in his forthcoming tome, set to be published Jan. 10, 2023.

The title is a reference to the chilly phrase which aristocratic English families, often sardonically, use to describe the supposed good fortune of having two male sons; the family in question is said to have “an heir and a spare.”

Prince Harry’s Memoir ‘Could Spell Big Trouble’ for King Charles, Royal Insiders Fear

King Charles’ office has said it will not be commenting on the book (or its title) but there is bound to be deep disquiet at what the book might, could, and will reveal.

Here are just a few of the issues that will doubtless be occupying royal minds this weekend….

Emotional abuse

Harry has been clear that he feels he was emotionally neglected by his father, but if he goes a step further and accuses the king of bullying, belittling, or emotionally abusing him, that could represent a very serious impediment to King Charles’ mission to cast himself as an avuncular, grandfatherly figure.

In his docuseries about mental health, The Me You Can’t See, Harry told his co-producer Oprah Winfrey: “My father used to say to me when I was younger, he used to say to both William and I, ‘Well, it was like that for me so it’s going to be like that for you.’ That doesn’t make sense. Just because you suffered, that doesn’t mean your kids have to suffer. Actually quite the opposite. If you suffered, do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences you had, you can make it right for your kids.”

Will he take this logic all the way—and accuse Charles of active mental cruelty?

There is certainly more than a hint of that in the title, Spare, which carries with it an implication that Harry was not valued as a person in his former life as a member of the royal family.

When, and from whom, did Harry first hear that his chief constitutional role in the family was as an emergency replacement for his brother? Did his father ever use the fateful word directly to his face?

Royal racism

In their famous joint interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry and Meghan separately suggested that Harry had been asked racist questions about the likely skin color of their as-then unborn children. Meghan said “concerns” about the issue were raised. But their accounts of when and how this happened differed so dramatically that their critics have subsequently been able to use these discrepancies to undermine the account, an agenda aided by various other questionable assertions made in that interview and others (such as Meghan’s bizarre claim in The Cut that she was told her wedding was greeted in South Africa with the same rejoicing as the freeing of Nelson Mandela).

With Queen Elizabeth now gone, if Harry really wanted to lay a killer blow on his father, definitively naming him as the royal racist would be one way to do it. It would, however, contravene a vow made in that interview to take the identity of the person to his grave. Harry could alternatively decide to expose other examples of racist behavior or racist jokes made by senior royals, giving the debate renewed impetus and wider context.

Diana’s death

It was notable that Penguin Random House put the funeral of Diana front and center in their publicity material for the book, saying: “Spare takes readers immediately back to one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror.”

The baseline framing of Harry and William’s participation in the funeral as horrific in this way makes it very likely that Harry will indict his father for obliging him to participate in such a public way in those events 25 years ago.

Harry has previously suggested to Oprah he was traumatized by the event, saying, “For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses’ hooves going along the pavement. Along The Mall, the Red Brick Road. By this point I was, both of us were, in shock. It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me, showing one tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing. I thought, ‘This is my mum. You never even met her.’”

Beyond that there is a whole range of questions to be answered about the royals’ behavior around Diana’s death, not least, what was it like to be woken at Balmoral and told his mother had died? We know Charles told the boys, but did he do so sensitively? Were they allowed to see TV coverage of events in London? And does he agree with Princess Anne’s 2017 assessment that the queen “did exactly the right thing” by keeping the boys in Scotland for as long as possible?

The inside story of the collapse of his parents’ marriage… and his father’s affair with Camilla

The uncomfortable truth for Charles is that he cheated on Diana with Camilla almost throughout the entirety of his first marriage. Although the couple is now happily married and projects an effortless image of domestic bliss, Diana felt, as she made very clear to both Martin Bashir (in the Panorama interview) and Andrew Morton (in the book Diana: Her True Story) that she was treated with abominable cruelty by Charles and Camilla conducting their romance under her nose.

