Princess Margaret was not far from the spotlight after her father's death. She started up a relationship with Peter Townsend, a divorce man - which shook the British establishment, the government, the church and the Royal family to the core. The courtiers' banished Townsend from England and hoped that the romance would fizzle out before Margaret's 25th birthday - as she would need permission from her sister Queen Elizabeth for marriage. The Queen threatened that if she married Townsend she would lose her title, allowance and be forced to abandon her place within the family. Princess Mary left that meeting in tears and Townsend married shortly after their relationship ended. After the Townsend affair the Princess partied for about 5 years, with no real direction. She found love with a commoner named Tony Armstrong-Jones. He had a few strikes against him, his parents were divorced, and his mother was Jewish, not to mention his profession was a photographer. The Royal family tried to remedy the situation by giving Armstrong-Jones a title but he refused he only accepted once they had children so they could be titled. Armstrong-Jones had some strange habits, one that Princess Margaret took part in was cross-dressing. The couple maintained the an open marriage, both taking lovers. Their marriage was not to last long, it would end in divorce. The couple would try separation first, Margaret was under the impression that her marriage would not end in divorce. Before the official announcement she suffered a nervous breakdown and threatened suicide. 7 months after the divorce her ex-husband remarried and his new wife was pregnant. This was the first Royal Divorce since King Henry VIII from Anne of Cleves.

The book was published in 1997, the year Diana died, but prior to her death. This makes some parts of it rather poignant. For instance, the book discusses several parallels between Diana and Grace Kelly, and mentions them meeting. Of course, now there are more parallels: both died young, and in car crashes. The book talks about an affair that Prince Philip allegedly had, then in the next paragraph denies it — why include this, then? It also says that Princess Diana had a miscarriage. I’d never heard that, and looking a bit online, can’t find anything confirming it either. So, more speculation I suppose.

Kelly began her professional career on the pitch in 1996 with Wembley Ladies, before moving to Arsenal just two years later. In the summer of 1980 Prince Charles reconnected with 19 year old Lady Diane Spencer. He dated briefly her older sister in 1977. Diane was practically more British than Charles was - the 16th cousin from King James I, five lines of descent from Charles II, related to Napoleon and related to 8 American President's including George Washington. What was possibly the most attractive feature of Diane was she was a virgin with practically no past. Everyone seemed to want them to marry - Charles felt the pressure most keenly from his father and would blame him years later when things began to go astray. Two months after Charles and Diane were married she was pregnant.

Fergie and Diane may not have been the best of friends during their marriages however during their separations they took the same comfort in psychiatrists, both were on anti depression, both had taken on lovers who would betray them for money. They also both turned to Astrologers, numerologists and spiritualist for help. Many of these people would sell them out. They didn't know who to trust. Poi, essendo del 1997, non fa un ritratto lusinghiero né di Diana né di Sarah Ferguson (giustamente, direi: i capitoli su di loro hanno irritato me, non so la regina come sia riuscita a non prendere una e picchiarci l'altra), ma nell'appendice, scritta dopo la morte di Diana, la Kelley ne fa un ritratto agiografico e piagnucoloso e questo tutto è meno che giornalismo. King George VI had fertility issues despite how much the couple tried. His brother also suffered from the same issue, so it was clearly their fault. Manual fertilization was used to produce their first daughter Elizabeth in 1926 and her sister Margaret in 1930 (a quote I liked - "monarchs are not born; they are made by artificial hallucination").

according to a 1972 Harris poll, [most Britons] believed that it was the monarchy that set the standards of morality for the country, even more so than the church. Such confidence in the Crown prompted the Queen to send a "gracious message" to Parliament asking for a pay rise. Although one million people were out of work at the time, no member of Parliament, except one, wanted to deprive the sovereign of her tax-free allotment from the Civil List. "

Kitty Kelley always delivers. If you want to read about the juicy scandalous lives of the rich and famous then you can't go wrong with Ms. Kelley. As my husband noted when I read him that section, we fought and won a war so we wouldn’t have to understand those titles or subtleties. But I love that as Americans, we stay obsessed. Time magazine reported that most journalists believe Kelley "too frequently fails to bring perspective or analysis to the fruits of her reporting and at times lards her work with dollops of questionable inferences and innuendos." In addition, Kelley has been described by Joe Klein as a "professional sensationalist" and her books have been described as "Kitty litter." As long as they produce children and keep the bloodline going...that's all that's required. Whether the bridegroom is homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual doesn't matter, as long as the marriage looks good on the outside and is kept up for public appearances. It's worse for gay men in the aristocracy because it's the duty of the oldest make to produce an heir to pass on the family name, the property, and the title. So they've got to get married, no matter what their sexual orientation is, which accounts for the long established tradition in Britain of homosexual men marrying women simply to breed. Makes no difference what they do later on the side as long as they do it discreetly. That's the hypocrisy of it all. "The Windsor dynasty was created in 1917 to conceal the family's' German heritage. In fact for the last 200 years most Kings spoke German. King George V was the first King who could speak the King's English without an accent. King George was much beloved from his subjects. England had gained much land by conquest after World War I making England domaint over a quarter of the globe. King George was the last great Emperor King for England. Obviously Kitty Kelley spends the majority of the book on the two most scandalous members of the royal family at that time Diana and Sarah Ferguson. I personally found Fergie the most fun to read about. She's wild! I personally would have liked to learn about the Queen's parents and grandparents. Kelley only briefly covers the Queens parents but she hints at even more juicy dirt involving them.