Six explosive royal memoirs which rocked the palace to its core
Today King Charles, Queen Consort Camilla, Prince William and Kate will be contemplating devastating leaked stories from Harry’s explosive memoirs Spare.
From revelations about our future king pushing his brother to the floor in an explosive row, to how Harry lost his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a pub, it would seem that little has been held back.
But this isn’t the first tell-all tome to create Britannia-sized waves.
Over the last 70-odd years, a handful of controversial behind the scenes books have hit the shelves, written by those who claim to know the royals best – some even with a hand from members of the monarchy themselves.
As well as selling copies in their millions, their pages have often left the Royals reeling.
Here, we take a look at the six memoirs which not only shed an inside light, but also left The Firm’s reputation shattered.
The Little Princesses – Marion Crawford, 1950
The Queen’s nanny Marion became the first Royal employee ever to break the vow of silence by revealing charming and seemingly harmless details of life as a governess in the early 1930s, introducing young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret to tube trains and buses and taking them on swimming lessons.
However, following publication of this memoir, speaking out forever became known within the royal family as ‘doing a Crawfie.’
The nanny revealed nothing more hard-hitting than the princesses buying gifts in Woolworths, squabbling like all siblings (take note, Harry!) and the future Queen loving horses from an early age. But the unfortunate governess was banished from the Royal family forever as a punishment for speaking out.
Crawford always claimed that the Queen Mother had given her permission to tell her side of the story – but never spoke to her again once the memoir was published.
Heartbroken Crawfie died in Aberdeenshire in 1988 having never reconciled with her beloved former charges.
Diana, Her True Story, Andrew Morton, 1992 (later published as Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
This tell-all book confirmed growing press reports that the fairytale royal marriage between Charles and Diana was a sham.
It gave explosive details about Diana’s struggles to fit into the royal family, her mental health problems, forcing herself to be sick while in the grip of the eating disorder bulimia and attempts at suicide, by throwing herself down the stairs while pregnant.
It also chartered Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and initially, when published in June 1992, was said to have been sourced from in-depth interviews with Diana’s closest friends.
In fact, during the height of her unhappiness, Diana had dictated her emotional outpourings onto tape, which were then delivered via middle man James Colthurst to royal reporter Andrew Morton.
It was only after her death that Morton revealed Diana’s role as the book’s main source, and an updated edition was published – now titled Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words.
The book had a seismic effect on Diana’s marriage. Six months later, the then Prince and Princess of Wales went on a tour of South Korea together, looking so miserable they were dubbed ‘the Glums.’
That December, Prime Minister John Major announced their separation official in the House of Commons. The divorce was finalised in August 1996 and Diana was stripped of her ‘HRH’ status. She died a year later in a car crash in Paris.
Princess in Love – James Hewitt and Anna Pasternak, 1994
When Diana’s former lover James Hewitt decided to spill the beans on their affair, it was written by author Pasternak in a toe-curling Mills and Boon style.
It revealed that the couple’s fling lasted from 1986 to 1991, and was ‘a love that was both passionate and full of hope and yet, ultimately, hopeless.’
The book was condemned as a tell-all disguised as a romantic story – and wrecked Hewitt’s reputation, making him for a time, a social outcast. In fact, it was team Diana all the way – telling how she fell for Hewitt after he started to give her riding lessons, once her marriage grew increasingly unhappy.
Hewitt kept her love letters, and chose to tell his story after Charles had confessed in a TV documentary that he had himself cheated after his marriage had broken down.
Pasternak is said to have written the book in just five weeks, taking material from Diana’s own letters, with lines such as ‘I have lain awake at night loving you desperately and thanking God for bringing you into my life.’
Despite being slammed by critics, the book sold 500,000 copies after its release in October 1994.
Prince of Wales: A biography, Jonathan Dimbleby, 1994
One month after Hewitt’s syrupy book, it was the turn of Charles to answer back, using his friends and supporters, plus his private letters and diaries.
It detailed his difficult childhood and claimed he had been forced into a loveless marriage by his father in order to produce an heir.
It also gave the first insight into his love affair with Camilla – how Charles had wanted to ask her to marry him, but couldn’t ask her to be part of what he referred to as ‘The Firm.’
It told how the then Prince of Wales returned from a naval posting in Australia determined to propose – only to find she was already engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles.
Widely acclaimed, the book revealed a vulnerable Prince who was lonely and lacking in confidence. But the further marriage revelations helped force Charles and Diana’s divorce in 1996.
Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, 2020
We all knew that H and M had fallen in love, so who better than their favourite on-side royal writer Omid Scobie and former ABC reporter Durand to reveal a soapy version of the love affair of the decade.
While details of their first date and engagement and gushing descriptions of Meghan’s loveliness with lines like she ‘Laughs a little louder, glows a little bit brighter,’ wouldn’t rock the royal family, other revelations were far more damaging.
The book confirmed the rumoured chasm between brothers William and Harry – revealing that by the time of their last joint official engagement, the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey, the two couples hardly spoke. ‘Although Meghan tried to make eye contact with Kate, the duchess barely acknowledged her,’ one line noted.
The book made bestseller lists in the UK and US, and sold more than 31,000 hardback copies in just five days.
It did, however, strain relations between William and Harry forever – especially as Meghan later admitted she allowed a friend to speak to the book’s authors.
Spare – Prince Harry, 2023
Due to be published on Tuesday Jan 10 at midnight UK time, details of Prince Harry’s explosive memoir have already been leaked – revealing a physical altercation with his brother William (who he called Willy) which resulted in Harry being knocked to the ground.
It also tells how the brothers pleaded with their father, the then Prince of Wales not to marry his long-term mistress Camilla, and how King Charles apparently carries a teddy bear to comfort him.
In another section, it claims that William and Kate ‘laughed’ and encouraged Harry to dress as a Nazi to a fancy dress party in 2005 – a move he declared was ‘one of the biggest mistakes of my life.’
Harry admitted also to taking cocaine at the age of 17.
So far the palace has stayed schtum – but time will only tell how he royals will ultimately react to such a raw account from Harry on his life as a royal.
The 416-page memoir, written with Andre Agassi’s ghost writer JR Moehringer, is part of a £35 million book deal that will net the Duke of Sussex £17.5 million before the book’s release.
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