Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York
by Andrew Lownie
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Despite this book's title and style, British historian and
author Andrew Lownie is no tacky tabloid columnist. A Fellow of the Royal
Historical Society, a Westminster School and Cambridge alumnus with a
University of Edinburgh master's degree and doctorate, the quality of this
respected literary figure's work is often beyond reproach.
He does have prior royal-bashing form – most notably
in Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor (2021) – yet has been less unforgiving to other eminent
subjects, as in his 2019 biography of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, The
Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves.
This chronicle of the embattled former Duke and Duchess of
York, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, is certainly an eye-opener, in parts bordering on rabid republicanist rant territory, causing the
reader to suspect that the author 'doth protest too much, methinks'. I might
have been tempted to say this reeks of tall poppy syndrome, but I know the
author's body of work better than that.
Once the
reader adjusts to the glaring hatchet job tone and nature of this intriguing
tome, we find a seemingly well researched '400-page character
assassination' (as Kate Mansey of The Times, called it). It must
have involved months and months of hard work yet is manifestly unbalanced in
its execution – perhaps the only way of biographing such
a manifestly unbalanced couple.
Arch-conservative commentator Jacob Rees-Mogg (who dismissed
the work as 'salacious gossip') publicly questioned the reliability of Lownie's
sources, to which the author claimed to have interviewed over 300 people,
including on-the-record diplomats, naval personnel and special royal
representatives.
Lownie's highbrow critics do have a point in the book being
a one-sided account of all things bad about the disgraced couple. Such is the
book's venomous nature, one almost feels sorry for them, though the author
ensures we ultimately do no such thing.
'All people must surely have their redeeming qualities'
lurked at the forefront of my thoughts throughout this repelling read about a
repellent pair. Perhaps Andrew Lownie has a history with Andrew
Mountbatten-Windsor (?).
The York daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, have
been widely considered the inevitable collateral in this right royal stink,
though we are none too subtly reminded, here, that these blameless young women
were themselves born 'entitled' (how is that their fault, one ponders? We don’t
choose what we're born into. Both princesses have real-world jobs and
contribute to charitable causes).
The Yorks' cosy association with the notorious Jeffrey Epstein is, naturally, a focal
point, being media flavour of the month, year or decade, while we are reminded, ad nauseam, of
dim-witted Randy Andy's petulance, tantrums, arrogance, vanity and sex-obsessed shortcomings, his cruel bullying of staff, and absurd and impossible
demands.
Lownie at least acknowledges Andrew's Falklands War heroism,
paraphrasing selected former military comrades who concede in interviews that,
beneath the pompous surface, Andrew was lonely and insecure.
Sarah, we read, became driven by insecurities in a desperate
cling to the royal status she married into. As her infamy around overspending
is already a matter of public record, we must ask ourselves why this tired old
part of her tale was so necessary to repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I suppose
if all she can do is spend, spend, and spend, then what else is there to write
of her?
La Fergie's innumerable and oft-hilarious fashion faux pas
could have made for funnier stuff, lightened the tone a tad. She is even well
known for having a wacko sense of humour - hell, even Cruella de Vil had her funny side. But this depiction is dead set on the
sinister and grotesque.
I much preferred this author's more elegant 1995
biography John Buchan: the Presbyterian Cavalier and his
prize-winning 2015 biography of a Soviet spy, Stalin's Englishman: The
Lives of Guy Burgess – perhaps they were more sympathetic subjects to
chronicle than the revolting Yorks.
Yet with this infamous couple being so despised by the
masses, Lownie seems to have uncharacteristically gone with the flow of public
opinion rather than being his usual, more objective self.
I nevertheless remain an avid fan of this distinguished
author and look forward to reading his upcoming biography of Prince Philip, Duke
of Edinburgh, which Lownie has stated on record will 'not be a hatchet job'.
Despite my issues expressed above, I give this its four-star rating not for its gratuitously caustic sentiment, but for the sheer toil that has clearly gone into it, and the undeniably high-quality research and wordsmithing.
