Tina Brown On Queen Elizabeth's Dysfunctional Family

Tina Brown's new book on the British royals is deeply researched and filled with delicious anecdotes

- Mandira Nayar

The Windsors are obsessed with teddy bears. Prince Andrew, officially the worst Windsor after being accused of having sex with a minor, has 72 of them.

Unlike his brother’s disturbing teddy love, Britain's king-in-waiting's bear obsession brings images of his childhood. “Charles’s childhood teddy bear, which is still patched whenever necessary by the Prince’s former nanny Mabel Anderson…, went everywhere with him,” writes Tina Brown about the Prince of Wales in The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor, the Truth and the Turmoil, the most delightful book of the season.

Brexit forgotten, Megxit not so much, and with the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II over, realisation looms large that the end of her reign is near. “It is actually a very perilous time for the monarchy,” says Brown, in a Zoom interview. “Seventy years, she has been there. Now we are at a moment when things are very fragile, but we will not have her to keep calm and carry on.”

Coming 15 years after her Diana Chronicles, a sensitive portrayal of the beloved princess, The Palace Papers is deeply researched and filled with delicious anecdotes. Brown is observant, wry and riveting. She breaks new ground even in a scandal that has littered papers across the world. “The Oprah interview [with Prince Harry's wife, Meghan Markle] made it very hard to patch things up with his family,” says Brown.

With a $20-million tell-all memoir by Harry on the cards, there is more hurt in store for the family. “I don't see how the family can really deal with yet another round of toxic revelations from Harry... They are very anxious about it,” says Brown.