Spare

“The Royal Burial Ground. Final resting place for so many of us, including Queen Victoria. Also, the notorious Wallis Simpson. Also her doubly notorious husband, Edward, the former King and my great-great-uncle. After Edward gave up his throne for Wallis, after they fled Britain, both of them fretted about their ultimate return—both obsessed about being buried right here. The Queen, my grandmother, granted their plea. But she placed them at a distance from everyone else, beneath a stooped plane tree. One last finger wag, perhaps.”

The symbolism of the Prologue’s setting is evident as Prince Harry reflects on the many royal ancestors buried in Frogmore Gardens. King Edward and Wallis Simpson are particularly resonant examples because of the parallels between Prince Harry and the former king. Both broke away from the monarchy and married American divorcees. The desire of Edward and his wife to be buried at Frogmore echoes Prince Harry’s desire to remain a part of the royal family while following his own path. However, the “distance” between their graves and the other royal dead hints that Harry’s rift with his family will remain unresolved.

“Billions of miles off, and probably long vanished, Earendel is closer to the Big Bang, the moment of Creation, than our own Milky Way, and yet it’s somehow still visible to mortal eyes because it’s just so awesomely bright and dazzling. That was my mother.”

Here, the author figuratively compares his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to the star Earendel. The metaphor expresses his sense that his mother is still present and that her positive influence lives on after her death. In addition, Harry’s comparing his mother to a celestial body illustrates his tendency to idealize her.

“Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there’s just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts.”

Early in the memoir, Harry acknowledges the subjective nature of his narrative and the genre of memoir.