If Eddy had been their mother’s favourite there would have been balance, but much as he loved his mother – and he absolutely adored her – he hadn’t been her favourite. Noisy, boisterous and ill-behaved Georgie had been her favourite because, as he had once overheard her say to his Russian Aunt Marie, ‘Georgie is so typically a boy and is what one expects of a boy, whereas dear Eddy is too daydreamy for words.’

That he knew himself to be daydreamy didn’t lessen the pain her words had caused him. Being daydreamy was the only way Eddy knew of surviving the treadmill of a life where his sensitivity and vulnerability were never taken into account and where what he did, and where he went, was mapped out without a thought for what he might actually like to do, and what would be best for him.

The worst example had been when he was thirteen. As the second son, Georgie had always been destined for a career in the Royal Navy, something he was eagerly enthusiastic about; and when Georgie was twelve, it was decided that for the next two years his education should continue aboard the Royal Naval training ship Britannia, where, along with forty-eight other cadets – all from aristocratic backgrounds – he would ‘have the edges knocked off him’ as a prelude and preparation for his future life at sea.

As an afterthought it was arranged that he, Eddy, who had no edges to be knocked off, should accompany him. For Georgie, who although small for his age could stick up for himself and relished a fight, it had been challenging, but also exhilarating. For him, Eddy, it had been hell. Nothing in his life had prepared him for the rowdyism and bullying of communal living.

Worst of all had been the knowledge that all his time spent learning about seamanship was pointless when, even if he had wanted to – which he didn’t – he was never going to make a career of the sea. His future career was to be second in line to the throne until his grandmother died and his father became King, when he would then inherit his father’s present title and, on his father’s death, be crowned King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India – something else he wasn’t at all looking forward to.