Unfortunately, social media has joined the discussion.

So naturally, nuance was pronounced dead at the scene.

Clancy admits killing her three children, Cora, Dawson and Callan, in 2023. Her defense argues that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and lacked criminal responsibility. Prosecutors argue that although she struggled with mental illness, she understood what she was doing and knew it was wrong.

As of September 3, the jury is in its sixth day of deliberations and has repeatedly reported being deadlocked.

I don’t envy them.

They have heard weeks of testimony, more than 80 witnesses, hundreds of exhibits and dueling psychiatric opinions.

Meanwhile, social media has somehow managed to condense the entire complicated subject of postpartum mental health into three minutes filmed from the driver’s seat of an SUV.

And increasingly I see women saying things such as:

“I think about killing my kids every day.”

Then come the reassuring comments.

Same, Mama.

Totally normal.

Motherhood!

Excuse me?

I think we need to discuss what the word normal is doing in that sentence.

PPD is real. I also think the term is being wildly overused.

Postpartum depression absolutely exists.

So do postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD and postpartum psychosis.

But somewhere along the way, particularly online, PPD seems to have become a catch-all phrase for nearly every unpleasant feeling associated with having a baby.

You’re tired.

You’re emotional.

You’re overwhelmed.

You cry.

You’re irritable.

You resent your husband because he is sleeping peacefully while you haven’t completed an uninterrupted REM cycle since the Bush administration.

You desperately want fifteen minutes during which nobody needs your breasts, your hands, your attention, your Cheerios or your ability to locate a missing shoe.

Sometimes that’s postpartum depression.

And sometimes?

That’s parenthood.

Babies are exhausting.

Toddlers are exhausting.

Teenagers eventually arrive and demonstrate that nature has an excellent sense of humor.

Being overwhelmed does not automatically mean something is psychiatrically wrong with you.

Being tired doesn’t.

Crying doesn’t.

Feeling trapped for an afternoon doesn’t.

Wondering why you ever thought having children sounded fun while a two-year-old screams because his banana broke doesn’t.

There is a reason medicine distinguishes ordinary postpartum “baby blues” from clinical depression and both from postpartum psychosis.

The distinctions matter.

Social media increasingly treats them as interchangeable.

They aren’t.

Women did not invent exhaustion in 2017

My mother, grandmother and aunts certainly experienced some version of postpartum emotional upheaval.

They were tired.

They cried.

They became overwhelmed.

They got irritated.

They had days when motherhood was considerably less Good Housekeeping and considerably more Who Are These People and Why Are They All Asking Me for Something?

Back then doctors sometimes prescribed Valium or something similar and sent women on their way.

Was that ideal mental healthcare?

Probably not.

It was also a different world.

There were meals to make.

Houses to clean.

Children to bathe.

Laundry to wash.

School lunches to prepare.

And husbands who might have been perfectly loving men while still regarding diaper changing as an exotic domestic specialty practiced mainly by women and pediatric nurses.

Women carried on because they had to.

Now, that does not prove women back then were mentally healthier.

Some were probably seriously depressed and never diagnosed.

Some may have experienced psychosis that nobody recognized.

Some suffered in silence because society wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about it.

That wasn’t good either.

But correcting one extreme does not require sprinting straight into the other one.

There should be some territory between:

“Buck up, sweetheart. Dinner is at six.”

and

“Every unpleasant emotion following childbirth is PPD.”

Sometimes a mother is overwhelmed because motherhood can be overwhelming.

That’s not dismissing women.

That’s acknowledging reality.

And yes, parenting has changed

Here’s another question we’re apparently not supposed to ask.

In many households, fathers are far more involved than they were generations ago.

They change diapers.

They get up at night.

They cook.

They clean.

They take children to doctors.

They know where the diaper bag is without calling their wives and requesting GPS coordinates.

Childcare exists on a scale our grandmothers didn’t have, although it can cost roughly the annual budget of a small European principality.

More mothers work outside the home, meaning many aren’t spending every waking hour alone with small children.

We have grocery delivery, disposable diapers, breast pumps, prepared food, monitors, swings, bottle warmers and gadgets capable of alerting you if an infant hiccups suspiciously in Nebraska.

None of that makes modern motherhood easy.

And support is certainly not equally available to everybody.

But it does make me wonder:

Why does postpartum mental illness seem so much more prominent in our conversation now?

Some of the answer is obvious.

We’re better at recognizing it.

Good.

Women are more willing to talk.

Also good.

But could childbirth also reveal an underlying psychiatric vulnerability in some women?

Medical research says yes.

A personal or family history of depression or bipolar disorder can increase risk. Postpartum psychosis has a particularly strong relationship with bipolar-spectrum illness.

But here’s the interesting part: for some women, childbirth can be the first time that vulnerability becomes clinically obvious.

Perhaps pregnancy, childbirth, massive hormonal changes, sleep deprivation and stress create the perfect neurological thunderstorm.

Something previously quiet suddenly announces itself.

That isn’t the same thing as saying all these women were “already crazy.”

It’s saying brains are complicated and childbirth can be an enormous biological event.

Which is precisely why casually calling every postpartum difficulty PPD isn’t helping.

Intrusive thoughts need some nuance too

Here’s where social media can become genuinely dangerous.

An unwanted intrusive thought is not automatically an intention.

Research suggests frightening intrusive thoughts about babies are common among new mothers.

A woman might suddenly think:

What if I dropped the baby?

What if I snapped?

What if I hurt him?

The thought horrifies her.

She doesn’t want to do it.

In fact, she’s terrified because she doesn’t want to do it.

Research has not found that merely having these unwanted intrusive thoughts means a woman is more likely to harm her baby.

That’s very different from wanting to hurt a child.

It’s different from making a plan.

And it’s enormously different from postpartum psychosis, where someone may experience hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, mania, confusion or a loss of contact with reality.

Yet online, all of these experiences increasingly get shoved into the same PPD suitcase until somebody has to sit on it to get the zipper closed.

That doesn’t educate women.

It confuses them.

Now comes the harsh question

If a mother is being treated for serious postpartum mental illness, at what point should the children no longer remain in her unsupervised care?

Harsh question?

Yes.

But postpartum mental illness can be harsh.

We talk endlessly about protecting the mother, supporting the mother and removing stigma around the mother.

All worthy goals.

But somewhere in that conversation are actual children.

They have rights too.

Obviously, a diagnosis of postpartum depression should not automatically mean somebody loses custody of her children.

That would be absurd.

Most women with postpartum depression are not dangerous.

But there has to be a threshold.

If a mother is suicidal...

If she is hallucinating...

If she believes her children are evil or possessed...

If she hears voices telling her to harm them...

If she develops an actual plan...

If she says she cannot guarantee their safety...

If her grasp on reality is deteriorating...

then perhaps the next question shouldn’t be:

“How is Mom coping?”

Perhaps it should be:

“Who has the children right now?”

That doesn’t necessarily mean foster care.

Dad can take over.

Grandma can take them.

A sister, aunt or trusted family member can step in.

Mom may need hospitalization.

Maybe she can be reunited with the children under supervision as she stabilizes.

But when serious psychosis is involved, psychiatric literature recommends hospitalization and warns that mother and infant should not be left alone because risk can change rapidly.

That isn’t punishment.

It’s safety.

We remove car keys from someone who is dangerously impaired without announcing that we hate drivers.

Why would temporarily removing unsupervised responsibility for helpless children be considered cruelty?

Children should not be the test subjects while everyone waits to see whether the medication adjustment works.

That’s uncomfortable to say.

The reality is considerably more uncomfortable.

My Lamaze instructor understood this in the 1980s

I keep thinking about something my Lamaze instructor told our class back in the 1980s. At the time she said we likely wouldn’t understand now but will somewhere in the future.

No Instagram.

No TikTok.

No hashtags.

No ring light.

Just remarkably sensible advice.

On our last night of class she told us that one day we might become overwhelmed.

And she meant really overwhelmed.

She said:

Put the baby safely in the crib or playpen.

Get yourself a cup of coffee.

Go into the bathroom.

Lock the door.

Turn on the radio.

Cry if you need to.

Take a long shower.

Take a bath.

Let the baby cry.

A baby isn’t going to die because it cries safely in a crib for a little while.

Then pull yourself together and go back to the baby.

But she added something I have remembered all these years:

If you come out of that bathroom and you still don’t feel right, call somebody.

Call your mother.

Your sister.

Your aunt.

Your friend.

Your doctor.

Call 911.

Call whoever you need to call.

And tell them exactly how you’re feeling.

There was no shame in being overwhelmed.

What strikes me now is how much wisdom was packed into that advice.

She understood the distinction we seem determined to erase today.

Sometimes being exhausted, emotional and overwhelmed is simply parenthood.

You need twenty minutes.

You need coffee.

You need a shower.

You need a good cry.

You need someone else to hold the baby while you stare at a wall and briefly reconsider every decision you’ve made since 1984.

That’s human.

But if you come out of that bathroom and still think you may hurt yourself or your child?

Now we’re somewhere else.

That’s when you call for help.

And the person receiving that call needs to understand the difference too.

That’s why I think social media may actually be hurting the credibility of PPD

Women fought for decades to have postpartum mental illness taken seriously.

Doctors became better educated.

Screening improved.

Women became less afraid to admit they were struggling.

Wonderful.

So why are we now stretching the term PPD until it covers practically everything associated with motherhood?

Baby blues.

Exhaustion.

Depression.

Anxiety.

Intrusive thoughts.

Psychosis.

Ordinary parental frustration.

Apparently all one enormous thing.

If everything is PPD, eventually PPD means almost nothing.

And that does a tremendous disservice to the woman who genuinely has postpartum depression.

Even worse is the online normalization of extreme statements.

If a woman says she thinks about killing her children every day, my first instinct is not:

“Same, Mama!”

My first instinct is:

“We should probably find out exactly what she means by that.”

Is she describing an unwanted intrusive thought that terrifies her?

That’s one thing.

Is she actually fantasizing about doing it?

That’s another.

Does she believe some outside force is commanding her to do it?

That’s something else entirely.

Those differences can literally be life and death.

Imagine a woman slipping into genuine psychosis watching videos in which everybody assures her that violent thoughts are just part of motherhood.

Maybe she doesn’t call her doctor.

Maybe her husband doesn’t become alarmed.

Maybe her family thinks this is just PPD and she’ll feel better after some sleep.

Suddenly, destigmatizing mental illness has turned into normalizing warning signs.

Those are not the same thing.

And that’s what the Lindsay Clancy case leaves us with

I don’t know what was happening inside Lindsay Clancy’s mind when she killed her children.

Neither does someone on TikTok.

The jury has heard evidence we haven’t.

Experts who examined the case disagree.

That’s why there’s a trial.

But I think we’re allowed to ask harder questions about what happened before those children died.

When someone is being treated for serious postpartum psychiatric symptoms, who is assessing the children’s safety?

Who decides whether she can be alone with them?

What symptoms trigger emergency intervention?

What happens when treatment isn’t working?

When does supporting the mother require temporarily separating her from the children?

And are we so frightened of stigmatizing postpartum mental illness that we have become reluctant to acknowledge when it becomes dangerous?

Those questions are not anti-woman.

They’re not anti-mother.

They’re not anti-mental-health treatment.

They’re questions that might save lives.

We should be able to hold several thoughts in our heads at once

Motherhood is exhausting.

Women have been overwhelmed by babies for centuries.

Sometimes crying, irritability, exhaustion and desperately wanting ten minutes alone are simply parenthood.

The baby blues are real.

Postpartum depression is real.

Unwanted intrusive thoughts can occur without any desire to act on them.

Postpartum psychosis is real, rare and potentially catastrophic.

Most mothers with postpartum mental-health problems will never harm their children.

And when a particular mother is showing signs that she may harm herself or her children, protecting those children must become part of her treatment immediately.

None of those ideas contradicts another.

The mistake is stuffing them all under the label PPD and pretending they’re essentially the same experience.

They aren’t.

Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy are dead.

Whatever verdict this jury eventually reaches, they should remain at the center of this story.

Women deserve serious mental-health care.

Mothers deserve to say, “I’m overwhelmed,” without immediately believing they’re mentally ill.

Women who are mentally ill deserve treatment without shame.

And children deserve adults willing to ask the uncomfortable question:

Is Mom safe to be alone with them right now?

Sometimes motherhood requires coffee, a closed bathroom door and twenty minutes to cry.

Sometimes it requires therapy.

Sometimes medication.

Sometimes hospitalization.

And sometimes, until Mom is stable, someone else needs to have the children.

Knowing the difference isn’t stigma.

It’s the entire point.

Citations and Sources

Reuters, Deadlocked jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial deliberates for sixth day, September 3, 2026.

Associated Press, coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, jury deliberations and the competing arguments regarding Clancy’s mental state and criminal responsibility, August–September 2026.

Reuters, What to know about postpartum mental illness, August 28, 2026.

National Institute of Mental Health, Perinatal Depression. NIMH distinguishes ordinary postpartum tiredness and overwhelm and short-lived “baby blues” from perinatal depression, and identifies postpartum psychosis as a psychiatric emergency requiring hospitalization.

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Summary of Perinatal Mental Health Conditions and Postpartum Depression. ACOG distinguishes baby blues, major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and postpartum psychosis, and notes that baby blues are common and temporary rather than a psychiatric illness.

Fairbrother et al., Postpartum Thoughts of Infant-Related Harm and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Relation to Maternal Physical Aggression Toward the Infant, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. The study found no evidence that unwanted intrusive thoughts of intentional infant harm were associated with increased maternal aggression toward the infant.

Perry et al., Postpartum Psychosis: A Proposed Treatment Algorithm, Journal of Psychopharmacology. The review recommends inpatient treatment for postpartum psychosis and states that mother and infant should not be left alone during the acute illness because risk can change rapidly.

His name is Hoover.

And Hoover has wasted absolutely no time establishing himself as the Backyard Babies’ newest specialist.

Most squirrels arrive, grab a peanut, cause a minor diplomatic incident, and leave.

Hoover conducts operations.

We have squirrel feeders mounted in several locations around the yard. They are well stocked, conveniently placed and apparently insufficient for a squirrel who believes the real treasure is lying six inches below them in the grass.

Hoover likes the feeders.

But Hoover loves the ground.

At least once a day, he spends a solid 15 to 20 minutes scouring the yard for cast-offs.

Not wandering.

Not snacking casually.

Scouring.

Nose down.

Tail up.

Sweep left.

Sweep right.

Inspect leaf.

Question twig.

Revisit suspicious patch of grass.

Dig.

Eat something invisible to the human eye.

Proceed.

For twenty minutes.

That is extraordinary focus for an animal whose extended family routinely sprints halfway across the yard and then appears to forget what country they are in.

So naturally I started wondering:

What exactly is Hoover finding down there?

The feeders contain whole peanuts.

Sunflower seeds.

Perfectly respectable squirrel food.

Yet Hoover behaves as though the grass contains artisanal woodland delicacies unavailable to civilians.

Maybe the feeders are merely first class.

The lawn is duty-free.

And Hoover knows where the bargains are.

ENTER SQUIRREL SEAL TEAM SIX

After watching Hoover work, I have reached the only logical conclusion.

He is special operations.

Possibly Squirrel SEAL Team Six.

Possibly Delta Forage.

Possibly something so classified that even the chipmunks have signed nondisclosure agreements.

His call sign is obvious:

HOOVER ONE.

Specialty:

Ground reconnaissance.

Crumb recovery.

Seed detection.

Peanut-fragment extraction.

And the ability to remain focused longer than half the human population during a Zoom meeting.

His daily briefing probably goes something like this:

“Hoover One, intelligence indicates three sunflower kernels beneath Feeder Two.”

“Copy.”

“Possible cardinal activity in the area.”

“Understood.”

“Also half a peanut behind the hydrangea.”

Silence.

Then Hoover tightens his tiny earpiece.

“I’m going in.”

THE REST OF THE UNIT

Naturally Hoover cannot operate alone.

The Backyard Babies already have personnel.

Whether they are qualified is another matter.

SCOOTER

Call Sign: Chaos

Scooter is rapid response.

Unfortunately, nobody has ever determined what he is responding to.

Leaf moves?

Scooter deploys.

Bird lands?

Scooter deploys.

Absolutely nothing happens?

Scooter deploys anyway.

Scooter is useful as a distraction because no enemy can possibly plan for someone who does not appear to have a plan himself.

SKIPPY

Call Sign: Snack Ops

Skippy handles provisions.

Mostly by eating them.

His philosophy is simple:

If the food disappears before the enemy arrives, the enemy cannot take it.

Technically flawless.

Strategically suspicious.

SAILOR

Call Sign: Admiral Nuts

Sailor considers himself senior command.

Nobody remembers appointing him.

This has not affected his confidence.

He patrols the fence with great dignity and gives the impression that somewhere nearby there should be a tiny brass band playing “Anchors Aweigh.”

He takes command seriously.

Whether anyone takes Sailor seriously is an entirely separate issue.

SCOOBY

Call Sign: Intelligence-ish

Scooby’s role remains unclear.

Which, frankly, makes him ideal for intelligence work.

Nobody knows exactly what he is doing.

Nobody knows who he reports to.

And he occasionally looks as though he has information he absolutely should not possess.

Classic intelligence officer.

Or middle management.

Very difficult to tell.

BLACKIE

Call Sign: Night Watch

Blackie handles surveillance.

He appears quietly.

Observes everything.

Takes one peanut.

Leaves.

No drama.

No speeches.

No unnecessary tail choreography.

He may be the only true professional in the entire unit.

I strongly suspect Blackie already has diplomatic immunity.

LORETTA

Call Sign: Lockpick

And then there is Loretta.

How did I forget Loretta?

A squirrel with keys and a tattoo does not get left out of a special-operations article.

Loretta is clearly logistics, procurement and whatever department handles activities that nobody wants entered into the official minutes.

She has keys.

To what?

Nobody knows.

The shed?

The feeder supply?

The squirrel armory?

A tiny underground casino beneath the oak tree?

Loretta is not saying.

And the tattoo only raises more questions.

You do not get a tattoo in the squirrel world because you had a whimsical spring break.

Loretta has history.

Loretta has contacts.

Loretta knows a guy.

If Hoover needs access to a restricted area at 0300 hours, Loretta does not ask why.

She simply jingles the keys.

THE FLYING SQUIRRELS

Call Sign: Need for Seed

Of course, every elite unit needs air support.

Enter the flying squirrels.

Our two fighter pilots.

They are the Backyard Babies’ airborne division.

Official unit name:

Top Nut.

Unofficial motto:

I feel the need... the need for seed.

These two do not simply travel from tree to tree.

They conduct aerial maneuvers.

Bank left.

Glide right.

Low pass over the feeder.

Possible barrel roll near the maple.

Then back around because somebody spotted a sunflower seed.

I fully expect them to begin buzzing the patio.

Their preflight briefing probably consists of Hoover pointing at a map.

“Target is beneath Feeder Three.”

Flying Squirrel One lowers tiny aviator sunglasses.

“Copy that.”

Flying Squirrel Two cracks his neck.

“Let’s fly.”

Then both launch from the oak tree while Kenny Loggins plays somewhere in the distance.

They are not searching for danger.

They are searching for sunflower seeds.

But they approach both with equal enthusiasm.

THE AIRBORNE SEED DROP

The flying squirrels also solve an important logistical problem.

Hoover works the ground.

But what happens if the crumbs are too far from headquarters?

Simple.

Air supply.

Imagine a tiny aerial resupply mission.

Hoover radios:

“Ground team to Top Nut. We are low on sunflower.”

“Roger.”

Seconds later two flying squirrels glide over the yard, dropping seed packets the size of postage stamps.

Skippy immediately eats one before it lands.

Scooter chases another because it moved.

Sailor declares the operation a naval success.

Loretta somehow already has the paperwork.

Scooby denies everything.

Blackie watches from the fence.

This is why military organizations have procedures.

RIZZO: THE WHISTLEBLOWER

No serious Backyard Babies intelligence history would be complete without mentioning Rizzo.

The rat tail.

The whistleblower.

The squirrel who looked as though he had spent six months undercover inside organized rodent crime and returned emotionally changed.

