Spare reviewed: Harry is completely disingenuous – or an idiot

A surprising number of royal personages have published books under their own names, and sometimes they have even been written by the purported authors. The first, I think, was the Eikon Basilike, published shortly after Charles I’s execution and presented as his account of himself and of events. The authorship of this highly effective piece of propaganda has been questioned, but its simple, direct, haughty tone is very similar to the king’s recorded speech at his trial. After Prince Albert’s death, Queen Victoria published two journals of her life in the Highlands. We know that she was an enchantingly vivid writer from her diaries and letters, with a novelist’s ear for dialogue. (Lord Melbourne’s debauched, drawling conversation is beautifully captured in the single volume of her diary that Princess Beatrice didn’t get around to editing.) Publication, in the Highland volumes, put a restraint on her lively prose; but they still show how much pleasure she took in talking to people in remote places who had no idea who she was.