Born Royal: The Lives and Loves of the Young Windsors

Born Royal: The Lives and Loves of the Young Windsors
Richard Hough
Published by Bantam Books, New York, in 1988
ISBN 055305323x
317 pages, illustrated

At heart I am a monarchist and so tend to read all the books that I come across on the Royal Family (both ancient and modern). When I was a child I heard the story of Henry Blake and Richard Blake refusing to accept a knighthood from Charles I of England. They were fined and later during the Civil War their manor house at Pinhills was destroyed as it had been used by the parliamentarians as a fortified garrison whereupon Prince Rupert attacked and destroyed it. I can no longer remember where I first heard that story but it rather intrigued me. Consequently I became an avid reader of history. Being a monarchist was a product of having three grandparents born and raised to adulthood in England (as well as my father who was just nine when he and his parents came in 1913) who thought of Canada as part of England so that King George VI was my King in a more personal way than perhaps most Canadians saw him. Everything that was written about him my grandfather in particular would read to us.

Born Royal - The Lives and Loves of the Young Windsors principally looks at King George V and his wife Mary (née Cambridge (was Teck until WWI)) (the first to use the surname Windsor having changed it from Saxe Cobourg Gotha during World War I for obvious reasons) and their six children. All but one of these children lived during my memory (John the youngest died of epilepsy at the age of 13 having been a rather sickly child) and two of them David and Bertie became Kings of England. David was uncrowned Edward VIII and Bertie was crowned George VI. The two younger brothers George and Henry became respectively the Duke of Kent and the Duke of Gloucester. The children of George and Henry were the first cousins of Queen Elizabeth II along with the children of Mary their sister who had married Lord Harewood, Henry Lascelles.

The book is divided into five parts: Childhood, Royal Expectations, Windsors at War, The Windsors Wed and Making us One. The author of the book is British and he has done a wonderful job of relating the story of the six children and how they interacted with their parents, grandparents, great grandmother Queen Victoria and their closest companions. His reference notes are quite thorough. I found it somewhat fascinating reading as I had been incredibly close to my grandfather when I was quite young until he died when I was eight years and I transferred this closeness to my grandmother  (she died just eight months after I was married). From what my grandfather told me that was common in English families that you would feel very very close to your grandparents. His grandmother lived next door to him and he adored her. She was a doting grandmother it would appear but his father told him that she was very dictatorial when he was a child. The story didn't surprise me when it described how the parents dealt with their children. Their lives were incredibly busy and always having servants looking after your children likely meant that the closeness that one achieves with young children because of the need to care for them totally didn't happen.

If you are into reading books on the Royal Family this is certainly a very interesting one. The story of the abdication was one that I knew from childhood. Again I was not surprised at the way that it was written as it was almost precisely the story that I heard at a young age. David virtually abandoned his younger brother to his fate. As it turned out he was a marvelous King but the cost to him was great in that his health was poor. I can only sympathize with his family for being so negative towards the Duke and Duchess of Windsor as David and his wife became.