Rizzo knew things.

Probably too many things.

Somewhere there is a walnut containing his files.

They remain classified.

The flying squirrels perform an annual missing-man formation.

Loretta keeps the keys to the archive.

Nobody asks questions.

OPERATION FALLEN PEANUT

Hoover’s principal mission appears to be cleaning up after everyone else.

The feeders are above.

The ground is below.

And squirrels are not exactly famous for table manners.

Half a seed here.

Peanut fragment there.

Shells everywhere.

Birds are even worse.

Birds eat at feeders like aristocrats at a banquet they are not paying for.

One bite.

Discard the rest.

Hoover sees this behavior and thinks:

Opportunity.

A sunflower kernel disappears into the grass?

Recovered.

Tiny peanut shaving?

Recovered.

Unidentified edible speck?

Under investigation.

I am convinced that if someone dropped one sesame seed in this yard, Hoover could locate it before lunch.

THE MOST IMPRESSIVE PART

The focus still amazes me.

Fifteen to twenty minutes.

That is a very long time for a squirrel.

Twenty squirrel minutes must equal roughly one congressional hearing.

Yet Hoover stays locked in.

No unnecessary climbing.

No screaming at birds.

No sudden sprint toward nothing.

No forgetting the mission halfway through.

He searches.

He recovers.

He continues.

Meanwhile, I can walk into a room and forget why I went there.

Hoover could probably locate a peanut buried during the Reagan administration.

Respect.

BACKYARD COMMAND STRUCTURE

At this point, I believe the organization looks something like this:

Hoover: Ground Operations
Scooter: Rapid Chaos Response
Skippy: Snack Logistics
Sailor: Self-Appointed Command
Scooby: Intelligence-ish
Blackie: Surveillance
Loretta: Procurement, Access and Things We Should Not Ask About
Flying Squirrels: Air Support, Top Nut Squadron

And somewhere above all of them is probably a squirrel we have not met yet.

Possibly wearing stars.

Possibly living in the attic.

WELCOME TO THE TEAM, HOOVER

Hoover is officially part of the Backyard Babies.

Rank:

Chief Petty Officer Hoover

Unit:

Special Squirrel Warfare Development Group

Call Sign:

Hoover One

Primary mission:

No Nut Left Behind.

I originally thought we had simply acquired another squirrel.

I was wrong.

We have acquired an entire joint military command.

Ground operations.

Intelligence.

Logistics.

Naval command.

Air support.

Questionable procurement.

And a squirrel with keys.

At this point, I am merely the civilian homeowner whose property has been selected for exercises.

One morning I fully expect to look outside and see Hoover crouched beneath the feeder, Loretta opening a restricted gate, Blackie signaling from the fence and two flying squirrels gliding overhead in formation.

Then a tiny voice will crackle over the radio:

“Top Nut to Hoover One. Seed package incoming.”

And Hoover will not even look up.

Because Hoover has the ground.

And the ground, apparently, has snacks. 🐿️✈️🥜

King Charles is destroying the monarchy.

The Palace is in turmoil.

Everyone is leaving.

William is furious.

Anne is furious.

Camilla is apparently plotting something over breakfast.

And naturally:

CHARLES MUST ABDICATE IMMEDIATELY.

Why?

That part always gets a little foggy.

Apparently, after waiting roughly seventy years to become King, Charles should hand the Crown to William because three longtime members of his staff are leaving, Harry continues to be Harry, Andrew remains Andrew, and a YouTube/SM commentator, otherwise known around here as a Throne Ranger, has interpreted Princess Anne looking over her reading glasses as a constitutional distress signal.

Come on.

NO, EVERYONE IS NOT “BAILING OUT” ON CHARLES

This may be my favorite new theory.

Three prominent people are leaving Charles’s household; therefore, they must be fleeing the King because he is ruining the monarchy.

Or, and stay with me here, people occasionally retire.

Let’s actually name them.

SIR CLIVE ALDERTON

Sir Clive Alderton, the King and Queen’s principal private secretary, has announced that he will step down next year.

Sounds dramatic until you include the tiny details.

He has worked for the Royal Household for twenty years.

His departure coincides with his 60th birthday.

And he has said that his support for Charles and Camilla will continue in a less formal capacity.

That is one curious rebellion.

If I were escaping a terrible employer who was destroying everything I held dear, I don’t think my farewell message would amount to:

Call me if you need anything.

Sir Clive is retiring after twenty years of service, with a long transition period and an intention to remain available to the King.

That isn’t bailing.

That’s retirement with excellent manners.

BERNIE FLANNERY

Then there is Bernie Flannery, Charles’s longtime butler.

Bernie retired after more than forty years of royal service.

Forty.

Years.

He began aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, later joined Charles’s household, and remained with Charles through decades of royal upheaval.

He is now in his sixties.

After forty years, I think the man has earned the right to put down the silver tray.

Yet somehow even this becomes evidence that staff are abandoning Charles.

Forty years of service apparently isn’t enough.

What was Bernie expected to do?

Remain at Charles’s side until both of them were discovered preserved behind a curtain at Balmoral?

Bernie Flannery did not flee.

He retired.

Royal commentator Robert Jobson, who reported the departure, described him as extraordinarily loyal and wished him a happy retirement.

Again, remarkably poor evidence for a staff uprising.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL JONNY THOMPSON

And now Lieutenant Colonel Jonny Thompson, the King and Queen’s senior equerry, is leaving at the end of 2026.

Cue another round of:

THE INNER CIRCLE IS COLLAPSING!

Except Thompson is also leaving the British Army after nearly twenty-two years of military service.

He is forty-three and plans to pursue a career in the private sector.

Buckingham Palace says Charles and Camilla knew about his plans in advance and are grateful for his seven years supporting the Royal Household.

So Thompson isn’t abandoning Charles and defecting to the Republic of France.

He’s changing careers after more than two decades in the Army.

Apparently he was expected to remain in uniform until embalming, lest a Throne Ranger mistake civilian employment for treason.

DO YOU SEE THE PATTERN?

Sir Clive Alderton:

Twenty years. Approaching sixty. Retiring.

Bernie Flannery:

More than forty years. In his sixties. Retired.

Jonny Thompson:

Nearly twenty-two years in the Army. Moving into the private sector.

This is the great evidence that everyone is bailing on Charles?

Really?

People retire.

People change careers.

People decide twenty years is enough.

People decide forty years is definitely enough.

People want to spend more time with spouses, children and grandchildren.

Some people simply don’t want to spend the rest of their lives in public-facing jobs.

That’s normal.

Not every departure requires ominous music.

Not every retirement is mutiny.

Not every career change means the King has driven someone screaming from Buckingham Palace.

Sometimes somebody simply wants to go home.

The Royal Household is an employer, not the Hotel California.

People are allowed to leave.

CHARLES WAITED SEVENTY YEARS FOR THIS JOB

Charles became heir apparent when he was three.

Three.

Most three-year-olds are still investigating whether crayons constitute a food group.

Charles had begun the longest apprenticeship in British history.

He spent his entire life virtually preparing to become King, knowing that the position would only become his when his mother died.

Then Queen Elizabeth II lived to ninety-six and reigned for seventy years.

Charles finally became King in September 2022.

And now we’re supposed to imagine him saying:

“Well, this has been lovely. Bernie retired after forty years and Jonny Thompson wants a private-sector job. William, fetch the Crown.”

Please.

Charles waited approximately seventy years for this.

He prepared for it.

He wanted to serve.

He is serving.

Why exactly would he abdicate?

CHARLES DOESN’T APPEAR TO KNOW HE IS SUPPOSEDLY DESTROYING THE MONARCHY

For a man allegedly dismantling the monarchy brick by brick, Charles seems oddly committed to doing the actual job.

He continues carrying out constitutional duties.

He continues undertaking engagements.

He continues representing Britain abroad.

He continues meeting heads of state.

He continues working while undergoing cancer treatment.

The supposedly collapsing Royal Household continues functioning.

Apparently Charles is destroying the monarchy by...

being King.

Very sneaky.

WILLIAM IS NOT STANDING OUTSIDE WITH A MOVING VAN

Then comes the next argument.

Charles should abdicate and let William take over.

Why?

William’s time will come.

Charles knows that.

William knows that.

Anyone who understands hereditary monarchy knows that.

And frankly, William has very good reasons not to be rushing his father toward the exit.

Catherine has been through cancer treatment and recovery.

William and Catherine have three children who are still young.

George, Charlotte and Louis only get one childhood.

If William is making family time a priority while he still can, particularly after what his wife and children have experienced, good for him.

One day he will be King.

When that happens, the job changes everything.

State openings.

Audiences.

Prime ministers.

Red boxes.

State visits.

Foreign tours.

National ceremonies.

Diplomatic dinners.

Funerals.

Crises.

And fourteen thousand social-media posts explaining why he personally destroyed the monarchy before lunch.

William knows what awaits him.

Why shouldn’t he spend as much time as possible being William the husband and father while he still has greater flexibility?

That isn’t laziness.

That isn’t Charles selfishly clinging to the throne.

That’s perspective.

William’s time will come.

It doesn’t need to come because the Throne Rangers are tapping their watches.

AND NO, CHARLES’S FIRST MARRIAGE IS NOT AN ABDICATION OFFENCE

Then we arrive at Diana.

Again.

Thirty years later.

Charles and Diana separated in 1992.

They divorced in 1996.

And apparently Charles is still serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

How long exactly is the sentence?

Forty years?

Fifty?

Does he qualify for release at ninety-five?

Charles was not perfect in that marriage.

Nobody needs to pretend he was.

But neither was Diana.

And this is where the historical storytelling becomes strangely selective.

CHARLES AND DIANA’S MARRIAGE WAS ALREADY IN TERRIBLE TROUBLE

The simplified version goes something like this:

Charles married Diana.

They lived happily.

Camilla appeared.

Charles cheated.

Camilla destroyed the marriage.

Diana remained entirely faithful until Charles drove her into someone else’s arms.

Roll credits.

Reality was much messier.

Charles maintained that his physical relationship with Camilla resumed after his marriage to Diana had become irretrievably broken down.

That distinction matters.

It does not make adultery admirable.

It does not mean Charles handled everything perfectly.

But it does mean Camilla did not stroll into a flourishing marriage one afternoon and demolish it with a handbag.

The Wales marriage was already in very serious trouble.

DIANA WASN’T EXACTLY WAITING FAITHFULLY AT HOME EITHER

And here is the part that tends to vanish underneath the halo.

Diana pursued and became emotionally or romantically involved with married men.

Barry Mannakee was married.

Diana herself later described being deeply in love with the man widely understood to be Mannakee in 1985.

Whether that relationship became physical remains disputed, so I won’t pretend otherwise.

But emotionally?

She had fallen for another man.

And he was married.

That was before the period in which Charles said his physical relationship with Camilla resumed.

Then there was James Hewitt.

Diana herself admitted that affair.

Later came Oliver Hoare.

Also married.

And then Will Carling.

Also married.

Carling denied having a sexual affair with Diana, and we should be accurate about that.

But his wife Julia very publicly blamed Diana for becoming involved with her husband, and the Carling marriage broke apart amid that controversy.

So yes, Diana pursued married men, and one marriage did collapse while Diana’s relationship with the husband was causing enormous turmoil, with the wife blaming Diana.

That doesn’t make Diana evil.

It makes her human.

Curiously, humanity seems to be a defense available to Diana but not to Charles.

CHARLES GETS THIRTY YEARS. DIANA GETS ANGELIC DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY.

This is the double standard that bothers me.

Charles’s mistakes?

Permanent record.

No parole.

No rehabilitation.

No expiration date.

Diana’s mistakes?

Suddenly everyone becomes exquisitely nuanced.

She was lonely.

She was unhappy.

She needed affection.

She was vulnerable.

Fine.

Those things may all help explain her behavior.

But why does context only count for Diana?

Charles was unhappy too.

Charles was trapped in a disastrous marriage too.

Charles made bad choices too.

Yet Diana has somehow acquired posthumous angelic diplomatic immunity, while Charles is still expected to report to the court of public opinion every morning for another flogging.

Diana was compassionate.

Charismatic.

Gifted with people.

She did tremendous good.

Her humanitarian work deserves admiration.

None of that requires pretending she was incapable of bad behavior.

She was a complicated human being.

So was Charles.

Same marriage.

Two flawed adults.

Yet one is endlessly prosecuted while the other is periodically fitted for another halo.

AND PLEASE STOP BLAMING CAMILLA FOR BREATHING

Then there is Camilla.

Camilla broke the marriage.

Camilla destroyed Diana.

Camilla ruined Charles.

Camilla destroyed Harry.

Camilla ruined the monarchy.

At this point I’m surprised nobody has blamed her for the Great Fire of London.

What exactly did she do?

Breathe too aggressively near Highgrove?

Yes, Charles resumed a relationship with Camilla.

Nobody needs to pretend the situation was ideal.

But Charles maintained that it resumed physically after his marriage to Diana was already irretrievably broken.

Meanwhile Diana herself had become emotionally involved with another married man and later had her own affairs.

Charles and Diana’s marriage failed because Charles and Diana’s marriage failed.

Two badly matched people.

Two desperately unhappy people.

Two people who sought affection elsewhere.

Two people who hurt one another.

There is no need for a saint.

There is no need for a villain.

And there is certainly no reason a failed marriage from the 1980s should require Charles to abdicate in 2026.

ANDREW AND HARRY ARE ADULT MEN

Then we have Andrew and Harry.

I’ll keep this simple because the logic shouldn’t require a royal commission.

Andrew is Charles’s adult brother.

Harry is Charles’s adult son.

Adults make their own choices.

Most of Andrew’s disastrous associations and decisions happened years before Charles became King.

Harry chose to step back as a working royal in 2020 while Queen Elizabeth II was monarch.

Charles can certainly be criticized for how he deals with them now.

That’s fair.

But Charles cannot travel backward through time and make their decisions for them.

He cannot control Andrew.

He cannot control Harry.

There isn’t a little switch underneath the throne marked:

MAKE RELATIVES BEHAVE.

Sometimes relatives embarrass you.

The Windsors merely have the inconvenience of their doing it internationally.

“CHARLES IS ARROGANT!”

Another favorite accusation.

Fine.

How?

Give me an example.

Not:

“He looks arrogant.”

Not:

“My Throne Ranger says somebody at the Palace thinks he’s arrogant.”

Not:

“Anne looked at him strangely at Ascot.”

Show me.

Charles has strong opinions.

Absolutely.

Sit beside him at dinner and you may learn considerably more about architecture, sustainable farming, traditional craftsmanship and hedgerows than you had planned.

But having opinions is not constitutional arrogance.

The man spent decades being mocked for talking about environmental conservation when many people thought he was eccentric.

Now half the world discusses the same subjects.

Perhaps the plants were listening after all.

“CHARLES IS SELFISH!”

Again:

How?

He spent virtually his entire adult life performing public duties while waiting for a job that could begin only with the death of his mother.

He founded major charitable initiatives.

He carried out thousands of engagements.

He increasingly supported Queen Elizabeth II as she aged.

He became King in his seventies.

And he has continued working while undergoing cancer treatment.

You can think he’s too soft with Harry.

You can think he should handle Andrew differently.

You can disagree with individual decisions.

But:

Charles didn’t do exactly what I wanted

is not the definition of selfishness.

It means the King neglected to consult the Throne Ranger Ministry of Royal Corrections.

Apparently the forms were lost in the post.

AND IF CHARLES WERE REALLY DESTROYING THE MONARCHY...

There remains one enormous hole in that theory.

Princess Anne.

She is right there.

Anne watched her mother serve the Crown for seventy years.

She understands the monarchy.

She understands duty.

And perhaps most importantly:

She understands Charles.

Are we really expected to believe Charles could be merrily burning down everything Elizabeth II spent her life preserving while Anne stands nearby thinking:

Nothing to do with me.

This is Princess Anne.

If Charles were genuinely endangering the monarchy, I suspect she would say something.

Directly.

Possibly while looking at him over the top of her reading glasses.

No YouTube livestream required.

No dramatic music.

No arrows pointing at Buckingham Palace.

No unnamed source.

Just:

Charles. What exactly are you doing?

And I suspect that would conclude the meeting.

CHARLES IS NOT RUINING THE MONARCHY

That is the point.

Charles is not Elizabeth II.

He was never supposed to be.

William will not be Charles.

George will not be William.

Every reign is different because every monarch is different.

Charles inherited the throne after one of the longest reigns in British history.

He has dealt with cancer.

A smaller group of working royals.

Family scandals that began before his reign.

An estranged son.

The enormous shadow of his mother.

And somehow...

The monarchy remains standing.

The King is working.

The Queen is working.

William and Catherine are working while also protecting their family.

Anne is working.

Edward and Sophie are working.

State business continues.

Royal engagements continue.

People retire.

New staff comes in.

The Crown continues.

That’s a strange definition of Charles destroying the monarchy.

So criticize Charles when criticism is deserved.

Absolutely.

But stop turning every retirement into mutiny.

Sir Clive Alderton is leaving after twenty years.

Bernie Flannery retired after more than forty.

Jonny Thompson is changing careers after nearly twenty-two years in the Army.

Those are careers.

Not hostage situations.

People retire.

People move on.

People change jobs.

People want privacy.

People want family time.

People want to see their grandchildren.

Marriages fail.

Adult relatives behave badly.

Staff changes.

Life happens.

The Crown survives.

And none of that is a reason for King Charles III to abdicate.

If Charles ever genuinely starts destroying the monarchy, bring me evidence.

Real evidence.

Until then, somebody retiring after forty years is not exactly the smoking gun we’ve been promised.

Besides...

Anne is watching.

Over the glasses.

Always over the glasses.

Congratulations! You are vitally important.

Unless your older sibling remains alive, healthy and fertile.

Then your official duties become:

Stand slightly to the left.
Join a regiment.
Marry sensibly.
Open a hospital wing.
And, for the love of God, do not create a constitutional incident.

You are basically the monarchy’s emergency generator.

Nobody wants to use you, but everyone is relieved you are somewhere in the basement.

And Prince Harry is hardly the first younger royal son to discover that enormous privilege, uncertain purpose and too much free time can create... complications.

Britain has been managing spare-related incidents for centuries.

Some gambled.

Some collected mistresses.

Some defied their fathers.

Some triggered parliamentary inquiries.

And some, terribly inconveniently for the idea that being born second guarantees lifelong trauma, became excellent kings.

Welcome to the Royal Spare Department.

Human Resources has fled.

Frederick, Duke of York: Mistress, Money, Parliament

Prince Frederick was George III’s second son and Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

Splendid.

Uniform. Medals. Authority. Enormous hat.

Then came Mary Anne Clarke, his mistress.

Clarke became involved in selling access connected with military commissions, and in 1809 the mess landed in Parliament.

Frederick was not found to have personally taken bribes, but the scandal became so toxic that he resigned.

He returned two years later.

So more than two centuries before social media, Britain already had:

Royal prince. Mistress. Money. Influence. Parliamentary investigation.

The Georgians did not need podcasts.

They had wigs.

And here is the irritating part: Frederick was also a serious military reformer who helped professionalise the British Army.

Which means he achieved that rare royal double: very useful and an absolute headache.

William, Duke of Clarence: Ten Children Seemed Sensible

George III’s third son William was not technically the second son, but excluding him would be irresponsible.

William joined the Royal Navy young and eventually became the Sailor King.

Before the king part, however, there was quite a bit of sailing.

For roughly twenty years he lived with actress Dorothea Jordan.

They had ten children.

Ten.

The Royal Family describes them rather delicately as a “growing family.”

Growing?

That was a satellite campus.

Eventually William married Princess Adelaide because the succession had become alarmingly short of legitimate heirs.

Then came the great royal twist.

His older brothers died without surviving legitimate children, and the colourful younger prince became King William IV at 64.

Never assume the spare will not be needed.

The monarchy keeps everyone on payroll just in case.

Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex: History Has Jokes

Now we reach George III’s sixth son, Augustus Frederick.

His title?

Duke of Sussex.

Yes.

Sussex.

Augustus fell in love with Lady Augusta Murray and secretly married her in Rome without his father’s consent.

