Why are so many Royals balding? Harry spotted with thinning hair

The King’s second son arrived at the High Court on Monday for the first day of what is set to be a lengthy trial against the Daily Mail over allegations of unlawful information gathering.

The Duke of Sussex has been living in the US with his wife Meghan since the turn of the decade, and, back in London, his appearance has proved a talking point.

One tweeted: “He appears increasingly bald and I would think that, living in California, there is no shortage of hair restorer professionals who could give him back his lovely ginger locks.”

Harry has long-been seeking action against the Mail, and could be in and out of the High Court over the next nine weeks as he, alongside a host of celebrities, bear witness.

Photographs of the 41-year-old outside the court follow unverified reports by Sky Australia that he and Meghan are increasingly protective over how he is pictured.

"They'll approve ten pictures and reject a hundred. If Harry's bald spot catches the light wrong, it's automatically a no," a source is quoted as saying.

"It's not about artistic direction… it's about Harry's hair, or what little is left."

But the prince is far from the first in his family to have been follically challenged, with his older brother William having appeared bald on top for several years.

King Charles is also shy of the full head of hair he once had, while his youngest brother Edward has been mostly bald for many years, as Andrew remains the least-scathed, in terms of a hairline, of that generation.

But why have Mountbatten-Windsor men been so unlucky with their hairlines?

Why are so many Royals balding?

Male pattern hair loss, where balding is seen at the crown and around the front of the head, is chiefly caused by genetic factors but also hormones, stress and age.

The gene for balding is more frequently passed down generations on the mother’s side, and men are most likely to have a head of hair that resembles their maternal grandfather’s.

At least seven generations of royal men have been seen to have suffered baldness, back at least to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the father of Queen Victoria. John Spencer, the father of Princess Diana, was reasonably lucky with his hair, which has appeared to not have paid dividends with his grandsons William and Harry.

However, King Edward VII was very bald and this gene might have passed down instead, while Charles’s father, Prince Philip, was also short of hair.

Both William and Harry have not resorted to wearing a wig and do not appear to have had a hair transplant, to the apparent trauma of actor Rob Lowe.

“I mean the future king of your country let himself lose his own hair!” Lowe said in 2019.

“Honestly, one of the great traumatic experiences of my life was watching Prince William lose his hair. He’s going to be the f***ing king of England! And...there’s a pill!”

So what for the heir to the throne? Well, Prince George is at least fortunate that Michael Middleton still has a full barnet at 76.

Thomas Markle is very much thinning, however, which is bad news for Harry’s son Prince Archie, although, at age six, he probably won’t be too concerned.