Trashy Royals

A few weeks ago, we ranked the royals in the UK system. Today, Alicia takes us into the peerage to talk their top of the heap, Dukes and Duchesses.

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When Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926, there were years of her childhood that were, compared to other future monarchs, quite normal. After all, she was never supposed to be the Queen. Her father was a second son; her Uncle David would succeed her grandfather, and certainly other male children would come along.

And then, in 1930, Elizabeth’s parents waited with anticipation to find out the gender of Elizabeth’s impending sibling. A boy would be in the line of succession. But the child who arrived was Princess Margaret, who was never supposed to be the daughter and sister of Queens herself, but for the fateful choice her Uncle David would make when Margaret was just six, when everything changed.

This episode follows Margaret through a tumultuous childhood, an early doomed romance, and her long, if ill-fated marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, eventually the Earl of Snowden. We visit Mustique, the Caribbean island where Margaret’s only personal land holdings resided, and meet some of the guests she entertained there. Plus, an assortment of stories about the social life of a notoriously difficult Princess – and why hanging with Margaret wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be.

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As she was idly scrolling Bluesky a few days ago, Alicia (@alicianwonderland.bsky.social) came across the ultimate Mad-Lib of a skeet: "roald dahl's grandson is a former london-based journalist who once freelanced for the daily dot and then married princess raiyah of jordan during covid but then got divorced and moved to the US where he became a cop in south carolina and just married an american tiktoker." 

Ask and ye shall receive, as they say, and listeners, believe it or not, it kind of all makes sense.

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Upgrade your every day! Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to Quince.com/TRASHYROYALS. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and UK, too!

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Alicia - at the prompting of a listener - started to deep dive into Andrew and Sarah's adult daughters when she learned that an old boyfriend of Sarah's, who has also been an ally and patron over the decades, has died at the age of 88. Paddy McNally and Sarah dated for a few years beginning when she was 20 and he was 42. He also amassed a fortune of $800 million or so, and Royal watchers suspect that he intended to keep on taking care of Sarah Ferguson.

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Sources

The Man Who Made Fergie: What Paddy McNally's Death Tells Us About Sarah Ferguson (theroyalist.substack.com)

Will Fergie, the Royal Family's Great Houdini, Escape Yet Again? (andrewlownie.substack.com)

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While we're ranking the Royals, Alicia thought it was worth taking a moment to appreciate the hardest working of the bunch, the current Princess Royal, Princess Anne. An Olympic-caliber equestrian, Anne has attended more than 20,000 official engagements on behalf of the Crown, and is a patron or honorary president of more than 300 charitable organizations.

But even Anne has opinions when it comes to politicians, in-laws, and even the International Olympic Committee - of which she is a member.  

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Alicia realized that some of our Good Nobles (especially American Good Nobles) may not be fluent in the various ranks of the English aristocracy. So why start at the bottom of the Peerage - the Barons - when you can start at the top of the Royal heap? Today we talk Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses, plus how the line of succession works.

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As a follow-up to our episode about Frances Howard and the Thomas Overbury Affair, Stacie introduces us to Frances's parents, Thomas Howard and Katherine Knyvet. The couple was obsessed with real estate, and their constant remodels, renovations, tear-downs, and rebuilds meant they weren't especially concerned about where their money was coming from. Eventually, even the highly distractible King James VI and I couldn't fail to notice.

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Come aboard, friends - today we have a Gilded Age roller coaster! 

Consuelo Vanderbilt wasn't born royal - she wasn't even born in a monarchy! But she did grow up in a sort of dictatorship, with a controlling, overbearing mother who demanded that this American daughter of wealth marry into the British aristocracy, whether Consuelo wanted that or not.

When Consuelo was a teenager, and her mother Alva learned that her daughter had entered into a secret engagement, Alva locked Consuelo in her room and eventually convinced her that Alva would die of a heart attack if she continued to disobey her mother. So it was that Consuelo became the Duchess of Marlborough, an unhappy union that nonetheless made her a social success in Great Britain, as well as a popular champion of the poor and less fortunate.

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After the death of Edwina Mountbatten in 1960, Dickie still had another 19 years of living to do, and while he was single, he was in no way alone. He had romances with plenty of women in his later years, and according to many, he had male lovers - including, it is alleged, boys - as well.

A mentor to Prince Charles, his advice to the young man may have contributed to what turned into the tragic marriage, divorce, and untimely death of Princess Diana, who was exactly the sort of woman that Dickie encouraged the playboy prince to settle down with. The men remained close through the end of Dickie's life, and Charles delivered the eulogy at both of Dickie's services in 1979.

Dickie was clearly a charming older man who counted Shirley MacClaine, Barbara Cartland, Christina Ford, and Sacha Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, who was also his god daughter, among his paramours. Let's say it was all pretty complicated, but that would only be keeping with rest of his and Edwina's history.

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As Edwina took pains to lay low in Malta after the scandals of her affairs, Italy decided to exit the League of Nations and invade Ethiopia. To protect their children, she took them to Budapest and installed them in a hotel with their nanny and governess... and then forgot which hotel they were in. For months. As the summer of 1935 turned to fall, and then winter, they just stayed in their hotel until Edwina finally came across the paper she'd written the hotel's name on, tucked into the pocket of an outfit she hadn't worn in a while. Careless people.

But then World War II came, and with so much asked of ordinary Britons, the privileged were required to step up. For perhaps the first time in her life, the skills and networking that Edwina had spent her life developing could suddenly be applied to a grand purpose: fundraising, organizing, lobbying for help in the United States. Louis was in the fight as a Naval officer, but Edwina was equally engaged, and the experience brought them together as never before.

They would have further adventures together in India, overseeing the end of the Colonial period there, and form a distinct attachment to Indian Prime Minister Nehru that would last to the end of her life in 1960.

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