Those people are still trying to “connect” Prince Andrew and Prince Harry, especially as the big reveals about Andrew are coming out in a steady drumbeat. These people are going to scream “but Harry wrote a memoir” when confronted with every degenerate, sleazy, criminal and sadistic thing Andrew has ever done. There’s an added bonus: they’re also going to remind people of the future they had carefully planned for Harry. He was supposed to end up like Andrew, he was supposed to end up like Princess Margaret. The worst thing that could happen, for them, would be Harry turning into an attractive, charismatic, beloved, hardworking family man with a beautiful wife. Well, Robert Hardman – the royal biographer of “QEII hated her great-granddaughter Lili because of her name” fame – has some thoughts about how QEII had so much sympathy for spares.
On the latest episode of Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things, royal biographer Robert Hardman reveals why he thinks Andrew and Harry were ‘cut so much slack’ by the late Queen. Speaking on a special ‘spares’ themed episode of the Daily Mail podcast, Hardman claimed Britain’s longest-serving monarch always held ‘great sympathy’ for the awkward position of those who grow up in the shadow of the future monarch.
The Queen’s official biographer argued this sympathy emerged from childhood, watching her father King George VI – himself a spare – struggle with the weight of the crown after his brother’s shock abdication.
He added that watching Princess Margaret’s ‘melancholy’ and her struggle to find a ‘true role in life’ also shaped the Queen’s sensitivity to the difficulties of being a spare.
‘People ask, why was the Queen so long-suffering with Andrew or Harry?’ Hardman said. ‘I think it’s because she saw the fact her father was a spare – and she also felt great sympathy for her sister, Margaret, who could never find her true role in life. All throughout Margaret’s life, there was a sort of melancholy about her. Then you have Prince Andrew, who can’t work out what he’s for. Prince Harry felt the same. All the way through, the Queen cut them a lot of slack. She had a great deal of sympathy for those in that position.’
Andrew announced last week he would relinquish his Duke of York title following fresh allegations about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Podcast co-host Kate Williams said that while she holds ‘no sympathy’ for Andrew, she does have some for Harry. She added that if Harry were to return to royal duties, he would be greeted with ‘real enthusiasm’ because he has always been such a popular member of the family. Williams said: ‘When it comes to monarchy, it’s winner takes all. You get everything, or you get nothing. If Harry were to come and do more royal duties, I think he’d be greeted with real enthusiasm. He’s always been such a popular member of the family.’
Hardman, however, lamented that in later life, Harry appears to have lost his sense of ‘fun’. He described the prince now as a ‘great bundle of grievances and anger’.
‘I remember meeting Harry as a young man, he was fun!’ Hardman said. ‘One aspect of being a spare, which he underplays now, is that the expectations are different. You can get away with stuff the heir cannot. The heir has to knuckle down and be serious and dutiful.’
“Why was the Queen so long-suffering with Andrew or Harry?” I don’t know, was it because the Windsors equate “a prince marrying a Black American woman” with “a prince raping trafficked teenagers”? Was it because QEII and the entire royal establishment actually preferred a predator prince who committed crimes as opposed to a prince who simply walked away from the whole pathetic lot? The mention of Margaret is important as well, because AGAIN, that’s what they wanted for Harry – drunk, sad and alone, abandoned by romantic partners, unable to find stability in their personal life.
Photos courtesy of Instar, Avalon Red, Cover Images.
