To what extent is Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex similar to Shakespeare’s portrayal of Hal?
By: Emma Haines
Introduction
If you’ve been paying attention to the news at all lately, then you’ve probably seen countless articles and stories produced about one of the most talked about couples in the world right now: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. They started a wildfire of publicity when Prince Harry declared he was to leave his position at Buckingham Palace with the Royal Family, in order to start a new life with his wife, the American actress, Meghan Markle. This caused an uproar in the United Kingdom and demanded answers as to why a prince would leave his position. For a couple years, the couple were silent about their departure from the royal life, until recently, when they released 2 things to the public: 1) a Netflix docuseries called Harry and Meghan, with both of them explaining their reasoning for leaving, and 2) a book written by Prince Harry himself called Spare, outlining most of his life. The focus of this paper will be on Spare, due to its incredible detail and first-hand account of the experiences in the Royal Family. But this paper isn’t just about examining the Prince’s juicy book about leaving the throne, it’s a comparison between him, and one of the other most famous princes in history: Prince Henry of Wales, otherwise known as Henry V, and to readers of Shakespeare: Hal.
William Shakespeare is known for many plays and might be considered to be one of the most famous English playwrights of all time. And rightfully so. His portrayal of many different stories captivates audiences around the world and throughout history due to their staggering and accurate representations of the real trials and triumphs of humanity. One of his most well liked plays being Henry IV, Part One. Its popularity throughout history could be due to its engagement with real historical events, or the many ways in which it can be directed and portrayed. But there’s something that sticks out to most people about this play, something that intrigues people so much that there's two more plays to follow this storyline further: the character of Prince Henry, otherwise known as Hal. Hal has been analyzed by many people in literature for his character arc as well as countless famous speeches. But while reading this play, as well as Spare, the similarities between him and the current Prince Harry were so aggressive, you couldn’t ignore them. Prince Harry even recognizes the similarities right off the bat when he mentions, “My distinct kin. My kindred spirit, some would claim. If nothing else, my namesake. Born September 15, 1984, I was christened Henry Charles David of Wales” (The Duke of Sussex, 13). This paper will explore those similarities in depth to answer the question, to what extent is Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex similar to Shakespeare’s portrayal of Hal?
Coming of Age
Literature is filled with many stories focused on the growth of a protagonist, typically involving a character arc, and the audience rooting for that character in the end. Both Henry IV, Part One and Spare can be looked at in that lens: a coming of age story. While the Shakespearean play is named after King Henry IV, its real protagonist in many eyes would be Hal. This is because Hal arguably makes the most change and growth throughout the play, and follows a typical coming of age storyline. It’s slightly more obvious that the “protagonist” in Spare is going to be Prince Harry, considering it's a biography style book about his life from childhood to adulthood, and there’s not really any other “characters” as big as him in his story. While these two stories take place more than six centuries apart, they aren’t that different. It’s easy to look at both Hal and Prince Harry’s coming of age story in three sections: their lawless, passive attitude towards the throne, the need to have a surrogate father, and their eventual rise to nobility.
It’s typical for most people to have a “delinquent” phase in life. A time when you want to rebel and take on no real responsibility. However that’s not what we might expect from someone in the Royal Family. But sure enough, it happens. In Prince Harry’s book, Spare, he highlights many times in which he really felt indifferent to his position being a prince. Since he is the youngest of the brothers, he knew he would never end up taking the crown, his brother William would. As a result of this, Harry wasn’t super concerned with being seen as “royal”. He was more concerned with being a man of the people, a real people pleaser if you will. His aim in life was to be the guy that made everyone laugh, the guy you could have fun with. When he went away to Eton College, he mentioned that he “... wanted to be a top bloke. A funny bloke” (The Duke of Sussex, 44). His real concern was never with following his royal duties as a prince. Of course it’s all fun and games until substances come into play. When he got older, he turned to alcohol to solve his problems, and get away from the duties of being a prince. Prince Harry was more concerned with girls and booze in his early twenties, rather than paperwork and nobility. It was during this period that he said, “[he] was photographed…going into or coming out of multiple clubs, house parties, at wee hours” (The Duke of Sussex, 121). In other words, he was acting more like a regular college student, rather than The Prince of Wales. It isn’t just Prince Harry though. In Henry IV, Part One, Hal is acting in a very similar fashion. The first time the audience gets to see Hal, he is drunk at a local pub with his friend, Falstaff. Not a care in the world besides pulling pranks and buying drinks. This ends up being something that King Henry berates Hal for later in the play saying, “Yet let me wonder, Harry,/ At thy affections, which do hold a wing/ Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors” (Shakespeare 3.2 29-31). King Henry is emphasizing the fact that Hal is acting the complete opposite of his ancestors.
