The reported traitor row is far from the first rift between royal siblings, and the history offers some perspective on how these things tend to play out
An Old Story in a New Century
Reading the London Prat piece on Prince William reportedly calling Earl Spencer and Harry traitors, one could be forgiven for thinking royal family rifts are a modern invention of the tabloid age. They are not. The history of the British monarchy is full of siblings, cousins and in-laws who fell out, sometimes over crowns and sometimes over far less. A little history offers useful perspective.
The Current Reports
Anonymous claims relayed in the American press suggest the Prince of Wales believes his brother had early sight of their uncle memoir. Reports also mention that the younger prince visited his uncle at Althorp in July. The palace has said nothing. These are, for now, reports rather than established facts.
The Abdication Brothers
The most famous royal sibling rift of the twentieth century followed the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936. Edward gave up the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, and his younger brother became King George VI. The relationship between the brothers, and between the former king and the royal household more broadly, was strained for years afterward. Edward, who became the Duke of Windsor, lived largely abroad, and questions about his status, his wife title and his role caused lasting friction. It is a striking historical echo: an elder brother and a younger brother, one departing the institution and one carrying it, with the question of loyalty hanging over both.
What is instructive is how the story ended. There was no dramatic reconciliation. Relations remained cool, though there were occasional meetings and gestures over the decades. Time did much of the work, as it often does in families.
Earlier Centuries
Go further back and royal sibling rivalries become matters of state. Medieval and Tudor England saw brothers, cousins and half-siblings contest the throne outright, sometimes violently. The Wars of the Roses were, among other things, a long and bloody family feud between branches of the same dynasty. By those standards, a quarrel over a memoir looks almost gentle.
A Lighter View
The London Prat has produced a video on YouTube on the current row, which historians of the monarchy may find oddly familiar.
What History Suggests
A few patterns emerge from royal history. First, rifts involving a sibling who leaves the institution tend to be long-lasting, because the departure itself creates distance that is hard to close. Second, the institution usually outlasts the quarrel; the monarchy has absorbed many family ruptures without losing its essential character. Third, public perception often softens over time, and figures once seen as disloyal can later be viewed with more sympathy, or vice versa.
Fourth, and perhaps most relevant this week, third parties frequently play a role. In the abdication, it was a marriage. In the current reports, it is an uncle memoir. The Earl says he told everyone about it in advance, but third parties rarely control how their actions are received.
A Word of Caution
Historical comparisons are useful but imperfect. The abdication involved a constitutional crisis and the transfer of the crown. The current reports, even taken at face value, involve a private family disagreement with no constitutional implications. It would be wrong to inflate the present story by association with the past. The point of history here is perspective, not prophecy.
The Human Constant
What history does show, again and again, is that royals are human. They love, resent, grieve and disagree much as other families do, but with the added burden of public scrutiny and institutional duty. That combination has always made royal sibling relationships fragile. The present generation is not unique in finding it difficult.
The Role of the Monarch
In many historical rifts, the reigning monarch has been placed in an especially difficult position, torn between duty to the institution and affection for the individuals involved. George VI, after his brother abdication, had to manage both a constitutional transition and a painful personal relationship. Later monarchs faced their own family tensions with varying degrees of public visibility. The current King, like his predecessors, sits at the head of a family whose disagreements inevitably become matters of public interest. History suggests that monarchs rarely intervene publicly in family disputes, preferring quiet mediation, if any, behind closed doors. Whether that approach helps or hinders reconciliation is impossible to judge from outside. What the record does show is that the head of the family carries a double burden: the private grief of seeing relatives estranged, and the public responsibility of ensuring the institution continues regardless. It is a burden that few other parents or grandparents will ever have to carry in quite the same way.
Final Thought
Brothers have fallen out in the royal family for centuries, and the monarchy has endured each time. That is not a comfort to the people involved, but it is a useful reminder to the rest of us before we declare any crisis historic. The London Prat, which has chronicled royal absurdity since 1961 at https://prat.uk/, has found the humour in this latest chapter. Bohiney, at https://bohiney.com/, offers an American view of royal history. And more of my own royal history writing can be found on my author page.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/