What did that look like to Harry? How did he respond to both his father and mother making public admissions of infidelity in TV interviews? Did he challenge either of them? Has he been able to forgive Camilla? Does he hold her partially responsible for the chain of events that led to Diana’s death?

The Daily Beast understands that Charles is withholding invites to his coronation, and titles for Harry and Meghan’s children until he sees what bombshells Harry drops on Camilla’s reputation in the book.

Meghan and her influence

It will be fascinating to see how much Harry attributes his decision to leave the royal family to Meghan’s influence, and how much he says he was the driver of that seismic move. As to Meghan herself, what will Harry say about her place in his life, and what she told Oprah that she endured at the hands of the royals?

Charles’ unsuitability to be king

Princess Diana famously also told Martin Bashir in her 1995 interview that Charles was not cut out for the role of king.

Asked if Charles wanted to be king, she said, “There was always conflict on that subject with him when we discussed it, and I understood that conflict, because it’s a very demanding role, being Prince of Wales, but it’s an even more demanding role being king. And being Prince of Wales produces more freedom now, and being king would be a little bit more suffocating. And because I know the character I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don't know whether he could adapt to that.”

Asked if the Crown should skip a generation, she said: “William’s very young at the moment, so do you want a burden like that to be put on his shoulders at such an age? So I can’t answer that question…My wish is that my husband finds peace of mind, and from that follows others things, yes.”

Does, or did, Harry feel the same way?

Harry’s journey from good spare to bad spare

Ken Wharfe, Diana’s royal protection officer, has said that when Harry was around five, he was arguing with William on a car ride, when he turned to his brother and said, “You will be king … but I can do what I want.” Indeed, for many years Harry seemed to relish his role as the carefree, happy-go-lucky kid brother enjoying many of the privileges of royal life without the weight of the Crown to bear. How and when that changed will be an interesting topic for the book to explore.

Harry’s feud with William

Much ink has been spilled in the past three years about the collapse of Harry and William’s relationship, and it seems unimaginable that Harry won’t tackle the subject. The boys were said to be so close as children that they could finish each other’s sentences, but the relationship apparently turned sour after Harry felt William was insufficiently welcoming to Meghan.

The pettiness of the feud has been one of its defining features, and it will be interesting to see if Harry takes up arms on Meghan’s behalf on the famous question of who-made-who cry at the bridesmaid dress fitting. Meghan claims Kate made her cry but refused to allow press reports saying the opposite happened to be corrected.

The James Hewitt rumor

Harry will have to discuss his mother’s relationships if he wants this to really be the honest account of his life that he says it will be. That in turn might make it impossible for him to avoid the subject of the long-running paternity gossip that has dogged Harry for so many years; not to at least confront the Hewitt rumor would disappoint many.

As one media executive recently told the Daily Beast: “Netflix doesn’t care about Meghan’s quest for social justice. They just want to know if James Hewitt is Harry’s dad.”

Harry’s relationship with the queen

Harry made a bizarre comment in an interview with Hoda Kotb earlier this year, saying he had a special relationship with the queen and that she talked with him “about things she can’t talk about with anyone else.”

The remarks were greeted with bafflement by many royal insiders. Will Harry now reveal the nature of those private chats? And how did Elizabeth express her displeasure at his departure for California? Did she ever bawl him out?

So, what changed?

Harry’s memoir was originally due to be published this year, and the fact that publication was shifted to January, missing out on the lucrative Christmas market, suggests that significant changes were made after the queen’s relatively unexpected death in September. Of course, it would have been bizarre for the book not to have included a reflection on her legacy or for tenses not to be changed in the wake of her death.

But while a narrative has gathered force that Harry tried to tone down the memoir it’s hard to see the logic in that; on the contrary, the queen appears to have been the one person in the royal family whom Harry actually obeyed; respect and fear of upsetting her may have tempered some of his stronger impulses to harm his father’s reputation. The publishers are unlikely to have agreed to the excision of key revelations that would make the book a less commercial proposition either.

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