PRINCE HARRY THE SOLDIER

Prince Harry is the Spare to the British throne. His brother William is the Heir, he is the Spare, and Prince Charles is the breeding male who has done his duty by the herd. I don’t wish to disparage Prince Charles, as I admire him in some ways, despite his manner, but the fact is that as a young man he was led by the ring in his nose and mated to the much younger Diana Spencer, a woman with whom he had nothing in common.

25 years on and Charles is married to Camilla, and as a couple they seem very suited. At last, after all the divorces and infidelities, we have a royal marriage that works. And how does the great British public respond? They are cross. What they want are fairy tale weddings and tears over the death of a silly princess, not a real relationship that actually works. Actually I don’t want to be too hard on Diana either, she was an essentially ordinary girl who found herself in a very difficult position. And how many girls aged 20 would turn down the chance to be future Queen of England?

Prince Harry, known in the army as Cornet Harry Wales, is due to be deployed to Iraq this year, along with his regiment. He has said that if he is not sent to Iraq, he will leave the army. There has been a lot of speculation recently that he won’t be sent to Iraq, because his regiment will become a target and because of the huge political fall-out if he is killed or captured. Yesterday the head of the army confirmed that he will be going to Iraq (though it always remains under review), while Harry has let it be known that he won’t leave the army if he is not sent.

Harry was born 15th Sept 1984 at 16.20 in London, UK.

He is a Virgo with Capricorn Rising and Moon in Taurus. Very earthy and practical, and so you can understand him saying, “Well I’m a soldier and if I can’t do what a soldier does, which is to fight, then I’ll do something else.” Which I can understand. Either you do something or you don’t do something, you don’t faff.

But it’s more than that. His Sun is in the 8th square to Mars in Sagittarius in the 11th. This man really is a soldier, he would be devastated if he felt he had to leave the army or that he couldn’t fight. With Sun in the 8th, it is natural, even necessary for him, to encounter death. His Mars is in the 11th, so he leads his regiment. And Mars in Sag are the most feared and deadly warriors of all. In the constellation Sagittarius we see the figure of a centaur, a man on horseback: when these warriors on horseback first appeared, they were awesome, they could not be stopped, it was like having the first nuclear bomb.

I admire Mars-Warrior energy. It’s total, it’s fearless, it's superhuman, it doesn’t care if it dies, it’s doing something that’s more important than either death or its own narrow self-interest. And it can do spectacular things. Like the Israelis, with their mighty Mars in Leo, beating back a host of nations as soon as they had been born. Even though the Israelis can behave like Nazis, I admire them for that.

So Prince Harry has this. With Mars conjunct Uranus, he can be impetuous and wilful, not helpful in a soldier, but he has his own way of soldiering, and can explode into action. With his Moon in Taurus (like his Dad) conjunct IC, he loves his country and has his feet on the ground. His Node is also in Taurus in the 4th, making a yod through its inconjunctions to Pluto in the 9th and Neptune in the 12th. So there is some kind of fate around Harry going to Iraq, expressing his love of his homeland (Node) through serving the collective dream/fantasy (Neptune in the 12th) by encountering death in a foreign land (Pluto in the 9th).

For astrological reasons (as well as common sense) we can’t rule out his death. His progressed Chart currently has 5 planets in the 8th: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Pluto, so he is strongly drawn to situations of death. His Prog Moon is at 26 Pisces, which will square transiting Pluto and conjoin the Iraq War Sun over the next few months. His Prog Uranus will exactly oppose his Prog IC (beginnings and endings) over the next 18 months. (Its conjunction to the MC reflects the ongoing uncertainty around his deployment to Iraq).

By transit, Neptune will continue this year to be within range of squaring his IC at 17 Taurus, while next year Uranus will be very close to an exact opposition to his 8th House Sun at 22.57 Virgo: sudden death is the way of it in war. Jupiter is also associated with death, and will spend next year conjoining his ASC at 11.27 Capricorn.

I’m starting to feel like I shouldn’t be writing this, publicly predicting death for a young man. But it’s not quite like that. I am saying there is a choice. Harry, I know you can’t help yourself, but if you go to Iraq, there is a good chance you will be killed. Those who are deciding on his deployment, please take note. Just look at the transits to his Dad’s chart next year: regarding his natal 5th House (children), he has Sun on the cusp at 22 Scorpio, conjunct 5th House Chiron, and being squared by tr Neptune; Mars at 20 Sag, being squared by tr Uranus; and Jupiter at 30 Sag, being conjoined by tr Pluto. Even his dead mother has Neptune conjoining her Aquarian Moon next year. Don’t do it, Harry!

Prince Charles: 14 Nov 1948, 21.14 London, UK

I wrote earlier about my admiration for the warrior energy. I also have a reservation. The Warrior is not the King, he serves the King, he does unquestioningly whatever the King asks of him. A soldier obeys orders, this is seen as a moral good, and it is not his place to question. If you are deployed to Iraq, you go there, you do your job, and you do not question the justice or purpose of the war.

This quality of obeying orders unquestioningly (or if you have doubts, you act as if you don’t) is not a moral quality, it is pure expedience. Without it, the army couldn’t get the job done. And it is manipulative to make people feel like they are bad for questioning.

The young warrior often doesn’t want to question. What he wants is the certainty that he is clearly on the side of right against wrong, otherwise he could not use his Mars. So if there is an authority prepared to re-assure him that he is on the side of right, he is quite happy to believe them. People are very vulnerable to this kind of authority. Look at the Millgram experiments, in which volunteers willingly gave other volunteers painful electric shocks (so they thought) because they were told to by an ‘authority’.

So this is what Mars has to work out as he gets older: his relationship with authority, with the King. This is why Mars is exalted in Capricorn: Saturn, the King, is there working alongside Mars instead of being sought outside.

So this is my main reservation around soldiering: it’s not the killing and slaughter, though that’s bad enough. It’s the deeper question of “Who is in charge of my life?”