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They are the most chronicled family on the face of the globe. Their every move attracts headlines. Scores of books have tried and failed to penetrate the royal facade. Now Kitty Kelley has gone behind palace walls to provide the first three-dimensional, comprehensive, and evenhanded portrait of the men and women who make up the British Royal family.
Kelley spent more than four years investigating the royal family. In addition to meticulous research into documented sources, she conducted hundreds of exclusive interviews with past and present employees of the royal household, royal friends and relations, courtiers, members of Parliament, and other intimate observers, raising the curtain on this most secretive family.
Here are lonely royal children brought up without a proper education in isolated and artificial surroundings, twentieth-century adolescents with nineteenth-century touchstones. Here are the sexual ambiguities, the alcoholism, gambling, and womanizing that were common in the House of Windsor long before Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. No one is spared; here are the scandals of the last decades: the doomed marriages, and the husbands, wives, lovers and children caught in their wake and damaged beyond repair.
Illuminating the Windsors' arrogance, naïveté, and lusts as well as hard work, dedication, and ability to survive the most humiliating disclosures, The Royals is Kitty Kelley's richest, most iconoclastic, historically significant, and compelling work.
Kitty Kelley is an internationally acclaimed writer whose last book OPRAH: A Biography was a major bestseller. Before that her books about Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra set publishing records. Jackie Oh! and Elizabeth Taylor: the Last Star were also international bestsellers. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband.
For years, especially in the early 1900s, the English had become increasingly afraid of Prussian militarism. They felt threatened by the Kaiser's oppression. And they were "sore-headed and fed up," as George Bernard Shaw wrote, with Germany's rattling sabers. They viewed World War I as a war against Germany. Newspapers carried eyewitness accounts of revolting cruelty by the Germans, who bombed undefended towns and killed civilians. Those actions shocked the world in 1915. In England, editorialsdenounced "The March of the Hun" and "Treason to Civilization" as German U-boats sank British ships. The mounting death tolls on French battlefields caused hardships in England, which exacerbated Britain's hatred of foreigners. King George V was disturbed as he watched his subjects stone butchers with German names and burn the homes of people who owned dachshunds. Pretzels were banned and symphony conductors shunned Mozart and Beethoven. This antipathy was not unique to Great Britain. Blood hatred of everything German had infected all of Europe and spread to America, where Hollywood produced a string of hate films such as To Hell with the Kaiser, Wolves of Kultur, and The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin.
The King of England deplored the "hysterical clamor," calling it "petty and undignified," but few listened. The image of the hideous Hun as a fiendish torturer who raped, pillaged, and murdered innocents had gripped the public imagination. The King became so concerned about the reaction of his volatile subjects that he was afraid to protect his relatives of German descent. Instead he stood by silently as his beloved cousin Prince Louis of Battenberg was vilified simply because of his German name. When war had threatened, Battenberg as the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy mobilized the Admiralty with speed and efficiency, so that when war broke out, England was ready. But Battenberg, a naturalized British subject, became a target for abuse: his name was German, he was born in Germany, he spoke with a German accent, he employed German servants, and he owned property in Germany. Despite his total loyalty to the Crown, he was forced to resign his military position and relinquish his princely title. The final humiliation occurred when the King told him to change his name. Shattered, Prince Louis dutifully anglicized Battenberg (berg is "mountain" in German) to Mountbatten to make it acceptable to the English. The King tried to mollify his cousin by making him a British noble. Louis accepted the title of Marquess of Milford Haven because he wanted his children to be noblemen, but he never recovered from the shame of renouncing his ancestry. Somehow, though, he kept his sense of humor. He wrote in his son's guest book: "June 9th arrived Prince Hyde; June 19th departed Lord Jekyll." His younger son and namesake, Louis, was shocked by the news of his father's resignation. "It was all so stupid," he recalled years later. "My father had been in the Royal Navy for forty-six years. He was completely identified with England, and we always regarded ourselves as an English family. Of course, we were well aware of our German connections; how could we not be? It certainly never occurred to any of us to be ashamed of them-rather the contrary. We are a very old family, and proud of it.... My father had worked his way to the top of the Royal Navy by sheer ability and industry. And now his career was finished-all because of the ridiculous suspicion that he might be in secret sympathy with the very people he had come to England to avoid!"
