If King Charles wants a ‘slimmed down’, low-calorie royal family, we can thank Queen Victoria for bequeathing us the plus-size version. Responding in horror to the antics of her naughty uncles, who raked about being unsuitable and having mistresses, she set herself and her nine children to public duty and procreation: go forth and multiply, indeed. Her grandson George V envisaged a vast, bemedalled horde, trotting all over the Empire. At one point in the early 20th century, you couldn’t move for minor royals. Oops – mind that equerry! Edinburghs, Waleses, Connaughts, Fifes: you couldn’t visit a hospital without witnessing a royal plaque unveiling. And they were popular, too. My great-great-grandfather named his boat after Princess Patricia.

Part of the raison d’être of a royal family is to bestow honour on the ordinary. Ribbons, after all, can’t cut themselves

Of course, there was the abdication crisis, which rather culled the royal numbers. Even if there had been a second Duke of Windsor, it’s unlikely he would have been enticed back (although a........

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