Then, apparently deciding one forbidden wedding lacked commitment, they married again in London.

The marriages were declared legally invalid under the Royal Marriages Act.

They had two children, but Augusta could not legally be styled Duchess of Sussex.

So let us review.

A Duke of Sussex.

Royal rules.

Marriage.

Family fury.

Questions over status and titles.

I am not drawing parallels.

I am simply setting history on the table and leaving the room.

Augustus was actually politically interesting and supported several reform causes.

But still.

A Duke of Sussex fighting the royal establishment over marriage.

History occasionally has the subtlety of a piano falling downstairs.

George V: The Spare Who Ruins Everything

Then Prince George arrives and wrecks the theory.

George was the second son of the future Edward VII.

His elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, was expected to inherit the throne.

George therefore went into the Navy and got on with life.

Then Albert Victor died suddenly in 1892.

George became heir.

Eventually he became King George V.

And what did our emotionally overlooked former spare do?

Did he sit for a six-part documentary called Finding George?

Write Second Son: My Truth?

Explain that nobody had ever asked how it felt when Bertie got the bigger nursery?

No.

He became king.

Very sternly.

Possibly while checking somebody’s collar.

George V steered the monarchy through war, political upheaval and the collapse of European dynasties.

He even changed the family name to Windsor in 1917 because Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had become slightly awkward during a war with Germany.

The spare became king.

And got on with it.

Absolutely inconsiderate.

George VI: Another Spare Refuses to Collapse

Then George V produced his own second son.

Prince Albert, Bertie, was not supposed to be king.

His elder brother Edward got the glamour.

Edward got the attention.

Edward got the throne.

Bertie got naval service, marriage, two daughters and, presumably, a quieter future.

Then Edward VIII abdicated.

Suddenly the Crown landed on Bertie’s head like lost luggage.

Before that, Bertie had already served in the Royal Navy and fought at Jutland.

Then, as George VI, the shy man with a severe stammer, became king just as Europe headed toward war.

He stayed in Britain.

Buckingham Palace was bombed.

He toured devastated areas.

He visited troops.

He worked alongside Churchill.

And he became deeply respected.

No memoir.

No documentary.

No chapter titled “David Got Everything.”

He simply did the job.

Which rather demolishes the idea that “spare” is a diagnosis.

Apparently character still matters.

How inconvenient.

Prince Andrew: And Here the Comedy Stops

Then we reach Queen Elizabeth II’s second son, Andrew.

His early life followed the classic spare template rather well.

Military career.

Royal engagements.

Supporting role.

He served in the Royal Navy and saw active service during the Falklands War.

Then came Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew’s continued association with Epstein after Epstein’s conviction was, in my opinion, indefensible.

And the 2019 Newsnight interview?

That should probably be studied in universities under:

Things That Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.

It helped destroy his public royal role.

But I want to separate two things clearly.

Virginia Giuffre accused Andrew of sexually abusing her when she was seventeen.

Andrew denied it.

She filed a civil lawsuit.

In 2022, Andrew settled.

The settlement contained no admission of wrongdoing.

Personally, I wish he had not settled.

I do not believe Giuffre’s accusation against Prince Andrew.

I previously wrote an article examining her assertions and explaining why I do not find her account convincing.

That is my opinion.

It is not a court finding.

But I would have preferred to see the allegation tested in court instead of settled.

Because the public hears settlement and often translates it instantly into:

GUILTY.

Legally, that is not what a settlement means.

Andrew did not admit wrongdoing.

There was no trial.

There was no judicial finding that he committed the acts alleged.

I can also believe he showed appalling judgement in continuing his association with Epstein.

I can believe the Newsnight interview was a public-relations extinction event.

And I can still say:

A civil settlement is not a guilty verdict.

Remarkably, the human brain can hold all three thoughts at once.

No smelling salts required.

And Then Came Harry

Which finally brings us to the man who eliminated all ambiguity about how he viewed his place in the family by calling his memoir:

SPARE

Subtle.

Very subtle.

But Harry’s underlying problem was ancient.

Younger royal sons have been asking the same question for centuries:

What exactly am I supposed to do while my brother is being trained to be king?

Traditionally, there were options.

Join the military.

Support the monarch.

Take on charities.

Represent the country.

Try not to appear before Parliament because your mistress has been selling influence.

Harry actually did some of those things very well, especially military service and Invictus.

But Harry had something Frederick, William and Augustus never dreamed of.

The modern grievance industry.

Television interviews.

Streaming deals.

Publishers.

Podcasts.

PR teams.

Social media.

And an international audience willing to spend several years debating who made whom cry over bridesmaid dresses.

After Harry and Meghan stepped back from royal duties in 2020, family grievances became interviews, documentaries and a bestselling memoir.

And now they have returned to Britain for an extended period.

What has not changed?

They are not working royals.

Harry has not been restored to an official royal role.

Britain has not collapsed.

The Crown Jewels remain accounted for.

So despite the inevitable online claims that someone has BENT THE KNEE, surrendered the monarchy and handed over the keys to Buckingham Palace...

No.

People moved house.

Civilisation survived.

Perhaps There Is No Spare Problem

And this is where history becomes useful.

Harry did not invent the restless younger prince.

He did not invent sibling rivalry.

He did not invent resentment over status.

He did not invent quarrels with fathers.

He did not invent marriage disputes.

He certainly did not invent royal sons making catastrophic decisions.

The Georgians could have filled six seasons and a Christmas special.

But being the spare did not doom everyone.

George V was a spare.

George VI was a spare.

Both unexpectedly became king.

Both accepted responsibilities they had never expected.

Both did the job.

So perhaps “spare” is not a personality type.

It is a place in the line of succession.

What someone chooses to do with it is the interesting part.

Some spares became soldiers.

Some became reformers.

Some became kings.

Some became walking parliamentary investigations.

One Duke of Sussex managed to marry the same woman twice and still have the marriage declared invalid.

And the current Duke of Sussex wrote more than 400 pages about the experience.

Palaces change.

Technology changes.

Human nature apparently filed for permanent residency.

🐝 And that is today’s Windsor Wednesday lesson: Prince Harry did not invent the troublesome spare. He simply had the historical luck to be born after the invention of the streaming service.

Russia, meanwhile, is enormous. It stretches across eleven time zones and has spent centuries reminding its neighbors that geography can occasionally be used as a threat.

So it may sound slightly bonkers to learn that there was once a period when Sweden was the great military power of northern Europe and Russia was one of the countries trying to catch up.

Yes.

Sweden.

For roughly a century, Sweden swaggered around the Baltic Sea behaving as though the entire coastline had been included with its monarchy.

And for a while, nobody could do much about it.

Welcome to the Swedish Empire

Historians usually call the 17th and early 18th centuries Sweden’s Great Power Era, or Stormaktstiden.

Beginning under Gustavus Adolphus, who became king in 1611, Sweden transformed itself into one of Europe’s most formidable military powers.

This was particularly impressive because Sweden did not have France’s population, Spain’s wealth or Russia’s seemingly limitless supply of land and people.

It basically looked at its relatively modest resources and said:

We’ll simply become terrifyingly efficient.

And they did.

Sweden built a highly organized state, modernized its army, improved taxation and administration, and developed a military system capable of punching ridiculously above its weight.

Gustavus Adolphus became one of the most famous commanders of the Thirty Years’ War.

Swedish troops marched into Germany in 1630 and became a major Protestant force in the conflict. Gustavus won spectacular victories before being killed at the Battle of Lützen in 1632.

Being killed did rather interrupt the career trajectory.

But Sweden continued fighting.

By the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Sweden had gained important territories in northern Germany and strengthened its position as a European power.

Suddenly Sweden wasn’t the chilly kingdom somewhere above Denmark.

Sweden was management.

And Then There Was Russia

One reason Sweden became so powerful was that it controlled important territory around the Baltic.

Russia desperately wanted access to that sea.

Gustavus Adolphus had already fought Russia earlier in his reign. The 1617 Treaty of Stolbovo left Sweden in a commanding position and effectively shut Russia away from direct Baltic access.

Gustavus was rather pleased about this.

Peter the Great, several decades later, was considerably less delighted.

Peter wanted Russia transformed into a modern European power. For that, he wanted ships, trade routes and Baltic ports.

Unfortunately, Sweden was sitting on several of the pieces Peter wanted.

And Sweden was not running a charity.

❄️ Meanwhile, Denmark Had a Terrible Winter

Sweden wasn’t only annoying Russia.

It was also making Denmark reconsider the wisdom of having neighbors.

In 1658, King Charles X Gustav led Swedish troops across the frozen Danish straits during an exceptionally cold winter.

Across.

The.

Ice.

Apparently someone looked at the frozen sea separating the Swedish army from Denmark and thought:

“Bridge.”

It worked.

The Swedes advanced so successfully that Denmark-Norway was forced into the Treaty of Roskilde, surrendering major territories including Scania, Blekinge and Bohuslän.

This was Sweden near the height of its power.

It controlled Finland, Estonia, Livonia, territories in northern Germany and lands that today belong to Sweden, Russia, Latvia and Estonia.

The Baltic Sea was beginning to resemble Sweden’s rather oversized decorative pond.

👑 Enter Charles XII, Europe’s Most Aggressive Teenager

Then came Charles XII.

He became king in 1697.

He was fifteen.

Naturally, several neighboring powers looked at this teenage monarch and thought:

Excellent. Sweden is vulnerable.

Denmark-Norway, Saxony-Poland-Lithuania and Russia formed a coalition against him.

This seemed perfectly sensible.

Sweden was led by a teenager.

Russia had vastly greater manpower.

Peter the Great was modernizing the Russian state.

What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turned out.

Charles XII responded to being surrounded by enemies by attacking them.

Repeatedly.

At sixteen and seventeen, while most modern teenagers would be negotiating curfews and car privileges, Charles was conducting military campaigns across northern Europe.

Sweden quickly forced Denmark out of the war.

Then Charles turned toward Russia.

Which brings us to Narva.

💥 Narva: Russia Has a Very Bad Day

In November 1700, Peter the Great’s forces were besieging the Swedish-held city of Narva, in present-day Estonia.

The Russians dramatically outnumbered the Swedish relief force.

This should have gone extremely badly for Sweden.

Instead, Charles XII attacked.

During a snowstorm.

Because apparently ordinary military difficulty wasn’t sufficiently interesting.

The snow blew into the Russian lines, helping conceal the Swedish advance. Swedish troops smashed through the Russian defenses and inflicted a catastrophic defeat on Peter’s army.

A Swedish force of roughly 10,000 men had defeated a Russian army several times larger. Exact figures differ among sources, but the imbalance was enormous.

Peter the Great had just received an extraordinarily unpleasant lesson:

Do not underestimate Sweden because its king needs parental permission to rent a carriage.

Narva became one of the great victories of Swedish military history.

For a moment, it appeared that Charles XII might actually crush Russia.

And this is where history taps the brakes and quietly says:

“About that.”

😬 Charles Makes a Slight Strategic Error

After Narva, Charles did not immediately pursue Peter deep into Russia.

Instead, he turned his attention toward Poland and Saxony.

There were reasonable strategic arguments for doing so. Charles had multiple enemies and did not want hostile forces sitting behind him.

Unfortunately for Sweden, this gave Peter exactly what Peter needed.

Time.

Peter rebuilt his army.

He reformed it.

He trained it.

He expanded Russian military industries.

He improved artillery.

And while Charles XII was winning campaigns elsewhere, Russia was becoming increasingly dangerous.

Peter was essentially studying for the rematch.

Charles eventually invaded Russia in 1708.

You may already sense trouble approaching.

There is one recurring lesson in European military history:

Invading Russia is considerably easier in the brochure.

🥶 Russia Does What Russia Does

The Swedish army marched deeper into Russian territory.

Supplies became difficult.

The weather became unpleasant.

Russian forces avoided giving Charles the decisive battle he wanted while destroying resources that might sustain the advancing Swedes.

Then winter arrived.

A particularly brutal winter.

The Swedish army suffered terribly.

Charles pushed onward toward Ukraine, hoping for supplies and reinforcements.

By 1709, his army was exhausted and diminished.

And Peter was ready.

💣 Poltava: The Party Ends

On June 27, 1709, according to the calendar then used by Russia, Swedish and Russian forces met near Poltava, in present-day Ukraine.

This time Peter wasn’t commanding the inexperienced Russian army Charles had humiliated at Narva.

Russia had changed.

Its army was larger, better trained and heavily armed.

Charles himself had recently been wounded and could not command normally from horseback.

The Swedish attack failed.

Russia counterattacked.

And Sweden suffered a crushing defeat.

Poltava was the great turning point.

The country that had humiliated Russia at Narva nine years earlier had now been decisively beaten by the Russia Peter had rebuilt.

Charles escaped south into Ottoman territory.

Most of his army did not.

Sweden’s Baltic empire began unraveling.

Peter Gets His Baltic

The Great Northern War continued for years.

Charles XII eventually returned to Sweden and kept fighting, because apparently the man regarded peace as a personality defect.

He was killed during a campaign in Norway in 1718.

Three years later, the Treaty of Nystad ended the war.

Sweden surrendered Estonia, Livonia, Ingria and other Baltic territories to Russia.

Peter had achieved what earlier Russian rulers could not.

Russia had secured its Baltic position.

And the balance of power in northern Europe shifted dramatically.

**Russia rose.

Sweden declined.**

The Swedish Great Power Era was essentially over.

🐝 So Yes, Sweden Really Was That Powerful

Calling 17th-century Sweden a modern-style global “superpower” is probably stretching the term.

But Sweden absolutely was one of Europe’s great powers, and in northern and Baltic Europe it was, for decades, the dominant military force.

That alone is extraordinary.

A relatively small kingdom managed to defeat Poland-Lithuania, fight the Habsburgs, terrorize Denmark, control much of the Baltic coastline and, at Narva, absolutely humiliate Peter the Great’s Russia.

Then came the twist.

Sweden’s victories helped teach Russia how dangerous Sweden was.

Peter learned.

Russia modernized.

And eventually Russia replaced Sweden as the dominant power of the region.

History has a nasty little sense of humor that way.

So the next time someone mentions peaceful, orderly Sweden, remember:

There was once another Sweden.

A Sweden where kings crossed frozen seas with armies.

A Sweden where teenage monarchs attacked coalitions of larger countries.

A Sweden where Peter the Great looked across the battlefield and discovered that the Swedes were coming through a snowstorm.

And a Sweden that, for about a century, looked around the Baltic Sea and apparently thought:

“Lovely coastline. We’ll take it.”

🐝 The Honey Hive

Sources

Encyclopaedia Britannica historical material on Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII and Peter the Great; historical accounts of the Battle of Narva, Battle of Poltava, Treaty of Roskilde and the Swedish Great Power Era.

Please familiarize yourself with the employee handbook.

Failure to comply with company policy may result in:

A verbal warning
Loss of royal favor
Immediate dismissal
Imprisonment in the Tower
Termination in the extremely literal Tudor sense

Please direct all concerns to Human Resources.

Human Resources will then decide whether your complaint should be forwarded to His Majesty.

We strongly recommend that it not be.

Because working at the Tudor court was not simply having a job.

The royal household was part palace, part government, part networking convention, part political shark tank and part enormously expensive office where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

At Hampton Court, hundreds upon hundreds of courtiers and servants could be packed into the royal household.

Everyone wanted something.

A position.

A promotion.

A better room.

More money.

A rich marriage.

Access to the king.

A nice little estate in Kent.

And, increasingly as Henry VIII got older, the chance to retire with the same number of body parts they had on their first day.

Welcome aboard.

ORIENTATION: PLEASE MEET YOUR CEO

Your employer is Henry VIII.

He is simultaneously:

King.

Head of government.

Source of patronage.

Final authority.

And, after the break with Rome, head of the English Church.

So if you dislike management, there is unfortunately no corporate office above him where you can complain.

There is also no Glassdoor.

Probably for the best.

Henry VIII Ltd.

⭐ 1.8 stars

Excellent banquets. Strong benefits package. Management can be unpredictable. Several colleagues no longer with us.

THE EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK WAS ACTUALLY REAL

This is where Tudor history becomes almost unfairly helpful to comedy.

In 1526, Cardinal Wolsey oversaw the Ordinances of Eltham, a detailed set of rules governing Henry VIII’s household.

In other words:

The Tudor court had an employee handbook.

And management had concerns.

Members of the Privy Chamber were expected to live together peacefully, maintain confidentiality and keep royal business secret.

They were also instructed not to go wandering around asking where Henry was, grumbling about his schedule, discussing his amusements or complaining about what time he went to bed.

Which tells us that sometime before 1526, Tudor court gossip had apparently become exhausting.

You just know half a dozen irritated gentlemen were standing beside a fireplace one night.

“Where is he?”

“Hunting.”

“Still?”

“Apparently.”

“We were supposed to finish hours ago.”

And somewhere Cardinal Wolsey quietly reached for parchment and invented the staff memo.

The rules basically said:

Be pleasant to your coworkers.

Keep confidential matters confidential.

Stop gossiping.

Do not complain about the boss’s hours.

And quit asking where the boss has gone.

Corporate America spent centuries perfecting Human Resources.

The Tudors had already developed:

Please Stop Discussing Management in the Break Room.

YOUR WORKDAY BEGINS WHEN HENRY’S DOES

The royal household even had detailed rules governing Henry’s morning routine.

Pages and gentlemen of the Privy Chamber were expected to be ready when the king rose.

Certain men had the privilege of helping him dress.

And privilege is exactly what it was.

Access to the king was power.

The closer you physically got to Henry, the more important you were likely to be.

His palaces were arranged in layers of access.

Outer rooms.

Inner rooms.

Privy rooms.

The king.

Basically Tudor security clearance.

Employee Level One

May see corridor.

Employee Level Two

May enter impressive room.

Employee Level Three

May glimpse royal sleeve.

Executive Access

May actually speak to Henry.

Getting near the monarch mattered because proximity created opportunities.

A quiet word could become a promotion.

A recommendation could become land.

A friendship could become influence.

And one badly timed sentence could become an unexpectedly long stay at the Tower.

EVEN THE BARBER HAD A MORALITY CLAUSE

Henry’s barber had very specific instructions.

He was expected to appear every morning properly dressed and clean, with everything needed to shave and groom the royal head and beard.

Fair enough.

But Tudor HR was also interested in his personal life.

The barber was warned against associating with disreputable people or what the regulations referred to as “misguided women.”

Failure could cost him his job and potentially bring further punishment.

Imagine the annual review.

Technical Skills: Excellent.

Attendance: Excellent.

Beard Management: Outstanding.

Professional Judgment: Management has concerns regarding Brenda.

Even in the sixteenth century, apparently HR wanted to discuss who you had been seen with on Saturday night.

PROMOTIONS: MERITOCRACY, BUT BRING AN UNCLE

How did you get ahead at Tudor court?

Talent helped.

Education helped.

Hard work helped.

But do you know what helped enormously?

Knowing somebody.

The Tudor political world ran heavily on patronage.

Powerful people recommended others for offices, positions and royal favor.

Families built networks.

Courtiers built alliances.

People married strategically.

And access to someone important could lead to access to someone even more important.

LinkedIn existed.

It simply required velvet.

Certain families became particularly good at climbing the royal ladder.

The Howards.

The Boleyns.

The Seymours.

One family member would rise and suddenly cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles and in-laws appeared at court with remarkably strong qualifications nobody had noticed the week before.

ROYAL HR ANNOUNCEMENT

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Edward Seymour.

Following an exhaustive nationwide search, management has determined that the queen’s brother is somehow the most qualified candidate.

Please join us in congratulating him.

Do not ask who else applied.

Now, to be fair, calling every Tudor appointment “nepotism” is a little too modern.

Kinship and patronage were fundamental parts of political life.

Family connections were expected.

But if a modern HR consultant had walked into Henry’s court, there would eventually have been a delicate inquiry:

“Have we considered hiring someone who isn’t related to anyone?”

And then everyone would have laughed for twenty minutes.

COULD YOU ASK FOR A RAISE?

Surprisingly, yes.

Meet John Blanke, one of Henry VIII’s trumpeters.

