The Wizard of Oz is one of the most republican pieces of fiction. The awe-inspiring wizard is revealed, by Toto the dog pulling away the curtain, to be a giant illusion. Dorothy discovers a man stuck in a booth, desperately trying to work the wizard-projecting machine, still booming into his microphone: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
For me, Spare by Prince Harry casts him as Toto, snarling teeth yanking back that royal curtain with all his might. Awe has a placebo effect. We have a childlike craving to put our trust in something we don’t understand, craning our necks towards the wizards, or deities or royals on the Buckingham Palace balcony, disguised by distance.
But at some point Dorothy has to grow up. When I read about Harry having spanky sex in a pub’s backyard, I had to grow up too. I became radicalised to republicanism by the astonishing number of times a Spare anecdote involves Harry “straddling the loo”. Harry doesn’t just yank away the curtain, he bashes down the cubicle door.
As Harry knows from his time in the army, the ideal leader is “first among equals”, the one who earns the trust of his troops. But we don’t follow our kings into battle any more. So Harry will also know from his time in the royals that mystery is the best strategy when reality will prove disappointing.
Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867 that the royal mystery “is its life. We must not let daylight in upon magic”. Sir David Attenborough, then a BBC controller, correctly judged that an honest royal documentary in 1969 was “killing the monarchy”. To see the Queen mocking the American ambassador as a “gorilla” behind his back left no room for faith. The Queen retreated behind the screen: the mystery for the most part held, a few eructations of her sons or their unhappy wives notwithstanding.
• Prince Harry had second thoughts about his memoir Spare after UK visit
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A pact was formed: the royals pantomimed a living tableau, on to which we projected our fantasies. We subjects were starved for our own good: when served crumbs we feasted gratefully. Was that a pout from Princess Charlotte? Was Camilla stifling the giggles at Harry’s wedding? An eyeroll from Kate Middleton at a charity event in New York in 2014 launched a thousand memes. It was pathetic, looking back.
Now Harry has said: “Have the whole cake.” Gorge on the dog-bowl bruise; the story of the lavatory where he would roll joints; the toilet bowl (again!) that spoke when Harry was high on drugs. Make yourself sick. Like addicts cured by overdose, we’ll never be satisfied by crumbs again.
On Harry’s safaris to southern Africa he may have felt kinship with the last rhinos, hunted for a belief in their magical horns. One strategy is to flood the market with horn to put off poachers and save the rhinos. In Spare, Harry’s strategy is to flood the market with enough royal horn to destroy the poachers and make rhinos irrelevant.
This isn’t just a revenge book, it’s an attempt to blow up the institution. If he can’t be a royal, no one can. For Harry, the King and future king are doomed to butt their balding heads on the edge of their booths with zoochosis, until Harry, the unwelcome hero, shows them the door is unlocked.
I don’t agree with Harry’s methods but they have persuaded me of the monarchy’s madness. Reading this, it no longer feels right to breed royals in captivity. Maybe Harry isn’t Toto but the Wizard, happier escaping the pretence of majesty and whizzing back to a normal life in America on a balloon powered by hot air.
