William and Kate and Meghan and Harry say they want their children to have a more ‘normal’ childhood than previous royals, but what does this mean?

In his new book Gilded Youth, Tom Quinn explores this question by looking at the lives of royal children going back hundreds of years, with a special emphasis on more recent times. He notes that the most remarkable thing about royal childrearing today is how little it has changed from centuries past. Here, Tom gives a flavour of what to expect in his new book.

 

 

 

History of young British royals

For as long as the British royal family has existed, royal children have been brought up in ways that seem bizarre to the rest of us – the royal family’s obsession with making their children tough and independent as early as possible by farming out their parental duties to paid staff goes back centuries.

Medieval princes were looked after by nurses and cradle rockers and then aged six or seven they were sent to live permanently with other families. They might not see their parents and siblings for years.

Fast forward to the twentieth century and little has changed: royal children are looked after by nurses and nannies for the first few years of their lives and then sent to boarding school.

 

What’s the effect of this on royal children?

The effect of this parental abandonment can be seen in emotionally damaged adults from Edward VIII – horribly mistreated as a child by his nanny – through alcoholic Princess Margaret to rebellious Harry.

Even Diana left her boys mostly in the care of paid staff while she desperately tried to find love and security with a string of unsuitable lovers. On one occasion Diana was mortified when a very young Harry said, ‘Mummy, you have a lot of boyfriends, don’t you?’

Royal children become either weak and dependent adults like Edward VIII and Charles III or bullying and entitled individuals like Princess Anne and Prince Andrew.

 

Why are you interested in the royals?

My interest in the royal family goes back to the 1980s, when I began to interview royal gamekeepers, butlers, maids and nannies, cooks and grooms. Their stories show the deeply private side of the royal family and they reveal that what makes the royals so endlessly fascinating is their struggle to reconcile living more or less as their eighteenth-century ancestors did with the need to seem in touch with the modern world.

Gilded Youth is a guide to this struggle, especially as it affects royal children.

 

So what is in your new book, Gilded Youth?

Here you will find a young Prince Andrew roaring when he did not get his way; Princess Margaret flirting with the boys from a local scout troop; and Diana Spencer sneaking out of school wearing tank tops, returning with love bites on her neck. You will also discover a teenage Prince Harry being sick in the street and Prince William becoming obsessed with doing the right thing regardless of the feelings of his brother.

 

Gilded Youth is out now. 

Click here to discover more of our royal books.

Don’t miss Clive Irving on the relevance of the British monarchy.