Valentine Low explores the previously unknown relationship between modern courtiers and the royal family.
Courtiers reveals an ever-changing system of complex characters, shifting alliances, and a battle of ideas over what the future of the institution should be.
... illuminating ... These figures have hovered in the backgrounds of the palaces over the years, clearing their throats like characters in Act II of Hamlet, and Low helpfully sorts them out and immortalises their moments of success or failure ... an excellent snapshot of the royal bureaucratic situation at the very end of Elizabeth’s reign.
... engaging and thoroughly researched ... Low doesn’t stint on insider gossip, thanks to his unprecedented access to royal households, and he has perceptive things to say about power and responsibility too.
Low provides a taxonomy of the roles of equerries, private secretaries and comptrollers. But more than this, he explains exactly what a good courtier does.
