Prince Harry's Spare and the Duke of Windsor's A King's Story: The History of Royal Memoirs

Royal families have always tried to control the official record. Memoirs complicate that effort because they let one participant choose the scenes, explain decisions, and decide which memories deserve attention.

Prince Harry did that in Spare in 2023. More than 70 years earlier, the Duke of Windsor made a similar move with A King’s Story. The books appeared during very different media eras, yet they share the same central purpose. Each man wanted readers to hear his version after a major break with royal life.

The comparison shows how royal memoirs changed. Edward waited 15 years after his abdication and published a measured defense. Harry wrote less than three years after completing his final engagements as a working royal. His account included arguments, private exchanges, grief, therapy, military service, and family tension.

Two Titles That State the Problem

The titles tell readers how each author saw his royal position.

Spare refers to the phrase “the heir and the spare.” Prince William was born to inherit the throne. Harry occupied the next position in the family. In the memoir, that secondary role shapes his childhood, his relationship with William, and his understanding of palace decisions.

A King’s Story makes a different claim. Edward had abdicated in December 1936, but the title still placed his former rank at the center. He was no longer sovereign when the book appeared in 1951. He still presented the memoir as the account of a man who had occupied the throne.

Harry emphasized being second. Edward emphasized having once been first. Both titles used royal status as the frame for a personal defense.

Why Edward VIII Wrote A King’s Story

Edward became king on January 20, 1936, after the death of King George V. His reign ended that year.

He wanted to marry Wallis Simpson, an American whose second divorce was still being finalized during the constitutional crisis. Edward signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936. He announced his decision in a radio address the next day. His younger brother then became King George VI.

Edward married Wallis in France on June 3, 1937. The couple spent much of their life outside Britain, mainly in France and the United States.

He began working with American journalist Charles J. V. Murphy in 1947. The project gave Edward a chance to defend his motives and place his version of the abdication into print. A King’s Story covered his childhood, education, years as Prince of Wales, accession, relationship with Wallis, and decision to surrender the throne.

The final book used formal, controlled language. It did not provide a full account of Edward’s later marriage or postwar life. It focused on the events leading to 1936 and presented the abdication as the defining event of his public story.

British author Lady Frances Lonsdale Donaldson later wrote that the book caused anger and concern inside the royal family because participants remembered the events differently.

The book still became a commercial success and stayed on bestseller lists for months. A historical account of its publication describes the large publicity campaign and the anger it caused inside royal circles.

Why Prince Harry Wrote Spare

Harry’s break with royal life developed through a public dispute rather than a constitutional crisis.

He and Meghan announced on January 8, 2020, that they planned to step back as senior working members of the royal family. They completed their final engagements that March.

The memoir project was announced in July 2021. The title, cover, and January 10, 2023, release date followed in October 2022.

Spare begins after Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021, when Harry describes meeting King Charles and Prince William. The book then returns to his childhood, Diana’s death, school years, military career, relationships, marriage, departure from royal duties, and life in the United States.

Harry’s account is more intimate than Edward’s. He writes about grief, family arguments, press intrusion, therapy, security, illegal drug use in his youth, and military service. He names living relatives and describes private exchanges.

His stated goal was to tell the story of the man he had become instead of remaining confined to the role assigned at birth. That choice placed private memory directly against palace silence and newspaper reporting.

A Memoir Shaped by Two American Writers

Neither book emerged through a solitary writing process.

Murphy began working with Edward in 1947. He later described a collaboration marked by interruptions, delays, and disagreements. The finished memoir was more diplomatic than some of Edward’s early material.

Decades later, historian Jane Marguerite Tippett examined discarded writing, interviews, Murphy’s papers, and archival records for Once a King. That material renewed questions about how much the final 1951 text had been softened and reorganized.

Harry worked with J. R. Moehringer, who won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Their process included meetings, calls, documents, interviews, and revisions.

In his account of writing Spare, Moehringer described arguments over structure and detail. One dispute involved the ending of a military training scene. Harry wanted to preserve a comeback he had delivered. Moehringer believed it weakened the story, and Harry eventually accepted the change.

These collaborations matter because a royal memoir may use one person’s memories, but a professional writer decides how those memories reach the reader. Structure, pacing, omissions, and tone can affect the result as much as the underlying events.

The Difference Between 1951 and 2023

Edward published during the era of newspapers, magazines, radio, and early television. Publicity moved quickly for its time, but publishers could still control a release schedule more effectively.

Spare entered a digital news cycle.

Copies of the Spanish edition reached stores on January 5, 2023, five days before the official release. News organizations obtained the book, translated passages, and circulated major claims before Harry’s television interviews.

That leak changed the reading experience. Millions of people encountered selected claims before they saw the chapters. Individual scenes became headlines, television clips, social posts, and arguments within hours.

The speed also increased the commercial impact. Spare sold more than 1.43 million copies across the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada on its first day. The official record announcement documented that launch figure.

The book sold more than 3.2 million copies during its first week across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. About 1.6 million of those sales came from the United States.

The publisher later reported more than 6 million worldwide sales. Its paperback announcement confirmed that the October 2024 edition contained no new material.

Edward’s book was also a bestseller, but comparable audited worldwide figures are harder to establish. The difference reflects publishing history as much as reader interest. Modern publishers can track print, digital, and audiobook sales with far more precision.

What Both Memoirs Tried to Control

Edward and Harry both believed institutions had reduced them to simple roles.

Edward wanted to explain why he gave up the throne and challenge the idea that others could define the abdication without him. Harry wanted to explain how grief, hierarchy, press coverage, and palace relationships shaped his departure.

Both books made silence part of the dispute. Each author argued that remaining quiet had allowed another version to dominate opinion.

Their critics raised the same objection. A memoir gives one person the freedom to publish private information while relatives and officials may feel unable to answer. That imbalance can make an account appear complete even when it represents one participant’s memories and interpretation.

The books also show the limits of autobiography. Memory can be sincere and still face dispute. A carefully written scene may express the author’s experience while leaving dates, wording, or context open to challenge.

How Royal Memoirs Changed

The main change between A King’s Story and Spare is not the royal decision to speak. Members of royal families had defended themselves in print long before Harry.

Timing, detail, and distribution changed far more.

Edward waited 15 years after the abdication. His book used guarded language and concentrated on a crisis that had already reshaped the monarchy.

Harry published while many disputes remained active. His audiobook carried his own voice, and extracts traveled worldwide before publication day. Readers could hear him describe his experiences while newspapers, broadcasters, relatives, critics, and supporters argued over the same passages.

Edward tried to secure his place in history. Harry acted while that history was still taking shape.

That makes both books useful, but readers should treat them as personal evidence rather than complete records. Each memoir preserves selected memories, defenses, and facts. Independent documents, letters, official papers, and other witnesses remain necessary.

A King’s Story and Spare belong to different generations of publishing, but they perform the same royal act. They ask the public to reconsider a man who left the center of the monarchy and refused to let the institution write the final account alone.