Obviously this was well researched - and you can tell that Mr Paxman is a journalist by trade. He sets out to tell a number of interesting stories about royalty through the ages and made a vague attempt to discuss the merits of monarchy as a form of government opposed to Republicanism, but really doesn't succeed. In many ways this book shares the failings of Jeremy's earlier volume 'The English', in that it is a collection of stories that really lead absloutely nowhere. We never got an answer to the question why monarchy has survived in Western Europe but hardly anywhere else. I suppose I came away with the notion that monarchy in Britain has been saved by the person of the current Queen, combined with a vested interest from politicians whose extraordinary powers flow from the institution rather than from the electorate. My rating? 7/10
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