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| Harry Is a More Interesting Prince Than We Deserved | Harry Is a More Interesting Prince Than We Deserved |
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| CORNWALL, England — The urge to fictionalize Prince Harry is addictive. If you are a monarchist, that is what he is for. For the last few years he’s been trying to reclaim himself from our imagined account. Most recently in court 15 in the Rolls Building, London, earlier this week. | CORNWALL, England — The urge to fictionalize Prince Harry is addictive. If you are a monarchist, that is what he is for. For the last few years he’s been trying to reclaim himself from our imagined account. Most recently in court 15 in the Rolls Building, London, earlier this week. |
| For more than seven hours over two days, Harry spoke on the witness stand to accuse Mirror Group Newspapers of unlawfully obtaining information through various means including telephone hacking — the modern version of the butler’s ear to the drawing room door. | For more than seven hours over two days, Harry spoke on the witness stand to accuse Mirror Group Newspapers of unlawfully obtaining information through various means including telephone hacking — the modern version of the butler’s ear to the drawing room door. |
| He is not the first royal to give evidence: Anne Boleyn was tried and executed in 1536. In 1891 the future Edward VII testified that an acquaintance had cheated at the card game baccarat. But he is the first to go to court to seek revenge for his life. For now, he seeks it against the media — he is also pursuing Associated Newspapers and News Group Newspapers, publishers of the British tabloids The Daily Mail and The Sun — but he will get to the rest of us eventually. | He is not the first royal to give evidence: Anne Boleyn was tried and executed in 1536. In 1891 the future Edward VII testified that an acquaintance had cheated at the card game baccarat. But he is the first to go to court to seek revenge for his life. For now, he seeks it against the media — he is also pursuing Associated Newspapers and News Group Newspapers, publishers of the British tabloids The Daily Mail and The Sun — but he will get to the rest of us eventually. |
| Harry is determined to define himself, and not to be, in Hilary Mantel’s description in her essay “Royal Bodies,” a “panda”: “expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment.” In this refusal to be the prince we wanted, or deserved, he has become something far more interesting. | Harry is determined to define himself, and not to be, in Hilary Mantel’s description in her essay “Royal Bodies,” a “panda”: “expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment.” In this refusal to be the prince we wanted, or deserved, he has become something far more interesting. |
| Like his mother, Princess Diana, Harry has been an instrument all his life. The Windsor family is Britain’s national pantomime and he was cast at birth — long before he could give consent — to be the shade to the sunlight of his brother, William. The newspapers chronicled his childhood; his parents’ love affairs, late-night telephone calls and hatred. They photographed his mother as she lay dying in a tunnel in Paris. They filmed Harry as he, aged 12, walked behind her coffin at her funeral, his presence necessary to protect his father’s reputation. Even the British media wouldn’t heckle a faithless husband in front of his son. | Like his mother, Princess Diana, Harry has been an instrument all his life. The Windsor family is Britain’s national pantomime and he was cast at birth — long before he could give consent — to be the shade to the sunlight of his brother, William. The newspapers chronicled his childhood; his parents’ love affairs, late-night telephone calls and hatred. They photographed his mother as she lay dying in a tunnel in Paris. They filmed Harry as he, aged 12, walked behind her coffin at her funeral, his presence necessary to protect his father’s reputation. Even the British media wouldn’t heckle a faithless husband in front of his son. |
| As a teenager and young adult, Harry’s every error was noted or leaked. When he smoked cannabis, his father reportedly arranged for a visit to a detox center for heroin addicts as a “short, sharp shock,” and then the story was leaked and his father spun as his rescuer. Harry chipped a bone in his thumb, and it was news. | |
| Then he married Meghan Markle, and when she was abused by the British media — which happens to all women who marry into the family, but this was a racist, classist and xenophobic variation — he did something sensible and loving for his new family: He left Britain. | Then he married Meghan Markle, and when she was abused by the British media — which happens to all women who marry into the family, but this was a racist, classist and xenophobic variation — he did something sensible and loving for his new family: He left Britain. |
| Since then his redemption has been sequential. There was the interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which they described his family’s concern about the skin color of their unborn child. There was a Netflix documentary. There was his memoir, “Spare,” in which he described how his father, probably smelling of flowers and gunpowder, sat down on his bed to tell him that his mother was dead. Now there is the litigation and, eventually, I hope, the day when he lays down his title, accepts that some things cannot be reformed and is redeemed by the application of self-knowledge. | Since then his redemption has been sequential. There was the interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which they described his family’s concern about the skin color of their unborn child. There was a Netflix documentary. There was his memoir, “Spare,” in which he described how his father, probably smelling of flowers and gunpowder, sat down on his bed to tell him that his mother was dead. Now there is the litigation and, eventually, I hope, the day when he lays down his title, accepts that some things cannot be reformed and is redeemed by the application of self-knowledge. |
| It’s addictive, as I said. | It’s addictive, as I said. |
| I read “Spare” as a portrait of an abusive childhood and an act of whistle-blowing, but most of the British media did not. They mocked him for writing about a youthful sexual encounter — how crass to mention it, now we must find the woman! — and for his affinity for Stewie, the infant prodigy in “Family Guy,” whom he described as “a prophet without honor.” | I read “Spare” as a portrait of an abusive childhood and an act of whistle-blowing, but most of the British media did not. They mocked him for writing about a youthful sexual encounter — how crass to mention it, now we must find the woman! — and for his affinity for Stewie, the infant prodigy in “Family Guy,” whom he described as “a prophet without honor.” |
| Even to the sympathetic, Harry can seem ridiculous. He is a panda, and pandas don’t usually fight back. And for the moment he thinks he can be meaningfully feminist and antiracist while embodying inherited wealth and power as a royal duke, which is absurd. | Even to the sympathetic, Harry can seem ridiculous. He is a panda, and pandas don’t usually fight back. And for the moment he thinks he can be meaningfully feminist and antiracist while embodying inherited wealth and power as a royal duke, which is absurd. |
| But Harry is brave, and he has found his battlefield. I think if he could, he would bring it all down — the monarchy, the media, the whole awful dance. We did not have his consent. For that, he will have his revenge. | But Harry is brave, and he has found his battlefield. I think if he could, he would bring it all down — the monarchy, the media, the whole awful dance. We did not have his consent. For that, he will have his revenge. |
| Ms. Gold is a British journalist who writes for Harper’s Magazine, The Spectator and UnHerd. | Ms. Gold is a British journalist who writes for Harper’s Magazine, The Spectator and UnHerd. |
| The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. | The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. |
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