Equal time for the other side.
Although not a royalist, I recently read and enjoyed Theo Aronson's chatty biography of Princess Margaret, younger sister of the late Queen Elizabeth II. I thought it only fair to read a bio giving equal time to the man in her chaotic marriage, Anthony Armstrong-Jones. The marriage was short-lived, but while it lasted, they were an exotic couple and a hot news item
Their marriage in 1960 was a bombshell. A royal marrying a commoner! It just wasn't DONE. The Queen's uncle (King Edward VIII, then the Duke of Windsor) married a commoner, but he had to renounce his throne to do so and then was tossed out of the country permanently. His siblings married a duke, a Greek princess, and daughters of two Scottish earls.
You would have thought Margaret picked her husband out of the gutter; the product of a union between a brick-layer and a cleaning woman. In reality, his father was a well-connected Welsh lawyer and his mother was from a wealthy family of German Jews who converted to Church of England when they settled in London. Both families sent their sons to the proper public schools, while their daughters were "finished" and presented to the King and Queen as debutantes.
At the same time, his childhood was different from most of his schoolmates. His parents were divorced when Anne Armstrong-Jones realized her husband didn't share her ambition to dominate London High Society. He was a countryman who loved hunting and fishing.
Anne remarried the wealthy Count of Rosse, who could finance her rise in the social world. She had two sons with him and those boys were her favorites. She ignored (or savagely criticized) her daughter and oldest son from her first marriage. Was his mother's rejection the source of her son's cruel streak? He loved woman and they loved him, but his relationships went south quickly and dramatically.
He also suffered from childhood polio, which left him with one leg shorter than the other and unable to compete in the sports so vital at Eton, Harrow, etc. One of Anne's brothers was a gay theatre designer so he was exposed early to the free-wheeling sexuality of the creative world. He would later brag, "I've never been in love with a man, but several have been in love with me." His charm crossed gender lines and he took advantage of his male admirers as well as his female ones.
On the plus side, the was intelligent and creative. He made popular a less formal style of photography. He was a talented designer of furniture and an excellent mechanic. He inherited his mother's drive and energy, which captivated those caught in his spell.
Being disabled himself, he was a powerful, fearless advocate for the disabled at a time when they were largely ignored. He pointed out to one municipal entity that having a handcapped-accessible restroom was a nice gesture, but not if it was located at the bottom of a steep flight of stairs. He boldly shone light on the horrors the disabled endured on a daily basis and it's shocking reading.
He fought discrimination against gays and was one of the first to visit AIDS patients and educate the public about the disease. He got along with a wide variety of people in many different cultures, being genuinely interested in and accepting of differences that made some people uncomfortable.
On the flip side, he could be mean as hell. De Courcy pulls no punches when she lets her readers know that she considers his treatment of Princess Margaret unforgivable, especially the fact that he managed to convince her sister and mother that SHE was at fault for the marriage break-up. He used people, chewing them up and spitting them out when they were no longer of value to him.
His marriage into the royal family gained him his mother's approval (for the first and only time in his life) and he loved the perks of being a royal. He hated the hypocrisy and the restrictions, which he seems not to have noticed before he married. Prince Philip was a Greek Prince himself, understood royal life, and was willing to endure it to be married to the Queen. Tony Armstrong-Jones quickly decided the candle wasn't worth the game and took his anger out on his wife.
This is the third book I've read by this author and I'm a fan. In addition to being a lively writer, she's a meticulous researcher and she tells her stories clearly and even-handedly. It's a good read.