Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, born on September 15, 1984, is a prominent member of the British royal family and the younger son of Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Diana, the Princess of Wales. He pursued his education at esteemed institutions, including Eton College, and served in the military as an army pilot, completing two tours in Afghanistan. After stepping back from his royal duties in early 2020, he co-founded the nonprofit Archewell and has since focused on various charitable efforts, particularly in mental health, wounded veterans' support, and children's welfare.
His marriage to Meghan Markle in 2018 attracted significant public attention, and the couple has faced challenges related to media scrutiny and public perception, particularly concerning issues of race and mental health. They have since settled in California, where they continue their philanthropic work while also engaging in various media projects, including a documentary series with Netflix and the release of Harry’s memoir, "Spare." The couple's two children, Archie and Lilibet, are seventh and eighth in line to the British throne, respectively.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
Member of the British royal family
- Born: September 15, 1984
- Place of Birth: London, England
Education: Eton College; Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Significance:Harry, Duke of Sussex is a member of the British royal family. A former army pilot, he was deployed twice to Afghanistan. After retiring from the military, he devoted his time to his royal duties and charities. He stepped back as a working royal in 2020 and cofounded the nonprofit Archewell before permanently resigning from his working royal role in 2021.
Background
Harry, Duke of Sussex, was born on September 15, 1984, at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, England. The younger son of Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Diana, the Princess of Wales, his full name is Henry Charles Albert David. His paternal grandmother was Elizabeth II of England. After her death in September 2022, Harry's father became King Charles III.
Harry grew up in London, where the family had an apartment in Kensington Palace. His mother, Diana, wanted him and his older brother, William, to have as normal childhoods as possible despite their status as royals. She broke royal tradition by staying with her children rather than relegating all their care to the royal staff and engaged her children in the typical activities experienced by non-royals, such as eating fast food, taking public transportation, and visiting amusement parks. She also exposed them to her charity work, such as taking them to homeless centers and hospitals.
Harry attended a series of private schools, starting with Mrs. Mynors’ Nursery School when he was three and Wetherby School when he was five. His parents separated in 1992 and later divorced. On August 31, 1997, his mother died in a car accident in Paris, France. Harry entered the prestigious Eton College boarding school in 1998 and graduated in 2003. He then took a gap year and worked on a sheep farm in the Australian Outback and in an orphanage for children whose parents had died of AIDS in Lesotho in southern Africa.
Unlike his older brother, Harry, who was sixth in line to the British throne, did not have the responsibility of being groomed to be a future king. During his high school years and his twenties, he sometimes engaged in antics that earned him a “wild child” reputation. After he admitted to drinking and smoking marijuana when he was seventeen, his father had him visit a drug rehabilitation center. In 2005, he dressed in a Nazi Afrika Korps uniform for a party, for which he later apologized. A few years later, he was photographed twice in embarrassing drunken revels: falling into a pool fully clothed in 2011 and playing billiards while naked in 2012.
Working Royal
Harry graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 2006. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Blues and Royals unit of the Household Cavalry Regiment, where he trained as a tank commander. He deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in late 2007, but was recalled less than three months later when the media published details about his location. He then completed pilot training at England’s Army Aviation Center and Apache helicopter training with the British Army Air Corps. In September 2012, he returned to Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter copilot and gunner for a twenty-week tour. Harry officially retired from the army with the rank of captain in mid-2015.
After his return to civilian life, Harry focused his energies on several charities, including many that had been favorite causes of his mother’s. In 2006, following his gap year in Africa, he and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho had founded Sentebale, a nonprofit organization to aid children afflicted by HIV in Lesotho and Botswana. He worked to promote a greater understanding of AIDS and HIV, including by publicly getting tested for HIV and speaking at the 2016 International AIDS Conference. Harry also supported charities that promote wildlife conservation in Africa. One of his major causes, however, was to help wounded veterans recover from their injuries. He supported the Walking with the Wounded charity, which raises money for military charities by participants walking to the South Pole. Many members of Walking with the Wounded expeditions are wounded service members, including those who lost limbs, were blinded, or experienced other injuries. Harry walked a short trek during the 2011 expedition and completed the journey to the South Pole in 2013. He launched the Walk of America expedition in 2018.
Inspired by the Warrior Games in the United States, Harry founded the Invictus Games Foundation and launched the first Invictus Games in 2014. The Games are Paralympic-style international sports competitions for injured service members, with the vision of challenging them to realize post-injury achievements.
Another cause of special concern to Harry was mental health. He and his brother, Prince William, the Prince of Wales, and his sister-in-law, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, founded Heads Together, a mental health campaign to promote awareness and openness about mental illnesses and combat stigmas related to it. As part of this campaign, Harry publicly talked about his own mental health challenges following his mother’s death when he was twelve and how he had received counseling about it as an adult.
Marriage to Meghan Markle
Harry's 2018 marriage to Meghan Markle generated immense public interest—and resulted in a short-term increase in tourism to the United Kingdom—as did the couple’s subsequent overseas trips. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex cofounded a charity with William and his wife, Catherine, but left it in 2019 and divided their household office as well.
After enduring racist and sexist media coverage, Meghan and Harry both stepped back as senior members of the royal family in early 2020. They sought to create the brand SussexRoyal, but protocols about the word "royal" prevented them from registering the trademark and their charity under that name was closed in June. They were also prohibited from appearing as official royal representatives, and their royal office was closed.
