Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’ Got Its Name From What Charles Allegedly Called Him to Diana After His Birth

From birth on. Prince Harry’s book title has a whole lot of meaning. The Duke of Sussex is releasing his new book at the beginning of 2023 and he’s already dropping hints on what we can expect.

In a statement from the book’s publisher Penguin Random House, the book aptly named Spare will be released on January 23, 2023. The book is described as a “landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.” The book will be the first insight into Prince Harry’s life since he and his wife Meghan Markle stepped down from their royal duties and since the bombshell Oprah interview in 2021. The book was obtained early by The Guardian and Page Six who revealed bombshell details contained in Spare.

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Spare is a tell-all from Prince Harry’s perspective. According to Penguin Random House’s statement, the memoir reveals the memories of “two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on.”

Read below on the special meaning of Prince Harry’s book title Spare.

Spare by Prince Harry

Prince Harry Book Title Meaning: What Does Spare Mean?

What does Prince Harry’s book title Spare mean? The title Spare derives from the phrase “the heir and the spare.” When Harry was born, Prince Charles allegedly told Diana, “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an heir and a spare – my work is done.”

The name “Spare” is a unifying theme for the book. According to the Guardian, the metaphor follows him “through chapters on his childhood, his schooling, his career as a royal and in the British army, his relationship with his parents and brother and his life with Meghan through courtship, wedding and marriage to their own experience of parenthood.”

The “heir and the spare” definitely had consequences for Harry and his brother William. William, deemed the heir, had a tense fight with Harry over Harry’s wife Meghan Markle.  “He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast,” he wrote. “So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”

RELATED: Read all the bombshells from Prince Harry’s memoir Spare in this summary. 

William left, Harry wrote, then returned “looking regretful, and apologized”. When William left again, his brother writes, he “turned and called back: ‘You don’t need to tell Meg about this.’ Harry replied, “‘You mean that you attacked me?’” “‘I didn’t attack you, Harold.’” William responded (it’s mentioned throughout the book that “Harold” is William’s brotherly nickname for his brother, while Harry calls William “Willy”). After the altercation, Harry called up his therapist. “‘We’d had a million physical fights in our lives,’ I told [my therapist]. As boys, we’d done nothing but fight. But this felt different.”

Pulitzer prize winner J.R. Moehringer helped Harry with the memoir. In a statement when he broke the news of the Prince writing the book, Harry said, “I’m writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become. I’ve worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story — the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned — I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned over the course of my life so far and excited for people to read a firsthand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful.”

Prince Harry and Prince William’s relationship has been complicated ever since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to step down from their royal duties. In recent reports from June 22, 2022, the brothers have reportedly “hit rock bottom,” according to an insider who spoke to Us Weekly  Us Weekly’s source also claimed that while William “still loves his little brother,” he’s not going to pretend like everything’s just fine between them. “He’s his own flesh and blood and that underlying affection will never go away. William’s not one to bear grudges but what’s right is right,” the insider shared. “He’ll be civil to a point, but he’s not going to play happy families with them again or pretend that everything’s A-OK when it’s anything but.”

The Duke of Cambridge has “not been in a good place” with the Duke of Sussex for years, the Us Weekly insider claims, adding that things between the brothers have been “doomed” and “irreparable” ever since Harry and Meghan Markle’s tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. The source also claims that William “doesn’t know who [Harry] is anymore and the trust between them is strained,” noting that the royal family has been “burned so many times” by Harry’s public statements. “They’ll never recover from the damage that has been done.”

The Princes reunited at their grandmother Queen Elizabeths’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, but things were still tense between the two. Royal expert Russell Myers claimed at the time that the brothers refused to make eye contact during the service. “It was very, very frosty inside the church. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. The brothers didn’t lock eyes or make eye contact at all,” he told Australian news network, Sunrise, on June 6, 2022. “Harry was craning his neck to look at William and William didn’t look back at him. I think there’s still a lot of bad atmosphere going on and there needs to be a bit more water under the bridge until those brothers come back together.”

The book was originally going to be published in the latter half of 2022. However, with the sudden news of the Queen’s death in September 2022, the book is going to be published in January 2023. The newly appointed Prince and Princess of Wales invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to look at the citizen’s tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Kensington Palace says William invited his brother and sister-in-law to join him and Kate. Earlier in the day, William was present for his father’s proclamation as King. The couples who were wearing all black looked fondly at the flowers and messages of support to the Queen and her family.  Page Six reported that the brothers reunited again on September 13, 2022, the day before the Queen’s procession to Westminster Hall. Their wives, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, also were in attendance. The Royal couples made their appearance the next day by walking the procession to the famous Abbey where the Queen laid state for four days before her funeral on September 19, 2022. Prince Harry wore a black suit with his military medals while Prince William wore his military uniform. “We are all very grateful – both sides putting all things aside for the Queen,” a Royal source told Page Six.

Spare by Prince Harry

For more about Prince Harry, read his upcoming memoir, Spare. Told for the first time in his own words, the book takes readers through the Duke of Sussex’s life with the British royal family, from the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 to how the moment led to his decision decades later to move to America with his wife, Meghan Markle, and leave Buckingham Palace for good in 2020. “With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief,” the publisher’s description reads.

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