The 1 Time Spare Prince Harry ‘Outranked’ Heir Prince William
For anyone who has read Prince Harry’s memoir (this writer included) or even glimpsed the cover, the Duke of Sussex’s “spare” status to Prince William’s “heir” is clear. As the second child of King Charles III and the late Princess Diana, Harry was ranked behind his brother, the now-Prince Wales, in the royal family’s line of succession. Although, as Harry shared in his book, there was a time when, however short, he “outranked”
Prince Harry has been aware of his ‘spare’ status for as long as he can remember
“The Heir and the Spare — there was no judgment about it, but also no ambiguity,” Harry explained early in Spare, which hit shelves in January 2023. “I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B,” Harry said (via Spare). “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,” he went on, saying his parents and grandparents, the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, “often” used it as “shorthand.”
Being the “spare” to William’s “heir,” Harry “took no offense,” feeling “nothing about it, any of it.” The line to the throne, he explained, “was the weather, or the positions of the planets, or the turn of the seasons. Who had time to worry about things so unchangeable?”
Harry briefly outranked William at a 2006 military ceremony
A glance at the title or flip of the pages and it’s clear being second to his brother is a constant in Harry’s memoir. However, in one passage, the now-39-year-old recalled a “brief moment” where he outranked William.
It happened in April 2006 at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England, when Harry became Second Lieutenant Wales in the British Army early on in his 10-year military career.
“It was now official. I was no longer Prince Harry. I was Second Lieutenant Wales of the Blues and Royals, second oldest regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry, bodyguards to the Monarch,” Harry recalled.
“The ‘passing out,’ as they called it, took place on April 12, 2006,” he continued, noting his father, the now-King Charles III, was there along with his stepmother, Queen Camilla, and grandparents.
While Queen Elizabeth, or “Granny,” “smiled for all to see” as Harry “marched past,” William, the now-father of two shared, “saluted.”
“He was at Sandhurst too now. A fellow cadet,” Harry said of his brother, noting “he’d started after me, because he’d gone to university first.” William, now 41, attended Scotland’s University of St. Andrews from 2001 to 2005, which is where he met his wife, Kate Middleton.
Harry went on, explaining the so-called “‘passing out’” ceremony wasn’t where William could “resort to his typical attitude when were sharing an institution.”
“He couldn’t, couldn’t pretend not to know me — or he’d be insubordinate,” Harry said, referring to his time at Eton College with William. “For one brief moment, Spare outranked Heir.”
Harry’s expressed worry about William’s own children becoming a ‘spare’ like him
In a Telegraph following Spare’s debut, Harry revealed his concern for the “other spares” in his family. “As I know full well, within my family, if it’s not us,” Harry said, pointing to his chest, “it’s going to be someone else.”
“And though William and I have talked about it once or twice, and he has made it very clear to me that his kids are not my responsibility, I still feel a responsibility knowing that out of those three children, at least one will end up like me, the spare,” Harry said. “And that hurts, that worries me.”
George, 10, is second in the line to the throne behind his father, the Prince of Wales. Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5, are third and fourth, followed by Harry in fifth.