Next, the King moved to cleanse the rest of his German family. Like the monarchs of mythology who bring magic clouds with them wherever they go, King George V waved his royal wand. Overnight, one brother-in-law-the Duke of Teck-became the Marquess of Cambridge, and the other-Prince Alexander of Teck-became the Earl of Athlone. One stroke of the royal quill eradicated all traces of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, Hesse, and Wettins from the King's lineage: the ugly German ducklings were transformed into beautiful British swans. The royal family's Teutonic dukes, archdukes, and princelings instantly became English marquises. But the King felt he still needed to make the monarchy appear less imperial to survive. He decreed that members of the royal family could marry into the nobility. So, for the first time in history, royalty could marry commoners, whether they were titled or not. This paved the way for his second son, Albert, known to the family as "Bertie," to propose to a sweet-faced Scottish girl, reared as an Earl's daughter, although her mother has been rumored to have been one of the Earl's Welsh servant girls (these rumors, never officially acknowledged, have yet to be borne out by any evidence). Ironically, Bertie's marriage in 1923 to the commoner, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, brought stability to the British throne and propped up the dynasty for several generations. During the First World War, concern was voiced over the bloody role of the King's German cousin Prince Albert of Schleswig-Holstein, who was in charge of British prisoners of war in a camp outside Berlin. "He's not really fighting on the side of the Germans," said the King defensively. "He was only put in charge of a camp of English prisoners." "A nice distinction," Prime Minister Asquith later observed to a friend. His successor, Lloyd George, was even more blunt. When he received a royal summons to the Palace, he turned to his secretary and said: "I wonder what my little German friend has got to say to me." The Prime Minister's antipathy spread to his staff, who kept the King's private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, waiting on a wooden chair in the hall and refused to rise when he entered their office. The private secretary ignored the discourtesy. "We are all servants," he told shocked courtiers, "although some are more important than others." As the devoted secretary to Queen Victoria, Lord Stamfordham was by far the most important of the King's men. He had served Victoria's heir, King Edward VII, who had put him in charge of his own son, George, at an early age. "He taught me how to be a king," said the master of his servant. It was Lord Stamfordham who received the unenviable job of telling King George V about D. H. Lawrence, who had been hounded into hiding because he married a German woman. The once revered writer had married the sister of German military aviator Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the legendary Red Baron, credited with shooting down eighty Allied planes during World War I. After their wedding, Lawrence and his bride, Frieda, were forced by public hostility to seek refuge in the English countryside, where they hid in barns like animals. This news was unsettling to the King, who also had a German wife. But the clever Queen-Mary of Teck-speaking English with a slight guttural accent, began referring to herself as "English from top to toe." The King immediately stopped addressing Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, the commander of the German forces sweeping across Europe, as "sweet cousin Willy." His German-hating subjects, who avoided references to sex, began referring to the male member as a "Willy." Still, the hatred of Germans became so intense in England that the King's mother begged him to remove the Kaiser's honorary flags from the chapel. "Although as a rule I never interfere, I think the time has come when I must speak out," wrote Queen Alexandra. "It is but right and proper for you to have down those hateful German banners in our sacred Church, St. George's, at Windsor."
The Queen Mother sent her letter to "my darling little Georgie" after the Daily Mail had excoriated him for allowing the eight flags of "enemy Emperors, Kings and Princes" a place of honor at Windsor. "As long as the offending banners remain, their owners will be prayed for," thundered the newspaper. "What are the King's advisors doing?"
The King ignored the criticism until it came from his "darling Mother dear." Then he yielded and had the banners removed. "Otherwise," he told a friend, "the people would have stormed the chapel." The King then threw himself and his family into the war effort. He dispatched his sons to the western front, sending the Prince of Wales (Edward, but known to the family as David) to France, while Prince Albert (Bertie) served on the battleship HMS Collingwood. The King banned alcohol and began strict rationing at the Palace to set a national example. In March 1917 his cousin the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia ("dear Nicky") was forced to abdicate, in part because he, too, had a German wife whom the King blamed "for the present state of chaos that exists in Russia." The King's equerry was more brutal on the subject: "The Empress is not only a Boche by birth, but in sentiment. She did all she could to bring about an understanding with Germany. She is regarded as a criminal or a criminal lunatic and the ex-Emperor as a criminal for his weakness and submission to her promptings." That was all the King needed to hear. Concerned about the survival of his throne, he withdrew the warm friendship he had once extended to his "beloved cousin." When the Czar appealed for asylum for himself and his family, the King refused, prohibiting them entry into England. The King felt he needed to separate himself from Russian imperialism, especially when wrapped with a German ribbon. So he wrote his cousin that he did not think it "advisable that the Imperial Family should take up their residence in this country." He suggested instead Spain or the South of France. At that point the revolutionaries in Russia realized that the King would not use military force to save his relatives. Thus abandoned, the Czar and his family were seized and sent to Siberia. The King was more determined than ever to hang on to his threatened monarchy. He resented references to his German ancestry and raged over the caricatures of Max Beerbohm, who drew him as a comical and lugubrious figure. He lost his temper when a Labor Member of Parliament called him "a German pork butcher," and he erupted again when H. G. Wells branded him a foreigner. In a letter to the Times, the British journalist and novelist called for an end to "the ancient trappings of the throne and sceptre." He damned the royal house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha by calling it "an alien and uninspiring Court."
