At the thought of Bertie, Willie struggled not to hurl the first precious object that came to hand against a wall. His forty-nine-year-old uncle was too urbane, too sure of himself, too easy in his own skin. He could charm the birds off the trees – and anyone he wanted into his bed. Willie loathed him.

He didn’t loathe Eddy and Georgie, for neither of them took after their father, in terms of personality. Although one trait Eddy did share with his father was being effortlessly charming and attractive to the opposite sex. Other than that, Eddy was too lacking in the kind of dominant forcefulness that, in Willy’s estimation, any heir to a throne should have.

As for Georgie . . . He could be peppery-tempered, although he’d more sense than to be so with Willy, and on a recent occasion he had magnanimously awarded Georgie the Order of the Black Eagle, the highest order of chivalry that Prussia possessed. The trouble with Georgie was that he was dim and had no intellectual interests. All he was interested in was shooting and stamp-collecting. Willy was anything but dim, and he had a passion for all kinds of technological advances. A German designer and engineer had recently discussed with him his vision of a petrol-engine airship. Willy hadn’t been able to get the prospect of such a glorious machine out of his head and had enthusiastically begun showing drawings of the proposed airship to Georgie. Even for politeness’s sake, Georgie hadn’t shown the slightest flicker of interest.

On many of his trips to England – visits that were merely family ones – Dona didn’t accompany him. Nothing about England appealed to her and, for Dona, their state visit to England had been a duty, not a pleasure.

It had also been the scene of one of their most bitter marital rows. And as was the case with most of their rows, it had been about the amount of time he spent with Phili.

‘But he is my best and closest friend,’ Willy had protested, wanting to tear his hair out with frustration. ‘Of course I spend time with him! God in heaven, who else would I spend time with?’

‘With me. With me!’ she had screamed, pummelling him in the chest, tears streaming down her face. ‘I am your wife! I should be your best friend.’

He was an autocrat; an emperor who ruled the largest country in Europe with an iron fist; a man who had sacked, without a second thought, the Chancellor who had forged a score of tiny weak principalities and duchies into a strong empire. And yet faced with his out-of-control wife, Willy was at a loss as to how to deal with her. He could hardly spell out to her that friendship – any friendship – had to have a common basis; that she bored him nearly to the point of insanity and that, in contrast, his dear, artistic and multi-talented Phili never bored him.