In 2023, I pointed out that the entire royal-media apparatus decided that Prince Harry’s Spare was “actually a story about how Harry is mad because he was always in William’s shadow.” Instead of delving into the actual story of neglect, grief, mental health, physical abuse and dealing with his family’s constant jealousy, royal reporters decided that Harry was always mad that he wasn’t the heir! Given that the left-behinds always insisted that they never read Spare, I can only assume that this false summary of Harry’s message was provided by courtiers to the Windsors as well. It would explain some of the palace messaging about the Wales children too.
Over the summer, we heard yet again that the Prince and Princess of Wales want to “break the spare cycle” with their children. An implicit admission that the heir/spare dynamic is inherently dysfunctional and that perhaps Harry was right to walk away and start a new life, perhaps? Of course not. William and Kate don’t actually want to break any cycle which benefits them. Hilariously, there’s a new reason why the Wales kids will “break the spare cycle” though – it’s because Charlotte is a girl, you see.
The Prince and Princess of Wales’s children will break the cycle of heir and spare sibling rivalry thanks to a more ‘normal childhood’ and modernised line of succession, royal experts have claimed.
William’s daughter and sons are less likely to suffer the same bitter ‘rift’ he and his brother, the Duke of Sussex, fell to as a result of changes made to 21st century monarchy, insiders speaking in a new Channel 5 documentary have shared. Some believe that this, in part, will be due to the end of a centuries-old primogeniture tradition, which ended in 2013, previously dictating that the first born son would take the throne, and that any resulting spare must be succeeded by the next born male.
‘For the first time in British history, the spare is a princess, even though she has a younger brother,’ Dr Nige Fletcher, a political and contemporary historian, explained. ‘Princess Charlotte is in line after George, after a change in the law, and she now outranks her brother, Louis.’
Ten-year-old Charlotte, will be the first to benefit from the long-needed update, which previously sidelined Princess Anne and made Prince Andrew the spare to Charles. This will also open the door to more harmonious relations between siblings, according to Tom Quinn, historian and author of Scandals of the Royal Palaces.
‘It will make things a lot easier because there won’t be two males like two deer clashing antlers anymore,’ he remarked.
Speaking in the documentary, others suggested that the future will be different for the youngest successors because they are being raised as equals and have a more ‘normal’ upbringing – a ‘key to unpacking and shifting expectations of our heirs and spares’. Ailsa Anderson, former press secretary to Queen Elizabeth II also said they would have more ‘freedom and choice than their father had’.
Again, what came between William and Harry wasn’t “sibling rivalry,” nor is Harry “angry” with William because William is the heir. This is quite an admission too: “they would have more ‘freedom and choice than their father had’.” So… Harry was supposed to never seek freedom from the institution because he was ALWAYS supposed to support William and be William’s wingman and be William’s designated scapegoat and do whatever William ordered. All because William never had freedom, but his children will have freedom to do whatever they want! All of the stuff about the spare dynamic not existing because Charlotte is a girl is bizarre as well. Brothers and sisters can have sibling rivalries too.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