Around 1512, Blanke petitioned Henry for a pay increase.

He was earning 8 pence a day.

He asked to take the vacant position of another royal trumpeter, which would raise his pay to 16 pence a day.

Basically, John Blanke walked into Tudor Compensation and Benefits and said:

“My experience, loyalty and current responsibilities suggest that my salary is no longer competitive.”

And Henry approved it.

His pay doubled.

Five hundred years before career coaches began yelling KNOW YOUR WORTH, John Blanke was already doing it.

No webinar.

No personal-brand seminar.

No 14-part LinkedIn post about leadership.

Just:

Dear King,

I am excellent at trumpet.

Pay me more.

Regards,
John.

Approved.

A Tudor employment success story.

No executioner required.

WELCOME TO THE COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT

There was no modern HR office where Thomas from Accounting could confidentially report that Lord Norfolk had created a hostile work environment.

Problems were handled through household officers, patrons, petitions, councillors and people with access to the king.

Which meant choosing your complaint carefully.

Generally Manageable Complaints

“My wages are insufficient.”

“My room is unsuitable.”

“My allowance has not arrived.”

“Someone has taken my candle ration.”

Potentially Complicated Complaints

“Lord Norfolk is undermining me.”

“The queen’s relatives are getting all the jobs.”

“I think Cardinal Wolsey is abusing his authority.”

Complaints Best Kept Inside Your Own Head

“I reject the king’s religious policy.”

“I dispute the legitimacy of His Majesty’s marriage.”

“I question the succession.”

“I do not believe Henry is Supreme Head of anything.”

Tudor HR strongly supported open communication.

Tudor HR simply did not guarantee continued respiration afterward.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: CARDINAL WOLSEY

Few Tudor employees enjoyed a rise quite as extraordinary as Thomas Wolsey.

He came from comparatively modest beginnings in Ipswich.

Then he climbed.

Royal chaplain.

Minister.

Cardinal.

Lord Chancellor.

Chief adviser to Henry VIII.

Eventually Wolsey became one of the most powerful men in England.

He handled diplomacy.

He managed government.

He accumulated wealth.

He built Hampton Court.

He became so influential that people occasionally treated him as though there were two kings.

Which is generally not ideal when one of them actually is king.

Then came Henry’s marriage problem.

Henry wanted his marriage to Katherine of Aragon ended.

Wolsey could not secure the result Henry wanted.

Suddenly, years of remarkable service were overwhelmed by one extremely important missed target.

THOMAS WOLSEY: ANNUAL REVIEW

Leadership: Exceptional.

Administrative Skill: Exceptional.

Diplomatic Experience: Extensive.

Political Influence: Enormous.

Palace Construction: Frankly showing off.

Major Annual Objective: Obtain annulment.

Result: Did not obtain annulment.

Overall Rating: Needs Improvement.

Wolsey lost offices and power.

Hampton Court ended up in Henry’s hands.

Eventually Wolsey was accused of treason and ordered back toward London.

He became ill and died at Leicester Abbey in 1530.

Technically HR never completed the termination paperwork.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: THOMAS CROMWELL

Then came Thomas Cromwell.

Cromwell’s rise was even more remarkable.

He was not born into the great aristocratic families.

He climbed through skill, intelligence, political instinct and an almost supernatural ability to get things done.

He helped transform royal government.

He became one of Henry’s most powerful ministers.

He helped manage the break with Rome.

He drove administrative and religious changes.

He solved problems.

If Henry wanted something impossible, Cromwell’s job description was essentially:

Make It Possible by Thursday.

For years, he succeeded.

Then came Anne of Cleves.

Cromwell had supported the match.

Politically, it made sense.

Henry met Anne.

Henry was unimpressed.

This was unfortunate.

Especially if you were Thomas Cromwell.

To be fair, the failed marriage was not Cromwell’s only problem.

He had powerful enemies.

Religious tensions were intense.

Political factions were circling.

His position had become precarious.

But recommending a wife the king immediately disliked certainly did not improve the quarterly review.

Cromwell was arrested in June 1540.

He pleaded with Henry for mercy.

Mercy did not arrive.

He was executed on 28 July 1540.

Later that same day, Henry married Catherine Howard.

Tudor management apparently believed in rapid onboarding.

THOMAS CROMWELL: FINAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Years of Service: Extensive.

Major Government Reforms: Numerous.

Political Skill: Extraordinary.

Problem Solving: Exceptional.

Recent Matchmaking: Disappointing.

Status: No longer with the company.

Tudor court life offered tremendous upward mobility.

Unfortunately, the downward mobility was considerably faster.

WORKPLACE TERMINATIONS

Now we arrive at the section modern employment lawyers may wish to skip.

To be clear, Tudor courtiers were not executed because they missed deadlines or submitted expenses late.

Execution involved serious accusations such as treason, conspiracy or, in the case surrounding Anne Boleyn, alleged adultery involving the queen.

But royal politics could become lethal very quickly.

In May 1536, Anne Boleyn’s downfall swept several men from Henry’s court into disaster.

George Boleyn, Mark Smeaton, Henry Norris, William Brereton and Francis Weston were executed on 17 May 1536.

Anne herself was executed two days later.

These were people who had moved inside the glamorous world of Henry’s court.

They had status.

Connections.

Careers.

Access.

Influence.

And suddenly the company directory required substantial updating.

There was no severance package.

There was, regrettably, quite a lot of severing.

JOB SECURITY: ABSOLUTELY NOT

Perhaps the most important lesson of Tudor employment is this:

Never confuse proximity to power with ownership of power.

You could be Henry’s favorite today.

Tomorrow?

Someone else might have your job.

Your rooms.

Your lands.

Your offices.

Possibly your house.

Potentially your spouse.

Court favor was valuable precisely because it could disappear overnight.

That is what made Tudor court life so intoxicating and so dangerous.

Everybody wanted to get close to the king.

Anyone with common sense probably also knew where the nearest exit was.

YOUR TUDOR EMPLOYEE SURVIVAL GUIDE

Congratulations on joining the royal household.

To maximize your chances of a long and rewarding career, Tudor Human Resources recommends the following:

DO

Dress magnificently.

Arrive on time.

Find a powerful patron.

Keep secrets.

Make useful friends.

Know which political faction currently has the king’s ear.

Accept free food, lodging, candles and beer whenever available.

Keep your résumé updated.

DO NOT

Gossip about Henry’s bedtime.

Ask repeatedly where the king has gone.

Touch the king unless authorized.

Let your barber acquire an exciting social life.

Assume yesterday’s favorite will remain tomorrow’s favorite.

Recommend a royal wife unless you are extraordinarily confident.

Annoy the Howards.

Annoy the Boleyns.

Annoy the Seymours.

Actually, just try not to annoy anyone.

And above all:

If someone says His Majesty would like to discuss your recent performance, ask where.

Hampton Court?

Probably fine.

Whitehall?

Could go either way.

The Tower?

Do not bring your lunch.

FINAL MESSAGE FROM HUMAN RESOURCES

The Tudor court was glamorous.

There were magnificent clothes.

Enormous banquets.

Music.

Dancing.

Hunting.

Politics.

Money.

Influence.

And opportunities for astonishing advancement.

A man from comparatively modest beginnings could become a cardinal.

Another could rise to become one of the most powerful ministers in England.

A royal trumpeter could successfully negotiate a 100-percent pay rise.

Families could rocket upward through royal favor.

And then the entire glorious machinery could reverse direction and flatten them before breakfast.

The Tudors understood several things every office worker still understands today.

Networking matters.

Connections matter.

Confidentiality matters.

Office politics matter.

Never underestimate the executive assistant.

And do not irritate senior management unnecessarily.

But perhaps Tudor England’s greatest contribution to employment history is reminding us how much workplace relations have improved.

Your boss may be annoying.

Your annual review may be irritating.

Someone may have stolen your yogurt from the office refrigerator again.

But when HR says your position has been terminated, everyone now understands that sentence metaphorically.

And for that, we should all be deeply grateful.

🐝👑

TUDOR TUESDAY

Where advancement was limitless, networking was mandatory and the employee offboarding process desperately needed reform.

Citations

Historic Royal Palaces, “The Royal Court in the Tudor Period”
Information on Tudor court structure, access to the monarch, patronage, royal favor, the Hampton Court household and the hierarchy of royal apartments.
https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/the-royal-court-in-the-tudor-period/

The National Archives, “Henry VIII Court Rules” and the Ordinances of Eltham
Household regulations governing Henry VIII’s court and Privy Chamber.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/henry-viii/

The National Archives, Ordinances of Eltham, Source 3
Rules concerning secrecy, harmony among members of the Privy Chamber and complaints or gossip concerning Henry VIII’s activities and schedule.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/henry-viii/source-3/

The National Archives, Ordinances of Eltham, Source 2a
Instructions concerning Henry VIII’s barber, including cleanliness, preparation and restrictions on unsuitable company.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/henry-viii/source-2a/

The National Archives, “John Blanke’s Petition for a Pay Rise”
John Blanke’s request to increase his wages from 8 pence to 16 pence per day by taking a vacant royal trumpeter’s position.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/john-blanke-petition-for-pay-rise/

Historic Royal Palaces, “Thomas Wolsey”
Wolsey’s rise under Henry VIII, Hampton Court, his political career, fall from royal favor and death in 1530.
https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/thomas-wolsey/

Historic Royal Palaces, “Thomas Cromwell”
Cromwell’s political career, the Anne of Cleves marriage, his arrest and execution in 1540.
https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/thomas-cromwell/

Historic Royal Palaces, Tower of London histories
Background on the downfall of Anne Boleyn and the executions of George Boleyn, Mark Smeaton, Henry Norris, William Brereton and Francis Weston in May 1536.
https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/

Passwords.

Bank PINs.

Your true opinion of the neighborhood association.

And, if you are a major Hollywood actress in 1936, detailed observations about your extramarital affairs.

Mary Astor learned that last one the hard way.

Her private diaries became the centerpiece of one of the biggest Hollywood scandals of the 1930s, involving a bitter custody battle, Broadway playwright George S. Kaufman, frantic studio executives, screaming newspapers, disappearing diary pages and enough sexual gossip to make an entire nation suddenly forget there was trouble brewing in Europe.

I recently read Joseph Egan’s The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s.

And what a ride.

Forget Hollywood Babylon.

Forget the recycled stories about Mary keeping some sort of Olympic scorecard for her lovers.

Egan went digging through the actual case, newspaper coverage, Astor material and family records to separate what happened from what Hollywood gossip eventually decided would have been much more entertaining if it had happened.

And believe me, the real story does not exactly suffer from a shortage of entertainment.

First, Mary Astor

Today most classic-film fans immediately picture Mary Astor as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon.

Beautiful.

Elegant.

Suspicious.

Exactly the sort of woman Humphrey Bogart should have known better than to trust within approximately eleven seconds of meeting her.

But Mary had been a star long before The Maltese Falcon.

Her childhood had also been rather less glamorous than the studio publicity machine might have suggested.

Once it became clear that young Mary could make money, her parents took charge of both daughter and paycheck with tremendous enthusiasm.

Hollywood loved selling the public stories about fairy-tale discoveries.

The fairy frequently discovered she had an accountant for a father.

Mary eventually escaped parental control, married director Kenneth Hawks and was widowed when he died in a plane crash in 1930.

Then she married Dr. Franklyn Thorpe.

This was not an improvement.

Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe: Marital Bliss Lasts Approximately Four Minutes

Mary and Franklyn had a daughter, Marylyn, born in 1932.

They also had an unhappy marriage.

Both were unfaithful.

There were arguments.

There were resentments.

There were power struggles.

And there was Mary’s diary.

Oh dear.

Mary wrote honestly about her life, thoughts, relationships and affairs.

Among those affairs was one with George S. Kaufman, one of the most celebrated playwrights in America.

Kaufman was married.

Mary was married.

Nobody involved was going to receive the 1933 Award for Marital Excellence.

Mary wrote about him anyway.

In purple ink.

Because apparently fate felt ordinary black ink lacked sufficient dramatic potential.

Then Comes the Divorce

Thorpe obtained their divorce in 1935.

But the real explosion came the following year when Mary went back to court seeking custody of four-year-old Marylyn.

That is when the diary stopped being a private journal and became a weapon.

Thorpe had it.

And suddenly Mary was facing the possibility that her private sexual life would be dragged through court to prove that she was an unfit mother.

Please note the fascinating 1930s mathematics involved here:

Man has affairs = unfortunate marital difficulty.

Woman has affairs = QUICK, SOMEONE CHECK WHETHER SHE IS CAPABLE OF RAISING A CHILD.

And thus began the Astor custody circus.

America Discovers the Purple Diary

The newspapers went berserk.

Not mildly interested.

Not intrigued.

Berserk.

There was a child-custody case happening somewhere underneath all this, but the American press had discovered SEX written in PURPLE INK and was no longer taking questions.

The diary supposedly contained descriptions of Mary’s lovers.

Then stories emerged claiming she had actually rated their sexual performances.

Suddenly the diary was being portrayed as something between a personal journal and the Michelin Guide to Men of Hollywood.

George Kaufman featured prominently.

And the stories became progressively racier with each retelling.

The problem?

A great deal of what later became accepted Purple Diary folklore wasn’t true.

This is one reason Joseph Egan wrote his book.

He says he became frustrated by later accounts, especially material recycled from Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, that repeated sensational claims as fact. Egan deliberately went back through records and contemporary reporting to reconstruct what actually happened.

In other words:

Hollywood had invented clickbait.

It simply required ink, paper and a newsboy screaming on a street corner.

George Kaufman Would Like to Leave Now

Meanwhile, George S. Kaufman suddenly discovered that California was no longer his favorite state.

Reporters wanted him.

The court wanted him.

Everyone wanted to know what Mary Astor had written about him.

Kaufman wanted a train.

According to accounts of the case, things eventually became so ridiculous that Kaufman escaped Los Angeles concealed in a laundry basket, got to a railway station and headed for New York while legal authorities were attempting to subpoena him.

A laundry basket.

One of Broadway’s most famous playwrights was apparently smuggled out like somebody’s delicate linens.

I don’t care how sophisticated 1930s society liked to think it was.

That is magnificent.

You can almost picture him crouched beneath the towels whispering:

“Tell Moss Hart I’ll explain later.”

Meanwhile, Hollywood Is Having Palpitations

The studios were understandably horrified.

Remember, Hollywood in this period sold fantasy.

Its stars were glamorous.

Beautiful.

Romantic.

Wholesome when required.

And preferably never photographed doing anything that might alarm somebody’s grandmother in Iowa.

The possibility that Mary Astor’s diary might publicly identify famous married actors, directors and writers involved in affairs was not merely gossip.

It threatened the entire carefully polished image of Hollywood.

According to accounts of the case, powerful studio figures and lawyers were deeply interested in preventing the diary from becoming public evidence.

Translation:

PLEASE DO NOT OPEN THE PURPLE BOOK.

Mary Astor Has One Slightly Bigger Concern

Her daughter.

This is where Egan’s book becomes much more interesting than the standard salacious version of the story.

Because beneath all the headlines, Mary was fighting for Marylyn.

Egan eventually became personally acquainted with the adult Marylyn Thorpe Roh, whose recollections helped him understand the family behind the scandal. He also wrote with the cooperation of Astor’s family and access to material from her estate.

That changes the story.

Mary stops being merely:

ACTRESS! AFFAIRS! PURPLE INK!

And becomes a mother who was willing to risk public humiliation because she wanted her daughter back.

Egan even discusses another journal he calls the Baby Diary, in which Astor recorded Marylyn’s early development.

That glimpse of Mary is worlds away from the cartoon version of the sexually ravenous Hollywood siren scribbling reviews of men between cocktails.

And frankly, much more interesting.

Did I Mention Mary Was Also Making a Movie?

Because apparently the scandal wasn’t enough.

During all this, Mary Astor was filming William Wyler’s Dodsworth.

Imagine your private sex life being discussed across America while you are expected to arrive at the studio, hit your marks, remember your dialogue and pretend everything is perfectly normal.

Monday:

Courtroom scandal.

Tuesday:

Close-up.

Wednesday:

George Kaufman flees in household laundry.

Thursday:

Retake scene 42.

There were fears the scandal might destroy Mary’s career.

Instead, something remarkable happened.

The public largely sympathized with her.

When Dodsworth was previewed, Egan recounts that the audience cheered when Mary Astor’s name appeared on screen.

So much for the public morality execution.

And What Happened to the Famous Diary?

Here comes the cruelest part for every gossip-loving historian alive today.

Judge Goodwin J. Knight examined the diary.

Pages were missing.

The document had been mutilated.

That made it unsuitable as the devastating piece of evidence Thorpe had hoped it would become.

Eventually Mary and Thorpe reached a custody settlement.

Mary would have Marylyn for nine months of the year.

Thorpe would have her for three months during the summer.

The diary was sealed by the court and placed in a bank vault.

Then, after Marylyn reached adulthood, Mary and Thorpe agreed that it should be destroyed.

So in 1952, under court supervision...

they burned it.

Page.

By.

Page.

I know.

Somewhere there should be a tiny memorial plaque.

HERE LIE THE ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS HOLLYWOOD HISTORIANS WILL NOW ARGUE ABOUT FOREVER.

And Mary Astor Was Ruined Forever

Except she wasn’t.

Not even remotely.

She continued making movies.

In 1941 she gave us the magnificent Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon.

That same year she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Great Lie.

So after newspapers had effectively announced that Mary Astor’s morals were about to bring down Western civilization, movie audiences responded:

Lovely. What picture is she in next?

Perfect.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Purple Diaries by Joseph Egan

This is where I need to separate Egan’s book from the lighter retellings of the scandal.

The Purple Diaries is not simply a collection of naughty Hollywood stories.

Egan spent years researching the case and clearly wanted to straighten out a story that had been embellished for decades.

The book was published in 2016 with the cooperation of Mary Astor’s family, and Egan had access to photographs and memorabilia from Astor’s estate. Even more importantly, he became a friend of Marylyn Thorpe Roh, the little girl at the center of the 1936 custody battle.

That matters.

Because Marylyn wasn’t a character in a Hollywood legend.

She was the child everybody was fighting over.

Beeview

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

If you are expecting three hundred pages of:

MARY SLEPT WITH WHO?!

this isn’t really that book.

And thank goodness.

There is plenty of scandal.

Plenty.

George Kaufman alone earns his keep.

But Egan is much more interested in how the scandal happened, who was maneuvering behind the scenes, what the newspapers reported, what the lawyers were doing and how the truth gradually became buried beneath Hollywood legend.

That is what I found fascinating.

The story has accumulated so much folklore over the decades that you almost need a small archaeological team to find Mary Astor underneath it.

Egan brings her back.

Not as a saint.

Mary Astor was complicated.

She had affairs.

She made poor decisions.

She could be difficult.

Her marriage to Thorpe was a disaster to which neither party brought an entirely clean pair of gloves.

But that is precisely why the book works.

Nobody has to be transformed into Snow White.

Adults behaved badly.

Lawyers behaved like lawyers.

Newspapers smelled blood.

Hollywood panicked.

And in the middle of it all was a four-year-old girl.

What Really Sold Me on the Book

Egan doesn’t stop with the delicious part.

He gives us context.

Mary’s childhood.

Her parents.

Her marriages.

Her work.

Her relationship with Marylyn.

The machinery of the movie studios.

The newspapers.

The court.

And what happened after everybody finally stopped screaming about purple ink.

It makes the scandal much more interesting because you understand why the diary mattered.

This wasn’t simply about adultery.

Hollywood already had enough adultery to illuminate Sunset Boulevard.

It was about reputation.

Control.

Custody.

The studio system.

And whether a woman who had an affair could still be considered a good mother.

Apparently America needed several weeks and enormous headlines to investigate.

5 OUT OF 5 BEES

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

I would absolutely recommend The Purple Diaries to anyone interested in:

🎬 Classic Hollywood
📰 Old newspaper scandals
⚖️ Famous trials
🍸 Studio-era gossip
📚 Hollywood history
💜 Extremely unfortunate diary-keeping decisions

It is thoroughly researched without feeling like homework.

