The facts
Queen Camilla recalled secretly reading DH Lawrence's controversial novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover, by torchlight under her pillow as a teenager in the 1960s. She shared this memory in the BBC documentary 'The Book That Changed My Life,' explaining that the book's forbidden nature made it more appealing. The Queen also spoke about the importance of reading in her royal marriage, noting that she and King Charles read together before dinner. She described her husband's love for biographies and PG Wodehouse, and her own enjoyment of Charles Dickens's 'A Tale of Two Cities.' Camilla highlighted that for her generation of women who did not attend university, reading served as a primary form of education. The documentary also featured stories of how books have been lifelines for individuals facing difficult circumstances, including a prisoner who found solace in reading and a man who overcame social isolation and illiteracy through books. Queen Camilla's father, Bruce Shand, also used books as an emotional escape during his two and a half years as a prisoner of war, educating himself through extensive reading.
Our take
Fuck me. The Queen Consort of the United Kingdom has bravely come forward to share the most dangerous, edgy act of her youth: reading a book. Not just any book, mind you, but the famously scandalous *Lady Chatterley’s Lover*, which she consumed by torchlight under her pillow. What a fucking rebel. One imagines the sheer, pants-shitting terror in the Shand household circa 1965: Mummy, I hear rustling! Camilla’s at it again with the Lawrence! The sheer carnality of it all! This is the thrilling origin story of a woman who would one day help prop up a thousand-year-old hereditary institution: a clandestine session with a paperback. The absolute madwoman.
She frames this pillow-fort pornography as a vital act of self-education for her poor, benighted generation of women who didn’t get to go to university. Because nothing says ‘filling the intellectual void’ like sneaking a peek at Mellors the gamekeeper giving Lady Chatterley a proper seeing-to. It’s the literary equivalent of claiming you buy *Playboy* for the articles, except the article is about shagging the groundskeeper. What a profound, formative experience for our future monarch’s wife.
Now, of course, she and King Charles read together before dinner, because nothing gets the royal juices flowing like a shared biography before a state-funded banquet. It’s all very civilised, a far cry from those wild, pillow-muffled nights of her youth. She’s traded the torch for a tiara, the forbidden novel for PG Wodehouse. What a journey from literary delinquent to patron of the most boring book club on earth.
The whole performance is a masterclass in calculated, relatable PR bullshit. ‘Look at me, I was a normal, bookish teen!’ Never mind the fact that her ‘difficult circumstance’ was being a posh teenager in a country house, while the other documentary subjects are actual prisoners and illiterate people. But sure, let’s equate her daddy’s POW reading with her own struggle against… bedtime. The sheer, unmitigated gall of this privileged cunt is breathtaking. The only thing more shocking than her teenage reading habits is the fact she thought anyone would give a single, solitary shit.
Next week on ‘Royal Revelations’: King Charles recalls the time he secretly ate a jam sandwich before officially sanctioned tea time. The horror.
