Beware the ‘spare’: let’s drop the need for a second-in-line, and let Harry be the last | Kate Williams

Heirs' early deaths are a lot less common these days, so Britain should copy European royalty and let No 2s work unimpeded

My family had declared me a nullity. The Spare," declares Prince Harry in his new memoir, frustrated in a history lesson at Eton that the teacher expected him to know the story of Charles Edward Stuart. He doesn't want to think about it, doesn't want to know about history - Why memorise the names of past spares?". And yet he has: they thread through his book, unspoken. Not just Princess Margaret (who he notes once gave him a Biro for Christmas), all the others who were No 2, and those who are to come. Harry was, as he sees it, brought into the world in case something happened to Willy".

The heir and the spare" was, he tells us, a shorthand" about the two brothers used by the entire family, and says it was what Charles told Diana after his birth. The word spare" is repeated so much that it is almost dizzying - and recurs in the most heated incidents. When, he said, William pushed him, his brother was in full heir mode and couldn't fathom why I wasn't dutifully playing the role of the spare".