Just gossip. But juicy. Has every rumor of every royal relationship, from Ida of Bernicia to Princess Diana. Some of this is reasonably well documented, like the various mistresses of Charles II; others, like the supposed affairs of the more recent royals, appear to assume every time a royal was seen in the company of somebody of the opposite sex (or, sometimes, the same sex) there was a sexual relationship. No footnotes or references.

For more scholarly stuff, see Sexuality and Its Impact on History; for specific royals, The Real Wallis Simpson, Perdita, Maria Fitzherbert and Mrs Keppel; for juicy gossip with a reasonable degree of scholarship (but not limited to English royals) see Sex with Kings and Sex with the Queen. ( )

Don't Bother! What an absolute waste of time. The only positive is that I only paid $1.99 for this book.

Randomly chosen from the shelf as I walked by, I should have keep on walking.

Fascinating. This exhaustive account was written by an Englishman, in more detail that I usually find on this topic.

The book begins, as might be expected, with "Hal the Horny" - Henry VIII. His wild adventures and the sad and pathetic ending are traced in sprightly prose and a sense of humanity. From there we follow the peccadilloes of his children, his grandchildren, the early Georges (of Hanover), Victoria and her strange ideas about sex, the later Georges, the Duke of Windsor and his very strange history, and so through to the present generation of princes (and Princess Anne) and their mis-steps.

Particularly in the case of the more recent rulers, the information explores areas of the Windsors' sexual predilections than I did not expect. I now truly know more about the Duke of Windsor than I ever really wanted to know! The book was written after the divorce of Charles and Diana, but before her death, so the references to Charles, Diana, Camilla, "Squiggy" et.al. are a bit veiled. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Earl of Mountbatten, Prince Phillip, Princess Margaret, Prince Charles, Diana, Andrew and Sarah, and several more minor characters all come under irreverent scrutiny. The only ruler who escapes is Queen Elizabeth (the Second, that is).

A guilty pleasure, that I really did enjoy. Recommended.

Typical Cawthorne. You don't read this type of book expecting historic accuracy, you expect risqué rumours and half truths. Reasonably entertaining, but not one to read more than once. ( )