A strange world of the Royal Family
Two new novels lift the lid on the odd, privileged world of the British Royal Family. Hephzibah Anderson talks to their authors. Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT W We first encounter royalty through fiction. Shimmering princesses and blessed princes, monarchs both wise and wicked – they all inhabit the formative fairy tales that teach us so much about life, weaving their narrative magic as densely as the briar thicket that envelops Sleeping Beauty. The institution’s motifs, its crowns and its thrones, the heavy sense of predestination spelled out in curses and golden promises, are stitched into our collective imaginations before we’re old enough to know it. In adulthood, we mostly come to realise that the charmed, ‘fairy tale’ element of life as a royal is decidedly double-edged: yes, the red carpets are rolled out for them but their celebrity is inescapable from birth, and the dazzle of gemstones is accompanied by the blinding glare of flashbulbs. So often, palaces double as gild...