Meghan, Tom Bower & Vanity Fair

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Ok, well, even before I’ve finished getting up posts on The Palace Papers, a new book is rocking the royal ecosystem. This one is by Tom Bower, a writer and former BBC investigative journalist who is famous for his notably critical biographies of major figures. Earlier in his career he published one on The Prince of Wales that was apparently rather ruthless, though I’ve admittedly never read it.

His latest is – surprise, surprise – on The Duchess of Sussex, was published today. In anticipation, The Times ran five excerpts that are pretty savage. I’m absolutely planning to read the book, but given shipping times, etc. I think getting actual recaps of it up is going to have to be an August project.

In the meantime, I want to dig into the back and forth over one of The Times’s recaps so we can level-set on how to view the conversation.

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Let’s Catch Up With Beatrice & Eugenie

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This is most emphatically not going to delve into the Andrew issue, but I do think it’s long overdue that we take a look at where the York family falls in the current royal landscape and generally catch up. After all, during what was more or less my hiatus from posting on here, Eugenie had a baby, Beatrice got married *and* had a baby, and their father has been formally pushed out of public life.

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Findings from the Palace’s Investigation into Meghan’s “Bullying” to be “Buried”

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Let this be a reminder that I’m an equal opportunist critic. Yesterday, The Times reported that an investigation into claims that the Duchess of Sussex “bullied” her staff during her tenure as a working royal will never be published. The inquiry was led by Buckingham Palace, conducted by an independent law firm, and paid for by the Queen herself. News of this first broke on the eve of Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey in March of last year. The timing was hardly coincidental.

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The Cambridges Set to Move to Windsor

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It’s official (ish) – the Cambridges are set to move to Windsor this summer. The Times reported over the weekend that William and Kate are due to move into Adelaide Cottage on the Windsor estate, with their three children enrolled in a Berkshire school this autumn.

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Garter Day 2022 (& Some Random Historical Musings)

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In case you missed it, Garter Day was held at Windsor yesterday – an event so English it makes the Jubilee pageantry seem quaint 🙂 There’s both good and bad to cover (per usual these days), so let’s dive in…but before we do, for the good of the order, let’s quickly review the context for Garter Day since it’s been a [pandemic-induced] minute since this ceremony was held.

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The Palace Papers: Part Two

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Ok, so I’ve been finished with The Palace Papers for a while now, but had a lot of travel in May and so here we are, post-Jubilee, and back at it. Before we get into it, I wanted to flag the below from my last post on the book:

I want to note that I saw an annoying review of this book before I started reading that refers to these first chapters as dull and meandering – that the book doesn’t really pick up until Meghan comes on the scene. This book wasn’t meant for that reader and I vehemently disagree. 

Palace Papers Part One

I still disagree, but in a different way. I would argue that I found the first half of Tina Brown’s latest installment by far more interesting than the second. Yes, the second half is what covers Kate and Meghan’s introduction into the family and all that ensued, but there wasn’t really anything I found particularly insightful or new. Robert Lacey’s book on the other hand, I loved. So, if what you want is more color on what happened between William and Harry, then go pick that up.

In contrast, Brown’s book is more focused on putting Kate and Meghan into context…which, given the tagline on this site I’m all for. For my purposes, however, I’m good. And for those of you that are following this closely, you’re probably good, too. What I will say, though, is that it’s helpful to sometimes hear what people see and takeaway when they’re not in the throes of this on a regular basis. Perspective, etc.

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Let’s Touch Base on an “Abdication” (Among Other Things)

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I was reading The Daily Beast’s royal coverage as I am wont to do, and came across this interview between journalists Tom Sykes and Clive Irving, the latter of whom wrote a biography of the Queen last year. There’s a few snippets I want to react to, mainly because they caught me off guard. So, let’s get into it:

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The Platinum Jubilee

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Happy Monday, everyone. As many of you no doubt saw, this weekend marked the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in London, recognizing an unprecedented 70 years of service from Queen Elizabeth II. Instead of going event by event, I decided to wrap up major themes from the festivities in one all-encompassing post, so here we go.

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The Palace Papers: Part One

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Back in 2007, Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker, wrote what I consider to be the definitive biography on Diana, Princess of Wales. The Palace Papers, released on Tuesday, is essentially its sequel. It picks up where Diana’s life ended, in the late 90s, but it spends the first few chapters strategically weaving around to cover the Diana-adjacent figures and relationships that are informing the current House of Windsor.

So far, I’m only about 150 pages in, but I would say the focus of the attention thus far is on capturing the broad trajectories, relationships, and emotional realities of two rather important royal women today: Queen Elizabeth and her daughter-in-law, The Duchess of Cornwall. There’s also a solid dash of Princess Margaret, the Queen’s late sister, and The Earl and Countess of Wessex (Edward and Sophie). I don’t have a precise agenda for how I’m going to cover this book, but for the purposes of this post, I want to capture the quotes and tidbits that I’ve found the most informative.

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