"I may be uninspiring," boomed the King, "but I'll be damned if I'm an alien." He resolved then and there to rid himself and his royal house of what he saw as its dreadful German taint. With the greatest sleight of hand since the sorcery of Prospero, he asserted his divine right and rechristened himself with the most euphonious, melodious British name conceivable. His courtiers had spent weeks searching for just such a name that would reestablish the monarchy as thoroughly English. Finally, Lord Stamfordham found it and secured his place in history by proposing the name of Windsor. That one word summoned up what the King was looking for-a glorious image that resonated with history, stretching back to William the Conqueror. For Windsor Castle, the most thoroughly British symbol extant, had been the site of English monarchs for eight hundred years. Although no king had ever lived there, several had died in Windsor Castle, and nine were buried in its royal crypt. The name was enough to redeem a tarnished crown. The proclamation of the House of Windsor was announced on July 17, 1917, and appeared the next day on the front pages of England's newspapers. The British press dutifully reported that the King had renounced his German name and all German titles for himself and all other descendants of Queen Victoria and that henceforth he and his issue were to be referred to as the House of Windsor. In the United States, news of the British royal family's reinventing itself was reported on page nine of The New York Times. In an editorial, the Times noted "the unnaming and renaming" was approved in a meeting of the largest Privy Council ever assembled and suggested that the name of Windsor, an Anglo-Saxon fortress where the legendary King Arthur sat among the Knights of the Table Round, might have been selected for its "sense of continuity, of ancientness." America's newspaper of record praised England's King for choosing "a venerable name for his house." In Germany, the news was reported with less reverence. The Kaiser laughed at his quixotic cousin and said that he was looking forward to attending a performance of that well-known play The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. But the Kaiser appreciated the political necessity of accommodation. As he pointed out, "Monarchy is like virginity-once lost, you can't get it back." Still, he exacted revenge nineteen years later when the King died by sending the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to his cousin's funeral in Windsor Castle. The Duke wore his Nazi uniform. George V never expressed any qualms about his actions. He pragmatically buried his German roots to save his throne and then systematically ostracized his foreign relatives. He did this without compunction, even after receiving news from Russia that the Czar and Czarina and their four daughters and young son, who were moved from Siberia and Ekaterinburg, had been massacred by the Bolsheviks. "It was a foul murder," he wrote piously in the diary he kept for posterity. "I was devoted to Nicky, who was the kindest of men and a thorough gentleman." By keeping his distance, the King of England had held his crown in place. He then proceeded to rule the House of Windsor for the next two decades with probity. There was no scandal attached to his reign, and like his grandmother Queen Victoria, he excelled at the virtues the English prize most: duty and punctuality. His subjects saw him as a simple, decent man whose plain tastes reflected their own.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Royals by Kitty Kelley Copyright © 1998 by Kitty Kelley. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
On Saturday, September 6, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Kitty Kelley, author of THE ROYALS.
Kitty Kelley: Thank you! My pleasure.
Kitty Kelley:
Kitty Kelley: When I was born, my father said it had to be "Kitty" Kelley. And they said I had to have a saint's name, so he said, fine, make it Katherine.
Kitty Kelley: James Earl Jones, because he's got the best laugh in the world.
Kitty Kelley: I don't just poke into anybody's life. I select the subjects who have had great influence over all our lives, and then I spend four years researching the subject to write his or her bio. In the case of THE ROYALS, I took on a whole institution.
Kitty Kelley: Yes. Yes. Yes. I was knocked about by the Princess's awful death Aug 31st, and although my book had been scheduled for September publication for the past eight months, I asked the publisher, Warner Books, to postpone it. After the Princess's funeral, when Americans were inundated with so many confusing images, my publisher insisted on sticking with the publication date, because Americans needed to know what was going on in the House of Windsor and what the Princess was up against. In fact, the publisher felt so strongly about this that he brought the book out six days earlier than the planned date of September 23rd.
Kitty Kelley: Really, the only member of the royal family I have ever sat down with, and he no longer counts, is Lord Snowden Antony Armstrong-Jones, or the photographer known as just Snowden. In order to write this book, I interviewed over 800 people, including friends of the royal family and members of the royal household.
