Book Review: The Royal Marriages by Lady Colin Campbell

Royal insider and author of the New York Times bestseller Diana in Private, Lady Colin Campbell takes readers behind the palace walls of silence to reveal the secret agendas that have made all the storybook marriages crumble. 

My Review:
If you are interested in the secrets of what went on in various royal marriages then you may well enjoy this book by a royal insider with access to friends of the Royals themselves, along with the gossip that flew and whether or not there was truth to each rumour. This book mainly looks at the marriages of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and King George VI, Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, Charles and Diana and Andrew and Sarah. There is also information about Anne and Mark/Tim. I base my review purely on entertainment provided by the book and not on factual accuracy, as I'm taking the word of the author that the details provided are true.

The book looks at Elizabeth's preferences to marry David, Prince of Wales (King Edward ) or a servant of Bertie's rather than the man himself, her hatred for Wallis Simpson and the abdication, her reputation as a vain social climber, her frequent bouts of illness when she wanted to avoid something and her fierce loyalty to Bertie when they did eventually marry, changing him from stuttering shy brother to a King to be proud of, and Bertie's alleged affairs. Their daughter Elizabeth fought to marry Phillip from a family of deposed Greek royalty against the wishes of her family, her government and many in the country. It looks at the rumours of his infidelity, his family ties, courtiers trying to stop him attending events by her side to humiliate him, allegations of Elizabeth having an affair that led to the birth of Andrew.

Moving on the book looks at the marriage of Charles and Diana. It covers Diana's desire to marry Andrew until Charles became available, pretending to love the country pursuits that he did when she didn't have anything in common with him, her bulimia and mental health issues, his difficulty dealing with her health issues and jealousy over him spending time with their children, her affairs and Charles finally going back to his true love Camilla. For Sarah and Andrew it was his failure to defend her when everything she did or said or wore was picked out that made her seek attention from other men and finally ruined their marriage. It also looks at both marriages of Anne which I find particularly interesting as we don't see much about that in the newspapers.

I liked that the author looked at the worst rumours and squashed a few of them flat so the book wasn't just about mud slinging for the sake of it. It was interesting to read a bit more about the real personalities of the Royals and exploring why some of the marriages lasted while others crumbled. It was interesting to note that it was the issues with bulimia that fueled Diana's jealousy and paranoia and that Charles was gradually worn down by dealing with it all-meaning that they were both victims in the end. It was a bit sad to see how Sarah and Andrew could have worked things out if they had just talked to each other! 

I do enjoy some royal gossip to entertain! The book is certainly full of that and I liked that it covered several of the different marriages and not just Charles and Diana. The one thing that lost me was the detail about the complicated Greek family tree which had long info dumps about countless princes and princesses marrying other princes and princesses. I was totally lost as to who was who and for me, it wasn't necessary to know anything more than Phillip's parents and Lord Mountbatten as they were relevant to the story. The various marriages of his sibling and their various relations were not required for the book. The fact that there were so many people mentioned meant that a printed family tree graphic was needed to keep things clear! This section can be easily skipped if required.

If you are interested in the gossip behind the royal headlines, you might enjoy this one.

Read January 2019
4 stars.