Books Reviews

The Pocket Guide to Royal Scandals – Book Review

By Angela Youngman Feb 4, 2012, 15:49 GMT

A must-buy book for everyone interested in history and skeletons in the regal cupboards. Discover fascinating facts about lust, greed, murder, envy - and just plain stupidity. Read King Henry VIII\'s scurrilous letters to Anne Boleyn (thought he was interested in her mind? Think again). Whilst King Charles II was known as the Merry Monarch and Queen Elizabeth I\'s nickname, the Virgin Queen was rumored to be a misnomer, there ...more

Definitely entertaining - this is a side of royal history that most monarchs would prefer to forget!  Modern disasters such as the Charles and Diana saga or the many sayings of the Duke of Hazard(better known as Prince Philip) are backed up by lots of historical examples from across the world. 

Clearly, royal disasters are nothing new!  There are kings who killed their own sons, married their stepmothers, while another king was even executed by having a red hot poker shoved inside him. While one European king managed to survive no less than 55 assassinations, and smoking 150 cigarettes a day, finally dying peacefully in his own bed. 

Who was called 'Bloody Nicholas?' Which English king couldn't even speak English? Which European king had only 3 baths in his life and which royal family suffered from a 700 year old marital curse?

 Even many children's nursery rhymes have a scandalous royal history – Little Jack Horner links into the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII while Jack and Jill refers to the story of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette who both lost their heads in the French Revolution.