Is Harry an old-fashioned warrior prince?

Prince Harry's candid admission that he has killed insurgents during his tour of duty in Afghanistan places him in a long line of royals who have bloodied their hands in warfare

The Guardian, Tristram Hunt, Tuesday 22 January 2013

Prince Harry in his tent at Forward Operating Base Delhi in Afghanistan,
in 2008. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Compare and contrast one Prince Harry with another. This week, our own Captain Wales, in the PlayStation language of modern warfare, spoke of the ugly, deadly reality of service in Afghanistan. "Take a life to save a life, that's what we revolve around. If there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game." As a soldier, what mattered most was the safety of his mates. "I'm not here on a free pass … Our job out here is to make sure the guys are safe on the ground and if that means shooting someone who is shooting them, then we will do it."

Shakespeare's Henry V, on the eve of storming Harfleur, had it slightly differently. "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; / Or close the wall up with our English dead. / In peace there's nothing so becomes a man / As modest stillness and humility." But his "band of brothers" were equally unafraid of drawing blood, and would "not leave the half-achieved Harfleur / Till in her ashes she lie buried".

The revelation that Prince Harry might have been involved, as an Apache helicopter pilot, in mortal combat operations in Afghanistan should come as little surprise to observers of both this reluctant Windsor "spare" and the history of British royalty. From the dawn of kingship on these isles, monarchy and armed service have gone hand in hand.

Success on the battlefield was a signal of divine favour to govern, and martial valour was a vital accompaniment to monarchical power. The vainglorious Henry VIII desperately tried to prove himself a king and re-enact the triumphs of Crécy and Agincourt with a nonsensical invasion of France in 1513. By contrast, Charles I never fully recovered his kingship from defeats on the fields of Marston Moor and Naseby in the English civil war in the following century.

Prince Harry clearly has something of that royal pugnacity in the bloodstream. When in 2007 it was suggested he would not be able to serve in Afghanistan as a result of specific Taliban threats, he was furious. "There is no way I'm going to … sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country," he said.

And there is little doubt of his ardour for the military life: the brotherhood of combat; the allure of war; the self-loathing of avoiding conflict; and the attraction of sinking his royal identity beneath a military cap. For Harry, the army is a means of denying his royal persona, rather than proving it. As he put it, "it's very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone's wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing."

Which is not the historic purpose of royal princes, riding out front, leading their troops into the line of fire. Bedecked in armour on the field of battle, war was an essential element of the theatre of kingship. And Elizabeth I powerfully felt her inability to fulfil it. "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too," she told her troops on the eve of invasion by the Spanish Armada.

But no one did it better than King Richard I. In Normandy, Aquitaine and then at the 1191 Battle of Arsuf against Saladin, Richard the Lionheart was always keen to distinguish himself as a warrior-crusader. But for many a medieval historian, his bloodlust was too great. The Victorian writer William Stubbs thought him "a bad king": "he would fight for anything whatever, but he would sell everything that was worth fighting for. The glory that he sought was that of victory rather than conquest." The butchery of 2,700 Muslim prisoners at Acre was regarded as a particularly heinous crime.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends …" Henry V, as portrayed by
Laurence Olivier. Photograph: Rank Film Library

So too with the so-called Black Prince, the eldest son of Edward III, whose tactics, in the wake of his victories at Crécy and Poitiers, of burning and pillaging also offended traditional codes of chivalry. The 1370 siege of Limoges ended up with the young royal overseeing a bloodbath. The tradition of royal military service continued into the early modern period with Henry VII seizing the crown from Richard III at the 1485 Battle of Bosworth ("Give me my battle-axe in my hand, / Set the crown of England on my head so high!"). And if Richard III was the last English king to die in battle, the last reigning monarch to lead his troops into war was George II at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, during the war of the Austrian succession. He was more admired for his bravery than strategic military nous.

Since then, royal heirs – and most particularly spares – have continued to find a vocation in the army, navy and airforce. Prior to our current princes, the most successful recent combatant was their uncle Prince Andrew, who served with distinction as a Sea King pilot during the 1982 Falklands war.

So for all Harry's hope that the military is a place where he can "turn off" his royalty, the two are intimately bound together. For the armed services, swearing allegiance to Her Majesty rather than to the state is an important distinction. In theory, it places the troops above politics: their calling is to country not party. Their ethos is one of duty and public service. And so many of the cultural affiliations of military life – regiments, the Royal British Legion, the commanders-in-chief – are intimately bound up with the historic Protestant and imperial attributes of the British royal family. So it is perhaps doubly unfortunate (or, cynically well-timed) that this week's media blitz also sees parliament racing to undo the rules of Protestant succession for the crown, and the Ministry of Defence sacking another 5,000 soldiers.

That said, the royal family does equally well out of the forces. Not only can it provide out-relief for wayward princes, it points to exactly the kind of public service a modern, "value-added" monarchy is all about. The truth is that Harry, however much he feels the reverse to be true, is at his most princely when a soldier: serving his country; leading by example; reinforcing hierarchy; celebrating the best of British; and looking manful. This is surely what the brand-conscious, youthful, modernised and effective House of Windsor has to be about.

Which is why it is then perhaps such a shock to read in the interviews of Harry's ease with the bloody necessities of warfare. When asked if he had killed from the cockpit, the prince nonchalantly replied: "Yeah, so lots of people have." The answer was a stark reminder of the daily reality of combat, but also a long way from the post-Princess Diana, touchy-feely monarchy that a traumatised royal family sought to project. However, what is also clear is just how popular this stance is, and how big is the support for Prince Harry.

As such, Harry's Afghan exploits are a throwback to the earthy, violent and militaristic roots of kingship. In his sullen, can-do combat readiness, he is heir to a tradition of regal militarism stretching back millennia. What was it the other Prince Hal said? "There is none of you so mean and base, / That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. / I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, / Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: / Follow your spirit, and upon this charge / Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"

If I were Prince William, I would be worried.

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