Game of Crowns: Elizabeth, Camilla, Kate, and the Throne

by Christopher Andersen

A moving and compulsively readable look into the lives, loves, relationships, and rivalries among the three women at the heart of the British royal family today: Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla Parker-Bowles, and Kate Middleton—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Good Son, These Few Precious Days, and The Day Diana Died.

One has been famous longer than anyone on the planet—a dutiful daughter, a frustrated mother, a doting grandmother, a steel-willed taskmaster, a wily stateswoman, an enduring symbol of an institution that has lasted a thousand years, and a global icon who has not only been an eyewitness to history but a part of it.

One is the great-granddaughter of a King’s mistress and one of the most famous “other women” of the modern age—a woman who somehow survived a firestorm of scorn to ultimately marry the love of her life, and in the process replace her arch rival, one of the most beloved figures of the twentieth century.

One is a beautiful commoner, the university-educated daughter of a flight attendant-turned-millionaire entrepreneur, a fashion scion the equal of her adored mother-in-law, and the first woman since King George V’s wife, Queen Mary, to lay claim to being the daughter-in-law of one future king, the wife another, and the mother of yet another.

Game of Crowns is an in-depth and exquisitely researched exploration of the lives of these three remarkable women and the striking and sometimes subtle ways in which their lives intersect and intertwine. Examining their surprising similarities and stark differences, Andersen travels beyond the royal palace walls to illustrate who these three women really are today—and how they will directly reshape the landscape of the monarchy.

• ISBN10: 1476743967
• ISBN13: 9781476743967
• Publish Date: 15 November 2016 (first published 19 April 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[sstaley]

I enjoyed reading Game of Crowns. If you are interested at all in the Royal Family of Great Britain you will like this book. Many of the things in this book I'd heard about before but this book supplies more details. Some reviewers felt this read like a tabloid magazine but I don't fully agree. This book truly shows what life in the royal family would entail. Like I stated before, if you like reading about modern day royalty then this book is for you.

[gmcgregor]

Like many people, I remember where I was when I found out that Princess Di had died, and watching the coverage of her funeral. It was a massive spectacle that drew attention from millions worldwide. But it was also a hugely significant event for her own family. Diana's life and death continues to resonate around the British Royal Family, and it is through this prism that Christopher Andersen presents her mother-in-law, romantic rival, and would-have-been daughter-in-law in his book, Game of Crowns. Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge are all women who either are or could be queens of England, and all of them are touched by the legacy of the People's Princess.

So it makes sense, in a way, that Andersen spends so much time talking about the ill-fated marriage between Charles and Diana. At least one third of the book is devoted to the story of their courtship, their terrible marriage, and their contentious divorce. On the other hand, though, the "War of the Waleses" is an already extensively documented phenomenon. There's no real new reporting here: they barely knew each other when they got married, they both cheated (though Diana at least went into her marriage without an active side piece), they both orchestrated media to lash out against the other, and they were both active, engaged parents. Her death and the near-constitutional crisis that the response to it engendered had a real impact on the monarchy. And his reporting of William and Kate's courtship isn't really much better, in terms of doing more than just summarizing already-available information: lingerie on the catwalk, the break-up, the make-up, the wedding.

What is new is gossip, nearly all of it negative, about Charles and Camilla, with special venom reserved for the latter. He begins the book with a lengthy "what could happen" riff about the ascension of Charles to the throne when his mother dies, predicting that his vanity and hubris will lead to the abolition of the monarchy. While Diana's leaks to the press are treated a part of her savvy media strategy, leaks from Charles and/or Camilla are portrayed as sneaky, underhanded, and devious. Camilla is depicted as scheming and manipulative, and set against Kate, who's given a Diana-esque sheen of being both glamorous and naturally gifted at connection with strangers (without any actual supporting evidence). I checked out of the book entirely when Andersen breathlessly related that Camilla had "leaked" information about Kate's low tally of "engagements", the kind of meet-and-greets and ribbon-cuttings that make up royal work. The reality is that the Royal Family publishes engagements in the easily-publicly-accessible Court Circular, and a year-end tally is common practice for journalists covering the royal beat. Camilla wouldn't have had to leak anything to anyone to "shame" Kate for lackluster numbers because that information would have been published anyways! A failure to understand something as basic as this shows the whole book to be without rooting in fact. It's basically a very long, poorly fact-checked People article and I don't recommend it.

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

4.75★ Audiobook⎮Game of Crowns was one of the more entertaining biographies of the British royal family that I’ve read. By selecting three members of the royal family as the central figures, Andersen set Game of Crowns slightly apart from other works of royal nonfiction. Prince Charles, Prince William, and the late Princess of Wales (Diana) are also prominently featured, although primarily in relation to Elizabeth, Camilla, and Catherine.

Although the majority of the book’s broad strokes were common knowledge, Andersen provided plenty of new details, seemingly derived from “insiders”. Game of Crowns kept my interest far better than my most previous royal reads. No one subject was concentrated on for too long and a number of approaches were taken to tell the story. There were a number of personal quotes from and about members of the royal family that enhanced the underlying significance of what Andersen said.

He broached the subject of abdication (the queen stepping down) with more seriousness than most other royal commenters. Andersen purported that this is a very real possibility, especially if the Duke of Edinburgh passes before the queen. He pointed to the long list of “nevers” that Her Majesty has already overturned (paying taxes, opening her homes to tourists, decommissioning the Brittania, and so on) as evidence that an abdication is still possible, no matter the refusals.

I especially enjoyed Andersen’s projection into the future of the monarchy, beginning with Elizabeth II’s passing. He painted a realistic, if somewhat cynical, picture of a post-Elizabethan monarchy. Andersen made it clear that he believes Charles’ accession and Camilla’s subsequent crowning as queen could very well lead to the end of the British monarchy.

My largest criticism of other royal-themed works of nonfiction has been that they seemed glaringly propagandized. I learned long ago that all royal biographies are biased, albeit some more heavily than others. Game of Crowns maintained a façade of professional journalism longer than most, while including juicy tidbits one might find in a tabloid. It was initially hard to tell whom exactly Christopher Andersen was favoring, as nearly everyone seemed to be painted in an unflattering light at one point or another. Diana, the late Princess of Wales, was neither wholly romanticized, victimized or villainized. This was incredibly refreshing. Most royal biographies tend to harp on Diana for much too long, all the while offering an incredibly skewed viewpoint of her.

Unfortunately, any pretense of overall fairness or objectivity was abruptly dropped each time The Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla) was mentioned. She was undeniably painted as the villain in Game of Crowns. So much that I found myself almost involuntarily empathizing with her. In that respect, Andersen’s plans seem to have backfired. To be clear, no one was exactly written as a “sympathetic figure”, but Andersen definitely came down on Camilla the hardest. His somewhat nasty attack on her caused me to question the reliability of Andersen’s other information. He was pushing the reader so hard in one direction (the anti-Camilla direction) that it came across as extremely imbalanced and nearly personal.

Most other figures were given a more balanced and seemingly fair covering, with the possible exception of Prince Harry. Harry was not mentioned very often, but when he was, it was mostly just to bring up a past indiscretion. The infrequency, at least, is understandable as Harry was not portrayed as a central figure (surrounding Elizabeth, Camilla, and Kate). He was unapologetically given the “Spare” treatment. Fans of Prince Harry, skip this one.

Narration review: Simon Prebble’s narration lent an air of respectability to what could have come off as another tabloid-fueled tale. His posh accent suited this audiobook perfectly and made the listening experience most enjoyable. Prebble caused the nearly 9 hours to fly by. I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up another of his works. ♣︎