Prince Harry says he never punched his Uncle Andrew. Fleet Street Fox thinks it’s an opportunity missed
Picture the scene: a gilded corridor, the back seat of an armoured Rolls Royce, or perhaps while perusing the breakfast kippers at a highly-shined table groaning with silverware.
In the red-haired corner, Prince Harry, Duke of Taking Offence. Opposite him stands Prince Andrew, the Duke of Being As Offensive As Possible. And at stake in this clash of purposeless privilege, a chance to claim the crown as The Spare The World Could Most Easily Spare.
Words were exchanged, or maybe not. Punches were thrown, claims a Royal author, although that seems unlikely between two soft-handed manbabies more inclined to call lawyers. And Andrew was left with “a bloody nose” after “Harry got the better” of him, which sounds about as realistic as suggesting one pebble outwitted a different pebble.
Never mind the daftness of it all. Prince Harry’s reps have let it be known no such confrontation ever took place. In one self-defeating PR masterclass, the Spare Who Cares has put more of a dent in his own reputation, and we’ve all been denied the fun of picturing blood spurting from the nose of Not My Handsy Andy.
Because if Harry had socked it to the man who has done more to wreck the Royal Family’s reputation than Meghan’s Oprah interview, Fergie’s toe-sucking, Prince Phillip’s gaffes, and Princess Diana being in the orbit of Mohammed al Fayed all rolled into one, there’s no-one would think any the less of him for it. In fact, he’d probably earn new fans, some of them Royal.
The nation’s patience with Prince Andrew has been running on empty for decades, with questionable property deals, friendships, and Wikileaks reports about a trade envoy who seems to have done more to damage Britain’s reputation than enhance it. Throw in a disputed trip to Pizza Express in Woking and images of him behaving “if anything, too honourably” by flying to New York to tell a convicted paedophile they couldn’t be friends any more, and Prince Andrew is arguably the one spare we could have done without. It’s not like Edward doesn’t need the work.
And while of COURSE bopping each other on the nose is no way to behave and violence must never be condoned, it’s hard not to think that the occasional clip round the ear might not make princes more impressive people.
The government is, after all, telling us today to be “more resilient”. For us that may mean stockpiling batteries and spam, because we already know what a hard knock feels like. For these two princes, though, resilience seems to be as much of a second thought as how to empty a vacuum cleaner, or wondering who combs the gravel.
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Henry I was a spare as well, educated in Latin and never meant to be king. When his older brother William Rufus died in a freak hunting accident, the younger brother left his corpse on the forest floor and hightailed it to seize the Royal Treasury. His ruthlessness cannot be unrelated to the fact the Royal Family was only one generation away from illegitimacy, and the crown was by no means safe.
The Wars of the Roses saw cousins grabbing and losing the crown, murdering and massacring thousands. The eventual winner, one Henry Tudor, is the most likely culprit for the murder of his own two young nephews and rivals, the Princes in the Tower. If a minor Welsh landowner wants to be Royal, he’ll fight anyone for it.
And the most famous spare of all went on, after his brother’s early death, to marry the widow, enrich himself by smashing the monasteries, murder two wives, ruin the lives of three more, and only let Anne of Cleves have some peace and quiet because he thought her too fugly to bother with. Henry VIII was a monster, and Anne Boleyn was his Meghan Markle.
It’s not uncommon for Henrys to be a bit fighty. Nor is it unheard of for them to be spares who grab what power they can. It’s highly likely, though, that if Henrys I to VIII knew their latest iteration had moved to California and decided to become a mental health advocate, they would raise a Royal eyebrow.
So if our current version of the prodigal son had given his rotten uncle a taste of Windsor knuckle, it would be both unsurprising and sort-of fulfilling – it is what younger brothers are for, especially in this family. Battered by criticism and searching for relevance, if Harry had been able to show that he could see as clearly as we do what Prince Andrew is and deserves, he’d be resonating with the public in the same way as Henry V at Agincourt.
The problem with modern princes is they grew up without risk. If they fell out of a tree, someone would chop it down. If they hurt themselves, three servants would fix it. They click their fingers, and the gravel combs itself. In the stables at Sandringham is a battery-powered replica of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, gifted to Andrew by the car company after Dr No came out. It has hand-tooled leather seats and a rotating number plate. How can any boy with a childhood like that grow up NOT to be begging for some sort of comeuppance?
Harry himself might be less of a whiner if someone had told him bluntly that in The Firm it takes an act of God to get promoted, so he’d better start praying or get a proper job. Sometimes the right thing to do is the one thing nobody dares to do, and in this case a punch might have done more than land a well-deserved wallop. It might have restored a bit of faith that the Windsors actually know which way is up.
