‘I just want you to be happy’: 10 new things we learnt from Harry’s Spare

London: Prince Harry’s new memoir Spare, released worldwide on Tuesday, is brimming with explosive revelations. Here are just 10 of the most unusual and unique things we’ve learnt about the King’s son, his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and the whole royal family.

Steinbeck over the Bard

Harry, the Duke of Sussex, admits he doesn’t have much time for Shakespeare, unlike his father King Charles III, who despaired over his lack of interest and would force him to attend plays on days off.

A poster advertising the launch of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare in a store window in London, England. Credit: Getty

Harry writes about his struggles with Shakespeare’s texts and French lessons at Eton, revealing how he attempted to read Hamlet and found the play’s parallels with the tragedy he had endured in his life.

“The piece of literature that I do remember liking and even enjoying is a short American novel. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck.

“Unlike Shakespeare, Steinbeck did not need a translator. He wrote in the vernacular, plain and simple. Better yet, it was brief. Of Mice and Men: one hundred and fifty little pages of nothing. And best of all: the argument was entertaining.”

Not seeing eye to eye: Prince Harry, left, and Prince William in 2021.Credit: AP

A second confrontation

Having already had fisticuffs with William at “Nott Cott” – the nickname Harry and Meghan gave Nottingham Cottage within the grounds of Kensington Palace, he reveals there was a second confrontation after their grandfather Prince Philip’s funeral, in which William invoked Diana.

During the argument, about allegations of bullying by his wife Meghan, Harry said William was “really steaming”.

“He lunged, grabbed my shirt. ‘Listen to me, Harold’,” he said.

“‘Harold, you must listen to me!’ Harry claimed he said. “‘I just want you to be happy, Harold. I swear I swear on Mummy’s life.’... He stopped. I stopped. Pa stopped. He’d gone there.”

William got on the rum before the wedding

Harry says William was still “tipsy” from the night before hours before his wedding to Kate, now Catherine, the Princess of Wales.

When they met well-wishers assembled on the Mall, Harry claims he had to offer his brother mints so the crowds did not smell “the aftermath of last night’s rum”.

The Queen’s PA, or so Meghan thought.Credit: Getty

Harry said he was not actually the best man at the wedding, despite standing beside his brother at Westminster Abbey. He writes that his official position was for show and that, in fact, his brother’s friends James Meade and Thomas van Straubenzee gave the speech.

Meghan ‘hadn’t Googled’ the royals, thought Andrew was the Queen’s PA

The Duke of Sussex recalls the moment when his wife met his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, for the first time and mistook Prince Andrew for her assistant.

Meghan met the Queen during a lunch at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, shortly after she and Harry revealed they were dating, in 2016.

He writes: “After a moment Meg asked me something about the Queen’s assistant. I asked who she was talking about.

“‘That man holding the purse. That man who walked her to the door. That wasn’t her assistant? Who was it?’”

Harry quickly told her that it was, in fact, his uncle saying: “That was her second son. Andrew... She definitely hadn’t Googled us.”

Harry thanks his celebrity mates

In a one-page acknowledgements section at the back of the book, Harry gives a shoutout to some of his celebrity friends and an alternative medicine practitioner.

Oprah Winfrey, British chat show host James Corden and Chris Martin from the band Coldplay are thanked, as well as John Amaral, an “energy practitioner” who has worked with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Filmmaker and actor Tyler Perry and Argentinian polo player and model Nacho Figueras and wife Delfina Blaquier are also thanked for “their unwavering friendship and support”.

Harry denies ‘what Meghan wants, Meghan gets’ line

It had been alleged he made the comments during a dispute with Angela Kelly, the late Queen’s dresser and close confidante, about her wedding tiara, but his recollection in the book differs.

Britain’s Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, left, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2019.Credit: AP

Harry writes of the “Tiara-gate” row that they did clash about whether she could have it for her hair appointment.

He claims the Queen offered a choice of five tiaras but Kelly later told him that taking the tiara for an appointment with Meghan’s hairdresser “can’t be done”.

Although Kelly later agreed to its release, Harry claims: “She fixed me with a look that made me shiver. I could read in her face a clear warning. This isn’t over.”

King Charles’ handstands in boxer shorts

Harry writes that he would dread knocking on his father’s bedroom door at Balmoral for fear of what he would find on the other side.

King Charles III reportedly stands on his head in boxer shorts.Credit: Getty

He says the now King would perform daily headstands half-naked to combat pain in his neck and back from years of playing polo.

“These exercises were the only effective remedy for the constant pain in Pa’s neck and back. Old polo injuries mostly.

Exiled in the graveyard: Wallis and Edward.Credit: AP

“He’d perform them daily in just a pair of boxers propped against the door, or hanging from a bar like a skilled acrobat. If you set one little finger on the knob you hear him bark from the other side ‘no, no don’t open, please, don’t come in’.”

The Queen’s final angry act to uncle

Harry suggests his late grandmother took something of a final swipe at Edward VIII and his American socialite wife, Wallis Simpson, by “exiling” them in the Royal Burial Ground “away from everyone else”.

Her uncle set off a life-changing chain of events when as his King he “renounced the crown for love”.

Harry suggests in the opening pages of his memoir that his grandmother decided to bury the couple in a distant spot as a “last scolding”.

“Who the fook is [William] Faulkner?” Harry asked.

Recalling a moment when he found himself alone in the royal cemetery at Frogmore, Harry described the site as the “final resting place for so many of us including... the controversial Wallis Simpson. As well as her double controversial husband Edward, who was King and my great-great uncle.”

“After giving up the throne for Wallis and leaving Britain with her, the two began to worry about their eventual return and became obsessed with being buried [in the Royal Burial Ground].

“The Queen, my grandmother, agreed to their plea, but she placed them away from everyone else, under a sloping plane tree… one last scolding, perhaps. A last exile, perhaps.”

Harry used Brainyquote.com for inspiration

The memoir begins with a literary quote from the celebrated American author William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Charles, William and Harry attend a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 2017.Credit: AP

While it lends an air of lofty literary heights to the memoir, just a few pages later he admits that he found the famous line on the website BrainyQuote.com.

He writes that he was so taken by Faulkner’s turn of phrase that he was “thunderstruck”. His first thought was “Who the fook is Faulkner? And how’s he related to us Windsors?”

The quote comes from Faulkner’s 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun, which tells the story of a Mississippi woman whose infant child is murdered by her nanny. Throughout the novel, she struggles with her past, having been violently sexually assaulted and forced into prostitution.

The then Meghan Markle, now simply Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in 2018.Credit: AP

Meghan can communicate with seals

Harry believed Meghan was “magic” because she could communicate with seals.

He tells how the couple stumbled upon a pair of seals while on holiday on the north coast of Scotland with his father.

The night before, over dinner, Charles had told them the story of selkies, Scottish sirens disguised as seals, and recommended that they sing to the seals to see whether they would respond.

While on the beach, the Sussexes saw the seals and Harry ran over to sing to them. He failed to get a response, but when his wife joined in they answered her, he writes.

“Soon enough, an endless number of heads began to appear in every part of the water, responding to her song,” he writes, saying he thought at that moment that Meghan “really is magic”.

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