Get the lowdown on Meghan Markle’s future in-laws
To pass the time as you await your invite to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding (save the date for May 19, if you haven’t marked it down already), Angela Haupt suggests some books that will indulge your deepest anglophilia.
Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life Sally Bedell Smith Random House Smith’s lengthy biography, released in April, tells the story of the longest heir-in-waiting. Prince Charles tends to get a bad rap, not least because of a certain mistress-turned-second wife. Smith delves into the doomed relationship between Charles and Princess Diana, and his love affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. Charles emerges as an eccentric and complicated man — funny, warm, sensitive and lonely.
The Diana Chronicles Tina Brown Anchor Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and the British gossip magazine Tatler, offers plenty of juicy, detail-heavy dirt on Diana. For example, Brown writes that the night before Diana’s wedding, the 20-year-old got “sick as a parrot” after eating everything in sight, then hopped on a bike and pedalled in circles, singing, “I’m going to marry the Prince of Wales tomorrow!” When Brown asked former prime minister Tony
Blair if he thought Diana’s life signified a “new way to be royal,” he replied: “No. Diana taught us a new way to be British.”
(See also Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story, which was reissued in June.)
William and Harry: Behind the Palace Walls Katie Nicholl Hachette Prince Harry’s former love Chelsy Davy broke up with him on Facebook by changing her relationship status to “single.” Such is the kind of tidbit we glean from Nicholl’s 2010 book about the royal brothers. Nicholl chronicles their lives from childhood through adulthood, including the period after their mother died, and examines their relationship with their father and Camilla Parker Bowles. Harry emerges as strong, confident and easy-mannered, with a penchant for pranks.
A Royal Duty Paul Burrell Putnam When Burrell was eight years old, the working-class boy from a mining village was taken to watch the changing of the guard. Smitten, he pledged to work for the Royal Family one day. Ten years later, he became a footman to the Queen and then Diana’s butler and confidante. His tell-all is full of gossip about Diana’s marriage, divorce and “gentleman friends.”
The Queen and I Sue Townsend Penguin If you’d rather binge on the royals via wickedly funny fiction, try Townsend’s 1992 novel featuring Diana, Charles, Philip, little Harry and William, and even one of the Queen’s corgis, a charming, clever “what if.”
The Crown: The Official Companion, Volume 1 — Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, and the Making of a Young Queen (1947-1955) Robert Lacey Crown Archetype Royal biographer Robert Lacey, a historical consultant to the Netflix series, here describes the mother who doubted Elizabeth’s marriage, the husband who resented having to sacrifice his career and family name, the uncle who scoffed at her abilities — and the resolve that kept her on top. The book dives deeper into royal history than the show and is visually impressive, illustrated with full-page archival photos.
That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor Anna Sebba
St. Martin’s Griffin Meghan Markle isn’t the first American divorcee to win a royal’s heart. In the 1930s, Wallis Simpson, a divorced socialite, allegedly seduced King Edward VIII, becoming his mistress. He abdicated his throne to marry her, and Queen Elizabeth declared her “that woman.” Sebba’s multi-faceted biography reexamines the couple’s courtship and marriage, relying in part on newly discovered letters Wallis wrote to one of her former husbands.