“You and the Duke have none of the advantages of royalty and all of its disadvantages.”
 
Duff Cooper to the Duchess of Windsor, The Heart Has Its Reasons

It is great work if you can get it: all the perks of royal life without its tedium and responsibility. In the 20th Century, King Edward VIII made an attempt when he abdicated to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Decades hence, Wallis told Gore Vidal that she was no fool; she knew all along that she could never be queen, but the King had refused to give her up. To the world, abdication was a grand romantic gesture. To the Duchess, it was the beginning of a crushing burden. Recalled Wallis:

"I remember like yesterday the morning after we were married and I woke up and there was David standing beside the bed with his innocent smile, saying, ‘And now what do we do?’ My heart sank. Here was someone whose every day had been arranged for him all his life and now I was the one going to take the place of the entire British government, trying to think up things for him to do."

​​Fortunately for the Duke, he chose a supremely capable woman to be his nanny/wife. The Duchess of Windsor could be brittle, but cafe society appreciated her quick wit and the efficiency at which she managed her luxe household. Her table was said to be one of the best in Paris (the most sophisticated of all cities, so high praise indeed). Wrote her friend Lady Diana Mosley, ​"The Duchess of Windsor was told at her wedding by Walter Monckton that she must try to make the Duke happy ‘all his days.’ Her triumph is that she did so." ​

The downside was the awkwardness of a quasi-royal life and the difficulties of financing it. The Duchess lacked the requisite HRH in front of her title, which should have meant little, but in effect, made for continual embarrassment in social situations that involved protocol. A British woman who remained loyal to the Crown by refusing to curtsy for the Duchess risked the fury of the uxorious Duke. Moreover, the lack of funds meant that the Windsors were the world's most glamorous beggars, forever depending on the kindness of social climbing strangers.

Queen Elizabeth II must be vexed by the disturbing parallels between her uncle, the Duke of Windsor, and her grandson Harry, the Duke of Sussex. Switch out the 20th Century for the 21st, and Paris for Los Angeles, and their situations are not so different. The Queen's mother and father all but disowned David and Wallis. Might the Queen worry her grandson William and his wife Kate will behave similarly with the Sussexes?

Even so, the prognosis for Harry and Meghan is most likely better. They have the 21st Century publicity tools at their disposal. How Wallis would have salivated over the revenue potential of social media endorsements and Netflix streaming deals. Even so, the Sussexes might want to read a few of the many books about the Windsors. Meghan, in particular, might peruse Caroline Blackwood's grim depiction of Wallis's terrible widowhood, The Last of the Duchess. Though Wallis kept the Duke happy "all of his days," her slow, tortuous demise, without royal protection, was not only unhappy, it was macabre.

​Image Credit: The Heart Has Its Reasons, The Long Party, High Society in the Twenties and Thirties, and International Gossip, A History of High Society, 1970-1980

“Being a member of the Royal Family is a purely gestural role whose only power is how well that gesture is made. Much of what Royals do for their considerable perks is either desperately dull or supremely depressing. For most people, it would be like thinking of the worst aspects of your job and only doing the bits that bore you the most—sucking up to clients, say, or attending soul-destroying sales dinners—with no prospect, ever, of retirement.”
 
Tina Brown, The Diana Chronicles

Part of what makes the Netflix television series The Crown so powerful is the exemplary character of the program's protagonist, Queen Elizabeth II. She accepted what Tina Brown aptly calls a "purely gestural role" as her life's work, and in over sixty years on the job, rarely put a wrong foot forward. Her consolation is that in devoting herself to duty, she seems to have found happiness, or, at the very least, contentment. It is difficult to know for certain, because the Queen considers it part of her job to keep a lid on her emotions.

A fascinating contrast to The Crown is the recently published Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown. It is a groundbreaking book. The author invents a brilliant and original format to take on his subject matter. It calls out the notion that biographies (or autobiographies for that matter) can ever be truly comprehensive. He uses various constructions and literary devices (including fiction and hypotheticals) to zip in, out, and around Princess Margaret's life. It is a Cubist painting in book form. And how appropriate. As the book surprisingly reveals, the Cubist painter Pablo Picasso once hoped to marry Margaret. O

Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret is the story of a tragic woman. In contrast to her older sister, who devoted herself to duty and found happiness, Margaret sought pleasure, but found despair. Scattered among the book's glimpses of Margaret are glances at her sister, Elizabeth, and they stand in stark contrast. Margaret was witty and mercurial. She could be counted upon to make things interesting, if not always pleasant. Whereas, the very nature of the job required the Queen to keep things dull. The passages in the book transcribing Elizabeth's formulaic conversations at official functions have a Warholian brilliance in their banality. 

The graphic design on the American Edition hardcover is superb. One might be tempted to purchase the book in hardcover and keep on the shelf. However, the audio edition is brilliantly narrated by Eleanor Bron. It adds much to the story (particularly as to the more comedic glimpses) to hear it acted out by Bron in the plummy, aristocratic dialect in which Princess Margaret spoke. 

See Also: "A Royal Pain"

Image Credit: Beaton in Vogue