And that is important because there are few things sadder than taking a story involving adultery, movie stars, Broadway celebrities and a man escaping in a laundry basket and somehow making it boring.

Egan doesn’t.

And the Best Part?

Nearly ninety years later, the Purple Diary itself almost doesn’t matter.

The real story is what everyone did because it existed.

Thorpe tried to use it.

Mary fought against it.

Hollywood feared it.

Reporters inflated it.

The public devoured it.

And later writers turned it into legend.

That may be the most timeless part of this entire story.

Give people one genuine scandalous fact and, within approximately fifteen minutes, somebody will improve it.

In 1936 they had newspapers.

Today we have social media.

The technology changed.

The human beings absolutely did not.

Mary Astor survived it all.

She fought for her daughter.

She kept acting.

She won an Oscar.

She became part of Hollywood history.

And poor George Kaufman became, among many considerably more prestigious accomplishments, the famous playwright who once had to escape California with the laundry.

Honestly, that may be the most Golden Age Hollywood sentence I have ever written.

Sources

Joseph Egan, The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s, Diversion Books, 2016. Publisher information and background on Egan’s access to the Astor family and estate.

Joseph Egan, The Purple Diaries research journal and interview discussing his research, Marylyn Thorpe Roh, the surviving diary material and the custody settlement.

Los Angeles Times, archival account of the 1936 Astor case and the eventual destruction of the diary.

Contemporary and legal histories of the custody case, including Judge Goodwin J. Knight’s examination of the diary and the extraordinary escape of George Kaufman.

And then there is Now, Voyager, in which Bette Davis essentially says, “Fine. I shall have a nervous breakdown, go away for treatment, acquire cheekbones, buy a magnificent wardrobe, board a ship, and return home looking so fabulous that everyone who underestimated me must quietly reconsider their life choices.”

I support this treatment plan completely.

Released in 1942, Now, Voyager stars Bette Davis as Charlotte Vale, a painfully shy Boston heiress who has spent her entire life being emotionally steamrolled by her terrifying mother, played with magnificent iciness by Gladys Cooper.

Mrs. Vale does not so much raise Charlotte as conduct a decades-long hostile takeover.

Charlotte is nervous, dowdy, frightened, and so thoroughly convinced she is a disappointment that she practically apologizes for occupying furniture.

Enter Dr. Jaquith, played by Claude Rains.

And really, if Claude Rains cannot sort out your psychological problems, cinema has exhausted its options.

Dr. Jaquith removes Charlotte from her mother’s orbit and sends her to a sanitarium, where she begins the slow process of discovering that she is, in fact, allowed to possess a personality.

Then comes the cruise.

And suddenly...

Bette Davis enters the chat.

Charlotte emerges transformed. The eyebrows have negotiated a peace treaty. The wardrobe has been upgraded. The posture has arrived. There is a hat involved.

Naturally, within about five minutes she meets Jerry Durrance, played by Paul Henreid.

Jerry is charming.

Jerry is handsome.

Jerry is sensitive.

Jerry is also married.

Because apparently Charlotte’s emotional recovery required one final elective course titled:

Complicated Men 401.

Jerry’s marriage is deeply unhappy, but this is still 1942 Hollywood, so nobody is casually filing paperwork and starting over next Tuesday.

Instead, Charlotte and Jerry fall in love through meaningful glances, restrained conversation, moonlight, and enough cigarette smoke to place the entire Atlantic under an air-quality advisory.

And then we get the cigarette scene.

Henreid lights two cigarettes at once, takes one, and hands the other to Davis.

It became one of the most famous romantic gestures in classic Hollywood.

Today it would probably require a health warning, a fire marshal, and three paragraphs of legal disclaimers.

In 1942?

Romance.

Absolute romance.

Charlotte Goes Home

Eventually Charlotte returns to Boston, where her mother is delighted to discover that her obedient daughter has been replaced by a glamorous woman with opinions.

Mrs. Vale reacts approximately as you would expect a dictator to react upon learning one of the provinces has declared independence.

Badly.

Charlotte begins standing up for herself.

She wears what she wants.

She socializes.

She develops confidence.

She stops behaving as though every decision requires maternal approval and a notarized affidavit.

And watching Bette Davis slowly dismantle Gladys Cooper’s authority is enormously satisfying.

This is not some magical makeover where new hair fixes everything.

Charlotte still struggles.

She still doubts herself.

She still wants love.

But she begins understanding something much more important:

Her mother’s opinion is not the constitution.

And that is really the heart of the movie.

And Then Jerry Returns...

Because of course he does.

Classic Hollywood was never going to give Charlotte emotional stability without first tossing Paul Henreid back into the plot wearing a nice suit.

But the relationship between Charlotte and Jerry becomes something more interesting than a standard romance.

Charlotte eventually forms a bond with Jerry’s troubled daughter, Tina, whose emotional problems remind Charlotte painfully of her younger self.

Suddenly Charlotte has an opportunity to give a child the compassion she herself never received.

And this is where Now, Voyager becomes much more than “Bette Davis gets glamorous and falls for a married man.”

It becomes a story about breaking cycles.

Charlotte cannot rewrite her childhood.

She cannot make her mother kinder.

She cannot have Jerry in the conventional romantic ending she might want.

But she can decide what kind of person she will become.

That is a far more interesting victory.

Gladys Cooper Deserves Hazard Pay

We also need to discuss Gladys Cooper, because Mrs. Vale is one of the great formidable mothers of classic cinema.

She can destroy a person’s self-esteem using little more than perfect posture and a slight adjustment of facial muscles.

No shouting required.

No dramatic plate throwing.

Just:

“Charlotte.”

And somewhere in Boston, a therapist’s appointment book fills itself.

She is dreadful.

She is controlling.

She is emotionally suffocating.

And Cooper plays her beautifully.

You understand exactly why Charlotte has spent most of her life shrinking herself.

Bette Davis Is Magnificent

Davis was nominated for an Academy Award for the role, and it is easy to see why.

What I love is that Charlotte’s transformation is not simply physical.

Davis changes the way Charlotte moves.

Her voice.

Her posture.

Her eyes.

Early Charlotte looks as though she would like permission before breathing.

Later Charlotte walks into rooms knowing she belongs there.

And Davis never makes the transition feel completely effortless. There are still flashes of the frightened woman underneath.

That makes the character feel human instead of manufactured.

Also, the wardrobe deserves its own supporting-actress nomination.

Charlotte’s clothes become visual evidence of her growing confidence.

Old Hollywood understood something modern movies occasionally forget:

Sometimes the dress is part of the storytelling.

And Of Course...

We arrive at the famous ending.

Jerry asks whether Charlotte is happy.

Charlotte looks toward the night sky and delivers one of the most famous closing lines in movie history:

“Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.”

Excuse me while 1942 personally punches me in the emotions.

It is romantic.

It is bittersweet.

It is slightly maddening.

It is completely unforgettable.

And Bette Davis sells every syllable.

Why I Love It

Now, Voyager has everything I want from a classic film:

Bette Davis at full strength.

Claude Rains calmly repairing people’s lives.

Gladys Cooper weaponizing motherhood.

Paul Henreid being impossibly elegant.

A spectacular transformation.

Beautiful clothes.

Romance.

Melodrama.

And enough cigarette smoke to alter local weather patterns.

But underneath all of that glamour is a surprisingly thoughtful story about learning to live your own life.

Charlotte does not defeat every problem.

She does not get everything she wants.

She simply stops letting fear and her mother’s judgment decide who she is.

And sometimes that is the bigger happy ending.

🐝 THE HONEY HIVE RATING: 5/5 BEES

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

For Bette Davis alone, it would be worth watching.

Add Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Gladys Cooper, gowns, ocean liners, emotional liberation, and the most famous dual-cigarette maneuver in cinematic history?

Five bees.

No hesitation.

And frankly, if someone lights two cigarettes simultaneously and hands you one while Paul Henreid music swells in the background, you are legally required to stare wistfully into the middle distance.

Classic Hollywood had rules.

Do we seriously believe King Charles is prepared to sacrifice Camilla, William, Catherine, his grandchildren, the wider Royal Family, public confidence in the Crown and potentially his own reign just to put Harry back in the middle of everything?

Because I don’t.

Not even remotely.

And before anyone starts warming up the ceremonial pitchforks, perhaps we should separate what we know from what has been assembled out of speculation, anonymous sourcing and a rather heroic quantity of red string.

Apparently King Charles has spent the last two years secretly meeting Harry, manipulating the Royal Rota, plotting a Sussex rehabilitation, arranging “prominent roles” at his own funeral and perhaps even laying the groundwork for Harry to become Regent.

That is quite a workload for a man who is also supposed to be King and under going cancer treatments.

And naturally, Camilla, William, Catherine, Anne, Edward, the Palace machine and Parliament have all failed to notice this grand conspiracy unfolding under their noses.

Convenient.

Let’s start with my favorite phrase:

“Harry will have a prominent role at the King’s funeral.”

What exactly is a prominent role at a funeral?

Good grief, it is not a Coronation.

Is Harry being anointed?

Is Meghan carrying the orb?

Does Archie get a solo?

Are commemorative programs going to read:

PRINCE HARRY
IN THE ROLE OF GRIEVING SON

Harry is Charles’s son. His children are Charles’s grandchildren.

When Charles eventually dies, Harry may walk in a procession, sit near the front, read something or otherwise be conspicuous because, again, he is the dead King’s son.

That is called a funeral.

It is not a promotion.

Nobody leaves Westminster Abbey saying, “Well, Harry had a very good pew. Clearly he’s back on the payroll.”

And yes, Charles may speak to Harry

Scandalous, I know.

The King has contact with his own child.

Harry has said and done things I consider unforgivable. He has attacked members of his family publicly, turned private grievances into content and caused enormous damage.

Charles may think all of that too.

He may also not want to die estranged from his son.

Those are not contradictory positions.

A father can forgive a little without forgetting everything.

He can reopen a family door without reopening the balcony.

That does not make Harry a working royal.

It makes Charles a father.

And Harry Does Not Need a Secret Royal Extraction Plan to Come Home

This is the bit that gets lost in all the talk of a “thaw,” secret plans and carefully engineered returns.

Harry is a British citizen.

He can return to Britain.

He can live there.

He can bring his children.

He can rent a house, buy a house, stay with friends, visit family, argue with solicitors, complain about the weather and rediscover the national hobby of discussing traffic.

None of that requires a palace conspiracy.

There need not be a secret “Project Thaw,” “Operation Reconciliation,” or some revised version of D-Day with courtiers storming the beaches of Montecito.

Sometimes a man simply goes back to his own country.

That is logistics.

Not regime change.

Then we have the secret meetings since 2024

This is where the Throne Ranger theory starts needing industrial-strength suspension of disbelief.

We are supposed to believe there have been secret meetings in clubs, Clarence House and Highgrove, all part of a careful multi-year plan to worm Harry back into public affection.

And nobody talked?

Really?

This is Harry and Meghan we are discussing, not the Vatican conclave.

The Sussex orbit has never exactly suggested the motto:

“What happens in the family stays in the family.”

Yet somehow a two-year restoration plan involving royals, aides, reporters, logistics and strategy remained hermetically sealed until a Throne Ranger cracked the case on YouTube.

If they were regularly meeting throughout that period, how exactly was the September 2025 meeting their first face-to-face encounter in roughly 20 months?

Remarkable.

There was also a meeting at a private London club involving aides from both sides.

Aides.

Not Charles and Harry in trench coats whispering over martinis.

A communications meeting has now apparently been promoted into evidence of Operation Harry Homecoming.

Royal gossip has excellent career advancement opportunities.

But here is the part I simply cannot buy

For this theory to work, Charles has to be prepared to risk nearly everything around him.

Camilla.

William.

Catherine.

George, Charlotte and Louis.

Anne.

Edward.

His relationship with his heir.

His marriage.

His credibility.

His reign.

All for Harry.

Why?

Charles waited more than seventy years to become King.

Now we are told he is willing to torch his family and destabilize the monarchy because he has suddenly decided Harry must be restored at any cost?

That is not reconciliation.

That is royal self-destruction.

And Camilla is supposedly fine with it?

The woman who has spent decades beside Charles, endured public hatred, helped steady the monarchy and was herself attacked by Harry is apparently going to smile sweetly while Charles sacrifices everything for him?

I have trouble picturing that conversation.

“Darling, shall we alienate William, upset Catherine, jeopardize the reign and bring Harry back officially?”

“Lovely. Tea?”

No.

The Regency Panic is another leap

Yes, under an extraordinary set of circumstances, the law governing regency could potentially make Harry relevant.

The claim goes something like this:

If Charles and William died while George were still a minor, Harry could become Regent.

Therefore Charles is somehow engineering Harry’s return so this can happen.

Except there is a small obstacle.

The law.

Charles does not get to sit at Highgrove with a fountain pen and secretly appoint Harry Regent.

Under the Regency Act 1937, a Regent is determined according to the statutory line of succession and eligibility requirements. Among other things, the person must meet nationality, age and UK domicile requirements.

The current line of succession is William, George, Charlotte, Louis, Harry, Archie, Lilibet and so forth.

So yes, in the extremely specific hypothetical situation in which both Charles and William died while George was still under 18, a regency could become necessary.

And depending upon who was eligible at that time, Harry could potentially enter the equation.

But that would arise because of statute and succession, not because Charles writes a note saying:

“If William unavailable, give throne-related duties to Harry. C xx”

on Highgrove stationery and slip it into the red box.

That isn’t how any of this works.

And if Parliament wanted different arrangements, Parliament has something to say about it.

This is constitutional law, not Survivor: Balmoral.

Finding Harry somewhere in a legal contingency is not proof of a scheme.

It is proof that Britain has legislation.

Less exciting, admittedly.

What I can imagine is much more ordinary

I wrote months ago that I could see Harry returning to Britain if his marriage hit serious trouble.

Not necessarily divorce.

Possibly separation.

In that situation, I absolutely believe Charles would help his son.

Housing.

Children.

Lawyers.

Practical support.

A place to land while Harry sorted himself out.

That would make complete sense to me.

What I did not foresee was Meghan and the children coming too.

And yes, that makes me curious.

Could Meghan’s stay prove temporary?

Perhaps.

Maybe she is helping settle the children.

Maybe they are discussing longer-term arrangements.

Maybe lawyers are involved.

Maybe none of that is happening and there is no separation at all.

We simply do not know.

And that is the difference between speculation and fact.

I am perfectly happy to speculate.

I am less interested in dressing speculation in a tiara and introducing it as palace intelligence.

And now the solution is to boo Charles?

This is where the theory becomes performance art.

To save the monarchy...

boo the monarch.

To support William...

publicly humiliate William’s father.

To prevent a supposed constitutional crisis...

manufacture an actual one.

Brilliant.

Apparently Charles must be stopped because a Throne Ranger believes he may be trying to reconcile with his son and, years from now, allow him to stand somewhere noticeable at his own funeral.

Again:

It is a funeral. Not a Coronation.

If evidence appears that Charles intends to restore Harry to official royal duties, revive half-in, half-out or undermine William, then I will happily examine it.

But I am not going to declare war on King Charles because someone has turned family contact, funeral planning and a few anonymous whispers into Operation Funeral Seating Chart.

Charles may want peace with Harry.

He may want access to his grandchildren.

Harry may simply want to live in Britain again.

None of that requires sacrificing Camilla, William, Catherine or the Crown.

And until somebody produces something considerably stronger than Throne Ranger arithmetic, I remain unconvinced that Charles has waited his entire life for the throne...

only to throw it all away so Harry can get a good pew.

What it does not need is people using King Harald’s death, before the mourning flowers have even stopped being arranged, as an excuse to spray accusations across the entire family tree with a garden hose.

The man has been dead for less than 24 hours.

Have some respect.

Haakon became King when his father died.

Mette-Marit became Queen because she is his wife.

Ingrid Alexandra became Crown Princess because she is the heir.

This is called hereditary succession, not Norway’s Got Moral Purity.

Nobody assembled at the palace, reviewed Marius Borg Høiby’s criminal record and announced:

“Splendid work, everyone. You’ve earned a monarchy.”

Enter Marius, the son of Mette-Marit and the stepson of Haakon. He is the one convicted of serious crimes, not his mother, stepfather, or half-sister.

He has no royal title.
No royal duties.
No place in the succession.

He is not suddenly Prince Marius of Skaugum, Earl of Electronic Monitoring and First Viscount of Bad Decisions.

And calling every relative who has not publicly dragged him into Oslofjord a “rape apologist” is not brave commentary.

It is guilt by surname with a tiara stapled to it.

You can criticize Mette-Marit.

You can scrutinize how the family handled Marius.

You can question whether his detention arrangements look privileged.

You can ask what this scandal means for the monarchy under Haakon.

All fair game.

But hijacking the death of a deeply loved 89-year-old King to sneer at his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter before Norway has even had a full day to mourn him?

That tells me considerably more about the commentators than it does about the Norwegian monarchy.

The Marius scandal will still exist tomorrow.

The Epstein questions will still exist next week.

The monarchy will still have difficult questions to answer.

But perhaps, for one bloody day, we could remember that a King has died, a son has lost his father, a family has lost its patriarch, and a country is mourning.

There will be plenty of time for the internet’s self-appointed Throne Ranger Court of Screeching Moral Superiority to reconvene.

Today, let Norway mourn its King without turning his obituary into clickbait confetti.

Country houses.

Family solicitors.

Rich uncles.

Doctors with suspiciously tidy handwriting.

And British trains.

If a detective boards your carriage, get off immediately. Walk. Hitchhike. Borrow a bicycle. Steal a pony if necessary.

Because someone is about to die, and it will almost certainly happen before the refreshments trolley arrives.

This week’s Fair Play Friday selection is Death in the Tunnel by Miles Burton, first published in 1936.

Miles Burton was actually a pen name of Cecil Street, who also wrote mysteries as John Rhode.

Apparently one name simply could not cope with his workload.

Some writers had hobbies.

Cecil Street had aliases and corpses.

🚂 THE 5:00 TO HOMICIDE

Sir Wilfred Saxonby boards the 5:00 train from London’s Cannon Street and arranges to travel alone in his compartment.

First mistake.

The train enters the long Blackdown Tunnel.

Then something odd happens.

A red signal appears.

The driver slows the train.

The signal changes.

The train continues.

And when it eventually reaches Stourford, Sir Wilfred is discovered dead in his compartment, shot through the heart, with a pistol beneath the seat.

He was alone.

Nobody appears to have entered.

Nobody appears to have left.

Naturally, the obvious conclusion is suicide.

Case closed.

Everyone home for tea.

Except this is a Golden Age mystery, so absolutely nothing is ever that convenient.

Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard starts noticing several annoying little details that refuse to cooperate with the suicide theory.

Why did the train slow down?

Where did that red signal come from?

What exactly happened inside the tunnel?

And why does the entire thing feel suspiciously arranged?

Enter Arnold’s friend, Desmond Merrion, amateur criminologist, wealthy gentleman and apparently a man who wakes up every morning thinking:

What wildly complicated explanation can I suggest today?

Merrion takes one look at the situation and decides that what everyone really needs is more possibilities.

Thank heavens.

🔎 THIS BOOK HAS A TIMETABLE AND IT IS NOT AFRAID TO USE IT

Let me warn you now.

This is not a mystery overflowing with passionate romances, tortured childhoods and people staring moodily out of windows contemplating the emotional consequences of their decisions.

No.

Miles Burton has a railway timetable.

And you are going to respect it.

This is a proper puzzle mystery.

The question is not simply:

Who killed Sir Wilfred?

It is:

HOW IN GOD’S NAME DID ANYONE MANAGE IT?

Could someone have reached the train?

Could they have entered the compartment?

Why did it slow down?

How could anyone get away afterward?

What role did the tunnel play?

Burton takes the impossible setup and begins dismantling it one bolt at a time.

Frankly, by the middle of the book I felt I was becoming qualified to inspect railway infrastructure.

🕵️ ARNOLD AND MERRION

Inspector Arnold and Desmond Merrion make a good team because they approach the case from opposite directions.

Arnold is practical.

Methodical.

Evidence first.

Merrion is imaginative.

