Harry, however, had one handicap that was insurmountable. He was the second son. Second sons do not count in royal or aristocratic circles except as spares. Everything goes to the first son. There can be only one king, duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron, or baronet. Only the firstborn son can inherit the throne, palace, castle, estate and all its chattels. Second sons, of course, do inherit something. They have secondary titles, secondary possessions, secondary incomes which go along with their secondary status. But the only way to preserve the hegemony is for virtually everything to devolve upon the firstborn son.
In the world into which Harry was born, second sons are second class citizens. The phenomenon is so well known that it even has its own name: Second Son Syndrome. This does not necessarily have to be a problem. My boyfriend before marriage was a second son; I married a second son; and my longstanding boyfriend after marriage was a second son. Some second sons cope with their status better than others. My boyfriend before marriage and my boyfriend after both grappled with it well, but too many second sons are bitterly envious of their elder brothers. They resent the fact that an accident of birth prevented them from getting the lion’s share of the money, status, power and privilege. They forget that their status as the scions of privilege is also an accident of birth, that they could equally have been born into penury in Somalia instead of the lap of luxury in Great Britain.
Some mothers deal with Second Son Syndrome better than others. Some bring their children up to accept that life is not fair, that you should count your blessings and be grateful for small as well as large mercies, and not covet thy brother’s wife, ass or goods, in keeping with the dictat of the tenth Commandment. They point out to their second sons how lucky they are that they will not have to live up to a patrimony that might be laden with privilege, but is heavily offset by the crushing weight of responsibility for which nature might not have equipped either son, but which the first born will have to learn to bear whether he is inclined to do so or not. Other mothers make it so obvious that they prefer the child who will inherit the throne or the peerage that they mess up both the first and second sons for the remainder of their lives. Still others do what Diana did. They overcompensate. Although she always kept the boys grounded with the knowledge that only William would one day be king, she nevertheless tried to equalise an unequal situation, figuring, incorrectly, that she could redress the balance by providing Harry with additional emotional security. Darren McGrady, the chef at Kensington Palace from 1993 to 1997, recounted how she used to tell him, ‘You take care of the heir; I’ll take care of the spare.’ She openly said that she knew that William would always be all right; Harry was the one she had to look out for. She used to say that Harry was ‘an airhead like me’, while William ‘is like his father’. This made her more protective and indulgent of Harry.
Just as how the young Meghan felt the issue of her race impacting more acutely upon herself than those around her realised, so too was Harry aware from an early age of the disparity between himself and his elder brother. He used to complain that the Queen Mother showered William with attention while virtually ignoring him; that she had William sit close by her while he was relegated to a Siberian seat when they went to visit her. Once, he was terrifically upset when the butler brought sandwiches for her and William but none for him. I find it difficult to believe that Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother would have countenanced such a slight, and suspect that a crucial element of the story was omitted in the recounting. Nevertheless, the fact remains, from an early age Harry was acutely conscious of the difference in importance between himself and William, to such an extent, that Diana’s protection officer Ken Wharfe recounted how, when he was four or five, Harry informed their nanny, ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, because William is going to be king.’ Wharfe found it amazing that Harry could, even at that tender age, be so aware of that fact.
The two year age difference meant that both boys were at different stages developmentally. Harry was a soft and sweet child who loved nothing better than curling up with his mother on a sofa or bed and looking at movies or shows on television with her. He was an unashamed Mummy’s boy, while his elder brother made his presence felt in such an independent, indeed aggressive, manner that he was known as Basher.
Given a choice, children are much happier having fun in the country than staying in the city. Palaces are little different from ordinary houses save in scale, and both boys liked nothing better than going down to Highgrove for the weekend with their father. Contrary to the misinformation that Diana later on spread about her husband, Charles was a good and involved father whose children loved him as much as he loved them. He used to play with them the way his father, who had been a playful father, used to with him. He had a special pit built for them which was filled with colourful balls and he used to dive into it with them. He had a tree house constructed for them. He took them for long walks throughout the property, opening their eyes to the beauties of nature while instructing them on the flora which were such a passion of his. He took them to see the newly born lambs, encouraged them to keep pets - their mother
