Royally Lit: "Red, White, and Royal Blue"
A lot of novels featuring royals have come out in the past few years, with some of them becoming huge bestsellers. Every time I read one of these books, I end up nerding out over all the English royal references and combing through how much these fictional royal families and systems resemble reality. I figured I might as well actually write these musings down for your entertainment.
I had kind of a rough week and really needed some escapist fiction, so I finally picked up “Red, White & Royal Blue.” This best-selling 2019 romance novel features the first son of the United States falling in love with a British prince. It’s super sweet and funny, so if you like romances and/or just need something fun to read, I highly suggest it.
Note: Because I’m talking about a lot of fictional AND real people and it could get a bit complicated if you don’t know them all really well, I’m going to italicize the names of fictional characters to make things easier.
Summary: As the story begins, it’s Fall 2019, Alex is 21, in his final year of college at Georgetown, and has an long-lasting grudge against Prince Henry of England. After Alex and Henry manage to knock over the wedding cake at the royal wedding, they’re forced to pretend to be best friends for a while to avoid causing an international incident. The charade turns into actual friendship and later, love.
The First Family of the United States: This book is an alternate history, but only slightly. On the US side, everything /seems/ to line up with actual reality up through the Obama period (Alex mentions at one point that his bedroom used to belong to one of the Obama daughters). However, in this world, the 2016 election was won by Texan Ellen Claremont. Ellen’s a Democrat and the first female president. She has two children with her ex-husband Oscar Diaz (a senator from California and the son of Mexican immigrants) - June and Alex Claremont-Diaz. Ellen’s second husband is Leo, who is briefly described as an eccentric and ultra-supportive millionaire inventor.
The Royal Family of the United Kingdom: Prince Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor of Wales is 22 and on a gap year (post college) when the book begins. He’s the youngest child of Princess Catherine and Arthur Fox, a former James Bond actor, and a grandson of the current Queen. Henry has an older brother Philip, whose marriage kicks off the book, and an older sister named Beatrice, who is sober after previously struggling with cocaine addiction after their father’s death.
Queen Elizabeth Parallels: In the world of the book, Queen Mary is described as in her early 80s (in 2020) and has been on the throne for 47 years. This places her as ascending to the throne in 1973, sometime in her 30s. In real life, the current queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926, was 94 in 2020, and ascended to the throne in 1952 at the age of 26.
Succession: During an argument with his brother, Philip snarls that if Henry married Alex, the first son of the US would be fourth in line to the Queen of England. This indicates that Henry is, himself, fourth in line to the throne. His mother Catherine is first in line, his brother Philip is second in line, and his sister Beatrice is third in line.
Names: Every royal’s name seems to relate somewhat to real life royal’s names.
Queen Mary is likely a reference to Queen Mary of Teck, who was queen of consort from 1910-1936 as the wife of King George V and the grandmother of the current Queen.
Princess Catherine may refer to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who has been married to Prince William since [2010].
Prince Philip refers to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the late prince consort of Queen Elizabeth II.
Princess Beatrice refers to Princess Beatrice of York, Prince Andrew (Duke of York)’s daughter and a granddaughter of the Queen.
Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor of Wales. It’s totally realistic for him to have this many names, actually. Prince Charles’s name is Charles Philip Arthur George; Prince William is William Arthur Philip Louis; Harry is Henry Charles Albert David.
Henry - Eight English monarchs have gone by Henry. The most recent Henry is of course, Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex, who has gone by Harry pretty much his entire life.
George - Six English monarchs have gone by George and Prince William’s eldest son is named George.
Edward - Eight English monarchs have gone by Edward, and Elizabeth II’s youngest son is named Edward.
James - Two English monarchs have gone by James, and Prince Edward’s son is also named James.
Mountchristen-Windsor - The name of the real life Royal House is Windsor, but the surname Mountbatten-Windsor belongs to all the children and male-line descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. The name Mountbatten is an anglicisation of the German “Battenberg” (which literally means Batten Mountain and refers to a small town in Hesse, Germany) and was adopted in 1917 due to anti-German sentiment during World War I. “Mountchristen” is actually a pretty brilliant reference to this, as there is also a hill in Hesse, Germany known as Christenberg - so in the book’s universe, this was anglicized to Mountchristen, presumably also during WWII.
When Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark married then-Princess Elizabeth, he gave up his titles and took the surname Mountbatten from his mother’s family when he became a naturalized British subject.
It’s used by those who do not have the style of Royal Highness. Prince Edward’s children technically have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, although they tend to go by the title “Windsor.” Most recently, Prince Harry’s two children with Meghan Markle have had Mountbatten-Windsor as their surnames.
The name is also used by Royal families without a surname, when a surname is required. For example, when Prince William filed a lawsuit in France, he used the surname Mountbatten-Windsor.“of Wales” - This is pretty true to life. Although no one in the book is technically ever referred to as The Prince of Wales, it’s implied that Princess Catherine, as first in line to the throne, has the title. In that case, all her children would go by “of Wales” as well. Both of Charles, Prince of Wales’ sons were styled “His Royal Highness ____ of Wales” from birth until they were given their own titles at the time of their weddings (William was made Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, and Baron Carrickfergus in 2011. Harry was made Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton, and Baron Kilkeel in 2018).
Prince Henry also states at one point that his brother used “Wales” as his last name while he was in the military. This is pretty close to how things are done in real life. Prince Harry was known as Officer Cadet Wales and Prince William was Lieutenant Wales while in the military.
Miscellaneous Historical References:
A Relative’s Abdication: Henry yells at one point that they have a great uncle who abdicated because he was a Nazi. This is an obvious reference to Edward VIII, who abdicated in January 1936 so he could marry Wallis Simpson. Simpson had already been married twice, was pursuing a divorce from her second husband. The government completely opposed the King’s plan to marry her.
Edward and Wallis Simpson visited Nazi Germany in October 1937 against the advice of the British government and met Adolf Hitler.The book’s family lines here don’t quite line up with real life. Edward VIII was the uncle of Queen Elizabeth II, and thus would be the great-great uncle of her grandchildren, not a great-uncle.
A Royal marrying someone the Crown disapproves of: Princess Catherine married Arthur Fox, who played James Bond in the 80s, against the will of her family. Arthur apparently continued to act after his marriage (as Philip says angrily that their father spent half their childhoods making films) and died of cancer when Henry was 14.
This could refer to Princess Elizabeth being determined to marry Philip against her family’s advice (and eventually gaining their acceptance of him) and Princess Margaret wanting to marry the divorced Peter Townsend against the will of many in the government and the Church of England (and ultimately not being able to gain acceptance).
However, this reads most like an homage to the real life marriage of Hollywood actress Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1956. Prince Harry also married a Hollywood actress, Meghan Markle, in 2018, but the author has noted that this book was written before that happened.In case you didn’t want to look it up, the James Bond actors in the 1980s were Roger Moore, Sean Connery, and Timothy Dalton.
First Royal with a doctorate: Catherine is described as the first princess with a doctorate (in English literature). Charles, Prince of Wales is the first heir of the British throne to receive a university degree. A few royals have been given honorary doctorates, but none of earned them through a program of study.
I’m not terribly well versed in other royal families but there are a few royals out there with doctorates. King Mohammed VI of Morocco has a PhD in law. Queen Letizia of Spain (married to Fleipe VI of Spain) began to work toward a Phd but did not finish her thesis.
Fun fact: Emperor Emeritus Akihito doesn’t have a degree, but actually has done ichthyological research and had several scholarly papers published. A genus of goby has been named Akihito in his owner.The death of a royal’s spouse/parent: Arthur Fox died when Prince Henry was 14. Eight years on, Henry still mourns his father and has difficulty with his absence.
In real life, Diana, Princess of Wales, died when her sons were 15 (William) and 12 (Harry). They have both openly talked about how much they have missed their mother in the years since and how much her loss affected their lives.A royal grieving the death of a spouse to the detriment of their duties: Catherine is described as having mourned so much over the death of her husband that she basically was checked out of her children’s life for ~5-6 years. This may refer to Queen Victoria’s famous mourning over her husband Albert. After he died in 1861, Victoria did not appear in public for two years. She didn’t appear again to open Parliament again until 1866. Victoria wore black after his death for the final forty years of her life.