Which is a polite way of saying he occasionally proposes things that make you wonder whether someone should gently take away his coffee.

Arnold basically says:

“These are the facts.”

Merrion replies:

“Excellent. Now let us make them much more complicated.”

And off they go.

Arnold keeps the investigation anchored while Merrion keeps asking the sort of questions sensible people would never think to ask.

Together, they work.

There are moments when the reader may spot something before Arnold does, and you may find yourself mentally tapping the page saying:

INSPECTOR. INSPECTOR. LOOK OVER THERE.

But if fictional detectives noticed everything immediately, most mystery novels would be pamphlets.

🚦 BUT DOES IT PLAY FAIR?

Mostly, yes.

And since this is Fair Play Friday, that matters.

We are not running Author Pulls a Surprise Cousin Out of the Hedge on Page 243 Friday.

Burton does give us the mechanics.

We investigate the tunnel.

We examine the timing.

We consider how the train moved, slowed and continued.

We watch Arnold and Merrion gradually work out what might have happened.

The satisfaction comes from trying to build the crime alongside them.

That said, not every single element is equally guessable.

The how is stronger than some parts of the who and why.

And a few pieces of the final explanation may leave you thinking:

Yes, technically possible, provided the murderer had the organizational skills of a military campaign planner and never once tripped over a shoelace.

Still, the clues are there.

Burton does not suddenly announce that the victim was killed by an undisclosed mechanical ferret introduced in the final chapter.

So we will allow it.

🚂 WHY IT WORKS

I love railway mysteries because they immediately limit everybody’s options.

In a country house, a murderer can escape through a window, hide in the garden, sneak down a corridor or disappear behind approximately fourteen acres of hydrangeas.

A train says:

Here are your carriages. Here are your passengers. Here are your tracks. Good luck.

Then Burton makes matters worse by putting the crucial event inside a tunnel.

Darkness.

Restricted movement.

A slowing train.

A mysterious signal.

A dead man in a compartment.

Golden Age mystery writers looked at logistical nightmares like this and thought:

Wonderful. Let’s kill somebody.

The pace is deliberate.

Very deliberate.

If you need car chases, explosions and somebody dangling from a helicopter every fifteen minutes, this may not be your book.

But if two intelligent men discussing precisely where a train was at 5:34 p.m. sounds exciting...

Welcome.

Your chair is over there.

Someone has already poured the tea.

📚 MILES BURTON AND THE GOLDEN AGE PUZZLE

Death in the Tunnel appeared in 1936 and was later revived by the British Library as part of its Crime Classics series.

And this is exactly why those reissues are so much fun.

Christie, Sayers and Allingham became household names.

But behind them was an enormous crowd of writers cheerfully murdering vicars, businessmen, colonels, aunts and anyone unfortunate enough to own a large inheritance.

Miles Burton deserves his seat at that table.

He may not give us the dazzling personality of Poirot or the charm of Lord Peter Wimsey.

But if you want a carefully constructed puzzle involving trains, tunnels, signals and people behaving suspiciously in first class...

He has you covered.

🐝 THE HONEY HIVE VERDICT

Death in the Tunnel is not perfect.

The characters are not particularly deep.

Nobody is going to close the book and whisper:

“Sir Wilfred changed my life.”

Sir Wilfred barely gets the chance to change his own.

And some of Merrion’s theories occasionally make you suspect he secretly owns a large corkboard covered in string.

But the central puzzle is clever.

The setting is terrific.

The mystery is unusual.

And it does exactly what I want a Golden Age detective story to do:

It makes me stop reading, stare into space and think:

Hang on. How DID they do that?

For fans of puzzle mysteries, railway mysteries and detectives who regard timetables as more exciting than romantic relationships, this one is well worth boarding.

🐝🐝🐝🐝½

4.5 out of 5 bees

Half a bee was detained at the station because its alibi could not be independently verified.

Have you read Death in the Tunnel?

And what is your favorite railway murder mystery?

Because apparently in the Golden Age, Britain’s railways offered two classes of service:

First Class and Homicide.

And what a history it is.

King Harald V of Norway has lived the sort of life that sounds suspiciously as though several screenwriters were allowed into the same room.

There is war.

There is exile.

There is a forbidden royal romance.

There is sailing.

There is a commoner who becomes queen.

And, as a bonus, there is an excellent PBS drama about his mother.

Really, Norway has been holding out on us.

Harald Was Born Into a Very Serious Family Business

Harald was born in 1937, the son of Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha.

His grandfather was King Haakon VII, who would become one of the great symbols of Norwegian resistance during World War II.

Harald also had two older sisters, Princess Ragnhild and Princess Astrid.

But Norway’s succession laws at the time favored males, so the arrival of little Harald was rather important.

The palace presumably took one look at the baby and thought:

Excellent. Succession sorted. Somebody find the christening gown.

He was actually the first prince born in Norway in 567 years.

No pressure there.

Then the Nazis Invaded

Harald was only three years old when Germany invaded Norway in April 1940.

His grandfather, King Haakon VII, and his father, Crown Prince Olav, became deeply involved in Norway’s resistance and wartime government.

Harald’s mother, Crown Princess Märtha, fled with Harald and his sisters.

They first escaped to Sweden and later traveled to the United States at the invitation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

So while most three-year-olds were dealing with bedtime and vegetables, the future King of Norway was a refugee fleeing Hitler.

Harald, his mother and sisters spent much of the war living near Washington, D.C.

And this brings me to something I absolutely have to recommend.

If You Haven’t Seen Atlantic Crossing, Watch It

PBS MASTERPIECE aired an eight-part drama called Atlantic Crossing, and it tells the story of Crown Princess Märtha’s wartime years in America.

It stars Sofia Helin as Märtha, Tobias Santelmann as Crown Prince Olav, and Kyle MacLachlan as Franklin Roosevelt.

I thought it was excellent.

And once you know Harald’s story, it becomes even more interesting because that little boy you see fleeing Norway with his mother is the future King Harald V.

The drama focuses heavily on Märtha’s relationship with Roosevelt and her efforts to help Norway during the war.

Now, this is important: it is a historical drama inspired by real events, not a documentary. The series takes dramatic liberties, particularly around the nature of Märtha and Roosevelt’s relationship. Even the creators have discussed the mixture of historical research and dramatization.

So don’t watch it with a notebook yelling, “OBJECTION!” every twelve minutes.

Watch it as historical drama.

And as historical drama?

Terrific.

It also introduced a lot of viewers to Crown Princess Märtha, who deserves far more attention than she usually receives in royal history.

Harald Comes Home

When Germany surrendered in 1945, Harald returned to Norway with his mother, sisters and grandfather.

He was eight years old.

A huge crowd welcomed the Royal Family home.

Imagine being eight and realizing thousands of people are cheering because your family has become part of the story of your country’s survival.

I was still losing mittens at eight.

Sadly, Harald’s mother died in 1954, only 53 years old.

She never became queen.

Three years later, King Haakon VII died and Harald’s father became King Olav V.

Harald was now Crown Prince.

And then came Sonja.

Enter Sonja Haraldsen

Harald met Sonja Haraldsen in 1959.

They fell in love.

Lovely.

One tiny problem.

She was a commoner.

Today we barely blink at that.

In the 1950s and 60s, however, an heir to a throne marrying someone without a royal title could apparently cause constitutional furniture to begin trembling.

Harald was expected to marry royalty or nobility.

Instead, he wanted Sonja.

And he waited.

Nine years.

Nine years before they were finally allowed to marry.

There were consultations with politicians.

There was debate.

People were predicting that marrying a commoner could damage or even bring down the monarchy.

Because apparently Norway had survived Nazi occupation but might finally be defeated by a nice woman from Oslo.

King Olav eventually gave his consent.

Harald and Sonja married in 1968.

And amazingly...

Norway survived.

The monarchy survived.

The fjords remained intact.

And Sonja Turned Out to Be Rather Fabulous

Queen Sonja was never going to be merely decorative.

She studied tailoring and dressmaking, fashion design, social science, accounting, English, French and art history.

She earned a university degree.

She is an artist.

She loves hiking and nature.

And she is a certified ski instructor.

Because Norway.

Apparently, before they hand you a tiara, someone asks whether you can safely descend a mountain.

When Harald became king in 1991, Sonja became Norway’s first queen in 53 years.

The “unsuitable commoner” had become Queen of Norway.

That aged nicely.

Harald and Sonja have now been married for more than half a century.

Not bad for a match people once worried might topple the monarchy.

Harald the Sailor

King Harald has another great love.

Sailing.

And I don’t mean royal sailing where one stands on a yacht wearing white trousers while somebody else does all the alarming work.

Harald actually competed.

He represented Norway at the Olympics and carried the Norwegian flag at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

He later became a world champion sailor.

So his résumé essentially reads:

King. Olympian. World champion sailor.

Show-off.

Harald continued competitive sailing well into old age.

Apparently running a monarchy was not enough stimulation.

Why Is Harald So Beloved?

King Harald has long enjoyed enormous affection in Norway.

Part of that comes from his personality.

He has always seemed warm, funny and relatively unpretentious.

He inherited some of that from his father, King Olav V, who was also adored by Norwegians.

Harald doesn’t give the impression that the monarchy exists so everyone can admire the monarchy.

He gives the impression that it exists to serve Norway.

That distinction matters.

His motto is:

“Alt for Norge.”

Everything for Norway.

And after more than three decades as king, Harald has become something close to Norway’s national grandfather.

A national grandfather with palaces, military uniforms and substantially better sailing skills than your grandfather, but still.

So Who Succeeds Harald?

This is thankfully one of the easier royal succession charts.

King Harald and Queen Sonja have two children:

Princess Märtha Louise, born in 1971.

Crown Prince Haakon, born in 1973.

Märtha Louise is older, but because of the succession rules that applied when they were born, Haakon is the heir to the throne.

So when Harald’s reign eventually ends:

Crown Prince Haakon becomes King of Norway.

Next in line is Haakon’s daughter:

Princess Ingrid Alexandra.

She is followed by her younger brother, Prince Sverre Magnus.

Norway later changed its rules so the eldest child inherits regardless of sex.

Which means Ingrid Alexandra is expected one day to become queen.

So the succession is beautifully simple:

Harald, Haakon, Ingrid Alexandra.

No calculators.

No cousin twice removed hiding in Luxembourg.

Very considerate of Norway.

Quite a Life

Harald’s story really does have everything.

He was a prince born into a dynasty that desperately needed a male heir.

He became a refugee at three.

His grandfather stood against Hitler.

His mother fled across the Atlantic with three children.

He returned to a liberated Norway.

He lost his mother young.

He fell in love with a commoner and waited nine years to marry her.

He became an Olympic sailor.

He became king.

And over the decades, he became genuinely beloved by his people.

If you want to understand a little more about the family that shaped him, I cannot recommend Atlantic Crossing enough.

Watch it.

Then go read about the real Crown Princess Märtha afterward.

Because once you do, King Harald stops being simply “the elderly King of Norway.”

You suddenly see the little boy behind the crown.

The child who fled Hitler, crossed the Atlantic, came home after liberation and eventually inherited a throne.

And somewhere along the way he also married the girl everyone worried about and became a world-class sailor.

Frankly, Harald has been overachieving for nearly ninety years.

He doesn’t.

IPP means Internationally Protected Person, and it comes from international law, not royal preference, paternal affection, palace gossip or whatever somebody’s “source” allegedly heard near a hydrangea.

For Harry to qualify in his own right, he would need to fall into a category covered by the treaty. Since he is not a Head of State, Head of Government or Foreign Minister, the relevant route would be as an official representative of the UK performing official functions abroad and entitled to special international protection because of that role.

In plain English?

Harry would need to be doing something like: officially representing the King or the British state abroad in a recognized public role.

That is very different from:

“I’m a prince and I have an event in Canada.”

Or:

“I’m doing Invictus.”

Or:

“I have a Netflix crew.”

Or:

“My father is King.”

None of those things, by themselves, magically sprinkle IPP dust over him.

And this is where the internet tends to drive straight through the hedge.

Being King Charles’s son does not automatically make Harry an IPP.

Being fifth in line to the throne does not make him an IPP.

Being the Duke of Sussex does not make him an IPP.

Having HRH does not make him an IPP.

Being on Royal.uk does not make him an IPP.

Living in Britain does not make him an IPP.

Visiting Britain does not make him an IPP.

Attending Invictus does not automatically make him an IPP.

Doing charity work does not make him an IPP.

Making documentaries does not make him an IPP.

Having a high threat level does not create IPP status either.

And, regrettably for several online constitutional scholars, having tea with Papa definitely does not make him an IPP.

Now, if Harry actually returned as a working royal and the Palace formally confirmed that he was once again representing the Sovereign on official engagements abroad, that could materially change the picture.

But even then, it is not:

“Working Royal = Permanent Worldwide IPP Subscription.”

The actual function matters. Where he is. Who he is representing. What official role he is carrying out. Whether international law recognizes special protection in those circumstances.

There is also a separate treaty provision covering certain family members accompanying a Head of State abroad, so if Harry were actually accompanying Charles on an official foreign visit, that could be relevant too.

Again, though, that would not mean Harry walks off the plane afterward clutching a lifetime IPP membership card.

And then we get to RAVEC, which is another thing entirely.

RAVEC deals with UK protective security for royals and certain public figures.

That is the system Harry challenged after his security arrangements changed when he stopped being a full-time working royal.

His counsel argued about the fairness of RAVEC’s process.

They were not arguing that Charles simply needed to wave a royal finger and order armed police to appear.

So, very simply:

IPP status is an international legal category.

RAVEC is about UK protective-security decisions.

Working royal status is an official institutional role.

They may overlap in certain circumstances.

They are not interchangeable.

And Charles does not get to lean over the breakfast table and say:

“Harry, darling, congratulations. You’re IPP again. The Range Rovers are outside.”

Royalty may come with castles, uniforms and an alarming number of ceremonial swords.

It does not come with a magic international-security switch.

Born in Paris in 1949 into an old French aristocratic family, he inherited wealth and status young.

He had choices.

Restore an estate. Collect art. Breed horses. Become mildly unbearable about wine.

Instead, he became a drug dealer to the rock-and-roll set.

A bold use of ancestral privilege.

The Count Goes to California

Breteuil moved to California and enrolled at UCLA, though academia does not appear to have been the main event.

Unless UCLA offered International Narcotics Distribution with a Minor in Rock-Star Girlfriends, Jean was freelancing.

He reportedly began dealing hashish through Moroccan contacts before moving into heroin.

His circle eventually included Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Pamela Courson, Talitha Getty, Jim Morrison and, through later accounts, Janis Joplin.

If you opened Jean’s address book today, you’d probably need gloves and a coroner.

Dealer to the Stars

Marianne Faithfull later recalled that Breteuil fancied himself a kind of dealer to the stars.

Which may be the most 1970 job description imaginable.

Jean was young, rich, titled and handsome. He could enter rooms ordinary dealers could not.

He didn’t look dangerous.

He looked expensive.

That helped.

Enter Pamela Courson

Jean became involved with Pamela Courson, Jim Morrison’s longtime girlfriend.

So now we have Morrison, Pamela, her French aristocrat lover, heroin and enough emotional instability to keep Paris supplied for winter.

Morrison was reportedly not thrilled.

Fair.

“Jim, darling, meet Jean. He’s a count. We’re sleeping together. Also, he sells heroin.”

Lovely dinner conversation.

Then Janis Joplin Died

Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in October 1970.

Later accounts connected Breteuil to unusually strong heroin circulating in Los Angeles at the time. One witness claimed Jean supplied drugs from the same dangerous batch associated with Joplin’s death.

Important distinction: there is no conclusive proof Jean personally sold Joplin the fatal dose.

Rock history has spent decades turning recollections, rumors and drug-soaked memories into marble tablets.

Still, Breteuil’s name repeatedly appears around that scene.

And shortly after Joplin’s death, Jean left California for Paris.

With Pamela Courson.

Nothing remotely suspicious about that sequence.

Jim Morrison Comes to Paris

Morrison moved to Paris in 1971, apparently hoping for a quieter life.

That lasted about five minutes.

On July 3, Morrison was found dead in the bathtub of his Paris apartment. He was 27.

No autopsy was performed, which ensured that the next fifty years would belong to documentary filmmakers.

Years later, Marianne Faithfull claimed Breteuil had supplied Morrison with the heroin that killed him. She believed the death was accidental.

But there was no autopsy, no toxicology report, no prosecution and no conviction.

So saying Jean definitely killed Jim Morrison goes beyond what can be proved.

I know. Facts ruin a perfectly good scandal.

Keith Richards Appears, Naturally

Breteuil also moved in the Rolling Stones’ orbit and reportedly supplied drugs around the period when the band was in France working on Exile on Main St.

At this point Jean’s social circle starts reading less like a guest list and more like Famous People Who Nearly Died in 1971.

Keith Richards, of course, survived.

Science remains baffled.

Talitha Getty

Jean was also connected to Talitha Getty, actress, fashion icon and wife of John Paul Getty Jr.

She represented the glamorous Marrakesh world of caftans, cushions and photographs that make everyone look effortlessly fabulous.

Behind those photographs was a much uglier reality.

Addiction. Drugs. Chaos.

Talitha died in July 1971, shortly after Morrison.

Again, Jean’s name was somewhere nearby.

At this stage, I would have confiscated his passport and assigned him to vineyard maintenance.

The Count Runs to Morocco

After Morrison died, Breteuil and Faithfull left Paris for Morocco.

Faithfull later remembered Jean as frightened and deeply unsettled.

Understandable.

Joplin was dead.

Morrison was dead.

Talitha Getty was dead.

Heroin was everywhere.

And Jean himself was addicted.

The glamorous party was developing a body count.

Then Jean Died Too

Jean de Breteuil died in Tangier on June 25, 1972.

He was 22 years old.

That may be the most startling detail of all.

You read about Paris, Morocco, aristocrats, heroin, famous lovers and rock stars and picture some worldly European operator in a silk scarf.

He was 22.

College age.

Reports describe his death as heroin-related, though whether accidental or intentional remains unclear.

Either way, the dealer eventually became another casualty of the world he helped feed.

The Part the Photographs Leave Out

Jean de Breteuil’s story is irresistible because it has everything:

Aristocracy.
Rock stars.
Sex.
Money.
Paris.
Morocco.
Heroin.
Death.

It looks glamorous in old photographs.

It sounds considerably less glamorous once you notice how many people ended up dead.

The late 1960s are constantly repackaged as one long party in velvet trousers.

Jean de Breteuil reminds us there was another room.

It contained addiction, dealers, overdoses and funerals.

He wasn’t some criminal mastermind.

He was a rich, reckless young man with extraordinary access to other rich, reckless young people and a supply of something lethal.

Some survived.

Many didn’t.

Jean eventually joined them.

He inherited money, status and every opportunity imaginable and still managed to make his life shorter than most people’s car loans.

There is probably a lesson here.

Mine is simple:

If the handsome French count arrives carrying heroin, perhaps don’t invite him to stay for dessert.

There are books I recommend.

And then there are books I apparently need in multiple formats, just in case a historical emergency breaks out.

Miranda Carter’s George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I is one of those books.

I own the physical copy.

I own the Audible copy.

If someone releases a deluxe edition carved into mahogany, I may have to rearrange the furniture.

This book is firmly on my Royal Reading List, because it manages to cram almost everything I love into one glorious package: royalty, military history, Russian history, European history, the early twentieth century, and enough complicated family relationships to make a Christmas dinner seating chart look like a NATO negotiation.

And I absolutely love it.

Meet Georgie, Nicky and Willy

At the center of the book are:

King George V of Britain.
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

Three monarchs.

Three major European powers.

And, naturally, they were related.

Because apparently nineteenth-century European royalty looked at an entire continent and thought, You know what this needs? More cousins.

George and Nicholas were first cousins. Their mothers, Queen Alexandra of Britain and Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia, were sisters.

George and Nicholas also looked so much alike that photographs of them together can turn into a historical version of Which One Is Which?

Wilhelm was George’s first cousin through Queen Victoria’s enormous family tree and was also connected to the Romanovs through marriage and blood.

So these were not three distant heads of state occasionally exchanging formal letters.