Kitty Kelley: Two very separate questions. No,I don't blame the Queen for staying holed up at Balmoral to be with her grandsons. I think the criticism came because Her Majesty took so long to address her subjects, who were suffering so much from the Princess's death, and when she finally did address her subjects, she could only say that she admired the work that the Princess did; she did not say that she loved the Princess, which the people found lacking.
Kitty Kelley: For all English-speaking people, especially those of us who broke away from the mother country, we have never lost our fascination with the royal family. We have been intrigued by their lives, and in the last few years we have been enamored with the Princess, who seemed to embody the idea of royalty in doing good for others and not just for herself. Royalty is a fascinating thing.
Kitty Kelley: Yes, and from my sources and conversations in the past couple of weeks, Charles has been wonderful with his sons and is quite concerned about his responsibilities to them. He will be cutting back on his travel schedule to spend more time with them. Some friends say that he should provide counseling for the boys, out of concern for their well-being, to give them an outlet for their grief. It was also felt within the royal family that getting the children back to school would help them a great deal.
Kitty Kelley: Great question! Based on the last four years of research and 800 interviews, I would say that Charles would never give up his chance to become King in order to marry Camilla Parker Bowles. She will remain in his life as the lover with portfolio. He does not bring her around much on the weekends he spends with the children, and she does not come along on vacations he takes with the children.
Kitty Kelley: I disagree with the characterization of how she appears in the book; I was very much taken by her and was in awe of her ability to stand up to the establishment. I know from personal experience how hard it is to stand up and tell your truth about powerful people. She stood up to one of the most powerful institutions in the world. But if you think she came across as whiny, God knows she had a lot to be whiny about! It was the House of Whines!
Kitty Kelley: Let's hope and pray for a good and caring King William! I firmly believe that in the wake of the Princess's death, the monarchy is stronger than ever. And her inexplicable magic wraps itself around her young son in a way that people care now more than ever that he become King -- but remember, he cannot become King until he succeeds his father, and his father cannot become King until he succeeds his mother.
Kitty Kelley: I can only answer for myself. Interviews that have been given during life with the expectation of confidentiality, I would personally never release when the person died. I have interviewed people over the last 20 years and given them my word of honor about keeping their confidentiality -- I don't think that promise should end with their death.
Kitty Kelley: Many of the people in my book had to be unnamed, because of the fear of reprisal. I believe in a perfect world we should name all sources, but we don't yet live in that perfect world, and to name sources is to frequently destroy those sources, especially members of the royal household who would lose their jobs, their salaries, and their pensions.
Kitty Kelley: I've never seen it.
Kitty Kelley: There is no common ground between a flash in the night in a tunnel in Paris and the dogged research of four years on a book like this.
Kitty Kelley: Good question...I wish I knew. These books take me four years to write, so I don't take a subject lightly. I don't just write about any celebrity -- only one of an icon status, who has had immense influence over our lives. And now that I have written about Hollywood royalty, political royalty, and now British royalty, I am at a loss for the next subject!
Kitty Kelley: The fact that people are lining up to buy the book tells me about the need to know about the House of Windsor from a writer who they know is going to give them the unvarnished truth. As a writer, it is gratifying to see the book is number one in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The L.A. Times, and USA Today, and I think it speaks volumes about how people seek the story from a writer who does not curtsy to her subjects.
Kitty Kelley: Finishing it!
Kitty Kelley: It is hard for me to address either of those rumors. I don't know what the final results are from the autopsy. I would say that based on what I know they were not engaged. I am not completely satisfied in what Michael Cole, the spokesman for the Al Fayed family, said on national television, when he denied being a source on my book, when I have an interview on tape with Mr. Cole from November of 1993. I wrote to him to tell him that I had the tapes of those conversations and thanked him for that interview. Based on what he has said about that, I don't trust him about what he has said about Diana.
Kitty Kelley: Thank you very much.
Anonymous
Posted October 28, 2011
A well researched look into past monarchs, and plenty of Ms.Kelley's takes on the 1980's and the royal scandals. I liked that she did not dwell on the aftermath of Diana's tragic death too much. If you are interested in the British royal family, you will not be disappointed.
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Overview
They are the most chronicled family on the face of the globe. Their every move attracts headlines. Scores of books have tried and failed to penetrate the royal facade. Now Kitty Kelley has gone behind palace walls to provide the first three-dimensional, comprehensive, and evenhanded portrait of the men and women who make up the British Royal family.
Kelley spent more than four years investigating the royal family. In addition to meticulous ...