Harry, the prodigal son returns

Will it prove to be another cavalier versus roundhead clashPrince Harry and his family returned to UK from California last Wednesday after a six-year absence. Their arrival was welcomed by royalists and cavaliers and the king himself. Rumour has it that his brother Prince William – the Heir in Harry’s book Spare – was not as delighted as he might be and neither were the puritanical roundheads in society who are more worried about about the cost of his and his family’s security than for their safety. It is funny how English society still divides between cavaliers and roundheads as archetypes. Actually, people generally divide between those with a cavalier attitude to life and those of a more puritanical roundhead disposition. But that’s another story for another day, suffice it to say here that cavalier became an adjective meaning nonchalant, stylish and relaxed about life, whereas roundhead, meaning puritanical, dull and boring, never made it as an adjective in common parlance. The clash between cavaliers and roundheads in England arose during the English civil war (1641-51) when society divided across all levels rather like it was to divide during the EU referendum in 2016. The clash between the two archetypes, however, persists in different guises to the present day. Interestingly, Prince Harry is directly descended on his mother Princess Diana’s side from Henry 3rd Earl Spencer, who was a cavalier and who fought and died in 1643 for King Charles I during the civil war. Cavaliers had long hair, wore broad-brimmed floppy hats, rode horses and supported King Charles. Roundheads had short hair and were anti royal, protestant and puritanical. The English civil war 1642-51 happened because King Charles I (1625-49) fell out with parliament at a time when England was in transition between the two faiths dominant in western Christianity: Catholic and Protestant. Henry VIII (1509-47) had already parted from papal authority and became head of the Church of England (1534) andthe die was cast for England to become protestant boosted by the Protestant Reformation in north Europe in the 1520s. At the time King Charles I came to throne England was still in transition and Charles was suspected of being a crypto Catholic – his wife was a French Catholic. But his problem with parliament was more to do with his claim to rule by divine right than his suspected Catholicism. He believed he had an absolute right to rule without the consent of parliament, which was irrational but he believed it, as did his supporters the cavaliers, including Henry 3rd Baron Spencer who was also created 1st Earl of Sunderland for his support of the royalist cause. Princess Diana’s ancestry was very aristocratic and more anglo-royal than King Charles’ ancestors who were mostly German. The German connection was, historically, one of the consequences that followed the English civil war. King Charles I had two sons who both became kings after he was beheaded for treason in 1649. Charles II who was restored as king in 1660 after the interregnum 1549-60; and James II who became king in 1685 when Charles II died. James II was openly Catholic, as was a son born to him and his Catholic wife in 1688. So he was forced to abandon his crown in favour of his daughter Mary who was Protestant and married to William of Orange of the Netherlands. They were invited to take up the English crown which they did until William, who survived his wife, died in in 1701 and was succeeded by James’ other Protestant daughter Anne. The law of protestant succession from the Stuarts to the Hanoverians was passed at the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne 1701-14. The law provided that the crown was to pass to protestant heirs in communion with the Church of England and specifically excluded anyone who is a Catholic or professes the Popish religion. As Anne was childless, the crown was supposed to pass to Sophia, the great granddaughter of James I and Protestant wife of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, but she died before Anne and so it passed to her son who became George I, the first Hanoverian king of the UK — the German connection. King Charles III knows that now Harry is back he and his family have to have the same security as other royals and that if need be the King would have to pay for it. In May 2025 the court of civil appeals ruled that Prince Harry was not entitled to the same royal protection he had always had as the son of the king when in the UK. But it did not satisfactorily answer Harry’s argument that he did not choose to be born the king’s son and neither had the threats to him and his family diminished after he ceased being a working royal. Charles is of course not only head of state; he is also a father and head of the Church of England and a practicing Christian. One of the more endearing qualities of Jesus Christ’s ministry was that he was fond of telling stories with a moral lesson. The return of prodigal son about forgiveness is one of the most memorable unlikely to be lost on King Charles. He will not only feast the return of Harry and his family but also ensure they have equal royal security and protect him and his family and silence the roundheads Alper Ali Riza is a king’s counsel in the UK and a former part time judge