Prince Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” was released worldwide on Tuesday to a record 1.4 million copies sold. The title is a reference to his former role as the “spare” to his brother Prince William, who was born an heir to the throne as the eldest child of King Charles III. The monarch was first in line at the time of William and Harry’s birth.
In the book, Harry wrote about what it was like to first hear the story of how Charles reportedly called him a “spare” when he was born.
“I was twenty the first time I heard the story of what Pa allegedly said to Mummy the day of my birth: ‘Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and Spare — my work is done.’ A joke. Presumably. On the other hand, minutes after delivering this bit of high comedy, Pa was said to have gone off to meet his girlfriend. So. Many a true word spoke in jest,” Harry wrote.
Nonetheless, there are many benefits of being the “spare” rather than the heir, including that Harry didn’t have to follow the same royal rules as William while growing up.
Representatives for the Duke of Sussex and Kensington Palace did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment regarding the publication of “Spare.”
Harry wrote in his memoir that he had to ask his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, for permission to keep his beard for his royal wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018.
Harry said that this ultimately caused a week-long argument between himself and William, because William didn’t understand why Harry was allowed to keep his beard when he had previously been instructed to shave his off.
“Writing this, I remembered that William had a beard himself, and that granny and other people were the ones who told him to shave it off,” Harry said during an interview with Tom Bradby for ITV on Sunday.
“The difference for me, was, as I explained to my grandmother, that this beard, that I’m still wearing, felt to me at the time like the new Harry, as almost like a shield to my anxiety,” he said.
In the book, Harry wrote that William and Charles weren’t allowed to fly on the same plane together while he was growing up because two heirs shouldn’t travel together in case there is an accident. Since Harry wasn’t an heir to the throne, he wrote, this rule didn’t apply to him.
Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that Charles and Diana broke this rule when they brought William on their 1983 royal tour of Australia, and William and Kate Middleton broke this rule in 2014 when they brought their eldest son George on a royal tour of Australia and New Zealand.
It’s tradition for the royal family to gather for church on Christmas Day in Sandringham, and the royal family’s partners are usually not invited unless they’re married.
Kate Middleton joined for the first time in 2011 after marrying Prince William earlier that year. Meghan Markle, on the other hand, was invited to join the church service after her engagement to Prince Harry in November 2017.
Members of the royal family are supposed to remain politically neutral, according to the royal family website, and it’s thought to be against protocol for royals to openly discuss politics in public. As future king, William will have to be mindful of this rule as monarchs are not usually allowed to express their political opinions and they don’t vote in elections.
Prince Harry accidentally broke this rule before his step back in March 2020, when a since-deleted audio clip of his phone call with two pranksters who pretended to be Greta Thunberg and her father was shared online. During the call, Harry criticized former US President Donald Trump.
“I don’t mind saying this to you guys — the mere fact that Donald Trump is pushing the coal industry so big in America, he has blood on his hands,” Harry said. “Because the effect that has on the climate, and the island nations far, far away. And again, out of sight, out of mind.”
The royal family’s mantra, “never complain, never explain,” was first adopted by the Queen Mother when she became Queen Consort in 1936, Insider previously reported. It was passed on to her daughter, the late Queen Elizabeth, who appeared to have followed the rule by never giving interviews or responding to questions from the press.
In a recent interview with Anderson Cooper, Harry said “never complain, never explain” is “just a motto” and that some members of the family don’t follow it due to the leaking and planting of stories. In his memoir, Harry accused Camilla, Queen Consort, of leaking stories about William and of leaking a story about Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton’s argument over a bridesmaid dress in 2018. Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment regarding Harry’s claims in the book.
Although William has not publicly responded to Harry’s claim, it’s evident that he cannot be as open with giving interviews to the press as Harry currently is.
Since leaving the royal family, Harry has given interviews to Oprah Winfrey, James Corden, Tom Bradby, Stephen Colbert, People, and Michael Strahan.
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