When we were very young

Few monarchs could become novelists. They wouldn’t be able to develop the practice, or possess the necessary temperament. No monarch could sit in the corner of a room observing, or walk the streets unnoticed. They don’t have much of a chance of a long morning working quietly, without interruption, or of seeing what ordinary people are like at their most natural and unselfconscious. (Imagine what changes would have had to take place in Edward VII’s life before he could have thought of writing fiction.)

If they are never going to have the chance to observe and to write, they are also unlikely to have the disposition to do so. The future monarch will be assured from birth that his is the existence that matters. The world as seen through other eyes is a faint, unimaginable place, and the practice of the novel, which springs from wondering what it might be like to be other people, is not one an anointed king-emperor is likely to master.