The heir and spare dynamic has played out in royal families for hundreds of years, and in Prince William’s case, it’s an issue that he’s hoping to fix with his own three children. Speaking to Marie Claire, royal editor and biographer Russell Myers says that the Prince of Wales “has a great deal of sadness” about his “fractured” relationship with Prince Harry, and that includes the different ways they were treated as children.
Myers, whose new book William and Catherine, The Monarchy’s New Era: The Inside Story, was published on March 10, says that the Prince of Wales has never liked the idea of the heir being put on a pedestal above other siblings.
“The issue of treating the ‘heir and spare’ as completely separate entities is something William has always wanted to change,” he shares. “It’s not how he and Catherine have brought up their own children and William saw fundamental problems with the different treatment he was given as a child to his brother. In his view, it wasn’t healthy.”
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Harry and William are pictured in 1989.
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Prince William and Prince Harry ride ricking horses as children.
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William and Catherine
This dynamic is something Princess Diana was acutely aware of, but despite her best efforts, Prince William was often given preferential treatment by the royal household. Diana even called her youngest son “Good King Harry” at one point after he allegedly said he’d “do the job instead” when a young William declared he didn’t want to grow up to be King.
Myers says that William’s childhood plays a role in “why the Wales family are an incredibly close unit” today. Fortunately, Princess Charlotte also has Prince Louis to share their “spare status,” but the Prince and Princess of Wales are careful to treat their children equally.
“Of course George, as a future King, will inevitably have a different role to fulfill than his siblings, but that doesn’t mean the family dynamic should reflect that,” the author says.
When it comes to Prince William’s relationship with Prince Harry, Myers adds that the Prince of Wales “has a great deal of sadness over the way his relationship with his brother fractured, possibly beyond repair.” However, he stresses that the brothers’ “issues go way back before Meghan was introduced to the fold.”