Royal family

In a new monthly series, Spectator Life will be bringing you facts, stories and items of general wonderment associated with the month ahead. Welcome to July – where we learn what ‘Twix’ is short for, why England’s World Cup-winning footballers painted white stripes on to their boots and how many times Charles and Diana met before their wedding… 1 July 1903: The first ever Tour de France gets under way. If you think the race has had its controversies in recent times, you should have seen it in the early years. Competitors sometimes had themselves towed along by cars, or simply got into the car for a lift. Others took the train.

Despite weeks of preparation and rehearsal, coronations don’t always go according to plan. Indeed, a botched coronation or one plagued by misfortune can be taken by the superstitious as a poor augury for coming reigns – sometimes justifiably. Case in point: the celebrations of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna in Moscow’s Dormition Cathedral on 14 May 1896. While the hours-long ceremony for the last Tsar and Tsarina went off without a hitch, the following national holiday and public feast in Khodynka Field led to a stampede where at least 1,300 died and 1,300 more were left with serious injuries. The cause?

On a scaffold hung with black cloth, on a freezing January day in 1649, the instinct for sumptuousness died in these islands. It was killed alongside Charles I, kingly excess and belief in divine right and, with intermittent exceptions, has never recovered. And so when, time and again since September, we’ve heard about our new King’s plans for downsizing the monarchy, the bulk of the population has calmly nodded its assent. Trim, slim, streamline, skimp. Time to dispense with peripheral royal family members! Farewell to the jostling chorus line of the Buckingham Palace balcony of yesteryear, all oversized hats, Ruritanian frippery and excitable small children! Away with the hangers-on!

Before the Sussexes – before the Grabdication was a twinkle in Meghan’s crocodile eye – there was Sarah, Duchess of York; greedy, grasping, grubby Fergie. Some see Diana as when the stiff upper lip of heritage royalty became the trembling lower lip of the new breed. But the Princess of Wales was a teenage virgin with a headful of dreams lured into a marriage in which she was a breeding machine with a man who was still in love with his ex; this would have made any woman with spirit react. No, Diana was a hard worker with an attractive dash of spite – that revenge dress, that three-in-this-marriage quip – which stopped her from presenting herself as an all-round victim.

Hyperbole in estate agents’ brochures isn’t unusual – but when it comes to a write-up for Great Tangley Manor, which has gone on the market for £8.95 million, overkill is almost impossible. Believed to be the UK’s oldest continuously inhabited property – its Saxon foundations date from 1016 – the Grade I-listed moated manor house, in the village of Wonersh in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, comes with an extraordinary roll call of associated famous names. From the spheres of royalty, art, literature, garden design and even America’s Gilded Age, all have played their part in shaping secluded Great Tangley into a country house with a compelling story.

Reading about the latest about the pathetic-sounding scuffle between Prince Harry and his older brother, I think I could tell the pair a thing or two about fraternal enmity. My older brother, another Harry, and I have not spoken to each other in more than 30 years. He was taller, blond and looked Germanic. I was shorter, brown-haired and looked Greek. He never made it at school, whereas I collected lots and lots of sporting trophies. My father named him an executive in his shipping companies, I was the odd man out. Harry had the largest house in the Hamptons and the poshest apartment in New York, whereas I sort of lived a gypsy life. Harry was not athletic, I excelled in sports and represented Greece in three of them.

Today, shortly before 3 p.m., there will be a collective heave as backsides – weighed down from turkey and roast potatoes – are prised from dining chairs and plonked on to sofas to tune into the King’s speech. So I very much hope. For the royal Christmas broadcast is important, and this year’s of course marks a new era. This afternoon our televisions will bring us not only the first Christmas message from the new King, but indeed the first from any King. For while the tradition of the Christmas message began in 1932 under King George V, the first Christmas broadcast to be televised was not until 1957, and that of course was by Queen Elizabeth II.

There was arguably no better advocate for holidaying in Britain than Queen Elizabeth II. Her Majesty loved to spend her summers in Scotland, having stayed at Balmoral each August since she was a girl. But could the next generation of royals favour the warmer climes of Cornwall over chilly Scotland? It certainly seems so. After Charles became King, William inherited the Duchy of Cornwall estate from his father. Not only is he now responsible for the Duchy’s extensive portfolio of Cornish property and farmland but he also inherits the 500-year-old Restormel Manor in the heart of Cornwall. Situated only a few miles from the house that inspired Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, it frequently hosted King Charles and the Queen Consort during their annual tour of the region.

From time to time my Instagram algorithm will taunt me with a dress. It is – unequivocally ­– the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. Satin, emerald green, halter-neck. The dress retails for about £200, and is always sold out in my size. The ad that Instagram teases me with is for a rental, which you can pick up for £73. This is the latest fad in so-called eco-activism. Rent a dress for an astonishing amount – usually a dress that’s sold out or difficult to track down – and you will save the world! Fighting back against the mortal sin that is fast-fashion. The trend is so popular now that even the monarchy is getting involved. At the recent Earthshot Awards in Boston, Catherine, Princess of Wales, wore a bright-green, rented Solace London dress.