{"id":856203,"date":"2026-09-22T04:08:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856203\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T04:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:08:24","slug":"feuds-power-and-entitlement-5-revealing-royal-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856203\/","title":{"rendered":"Feuds, power and entitlement: 5 revealing royal books"},"content":{"rendered":"

British publishing, like its women\u2019s magazines, feeds off the royals. The latest tabloid furore is over Charles, Earl Spencer\u2019s book, Swan Song<\/a>, honouring his late sister Princess Diana. Spencer\u2019s claim that King Charles spoke dismissively about his late wife soon after her death has already earned a sharp, and unusual, rebuke from the Palace<\/a><\/p>\n

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Penguin Books<\/p>\n

Spencer\u2019s memoir will be released this week. While we can\u2019t yet assess its merit, a few books amid the dross do capture the peculiarities of the modern monarchy: its extreme wealth and the combination of tradition and celebrity that helps explain its persistence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I begin this list with author Hilary Mantel\u2019s apt observation in her acerbic 2013 lecture Royal Bodies<\/a>. \u201cOur current royal family doesn\u2019t have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do,\u201d she noted. \u201cBut pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment [\u2026] everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it\u2019s still a cage.\u201d <\/p>\n

Prince Harry is the most recent royal to escape the cage, while still wanting to feast off the bamboo. <\/p>\n

1. The Crown in Crisis \u2013 Alexander Larman<\/p>\n

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Goodreads<\/p>\n

No scandal has shaken the British crown in the past century as much as the abdication<\/a> of Edward VIII in 1936 \u201cto marry the woman I love\u201d the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. There are many books on the subject, but the best might be Alexander Larman\u2019s The Crown in Crisis<\/a> (2022), which captures the pair\u2019s romance and the battle within the establishment to prevent their marriage.<\/p>\n

The strength of the book is its discussion of divisions over the suitability of such a marriage and the determination of the prime minister at the time, Stanley Baldwin, to uphold the Anglican prohibition on divorce. As Larman points out, later revelations of Edward\u2019s flirtations with Nazi Germany meant his abdication avoided possibly even greater constitutional problems.<\/p>\n

2. The Queen \u2013 Ben Pimlott<\/p>\n

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Goodreads<\/p>\n

Of the many books about the late Queen Elizabeth perhaps the best is Ben Pimlott\u2019s The Queen<\/a> (updated edition 2002). Pimlott reveals that beneath the pomp and glitter, the monarch had real influence on British affairs.<\/p>\n

Most significant was her clash with former prime minister Margaret Thatcher over the role of the Commonwealth, an institution badly understood in Australia. (Monarchists deliberately ignore the fact that most of its member nations are in fact republics.) The Queen clearly favoured taking a hard line against the white supremacist government in Rhodesia, which placed her in opposition to Thatcher. <\/p>\n

At the end of her reign, the Queen used her influence to ensure the Commonwealth would confirm Charles as its head but he will struggle to exercise the same degree of support from the 54 member countries Elizabeth built up over 70 years.<\/p>\n

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Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n

3. And What Do You Do? \u2013 Norman Baker<\/p>\n

I\u2019d balance Pimlott with Norman Baker: And What Do You Do?: What The Royal Family Don\u2019t Want You To Know<\/a> (2020). Baker\u2019s book takes a far more critical view of the monarchy, its extraordinary wealth and the foibles of many of the royals.<\/p>\n

He points to the deliberate confusion between the private wealth of the monarchy and its support through the Sovereign Grant<\/a>, which provides public funds for the monarchy\u2019s running costs, along with the practice, developed under Elizabeth, of paying sums to a considerable number of the monarch\u2019s relatives.<\/p>\n

Baker, a former British cabinet minister, is a supporter of monarchy, but wants to exchange the imperial model for \u201cthe modern bicycling alternative<\/a>\u201d, akin to those in other European countries.<\/p>\n

4. Entitled \u2013 Andrew Lownie<\/p>\n

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Goodreads<\/p>\n

When it comes to feeding off the public purse the prize goes to Andrew and Sarah, now Mr and Mrs Windsor, whose foibles were dissected in Andrew Lownie\u2019s Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York<\/a> (2025). The couple\u2019s closeness to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ultimately brought them down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andrew and Sarah, writes Lownie, were equally guilty of extraordinary extravagance and relentless exploitation of Andrew\u2019s royal connections, with Sarah constantly in debt while making huge sums out of her many ventures. There was something Trumpian in the way the couple decorated their first home Sunninghill: 35-foot (around 11-metres) high ceilings, a lobby \u201cadorned with a medieval soldier\u2019s helmet from Windsor Castle and the head of a North American buffalo\u201d. <\/p>\n

Also Trump-like is the way in which, Lownie claims, their children, the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, were given profitable access to some of the Middle East potentates whom Andrew courted, while he was on official UK business trips. <\/p>\n

Lownie is circumspect, but it is clear the late Queen protected Andrew, while well aware of his alleged corruption. King Charles was more ruthless, cutting off Andrew to save the monarchy. <\/p>\n

5. Spare \u2013 Prince Harry<\/p>\n

For connoisseurs of royal feuds it\u2019s worth reading Prince Harry\u2019s Spare<\/a> (2023), which I described at the time of its release as \u201crather as if the Grimm brothers were to retell the life of the Kardashians\u201d. <\/p>\n

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Goodreads<\/p>\n

The title of the book reminds us Harry is following a pattern established by former \u201cspares\u201d, Princess Margaret and ex-Prince Andrew, in both resenting and exploiting their position as next in line \u2013 until their elder sibling has children of their own. <\/p>\n

His book suggests a genuine desire to break out of the expectations of \u201cthe firm\u201d, and deep antipathy to his elder brother, the heir, Prince William. The recent return of the Sussexes to Britain suggests a sequel might well be forthcoming.<\/p>\n

Other dysfunctional royals<\/p>\n

Of course, the British royals are not alone in fermenting feuds and scandals. The current travails of the Norwegian royal family<\/a> will certainly produce several books, if not a mini-series. <\/p>\n

Saddest perhaps is the story of the former King Juan Carlos of Spain, who played a significant role guiding Spain back to democracy after the death of Franco but ended up in exile in Abu Dhabi after allegations of corruption. (Investigations against him were later dropped or shelved by authorities<\/a>). For a study of his career, read Paul Preston\u2019s Juan Carlos: The People\u2019s King<\/a> (2004), written before he was forced to abdicate.<\/p>\n

It would be tempting to explore the richly scandalous lives of royal families in the Middle East and Asia, where the current Japanese royals are notable in being seemingly immune from claims of corruption. But if we limit ourselves to the family who, bizarrely, we share with the Brits, the Canadians and the Papuans, I\u2019d finish by reading Robert Barnard\u2019s Death and the Princess<\/a> (1982). <\/p>\n

Barnard was a prolific writer of mysteries, wittier than Agatha Christie\u2019s but less ingenious. His novel about a fictional British princess who survives while her courtiers are murdered, is frivolous but nonetheless captures some of the absurdities of monarchy in the current world.<\/p>\n

In the end, Britain\u2019s monarchy will survive because its political leaders are trusted even less than its hapless royals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British publishing, like its women\u2019s magazines, feeds off the royals. The latest tabloid furore is over Charles, Earl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":["post-856203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}