Nasty problem of the playboy Prince

Prince Harry

For one Prince Harry - the one immortalised as Prince Hal in Shakespeare's Henry IV - it worked. He left his wild ways behind and went on to reign as Henry V, legendary victor at Harfleur and Agincourt.

Whether a spell in the Army can bring the same transformation in Hal's latter-day namesake, Henry Charles Albert David Windsor, remains to be seen. But some are not holding their breath.

"I think it's unlikely on present form,' says Penny Junor, biographer of his father, the Prince of Wales. But she says the Army "will give him the discipline he needs and keep him out of the public eye. And it can't come too soon."

Even before the Nazi uniform gaffe the royal household was counting the days until the Prince's entry to Sandhurst, the British Army's elite officer training school.

There was a fracas with the paparazzi, a slightly problematic girlfriend, claims of cheating at Eton and his involvement with a group of raffish and wealthy young people.

Perhaps, given the precedents, it was tempting fate for the Prince and Princess of Wales to call their second son Henry in September, 1984.

But the royal family was still at a peak of popularity fuelled by their marriage - and the horrors of infidelity, bulimia, separation, divorce and his mother's death in 1997, when he was just 12, were a long way off.

One can only imagine how such moments - such as being forced to walk to church in public within hours of his mother's death - affected his mental make-up.

And he was also destined to grow up knowing he had no clear role. He was "the spare" to his older brother, William, "the heir".

On top of that there has been the unfounded speculation that, given the obvious physical dissimilarity from his father and brother, that Harry may have been the product of the affair between his mother and former Army officer James Hewitt, whom he does, curiously, resemble.

Although Hewitt denies their liaison coincided with Harry's conception, the gossip lingers.

The media agreed the Princes would be left alone during their schooling, and they were kept out of the headlines - which some believe created a feeling in them that they were untouchable.

But once 17-year old Eton scholar Prince Harry was reported to be experimenting with cannabis and alcohol in late-night sessions at a pub near Highgrove, Gloucestershire, the image of the louche "Hooray Henry" Prince was born.

This has since been helpfully supported by the Prince himself through regular appearances at parties, polo matches and night clubs, cigarette and vodka and cranberry juice in hand, and - on one occasion - a Page Three girl on his lap.

There were also the inevitable links to blond, horsey girls from the shires, often part of the same Highgrove Set.

This group includes such people as Harry Meade, son of Richard Meade, the Olympic gold medal winning horseman, whose 22nd birthday party was the occasion for the Nazi costume.

Like many around the royals, Meade is an ardent pro-hunter, and among those who interrupted Prime Minister Tony Blair's speech to the Labour Party conference.

The Prince is, according to those that know, an amiable chap of the "nice but a bit dim" variety, whose visits to the capital's fleshpots display all the bright-eyed eagerness of a fresh-faced country lad up for a night on the town - which is what he is.

It was on one such visit that, clearly inebriated, he lashed out at photographers.

Not long after that, a former teacher at Eton claimed at an industrial tribunal that she helped complete part of his coursework; the Prince obtained a grade B in Art and D in geography in his A levels. Both Eton and the Palace denied the claims.

Many wonder why there is no one around the Prince to steer him away from Nazi uniforms and unsuitable friends.

But Junor says: "He's a 20-year-old man who does what he wants. It's not uncommon. And his personal protection officers are not there to act in loco parentis."

But such events must be the despair of Paddy Harverson, communications secretary at Clarence House, who has worked hard to buff up the Prince's image, earning positive publicity for his charitable works during his gap year.

A certain relief greeted the news that the Prince would go to Sandhurst, but there was also speculation over the decision to postpone it, blamed on a dodgy knee.

And, in recent weeks, there has been the photogenic girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy Zimbabwean farming couple with links to the Mugabe regime. Her parents, together with her crop tops, tight jeans and apparent wish to be "really really famous" will have sent shivers of alarm up Harverson's spine.

Junor believes much blame for the Prince's errant behaviour must lie with his father. "Harry clearly needed someone to give him guidance; the nature of his position means he cannot just make the same mistakes other young people can. And his father was just not there for him."

And the future? "He should be allowed to stop being a royal and live his life as a normal person."

- INDEPENDENT