KEY POINTS:
In Shakespeare's Henry V the young king, popularly known as "Harry," goes incognito among his troops on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt.
He gets into a debate with some soldiers who speculate on their leader's state of mind, given that his army is heavily outnumbered by the French. One of the soldiers thinks the King is just putting on a brave face and would really rather be "in Thames up to the neck".
Without revealing his identity Harry replies, "I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is."
It would be interesting to know whether, deep-down, Prince Harry Windsor really is looking forward to his upcoming tour of duty but many wish him anywhere but Iraq.
This week the Monarchist League of New Zealand added its voice to the swelling chorus of alarm, insisting he shouldn't go because he's "not just any ordinary democratic citizen". Well, quite; the most rabid republican couldn't have put it more succinctly.
One of the intriguing aspects of our curious times is that the most effective saboteurs of the monarchy's mythology and mystique have been members of the royal family and their stalwart defenders.
This is yet another example of their propensity for shooting themselves in the foot. For a start, the hand-wringing at the prospect of Harry being targeted by insurgents or taken out by friendly fire could be seen as an insult to the families of soldiers who have died in Iraq.
Second, the notion that Harry should be able to become an Army officer, ponce around in his dress uniform and get plastered on taxpayer-subsidised grog in the officers' mess but skip the soldier's core duty of serving on the front line simply reinforces the perception that the monarchy has become an exercise in make-believe, an elaborate pretence, an endless photo-opportunity.
It would make Harry an impostor, like those celluloid heroes, notably John Wayne, who routed the Third Reich and Imperial Japan on a Hollywood sound-stage while others fought the real war.
The argument that Harry shouldn't go because he's not like you and me is glaringly at odds with the PR campaign designed to persuade the public today's young royals aren't haughty bluebloods like, for instance, the Duke of Edinburgh. Hence Prince William living in student digs; hence him coming all the way out here to support the British Lions; hence the princes getting real jobs - in the Army.
But the savage reality of Iraq has no place in this fantasy. The monarchists won't sleep easy until Harry is back doing what he does best: getting pie-eyed in nightclubs, pawing bimbos, and dressing up as a Nazi. In their favour is that fact that the jeans and baseball caps strategy has been severely compromised by the revelation that William dumped Kate Middleton because she's not posh enough.
Actually, it's not so much Kate as her mother, Carole. As if her name wasn't naff enough - it will be a cold day in hell before the House of Windsor opens its doors to a Carole - Kate's mama says "toilet" instead of "lavatory" and has the frightfully bad taste to be not only an ex-airline stewardess who married a pilot but also a self-made millionaire.
Working for a living is regarded as common by the upper crust (let's face it, they've got a point), many of whom live off family fortunes that can be traced back to the slave trade or the Opium Wars.
It was a clever idea to transform the royal family into a sort of up-market soap opera which would so beguile the public that they'd overlook its immense privilege and fundamental pointlessness.
For a while it worked. But as megastars tend to do, Princess Diana lost her grip on reality and the plotlines got darker.
Just as The Sopranos is unthinkable without Tony, The Windsors doesn't work without Diana. Without her emotional connection with the people, the royal family simply reverts to being the apex of a ruthless and exclusionary class system.
A far cry from Shakespeare's King Harry, who addressed his English and Welsh archers thus: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."
