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‘It has been a great year for books about naughty
ladies . . . I loved Dennis Friedman’s Ladies
of the Bedchamber.’
- Edwina Currie, New Statesman Books of the Year,
2003
They may not have been all ladies - in fact some
of them have been men - but anyone who has shared a
bed with a reigning British sovereign or his heir has in
more than one instance changed the course of history and
to some extent affected, and also reflected, the attitudes
of the time to contractual marriage.
Democratically elected representatives of the people, as well
as constitutional monarchs who are powerless to effect political
change, are none the less expected to manage the moral affairs
of the country with the same degree of concern as parents
are expected to shape the morality of their children.
Sex addiction threads its way through the six hundred years
of the British monarchy to the present day via the multiple
heterosexual infidelities of Henry VIII and the homosexual
infidelities of James I, to George I, the first of the Hanoverians,
who insisted that his mistresses always be fat, and James
II, who liked his mistresses to be thin and fell in love with
Arabella, daughter of Sir Winston Churchill.
Ladies of the Bedchamber examines the role played by
the mistress, the concubine and finally commercial sex, the
ready availability of which possibly protected the sanctity
of marriage in the years preceding today’s less holy
alliances. The book shows how sex addiction cast its shadow
over the twentieth century from the accession of King Edward
VII in 1901 to his and Mrs Alice Keppel’s great- great-grandchildren,
and to Charles Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles today.
‘A very good read, full of odd nuggets of fascinating
information’ — What’s On In London
DENNIS FRIEDMAN is a psychiatrist and author of innovative
studies of phobias, sexual problems and other psychological
disorders. Formerly of St Bartholemew’s Hospital, London,
he is now Medical Director of the Charter Clinic, London.
His previous work, Darling Georgie: The Enigma of King
George V, was published by Peter Owen in 1998. |
