Prince Harry’s newly published memoir “Spare” has made a string of revelations about his royal's private life, including confirmation that he and his brother were circumcised, but why do male members of the Royal Family undergo this procedure?
His anecdote regarding his circumcision began with a discussion about how his penis had been frostbitten during a trip to the North Pole in 2011 ahead of Prince William’s marriage to the now Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton.
“Upon arriving home I'd been horrified to discover that my nether regions were frostnipped as well, and while the ears and cheeks were already healing, the todger wasn't. It was becoming more of an issue by the day,” he wrote.
“I don't know why I should've been reluctant to discuss my penis with Pa, or all the gentlemen present. My penis was a matter of public record, and indeed some public curiosity. The press had written about it extensively.”
Harry then laid waste to the popular belief that his late mother Princess Diana had forbidden the surgical removal of her two sons’ foreskins, writing: “There were countless stories in books, and papers (even The New York Times) about Willy and me not being circumcised.
“Mummy had forbidden it, they all said, and while it's absolutely true that the chance of getting penile frostbite is much greater if you're not circumcised, all the stories were false. I was snipped as a baby,” he went on.
This confirms that male members of the British royal family were circumcised for at least two generations, there is no evidence as to whether Princes William and Harry chose to carry on the practice with their own sons, Princes George, Louis, and Archie Harrison respectively.
In 2013, the head of the Initiation Society Dr Joseph Spitzer offered to carry out the procedure should the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge decide to maintain the practice with Prince George.
The London Jewish community’s official Mohel Jacob Snowman performed the surgery on baby Prince Charles in Buckingham Palace, days after his 1948 birth. Princes Andrew and Edward were also circumcised.
It is not uncommon for Mohels to offer circumcision procedures for non-Jewish babies.
Extensive commentary has claimed that the circumcision of British royals began due to Queen Victoria’s belief that she was descended from the biblical King David. There is also a separate idea that the tradition that King George I imported the practice from the German city of Hanover, where it was popular amongst the upper classes.
A 2013 study by historians Robert Darby and John Cozijn for the SAGE medical journal argues that there is no evidence for these origin stories.
“If Snowman or another practitioner performed the operation on them it was because circumcision was a common practice among the British middle and wealthy classes from the 1890s to the 1940s, widely recommended as a sensible hygienic precaution,” they wrote.
“That the palace doctors were able to call upon the services of so distinguished a surgeon is not evidence of any tradition, but simply another instance of the royal family’s privileged status,” they continued.
Under nine per cent of British males are circumcised according to the World Health Organisation. This marks a major drop since the figure hovered at around 20 per cent in the 1950s when many higher-income families chose to ensure that male children were circumcised due to beliefs that it was more hygienic.
Circumcision is common among male children in Jewish and Islamic communities, along with many African cultures, but it is rarely deemed medically necessary. Despite this, as many as 80% of men in Harry's new home in the USA have undergone the procedure.
The Jewish practice of Brit Milah is linked to the Book of Genesis’ commandment that the biblical patriarch Abraham and his descendants be circumcised to symbolise the covenant between God and the Jewish people.