However both Hal and Prince Harry show flashes of wanting to be different, even before they take action to do so. At the end of Act 1, Scene 2, Hal gives a speech after everyone else has left the stage. It’s the only soliloquy in the play that also happens to be written in verse, specifically in iambic pentameter. Before, in the pub, Hal was speaking in prose. Unrhymed and unmetrical, more common speak. But when he switches to the rhythmic beat of iambic pentameter, you get the sense there might be a real prince in there after all. In his speech, one of the lines reads, “So when this loose behavior I throw off” (Shakespeare 1.2 183). He is blatantly referring to the fact that he will eventually throw this delinquent behavior away and take noble responsibility, which keeps the audience ready to see that version of the prince. Prince Harry also ends up mentioning a desire to not be labeled as the “naughty prince”. During his party phase, he ends up having dinner with the whole Royal Family. He starts acting more mature and begins to feel a change happening in his life’s trajectory. At the end of that dinner, he observes that “[he] had a distinctive role. And that role, for once, wasn’t the Naughty One” (The Duke of Sussex, 64). This moment begins Prince Harry’s transition into nobility.
Prince Harry felt that the best way for him to be able to serve as a more noble prince, would be to enlist into the British army. He mentioned multiple times the amount of respect he had for those men and women fighting was immense. His father, Charles III, also served as a helicopter pilot and Harry respected him a lot for that. He was in a constant battle with himself over what to do with his life, especially after being seen as the “bad prince”. He commented in his book that “[he] wanted to be noble. [He] wanted to be good, work hard, grow up and do something meaningful with [his] days” (The Duke of Sussex, 47), and the army would help him do just that. Being in the military isn’t for the weak, you must be strong mentally, physically, and emotionally to be able to do the things that they do. And Harry was ready for that responsibility. Enlisting in the army is the real cornerstone for Prince Harry’s coming of age story. There, he was able to have a real role, not just serving as an “extra” for his brother, and he could actually see that he was making an impact for his country with his own eyes. This was his identity for ten years while he served for the British Army, and shaped him into someone worthy of royalty. Similarly, Hal’s real turning point in his character journey happened when he also was to serve a military position and fight in a battle. He was determined to change his old reputation and become a prince worthy of honor and respect. While talking to his father about going into battle, Hal said, “And God forgive them that so much have swayed/ Your Majesty’s good thoughts away from me,/ I will redeem all this on Percy’s head” (Shakespeare 3.2 130-132). He is promising to his father that if he gives him a real position in the army, he will redeem himself from all his past actions by beating Percy (Hotspur). In all coming of age stories, there is a peak in which a turning point is found in order for the protagonist to succeed. The military served as both Hal and Harry’s turning points into becoming noble princes.
Honor to the Crown
As most people, impressing your parents is something that both Hal and Prince Harry had in common. Specifically their fathers, since both of their mothers (Mary de Bohun and Princess Diana) passed away when they were young. But the stakes for both of these princes were much higher than your average son or daughter because, after all, they had to also honor the Crown of their family monarchy. This is something inherently important to anyone part of the Royal Family, wanting to honor the monarchy by being noble and respected by your country. However, both Hal and Harry had a rocky start to this with their delinquent phase as described above. In Prince Harry’s book Spare, he talked a lot about wanting to impress his father, Charles III. But due to his foolish behavior and attitude, it didn’t start off so well. Harry stated that, “Difficult as it was for me to be the naughty one, and the stupid one, it was anguish for Pa, because it meant I was his opposite” (The Duke of Sussex, 48). Charles was frustrated by Harry’s behavior and wished for him to change. Harry took that as a challenge as from then on, sought out to purposely impress his father. Joining the army really helped him feel as though he was both honoring the crown and impressing Charles III. Although Harry had other motives to join the military, pleasing and impressing his father was the cherry on top. After serving for a while, Charles confronted Harry and expressed how proud he was, and Harry said, “I loved seeing Pa, loved feeling his pride, and I felt buoyed by his praise…” (The Duke of Sussex, 129). Like any regular person, knowing your parents are proud of you can take you leaps and bounds.
Hal felt a similar way about wanting to impress his father, King Henry IV. Throughout the play, the audience gets a kind of idea that there is a bit of fear with the relationship between Hal and his father. A fear built upon his delinquency and lack of nobility. While having a conversation with Falstaff, this fear was brought to light. Falstaff said, “Well, thou wert be horribly chid tomorrow when thou/ Comest to thy father” (Shakespeare 2.4 336-337). Falstaff was openly saying to Hal that he will be horribly rebuked for his actions and ultimately disappointing his father. Hal was determined for the opposite effect so he came to his father pleading for forgiveness and the opportunity to serve a noble position in order to satisfy his father and especially the crown. After all, by honoring the crown, Hal is undoubtedly impressing his father as well. During that conversation with King Henry IV, Hal ends with a speech saying “Be bold to tell you that I am your son” (Shakespeare 3.2 134). He ends up declaring that if King Henry lets him do this, he will proudly say he is his son, allowing the audience to see this desire from within Hal to have mutual respect with his father by honoring the crown and going into battle.