Harry and Meghan later established another nonprofit called Archewell and signed with the Harry Walker Agency as paid speakers on subjects such as racial justice, gender equity, and environmentalism. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, they volunteered with Los Angeles–area nonprofits to aid those in need. Meanwhile, in 2020 they also entered into a production contract set for several years with the streaming service Netflix.
In February 2021, it was announced that Harry and his wife had determined that their retreat from work as senior royals had become a permanent resignation. The following month, the couple provided an exclusive and particularly candid interview with Oprah Winfrey in which they discussed the lack of support and racist attitudes that they had experienced from members of the royal family regarding their marriage and their son. Still, upon the death of his grandfather Prince Philip in April, Harry gathered with his family to pay his respects at the funeral held that month.
The duke and duchess continued to expand their charitable work through the Archewell Foundation throughout the early 2020s, including helping Afghan refugees resettling in the United States, partnering with the City of Uvalde to create a playground for the community following the tragic mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in May 2022, and supporting the conservation of African Parks. Harry again gathered with his family following the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8, 2022. He later released a statement praising "her unwavering grace and dignity" and stating he was "forever grateful" for her role in his life.
In December 2022 Netflix released a limited-series documentary Harry and Meghan. The duke and duchess had produced the documentary with Netflix as a way to further share the story of how they met and fell in love and why they had left their roles as working members of the royal family. The series received negative reviews in the UK, even from news media sources that agreed with the couple's criticism of the monarchy.
Harry's highly anticipated memoir Spare was released in January 2023. In interviews, Harry said that he had decided to write the memoir after Prince Philip's death in 2021, when he realized that the royal family did not understand why he and Meghan had moved from the UK to California. In the book, Harry shares details about the death of his mother, Princess Diana; his and his brother's feelings about their father's subsequent marriage to Camilla; the royal family's relationship with the press; his combat experience in Afghanistan, in which he killed 25 Taliban fighters; his mental illness; how Meghan persuaded him to seek therapy; and Charles's response to Harry's announcement that he and Meghan intended to wed, among other revelations. In 2024, Harry lost a legal battle in which he challenged a ruling by the Home Office stating that State Security could not be made available to private individuals.
Impact
As a young royal with rogue appeal who, after the birth of his nephews and niece, was not high on the list of succession to the throne, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex carved a unique role in the royal family that allowed him to pursue interests close to him. Highly popular among the British public, Harry boosted and helped modernize the royal family’s image.
Personal Life
Harry and Meghan Markle, a biracial African American and former actor, married at St. George’s Chapel in May 2018. The couple's first child, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, was born on May 6, 2019, and became seventh in line to the British throne. After first relocating to Canada in early 2020, the couple moved with Archie to California that same year. The duke and duchess gave birth to their second child, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, on June 4, 2021. Harry's interests have included motorbiking, polo, and other sports.
Bibliography
Andersen, Christopher P. After Diana: William, Harry, Charles, and the Royal House of Windsor. Hyperion, 2007.
The Duke of Sussex, Royal Household, www.royal.uk/the-duke-of-sussex. Accessed 20 July 2020.
“Duke of Sussex: The Party Prince Who Carved His Own Path.” BBC News, 19 Jan. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/uk-19349769. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
Duncan, Amy. “Happy Birthday Prince Harry: Iconic Images Documenting Every Stage of His Life from Baby to Lieutenant to Husband.” Metro, 15 Sept. 2018, metro.co.uk/2018/09/15/happy-birthday-prince-harry-iconic-images-documenting-every-stage-of-his-life-from-baby-to-lieutenant-to-husband-7920541/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
Larcombe, Duncan. Prince Harry: The Inside Story. HarperCollins, 2018.
Levin, Angela. Harry: A Biography of a Prince. Pegasus Books, 2018.
Levin, Angela. “Prince Harry on Chaos after Diana’s Death and Why the World Needs ‘the Magic’ of the Royal Family.” Newsweek, 21 June 2017, www.newsweek.com/2017/06/30/prince-harry-depression-diana-death-why-world-needs-magic-627833.html. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
New York Times Books Staff. “11 Takeaways From Prince Harry’s Memoir, ‘Spare.’” The New York Times, 10 Jan. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/books/prince-harry-spare-book.html. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
Ott, Haley. "Prince Harry Speaks Out After Queen Elizabeth II's Death: 'I Am Forever Grateful.'" CBS News, 12 Sept. 2022, www.cbsnews.com/news/prince-harry-queen-elizabeth-ii-death-i-am-forever-grateful/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
Picheta, Rob, et al. "Prince Harry and Meghan Will Not Return as Working Members of Royal Family." CNN, 19 Feb. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/02/19/uk/prince-harry-meghan-queen-intl-scli-gbr/index.html. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
"Prince Harry Loses Legal Case Against U.K. Government Over Downgraded Security." CBS News, 28 Feb. 2024, www.cbsnews.com/news/prince-harry-loses-case-against-uk-government-downgraded-security/. Accessed 28 Sept. 2024.
Sawer, Patrick, and Hannah Furness. “Princes William and Harry Admit They Never Spoke Properly about Their Mother’s Death.” The Telegraph, 21 Apr. 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/21/princes-william-harry-admit-never-spoke-properly-mothers-death/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
Sakoui, Anousha. “Harry and Meghan Sign with Speaking Agency That Reps Obamas.” Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2020, www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-06-24/harry-meghan-sign-with-speaking-agency. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.