Prince Harry Wails

Harry Windsor, our very own Prince Boring, is now writing his memoirs. Which of the 36-year-old's achievements he thinks are worth writing about is unclear. Blessed with his mother’s looks and his grandmother’s fame and wealth, most of his fine life was passed to him on a gilded plate. While protesting his desire for privacy, he has thus far given a tell-all interview to Oprah Winfrey, signed deals with Netflix and Spotify, as well as this new ‘intimate memoir’. When will Prince Harry stop intruding into Prince Harry’s private life, which he guards so jealously? Wednesday’s Daily Star, not a paper I would normally admire, seemed to get it just right (above). Kurt Robson’s caption reads:

There have been some belting books over the years: Pride and Prejudice, The Catcher in the Rye, My Little Pony Christmas Annual 1987. Now we’ve got a sneaky peek of this classic from the world’s shyest man.

Harry of Wales strikes me as a self-publicist, always hungry for attention. We generally expect our royals to perform their duties, offer handshakes and keep their mouths shut. In return, they get to live in palaces and do not need sell their labour to an employer. It is so often the case that those with the greatest desire to tell, often have the least worth saying. One chapter of Queen Elizabeth’s memoirs (which shall never be written) would be a hundred times more interesting than ten volumes’ worth of memoir from this man. Other members of our royal family display failings, but even they conduct themselves with an ounce of dignified discretion. If he wishes to behave like a regular, ‘common‘ person, let him be stripped of his titles. He cannot have it both ways. 

What a contrast with the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, Lord of lords and Prince of princes. Although He spent three years teaching and preaching, when His moment of fame came- a trial by the Sanhedrin before the great and the good, and an interview with Rome’s governor- ‘He opened not His mouth’. What memoirs our Jesus could have written! What powerful speeches the very inventor of language could have delivered! His acts of creation, His dealings with the angels, detailed accounts of His doings with Melchizedek, Enoch and Noah. Of course, we have the Bible, an inspired record of divine initiative. Yet on many things, it has little to say, focusing instead on our need to repent and seek salvation. Our eternity may be spent, not reading drivel, but listening to Him who knows everything, the Beautiful One, the Prince of Peace, whose precious words are life itself. 

Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life -John 6:68

Paul, writing of his Prince's incredible humilty, told the Philipian church:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 2:6-7