Serving in the military has been a big theme in both Hal and Prince Harry’s journey. It helped them on their coming of age character arc, as well as gain the respect from their fathers. But one of its main purposes is to allow them to serve their country in a meaningful way, in order to honor the crown of the monarchy. Fighting in a battle for your country is the ultimate sacrifice you can make, so as a prince, you are paying the highest respect to your own family line and duties as a prince. Hal wants to be able to show his abilities to the crown in order to gain respect and potentially the throne in the future. While gearing up to go fight in battle, Hal says, “In both your armies there is many a soul/ Shall pay full dearly for this encounter” (Shakespeare 5.1 83-84). He is verbalizing what we, as an audience, already know: that serving your country is the ultimate honor and sacrifice. Hal is declaring that he has an army full of men ready to offer full honor to the crown, including himself.
Prince Harry also felt very strongly about joining the army in order to gain a sense of honor, maybe something he was missing in his life before. Paying tribute to the monarchy is something that every prince should hope to do, and Harry felt that the army was his place to do so. He declared in his book, “Please, put me on the battlefield where there are clear rules of engagement. Where there’s some sense of honor” (The Duke of Sussex, 116). It was made clear in his book up to that point, that Harry struggled with where he belonged in his family, being the spare child. However something clicked with him when looking into the army. He felt that there would be a sense of pride going into the military, no matter who you were, and inherently, a sense of honor to the crown of Britain. Once he figured that out, he was ready to start his journey.
Spare vs. Heir
Traditionally, in any royal setting, the monarch’s eldest child takes the throne after they step down or pass away. It’s been this way for centuries and continues to this day. Therefore, if you aren’t the first born child, you have virtually no chance of ever taking the throne because, after your older sibling, their kids take precedence over you. There's been a saying inside the Royal Family that the second born child is the “spare”, rather than the heir (hence the title of Prince Harry’s book). In Harry’s book, he recounts an incident that he was told about years later, of the moment he was born. Charles III exclaimed to Princess Diana, “‘Wonderful! Now you’ve given me and Heir and a Spare- my work is done’” (The Duke of Sussex, 15). This idea that there is both an heir and a spare in the monarchy is exhibited in both Henry IV, Part One and Spare, and comes into play for both Hal and Harry’s lives.
Hal is the Heir. He is the first born son of King Henry IV, and therefore must take the throne after his father. However, rather than this being a celebratory thing for Hal, it ends up working against him a lot of the time due to the expectations laced with being the heir. It’s expected that if you are the heir to the throne, you must act in a noble and sophisticated way, after all, you are in line to rule a whole country. But Hal’s delinquent antics are the exact opposite of what’s expected from him. In a conversation with his father, King Henry remarks, “Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost/ Which by thy younger brother is supplied” (Shakespeare 3.2 32-33). Hal’s preprogrammed role of being the heir is being outshone by his younger brother, the spare. This is something of shame in the Royal Family. The heir should always be the more noble and responsible one, however, sometimes people’s personalities don’t match up to their birth order and expectations. This is something Hal has to deal with throughout the play, learning how to be a true heir. He isn’t too keen on it at first, saying things like, “And pay the debt I never promised” (Shakespeare 1.2 184), recognizing that it wasn’t his choice to be an heir, he just happened to be born into it. But during the play, Hal cleans up his act and begins to fill the role of “heir” more appropriately.
Prince Harry on the other hand is the spare. This might arguably be the biggest theme of his entire story because almost everything leads back to the notion that he's “extra”. It might be hard for anyone who is born being the younger sibling, always being compared to your older brother or sister. But rarely do families blatantly point out the fact that they are “less” than their siblings. But this was the reality Prince Harry was living in. Most of his life was dedicated to being there in case something happened to his other brother, Prince William. Harry stated in his book that, “I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B” (The Duke of Sussex, 14). It was made clear to him from day one that the only reason he existed was to be their “just in case” plan. But through all of the shame from being the spare, Prince Harry found a way in which he could leverage that title. He was able to find a path in life quicker than his older brother due to the fact that he simply could. He wasn’t bound to any expectations, like Hal was as the heir. Harry was able to join the military before William and rise up the ranks pretty quickly. Prince William also joined, but after Harry did, and the army isn’t the same as the monarchy. You have to work your way to the top, with no special treatment. Harry felt a slight sense of power during this moment because, “for one brief moment, spare outranked heir” (The Duke of Sussex, 115). Although small moments like this were victorious for Prince Harry, he still felt the unbalanced weight of being the spare, and decided to leave his position in the Royal Family in 2020.
Conclusion
Being the heir versus the spare might be one of the only defining ways in which Prince Harry and Hal differ. But what if the roles were reversed? What if Harry was the heir and Hal the spare? Would their stories stay the same or would they completely change? Is being the spare or heir the backbone to both of their stories? These are all questions to ponder further and could be worth a paper on their own. Prince Harry and Hal’s stories take place centuries apart, but aren’t all that different. Of course you could say that any prince in the British monarchy is going to have similarities, but Hal and Harry are closer than most, from their similar coming of age character arcs, their duty and honor serving in the military, and their inherent need to impress their fathers, it’s spooky how similar they really are. So whether they are the spare or the heir, the extent to which these two princes are similar is colossal.