Princesses Behaving Badly

January 27, 2014
London-based McRobbie flirts with real controversy only to evade it in this collection of rotten royal behavior, and her book suffers for it. During her unhappy marriage to society photographer Earl Snowdon, Queen Elizabeth II's younger sister Margaretânotorious for her poor choice in men and being a spoiled, aimless, and ill-tempered alcoholicâallegedly enjoyed a threesome that was captured in photos so compromising that Britain's MI5 staged an elaborate heist in 1971 to steal them back. Banished to Constantinople to marry a Roman senator, 5th-century Honoria wrote to Rome's worst enemy, Attila the Hun, for help, sending her ring, which the barbarian chose to interpret as a marriage proposal and used as his excuse to invade Rome. Although Sarah Winnemucca lectured to thousands of whites as a "civilized" Indian princess and agitated on behalf of her Piute tribe to President Rutherford Hayes, Native Americans saw "her as a pawn in the pay of the U.S. government." McRobbie mostly ignores the escapades of contemporary royals like Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who has an illegitimate son with a convicted drug dealer; Sarah Ferguson, who sold access to Britain's Prince Andrew; or Monaco's Stephanie, lately divorced from a circus performer. Unfortunately, while McRobbie has the subject matter, her prose is sloppy, her attempts at cleverness fall flat, and her thumbnail portraits are shallow. Illus.