Dianna Penny

This story, heavily detailed, chronicles what may be the oldest of conflicts in human history, whether one views it from a Biblical or historical perspective. All the adulation, esteem, and respect has always gone to the royal heir (or some other chosen one) while royal "spares" often languish in obscurity, outright humiliation, and emotional deprivation. I've read numerous Biblical accounts of conflicts and rivalry between a long list of brothers as well as historical conflicts dating back to ancient times. Actually, "Spare" almost pales in contrast to the historical accounts of conflicts within the Plantagenet monarchy of the Middle Ages in England, for example, sometimes resulting in a beheading in the Tower of London. Even in American history, the intense and hostile rivalry between Edwin Booth, a highly esteemed Shakespearean actor and his far less talented brother, John Wilkes Booth, contributed to the assassination of a president. The latter, whose allegiance was to the Confederacy, and unable to compete with his gifted and successful older brother who was on the side of the Union, sought glory by killing Abraham Lincoln. But I digress. Getting back to "Spare," I do feel sympathetic toward Prince Harry for the reasons cited above. I remember other "spares" such as the late Princess Margaret, Prince Harry's great-aunt, who was not allowed to the marry the love of her life because royal rules forbade it, and she suffered thereafter. Even Queen Elizabeth II's own father, second-born and who grew up as a "spare," suffered thereby, even after his older brother abdicated and the younger was crowned king. I do understand that this circumstance came about due to the higher childhood mortality rates of the past in order that someone could assume the position of heir in case the first child died, but I'm beginning to feel that in the present era, such a system has become obsolete, glamorous as it may be to some.