They knew each other.

They visited.

They attended weddings and funerals.

They wrote to one another.

They had family nicknames.

They had rivalries.

They had opinions about one another.

And eventually their countries went to war.

Nothing says family reunion quite like artillery.

This Is What Makes the Book So Good

Carter does not simply give us treaties, governments, troop movements and men with impressive moustaches discussing mobilization schedules.

She gives us the people.

You see how these royals behaved with their mothers, wives, cousins and children.

You see old resentments.

Jealousies.

Affection.

Insecurity.

Duty.

Family loyalty.

And that marvelous royal ability to remember something mildly irritating that happened in 1887 and carry it around until 1914.

That is what fascinated me most.

These people were not only monarchs.

They were relatives.

And sometimes the cousin who annoyed you at a wedding was also running Germany.

That complicates Christmas.

Wilhelm: Please Stop Helping

Kaiser Wilhelm II is possibly the most fascinating character in the book.

He was intelligent, emotional, insecure, impulsive and deeply concerned with how other people saw him.

That is quite a cocktail when you also happen to have an army.

Carter does not turn Wilhelm into a cartoon villain, which I appreciated.

You begin to understand his upbringing, his insecurities and why he behaved the way he did.

You may still occasionally want to hide his stationery.

But you understand him.

Nicholas: Lovely Man, Difficult Job

Nicholas II is tragic in an entirely different way.

He could be kind.

He loved his wife and children.

He could be personally charming.

Unfortunately, being a pleasant husband does not automatically qualify someone to run the Russian Empire.

Nicholas seemed far better suited to family life than managing revolution, industrial unrest, political reform and an empire stretching across half the planet.

The book makes that distinction beautifully.

You can sympathize with Nicholas the man while still recognizing that Nicholas the ruler was badly outmatched by the world changing around him.

History can be terribly inconvenient that way.

And Then There Is George

George V is almost the opposite.

Compared with Wilhelm’s theatrics and Nicholas’s tragedy, George can appear positively ordinary.

He liked routine.

Duty.

Family.

Stamp collecting.

More duty.

Probably another stamp.

And yet George survived.

The British monarchy survived.

While the German and Russian imperial systems collapsed, George adapted to his constitutional role and largely understood something extremely important:

A monarch does not always need to be the most exciting person in the room.

Sometimes it helps enormously if he is not.

No, Three Cousins Did Not Personally Start World War I

The book is not claiming that George, Nicholas and Wilhelm personally caused World War I because someone got annoyed at a family luncheon.

The causes of the war were enormous and complicated: alliances, nationalism, military planning, imperial competition, political instability and decades of tension.

But Carter shows something fascinating.

These monarchs were living in two worlds at once.

They belonged to the old world of royal dynasties, where European rulers married each other’s children and treated international relationships partly as family relationships.

But they were also ruling modern nation-states with governments, armies, newspapers and populations increasingly beyond personal royal control.

The old system was fading.

The twentieth century had arrived.

And it arrived carrying several million rifles.

The End of a Royal World

That is really what this book is about.

Not simply three cousins.

It is about an entire royal world disappearing.

Queen Victoria’s descendants had spread across Europe.

Royal families were interconnected almost everywhere.

There was an idea that family ties might help keep Europe peaceful.

Instead, Europe discovered that being related does not prevent war.

It simply means the man commanding the opposing army might also appear in your grandmother’s photograph album.

Progress.

Why I Love This Book

This book contains nearly everything I enjoy reading about.

Royal history.

Russian history.

Military history.

World War I.

Family dynamics.

The early twentieth century.

And that strange period when monarchs were still enormously important but were beginning to realize that the modern world would no longer revolve around royal families.

Best of all, it never feels like homework.

There is plenty of serious history, but Carter keeps the people at the center of it.

You understand their personalities.

Their marriages.

Their weaknesses.

Their relationships.

Their mistakes.

And occasionally you find yourself thinking:

Good grief, these people were running countries.

Which, frankly, is one of the joys of reading royal history.

The Honey Hive Verdict 🐝

If you enjoy royal history, the Romanovs, World War I, Queen Victoria’s sprawling family tree or complicated relatives behaving badly on an international scale, I highly recommend this book.

It absolutely belongs on my Royal Reading List.

I love it enough to own both the physical book and the Audible edition.

That is not excessive.

That is historical preparedness.

Sometimes I want Georgie, Nicky and Willy sitting on the bookshelf.

Sometimes I want them accompanying me in the car while Europe slowly collapses through the speakers.

5/5 bees. 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

And honestly, the subject of how related royals actually dealt with one another deserves an entire Windsor Wednesday of its own.

Because if royal history teaches us anything, it is this:

Yes, they were all related. No, that did not make anything easier.

Why didn’t King George V save his cousin Tsar Nicholas II and his family?

After all, Nicholas and George were first cousins, looked so ridiculously alike they could have swapped uniforms at a family wedding and forced the relatives to check the place cards, and belonged to that enormous European royal family tree where everyone was related to everyone else at least twice.

Surely when revolution came knocking, Cousin Georgie could simply have said:

“Come to England, Nicky. We’ll put the kettle on.”

Not quite.

And this is where history becomes considerably more interesting than the tidy version in which George V personally slammed the gates of Buckingham Palace and yelled, “NOT TODAY, ROMANOVS!”

First, Britain actually DID agree to take them

Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917 after the Russian Revolution toppled the imperial government.

Russia’s new Provisional Government had a problem.

Keeping the former Tsar in Russia could encourage monarchists to restore him. Killing him was not yet the plan. Sending him abroad looked rather attractive.

Basically:

“Congratulations on the revolution. Does anyone know where we can mail the former emperor?”

Russian Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov pressed Britain to accept the Romanovs.

And Britain initially agreed.

This is important because the famous story that George V personally invited Nicholas and then personally withdrew the invitation is too simple.

George was a constitutional monarch. He could not simply hand out British asylum invitations between breakfast and inspecting the Grenadier Guards.

The British government under Prime Minister David Lloyd George agreed to receive the family, reportedly for the duration of the war.

So for one brief moment, escape to Britain was genuinely possible.

Then everyone started thinking about it.

Never a good sign.

Enter the political hand grenade

Nicholas II was not universally regarded in Britain as adorable Cousin Nicky who needed a spare bedroom.

To large sections of the British left and working class, he was “Nicholas the Bloody,” the autocratic ruler associated with political repression, Bloody Sunday in 1905 and the brutal suppression that followed.

Britain, meanwhile, was fighting the First World War.

People were dying.

Food was scarce.

Political unrest was simmering.

Socialism was growing.

Then somebody proposed importing one recently deposed autocrat, his unpopular German-born wife and their imperial household.

Splendid.

What could go wrong?

And Alexandra was German

This was particularly awkward.

Empress Alexandra had been born Princess Alix of Hesse.

In normal times, fine.

In 1917 Britain, being conspicuously German was approximately as fashionable as arriving at a patriotic fundraising dinner wearing a Kaiser Wilhelm novelty helmet.

Anti-German feeling was so intense that George V would change the royal family’s own name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in July 1917.

The British monarchy was desperately polishing off anything that looked too German.

Bringing Alexandra over at precisely that moment would have been rather like announcing:

“Good news, everybody. We found another German relative.”

George V gets nervous

Here is where George really does enter the story.

The King began receiving reports that allowing Nicholas and Alexandra into Britain could damage his own monarchy.

And he panicked.

We know this because the paperwork survives.

On April 6, 1917, George’s private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, wrote to Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour explaining that the King believed the presence of the former Emperor and Empress would be strongly resented by the British public and could compromise the position of the King and Queen.

He asked that Britain be permitted to withdraw the consent it had already given.

Translation from Palace:

“On further consideration, perhaps importing the Russian Revolution to London is not ideal.”

George was looking across Europe and seeing monarchies wobbling like badly assembled IKEA furniture.

Russia had fallen.

Revolutionary movements were spreading.

His own dynasty was German in origin.

Britain was exhausted by war.

And now the public believed the King himself wanted to shelter a deposed autocrat.

George apparently concluded that saving Cousin Nicky might endanger King Georgie.

Family loyalty met job security.

Job security won.

Was George V therefore responsible for their deaths?

Here comes the enormous BUT.

George deserves criticism for backing away.

He was frightened for his throne and put the British monarchy first.

That is uncomfortable.

But saying “George V murdered the Romanovs by refusing them sanctuary” skips about fourteen chapters.

Even historian Helen Rappaport, who has extensively researched attempts to rescue the family, warns against making George the sole villain.

Britain was not the only possible refuge considered. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Spain entered various discussions or efforts. Governments worried about wartime politics, provoking revolutionary Russia and becoming responsible for the world’s most radioactive royal houseguest.

And there was another teeny logistical problem:

THEY WERE STILL IN RUSSIA.

Granting asylum was one thing.

Getting Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei safely across revolutionary Russia was something else entirely.

You could not exactly summon an imperial Uber.

The Provisional Government struggled with opposition from the Petrograd Soviet, whose more radical members did not want the Romanovs quietly sailing away to a comfortable exile.

Then the situation deteriorated further.

The family was sent to Tobolsk in Siberia in August 1917.

The Bolsheviks seized power later that year.

Eventually the Romanovs were transferred to Ekaterinburg.

By that point the window for a relatively straightforward escape had slammed shut, been nailed over and had an armed Bolshevik standing in front of it.

Then came the horror

In the early hours of July 17, 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and four loyal attendants were murdered in the basement of the Ipatiev House.

Whatever jokes can be made about royal cousins, politicians and spectacular diplomatic fumbling, there is nothing funny about their end.

The children especially turn this from a political tragedy into something unbearably human.

Olga was 22.

Tatiana, 21.

Maria, 19.

Anastasia, 17.

Alexei was just 13.

So did George betray Nicholas?

Emotionally?

There is certainly a case for saying yes.

George loved his cousin, worried about him, and then allowed fear for the British Crown to outweigh family loyalty.

Politically?

It was considerably more complicated.

The British government initially accepted the idea of asylum. George became alarmed about domestic reaction and pressed for the offer to be withdrawn. British ministers had their own concerns. Russia’s Provisional Government faced internal opposition to letting Nicholas leave. Other European governments were hardly forming an orderly queue to take the Romanovs. Then the Bolshevik takeover transformed a difficult rescue into something vastly more dangerous.

So the real story is not:

“Cruel George refused to save Cousin Nicky.”

It is:

Britain hesitated. George lost his nerve. Governments dithered. Revolutionary politics hardened. Opportunities disappeared. And by the time everyone grasped how terrible the danger had become, the Romanovs were trapped.

Which may actually be worse.

No single villain was standing at a palace window twirling his royal signet ring.

There were frightened politicians, frightened monarchs, revolutionary extremists, wartime calculation, bureaucracy, hesitation and a remarkable amount of assuming there would still be time tomorrow.

There wasn’t.

And that may be the saddest lesson of the Romanov story.

Sometimes history doesn’t turn on one enormous decision.

Sometimes it dies from a thousand small ones.

Sources & further reading

The British National Archives preserves Lord Stamfordham’s April 6, 1917 letter expressing George V’s fears about allowing Nicholas and Alexandra into Britain.

Historian Helen Rappaport discusses the British asylum offer, George V’s change of heart and the wider failed European rescue attempts.

HISTORY provides additional background on the asylum controversy and the eventual fate of the Romanov family.

🐝 Windsor Wednesday question:
Do you think George V made the only decision a constitutional king could make in wartime, or did he abandon his cousin when Nicholas needed him most?

There will be further articles touching on the British Royal Family Tree during this time period.

You picture pearls, velvet, tasteful embroidery and a woman standing quietly behind the queen holding a handkerchief.

In reality, she might be dressing the queen, guarding her jewels, carrying private messages, arranging favors, nursing her through illness, helping relatives get jobs, monitoring who was rising or falling at court and knowing exactly who had just made the spectacular mistake of annoying the monarch before breakfast.

So, less decorative furniture.

More personal assistant, political intermediary, confidante, gossip vault and occasional crisis manager in a French hood.

And if you worked for one of Henry VIII’s wives, there was one additional occupational hazard:

Henry VIII.

What Did They Actually Do?

“Lady-in-waiting” is really a catch-all term. Tudor queens had ladies, gentlewomen, chamberers and maids of honour, all ranked according to how close they were allowed to get to the queen.

And proximity meant power.

A councillor might have to request an audience.

A trusted gentlewoman could be standing beside the queen while she dressed.

Guess who had the better opening for:

“By the way, Your Majesty, my brother is looking for a government position.”

These women helped with clothing, jewels, letters, entertainment, nursing, travel and private household life. Some acted as patrons and go-betweens because they had what everybody at court wanted:

access.

Basically Tudor LinkedIn, only with more velvet and occasional treason.

Was the Job for Life?

No.

You could leave because you married, retired, fell from favor or moved to another household.

Or because your queen was divorced.

Or died.

Or was executed.

Henry VIII’s queens produced rather more staff turnover than most employers.

Under Elizabeth I, though, some women stayed for decades. Elizabeth liked loyalty and familiarity.

Her attitude was essentially:

“You’ve served me twenty-seven years. Excellent. Cancel your plans for the next twenty.”

Did They Get Paid?

Sometimes.

Depending on rank, compensation might include wages, meals, lodging, cloth, clothing, fuel, candles, stabling and gifts.

The salary itself was not necessarily the big attraction.

The real perk was being able to say:

“I know the Queen.”

That could help Dad get a favor, Brother Edward get a job and Cousin Margaret land a wealthy husband.

So yes, you might earn money.

But the networking package was where the serious value lived.

Who Paid for Their Clothes?

Here comes the fun part.

The Crown might provide cloth, livery, garments or allowances.

But court women were expected to look magnificent.

And Tudor magnificent was expensive.

Velvet. Silk. Fur. Embroidery. Jewels. Sleeves big enough to house a small family.

Families could spend a fortune outfitting a daughter for court.

So congratulations, your child has secured a prestigious royal appointment.

Now sell Hampshire.

The Tudors understood something modern workers still know well:

Sometimes you have to spend money to look employed.

Food and Lodging?

Yes, depending on status.

Members of the royal household could receive meals, ale, wine, candles and fuel.

Imagine the benefits meeting:

Health insurance? No.
Retirement? Prayer.
Dental? Absolutely not.
Ale? Plenty.

Fine. Sign me up.

Ladies could also receive lodging at court.

But forget the private palace suite.

Royal residences were crowded, noisy and crawling with servants, courtiers, relatives and people pretending not to listen.

Your room came with history, grandeur and approximately zero privacy.

By breakfast, half the palace knew who visited you after supper.

Elizabeth of York

The Calm Before Henry VIII

Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII, maintained a large and elegant female household.

Her ladies helped run the queen’s world, attended her, managed clothing and personal affairs and sometimes took on trusted responsibilities involving the royal children.

It all sounds almost civilized.

Then her son became king.

And everything went sideways.

Katherine of Aragon

The Worst Staff Roster in History

Katherine’s household included Anne Boleyn.

Later, Jane Seymour also served her.

Yes.

Two future wives of Katherine’s husband passed through royal female service.

Imagine Katherine checking the rota:

“Anne Boleyn?”

Present.

“Jane Seymour?”

Present.

Katherine:

“I dislike where this is going.”

At this stage the position of lady-in-waiting was beginning to resemble a royal audition.

Anne Boleyn

Meet Your Replacement

Anne eventually became queen and assembled her own household.

One of her ladies?

Jane Seymour.

Henry noticed Jane.

Naturally.

The man apparently treated queens’ households like a buffet.

Anne:

“Jane, fetch my gloves.”

Henry:

👀

Anne:

“Actually, Jane, fetch them from France.”

When Anne fell, anyone closely associated with her suddenly discovered the importance of keeping quiet and looking politically flexible.

Jane Seymour

New Queen, New Dress Code

Jane presented herself as more traditional and restrained than Anne.

Her household reflected that image.

Because at Tudor court even the queen’s ladies were political advertising.

Who served her mattered.

What they wore mattered.

Their families mattered.

Their religion mattered.

A queen changing her attendants could say almost as much as a king changing ministers.

Only with better headgear.

Jane then gave Henry the son he wanted and died shortly after childbirth.

HR sighed and reached for the paperwork again.

Anne of Cleves

The Woman Who Won

Anne of Cleves arrived in England, married Henry and soon discovered that the chemistry was roughly that of two people seated together on a delayed flight.

Among her attendants was Catherine Howard.

Henry noticed Catherine.

Again.

At this point, someone should have hung a sign outside the queen’s apartments:

PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW HIS MAJESTY TO BROWSE THE STAFF.

Anne agreed to an annulment, got houses, income and independence and lived comfortably afterward.

Honestly?

Queen for six months, no execution, excellent settlement.

Anne of Cleves may have been the only participant who understood the assignment.

Catherine Howard

When the Staff Knows Too Much

Catherine became queen.

Her women knew things.

Some knew about her earlier relationships.

Others became involved in her secret meetings with Thomas Culpeper.

Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, helped facilitate those meetings.

This did not end well.

Catherine was executed.

Jane was executed.

Suddenly “free palace accommodation” loses some sparkle.

Benefits Package:

Meals ✔️
Lodging ✔️
Court access ✔️
Possible beheading ✔️

Please initial here.

Katherine Parr

Finally, Someone Brought Books

Katherine Parr was intelligent, educated and interested in religious reform.

Her household became a lively intellectual environment filled with books, discussion and reform-minded ideas.

Which was fine until Henry decided she had perhaps developed too many opinions.

Katherine wisely convinced him that she only debated theology so she could learn from his superior wisdom.

Translation:

“Me? Clever? Never. Please explain everything again, darling.”

Henry accepted this.

Katherine survived.

Five stars for crisis management.

Mary I

Now the Ladies Work for the Boss

Mary’s accession changed everything.

Her women were no longer serving a king’s wife.

They were serving the monarch herself.

That made access even more valuable.

Mary’s ladies could become conduits for petitions, patronage and diplomacy, especially during the politically explosive marriage to Philip of Spain.

Foreign ambassadors knew perfectly well that getting close to the queen’s women could be extremely useful.

Then came Mary’s apparent pregnancy.

The court prepared for a royal birth.

No child arrived.

And the women surrounding Mary were sitting on information that could alter the succession, religion and European politics.

No pressure.

Just the future of England depending on whether the queen was actually pregnant.

Elizabeth I

Royal Besties Become a Political Network

Elizabeth never married, so her female household became even more central.

Some of her ladies served her for decades.

They dressed her, guarded jewels, tended her when sick, slept nearby, handled private matters and knew her moods better than almost anyone.

Courtiers understood that if you wanted something from Elizabeth, knowing one of her women could help enormously.

Is the queen cheerful?

Present the petition.

Is the queen furious?

Go home and develop a sudden illness.

Elizabeth’s attendants could function as human weather reports for royal favor.

Blanche Parry: Employee of the Century

Blanche Parry served Elizabeth from childhood and remained with her for decades.

She became keeper of the queen’s jewels and one of her closest women.

Think about what Blanche witnessed.

Henry VIII.

Edward VI.

Mary I.

Elizabeth’s imprisonment.

Her accession.

The Armada.

After forty years, Blanche probably knew enough secrets to destabilize Europe.

That is not a lady-in-waiting.

That is a hard drive.

And Marriage? Ask Permission.

Elizabeth was not thrilled when her ladies married secretly.

Bess Throckmorton secretly married Sir Walter Raleigh.

Elizabeth found out.

Both ended up in the Tower.

Modern boss:

“Please update your marital status with HR.”

Elizabeth:

“Prison.”

Clear expectations are important.

So Were They Servants?

Yes, in the sense that they served.

But they were not ordinary domestic servants.

Many came from noble or well-connected families.

They occupied one of the most valuable positions at court because they were close to the queen every day.

They heard things.

Saw things.

Carried messages.

Recommended people.

Helped relatives.

Knew who was pregnant, furious, flirting, dying, promoted or doomed.

And people at court desperately wanted that information.

The woman holding the queen’s gloves might know more about tomorrow’s political crisis than the man chairing today’s council meeting.

Tudor Tuesday Verdict 🐝

Being a lady-in-waiting could be a fantastic job.

You might receive wages, meals, lodging and clothing.

You lived in palaces.

You met everyone important.

You could help your family.

You might marry extremely well.

You might become one of the most trusted women in England.

You might even become queen.

Although under Henry VIII, that last one really should have come with a warning label.

So the Tudor recruitment notice should have read:

LADIES WANTED

Benefits:
Palace lodging.
Food.
Ale.
Possible wages.
Royal access.
World-class gossip.

Requirements:
Good family.
Excellent manners.
Expensive wardrobe.
Absolute discretion.
Strong nerves.

Special warning for Henry VIII’s reign:
If His Majesty asks whether you are married, run.

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

And I think everyone should carry Narcan.

Not because everyone uses drugs. Not because I expect an opioid overdose to break out between the frozen peas and the yogurt at Kroger. But because Narcan is one of those rare emergency tools that is simple to use, available without a prescription, and capable of saving a human life in minutes.

You may never need it.

Wonderful.

I have never needed my fire extinguisher either, but I am not throwing it away because the toaster has behaved itself.

First: Narcan and Naloxone Are Basically the Name-Brand/Generic Situation

Naloxone is the medication. Narcan is one brand of naloxone nasal spray.

Naloxone is an opioid antagonist, which sounds like a villain in a pharmaceutical thriller but simply means it blocks opioids from attaching to receptors in the brain. During an opioid overdose, breathing can slow dramatically or stop altogether. Naloxone temporarily knocks the opioids off those receptors and can allow breathing to resume.

It works on opioid overdoses involving drugs such as fentanyl, heroin, oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, methadone and other opioids. It does not reverse overdoses caused solely by alcohol, benzodiazepines, cocaine or other non-opioid drugs. However, because illicit drugs can be contaminated with fentanyl, CDC guidance says naloxone should be given when an opioid overdose is suspected, even if you aren’t certain what the person took.

And here’s the important part: if opioids aren’t involved, naloxone generally isn’t going to hurt the person. It simply won’t fix whatever else is wrong. That makes “I’m not completely sure” a lousy reason to leave it sitting in your purse while someone isn’t breathing.

What Does an Opioid Overdose Look Like?

This isn’t always the dramatic television version with someone clutching their chest and announcing, “I believe I am overdosing.”

It may look much quieter.

Watch for:

• The person cannot be awakened or won’t respond.

• Breathing is extremely slow, shallow, irregular or has stopped.

• The body becomes limp.

• Lips or fingernails may turn blue, purple or gray.

• Pupils may become very small or “pinpoint.”

• You may hear choking, snoring or gurgling sounds.

• Skin can become pale, cold or clammy.

If somebody is unconscious and barely breathing, this is not the moment to convene a committee meeting entitled Was It Definitely an Opioid?

Call 911 and act.

How Do You Use Narcan Nasal Spray?

The nasal spray was designed so ordinary people can use it. You do not need to locate a vein, calculate a dosage or suddenly become Meredith Grey.

For standard 4 mg Narcan nasal spray:

1. Call 911.

2. Lay the person on their back.

3. Remove the device from its package.

4. Hold it with your thumb on the plunger and two fingers around the nozzle.

5. Put the nozzle into one nostril.

6. Press the plunger firmly. One device equals one dose.

7. If the person does not respond within 2 to 3 minutes, give another dose using a new device, generally in the other nostril.

8. Continue following the product instructions and emergency dispatcher’s directions. Additional doses may be necessary, particularly with potent opioids such as fentanyl.

9. If trained, provide rescue breathing or CPR as appropriate.

10. Stay with the person until emergency medical help arrives. If unconscious but breathing, place them on their side to help prevent choking.

Do not assume everything is fine because the person wakes up.

Naloxone is temporary. The opioid may remain in the body longer than the naloxone does, meaning the person can slip back into overdose after initially recovering.

This is why Narcan does not replace 911.

Narcan buys time.

EMS provides the rest of the rescue.

One other thing: a person physically dependent on opioids may wake up in sudden withdrawal and feel absolutely dreadful: nausea, sweating, vomiting, agitation, aches and assorted misery. Saving someone’s life does not necessarily mean they will wake up feeling delighted about the experience.

Alive and annoyed still beats the alternative.

Where Can You Get Narcan?

Since 2023, the FDA has allowed 4 mg Narcan nasal spray to be sold over the counter without a prescription. Additional OTC naloxone products have since been approved.

As of August 2026, the prices I found include:

CVS: its current website lists a two-dose box of brand-name Narcan 4 mg nasal spray at $34.99, although CVS notes that local and in-store prices can vary.

Walgreens: its website currently lists brand-name Narcan at $34.99 and Walgreens-brand naloxone at about $26.99 for a two-pack, with price and availability varying by location.

GoodRx: this one needs a little clarification. GoodRx currently advertises discounts on generic naloxone as low as about $10.97, but that does not mean everyone can walk into every pharmacy and buy a box of brand-name OTC Narcan nasal spray for eleven bucks. The price depends on formulation, pharmacy, coupon and location. Check the actual product before heading to the store.

Insurance may cover some forms of naloxone, too, so ask your pharmacist before automatically paying the shelf price.

Better Yet: You May Be Able to Get It FREE

This is where things become geographically interesting.

There is no single national “walk in anywhere and get free Narcan” program, but states, counties, public-health departments and nonprofit organizations all over the country distribute free naloxone.

A few examples:

Michigan: Michigan says naloxone is available at no cost to anyone in the state through options including local MDHHS offices, harm-reduction programs, vending machines and mail-order programs.

New York: New Yorkers can obtain free naloxone through registered Opioid Overdose Prevention Programs, and the state also provides delivery options and pharmacy copay assistance.

Pennsylvania: The state offers free naloxone through its Overdose Prevention Program and participating community organizations, plus a mail-to-home option through partners including NEXT Distro.

California: California supplies free naloxone to qualified organizations, including county health departments, libraries, schools, veteran organizations, community groups, shelters, clinics and harm-reduction programs. Individuals can then find free or low-cost naloxone through participating community organizations and syringe-service programs.

Many county and city health departments, behavioral-health agencies, universities, libraries, community organizations and syringe-service programs also offer it for free. Availability changes depending on funding and location, so check before making a special trip.

Two excellent national places to start:

NEXT Distro works with more than 30 harm-reduction programs nationwide and offers free naloxone-by-mail in participating areas, although eligibility and available products vary by state. Their State Finder covers all 50 states and points visitors toward local options.

The National Harm Reduction Coalition Naloxone Finder lists vetted community programs offering free naloxone.

Your state health department and county health department are also worth checking. Search “free naloxone” plus your state or county.

You may discover somebody has been giving the stuff away ten minutes from your house while CVS has been patiently waiting for your $34.99.

What About Training?

You don’t need a medical degree to use Narcan, but spending twenty minutes learning what to do before an emergency is an excellent investment.

GetNaloxoneNow.org offers a free online overdose-response training that can be completed in roughly 20 minutes. The training itself is free; there may be a fee if you specifically want certain completion certificates.

NEXT Distro provides short overdose-response training as part of many of its naloxone-by-mail programs. Some programs use a brief video followed by a simple quiz before naloxone is mailed.

State and county health departments frequently offer free online or in-person training as well. Pennsylvania, for example, currently offers free self-paced naloxone training online.

The National Harm Reduction Coalition also provides overdose-response and naloxone educational materials.

Why Should I Carry It If Nobody in My Family Uses Drugs?

Because you carry first-aid supplies for emergencies you don’t schedule.

You may encounter an overdose at a restaurant, shopping center, concert, parking lot, hotel, workplace, school event or simply walking down a street.

Someone may be taking prescription opioids.

Someone may have accidentally taken too much.

Someone may have taken something contaminated with fentanyl.

Someone else’s child, parent, spouse, friend or grandchild may suddenly need the little spray sitting in your bag.

You don’t have to approve of every decision a person has ever made to keep them breathing.

That strikes me as a fairly low bar for humanity.

My Public-Service Plea

Get Narcan or generic naloxone.

Learn how to use it.

Tell the other adults in your household where you keep it.

Check the expiration date periodically and follow the storage instructions on the package.

Then hope it sits there untouched for years, living the same gloriously boring existence as your fire extinguisher.

But if one awful day somebody stops breathing and you have it, those few ounces of nasal spray may become the most important thing you have ever carried.

That seems worth making room for in the handbag.

DISCLAIMER

I am not a doctor, pharmacist, EMT or other medical professional. This article is strictly offered as a public-service appeal and for general informational purposes. It is not medical advice and should not replace instructions from medical professionals, emergency dispatchers, the FDA, CDC or the directions supplied with a naloxone product. In a suspected overdose, call 911 or your local emergency number immediately. Programs, eligibility rules, laws, prices and availability change. Do your own research and verify information for your state and community.

SOURCES

• U.S. Food & Drug Administration: Narcan OTC approval, naloxone safety and overdose-response information.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: How and When to Use Naloxone and naloxone overdose-response guidance.

• SAMHSA: Opioid overdose recognition and reversal guidance.

• National Harm Reduction Coalition: Naloxone education and nationwide Naloxone Finder.

• NEXT Distro: State Finder and no-cost naloxone-by-mail programs.

• Get Naloxone Now: Free online overdose-response training.

• Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

• New York State Department of Health.

• Pennsylvania Departments of Health and Drug & Alcohol Programs.

• California DHCS and Department of Public Health.

• CVS and Walgreens current naloxone/Narcan listings; GoodRx generic naloxone pricing. Prices vary by location and can change.

There is one line in this Throne Ranger theory that really deserves to be unpacked:

“Harry and Meghan remaining on the Royal Family website has been a clear indication that what is unfolding now was the intention all along.”

The intention all along.

That is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Because this is no longer just that Charles is too soft on Harry.

This is basically saying Charles has been deceiving the British public for years.

If Harry and Meghan staying on the website was some deliberate little breadcrumb trail pointing toward a future restoration, then Charles and the Palace have apparently been letting everyone believe one thing while secretly planning another.

That is not Dad being sentimental about his difficult son.

That is a very serious accusation against the King.

And I am not sure the people pushing it have thought through where their own argument leads.

Apparently the Website Was the Master Key

Harry and Meghan never disappeared completely from Royal.uk.

Therefore, the theory goes, Charles must have been keeping the royal runway clear for their eventual return.

Right.

So the late Queen rejecting half-in, half-out was what? Window dressing?

Harry moving to California? Part of the choreography?

Spare, Oprah, Netflix, the lawsuits, the attacks on Camilla and William?

Just a few potholes on the way to Operation Bring Back Harold?

And now Invictus Birmingham gets added to the evidence board and suddenly:

THE FIX WAS IN!

Somebody get the red string.

We need a corkboard.

And at least one deeply suspicious corgi.

But Seriously, Follow This Theory to Its Logical End

If the Throne Rangers are right, Charles has spent years misleading the country about Harry’s future.

He has supposedly risked alienating William, undermining confidence in the Crown, confusing the public and potentially damaging his own reign.

All for Harry.

Harry.

Why on God’s green earth would Charles do that?

Why would a man who spent his entire life preparing to be King risk his credibility, his heir’s future and the stability of the monarchy to coddle his pain-in-the-ass younger son?

What are we supposed to imagine?

“The monarchy has survived wars, abdications, scandals and centuries of political change, but Harry is upset, so fetch me the constitutional petrol.”

Please.

And this is where the theory stops being merely silly and starts becoming dangerous.

Because if a King were genuinely caught deliberately deceiving the British public about something this significant, the fallout could be enormous.

Public trust would take a battering.

Every Palace statement would suddenly be viewed with suspicion.

Republicans would be doing cartwheels down the Mall.

William could inherit a monarchy with a credibility problem he did not create.

And yes, push something like that far enough, and you are talking about a scandal that could seriously damage the institution itself.

So again:

Why would Charles run that risk just for Harry?

The son who wrote Spare, publicly attacked Camilla, criticized William and turned family grievances into something resembling a subscription service?

Charles supposedly looked at all that and thought:

Yes. This is the hill on which I shall risk the Crown.

I don’t buy it.

Harry Being on the Website Proves...Harry Is on the Website

Harry is still the King’s son.

He is still Duke of Sussex.

He is still part of the Royal Family in the family-tree sense.

That does not magically make him a working royal.

A biography page does not restore duties.

It does not bring back half-in, half-out.

It does not give Harry a Palace office, a taxpayer-funded motorcade and a Tuesday morning ribbon-cutting schedule.

Charles cannot ring the Palace webmaster and say:

“Delete younger son permanently, please. Also, while you’re there, can you remove the cookies?”

Sometimes a webpage really is just a webpage.

I know. Terrible news for people who have already bought the corkboard.

And Then There Is Invictus Birmingham

This has apparently become Exhibit B.

Invictus is coming to Birmingham; therefore, the royal rehabilitation operation is underway.

Except Harry can come to Britain for Invictus without becoming a working royal.

Charles can support veterans without secretly restoring Harry.

Britain can host the Games without William waking up Monday morning to discover Harry has been given the desk next to his.

Yet somehow:

Website + Birmingham = Charles’s Secret Sussex Master Plan.

Mathematics would like to be excused from this conversation.

And What Exactly Is “Unfolding”?

This is the bit that keeps getting skipped.

Has Harry been restored as a working royal?

No.

Has Meghan?

No.

Has half-in, half-out returned?

No.

Has Harry been given official Palace duties?

No.

Has there been some grand announcement that the Sussexes are back in the fold?

No.

Yet apparently everyone must now “face up to the fact” that this was always the plan.

That is not evidence leading to a conclusion.

That is a conclusion putting on a trench coat and wandering around looking for clues.

This Is the Throne Ranger Problem in a Nutshell

They say they are defending the monarchy while simultaneously accusing the monarch of spending years deceiving his own people.

That is quite the support package.

“God Save the King, whom we apparently believe has been running an elaborate con on Britain since 2020.”

Pick a lane.

Charles can love Harry.

He can want peace with Harry.

He can want some kind of private father-son relationship.

He can make mistakes where Harry is concerned.

He can even indulge him more than many of us think wise.

None of that means Charles is willing to sacrifice William, his duty, his country, his legacy and the monarchy itself just to make Harry happy.

And if the Throne Rangers truly believe Charles has been deceiving Britain all along, they really should stop presenting that as a triumphant “See? We told you!”

Because if they are right, they are not describing a clever reconciliation plan.

They are alleging something that could blow a hole straight through public confidence in the Crown.

All because Harry still has a page on a website.

For God’s sake.

If Royal.uk changes his headshot next week, I fully expect someone to announce that William has been evicted from Kensington Palace by teatime.

You get Stage Door.

And thank heavens for that.

Released in 1937, Stage Door stars Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Andrea Leeds, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Gail Patrick, and Adolphe Menjou.

Most of the women live at the Footlights Club, a New York boarding house for aspiring actresses where employment is rare, money is tight, and sarcasm is apparently included in the rent.

Then Terry Randall, played by Katharine Hepburn, moves in.

Terry is rich.

Very rich.

She is also confident, educated, opinionated, and determined to become an actress.

This makes her instantly popular with a house full of women wondering whether they can afford lunch.

Naturally.

Her roommate is Jean Maitland, played by Ginger Rogers, who takes one look at Terry and realizes she has been assigned a wealthy theatrical headache.

And the movie is off.

Ginger Rogers Has Words

If you mostly know Ginger Rogers from dancing with Fred Astaire, Stage Door is a lovely reminder that Ginger could do much more than tap dance.

She could also verbally dismember people.

Jean is funny, practical, skeptical, and permanently unimpressed.

Her scenes with Hepburn are wonderful because neither woman needs to shout.

They just keep tossing remarks at each other until somebody should probably call an ambulance.

The dialogue is fast.

The insults are faster.

And Ginger Rogers has the face of a woman who has already heard enough nonsense before breakfast.

I adore her.

At the time, Rogers and Hepburn were both major stars and were reportedly paid the same amount for the film.

Of course Hollywood then had to worry about whose name went first.

Equal pay was one thing.

Billing order apparently required international diplomacy.

Then There’s Lucille Ball

One of the great pleasures of Stage Door is spotting a young Lucille Ball years before I Love Lucy.

She is not yet Lucy Ricardo.

Nobody is stuffing chocolates into her mouth.

Nobody is stomping grapes.

Ricky is safe.

For now.

But you can already see the comic timing and facial expressions that would later make her one of the biggest stars in television history.

And then there is Eve Arden.

Eve Arden appears to have entered the world already tired of everybody.

She delivers dry remarks as though she is handing out parking tickets.

I could happily watch an entire film of Eve Arden sitting in that boarding house making comments about everyone else.

No plot necessary.

Just give her a chair and somebody behaving foolishly.

Then Stage Door Pulls the Rug Out

Here is the clever thing about this movie.

It is very funny.

Until suddenly it isn’t.

Underneath all the jokes is the much uglier reality of show business.

These women need work.

Talent does not guarantee a job.

Beauty does not guarantee a job.

Hard work does not guarantee a job.

Knowing the right person helps enormously.

So basically Hollywood had already perfected Hollywood by 1937.

The emotional center of the film is Kay Hamilton, played beautifully by Andrea Leeds.

Kay desperately wants a role.

Not because she wants fame, magazine covers, or a larger dressing room.

She needs work.

And watching her hopes rise and fall gives Stage Door a surprisingly serious punch.

Leeds was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and once you see the movie, it is easy to understand why.

One minute you are laughing at Ginger Rogers insulting someone over toast.

The next minute the movie has quietly dropped a brick on your heart.

Rude.

Effective, but rude.

Katharine Hepburn Learns Something

Terry Randall begins the movie with enough confidence for several people.

She thinks becoming an actress is simply a matter of deciding to become one.

Money?

Not a problem.

Rent?

Never heard of her.

Lunch?

Of course.

This does not exactly endear her to women who are counting pennies.

But Terry slowly learns that acting is not just walking onto a stage and waiting for everyone to recognize genius.

There is rejection.

Failure.

Jealousy.

Competition.

Luck.

Sacrifice.

And sometimes terrible consequences.

There is also a wonderful joke involving Hepburn’s famous “calla lilies” material from The Lake, a stage play that had already become associated with her.

So the movie is poking fun not only at Terry Randall.

It is also poking fun at Katharine Hepburn.

And Hepburn lets them.

Good sport.

The Boarding House Is Half the Fun

Director Gregory La Cava encouraged the actresses to improvise and interact naturally.

You can tell.

The boarding house scenes feel wonderfully messy.

People interrupt each other.

Someone is eating.

Someone is borrowing clothes.

Someone is complaining.

Someone is gossiping.

Someone else is firing an insult from across the room without even looking up.

Basically, women living together.

The conversations overlap, which gives the movie a wonderfully natural rhythm.

You have to pay attention because some of the funniest lines are tossed away so casually that you may miss them.

Nobody politely waits for her turn to speak.

Why would they?

They have been sharing a bathroom.

Civilization has limits.

Why Stage Door Still Works

Because nothing about ambition has really changed.

Neither has jealousy.

Neither has insecurity.

Neither has the horrible feeling of watching someone else get the opportunity you desperately wanted.

And gossip certainly hasn’t disappeared.

Gossip survived wars, plagues, and the invention of social media.

It is doing just fine.

What I especially love about Stage Door is that the women are allowed to be complicated.

They are funny.

Petty.

Generous.

Jealous.

Loyal.

Cruel.

Talented.

Scared.

Ambitious.

Occasionally exhausting.

In other words, human.

They are not simply hanging around waiting for a man to choose one.

The men are almost secondary.

The real love affair is between these women and the stage.

And sometimes the stage loves them back.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

That is what gives Stage Door its bite.

You come for Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers trading insults.

You stay for young Lucille Ball and Eve Arden.

Then the movie sneaks up and reminds you that behind every actress getting her big break is another one standing just outside the door.

Funny, sharp, fast-moving, and unexpectedly moving, Stage Door is exactly the kind of old Hollywood movie that still feels alive.

And frankly, any film that gives me Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, backstage drama, and industrial-strength sarcasm has already earned its keep.

The Honey Hive gives Stage Door 5/5 bees. 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

It’s available to rent on YouTube