The Windsor File

Section I

What it is

Sixty-five years, one hundred and four dated entries, every one sourced.

Almost everything written about this family arrives as a fragment. A headline, a clip, a row about something that happened last week. The fragments are usually true and almost always useless, because a fragment without a sequence explains nothing.

People argue about 2021 using a fact from 1996 and never notice. You cannot understand why the exit happened the way it did unless you know what happened to the last woman who married into this family and found the machinery pointed at her.

So I sat down and wrote the whole thing out, in order. Not a theory. Not an argument. A file.

It is not a book of new revelations,
and I say so on its first page.

There is nothing in it a patient person with a library card could not assemble themselves. The work here is the assembly — and the fact that every line of it can be checked.

Section II

The record

Three real entries, exactly as they appear inside. Check any of them yourself — that is the point.

19 April 1987Record

She shakes a man's hand without gloves

Opening the first purpose-built HIV/AIDS unit in the United Kingdom, at the Middlesex Hospital in London, Diana shakes hands with a patient. She is not wearing gloves. It is photographed deliberately.

In 1987 a great many people believed the disease could be caught by touch, and men were dying in isolation because of it.

Source — Middlesex Hospital, London, 19 April 1987, opening of the UK's first purpose-built HIV/AIDS ward. Widely photographed and filmed.

27 May 1937Record

The punishment was not exile — it was three letters

Five months after the abdication, George VI issues Letters Patent creating his brother Duke of Windsor and confirming that he keeps the style His Royal Highness. The same document states that his wife and any descendants shall not hold it.

The institution did not punish the man who left. It withheld a style from the woman he left for. It did the same thing to Diana in 1996.

Source — Letters Patent of 27 May 1937, London Gazette.

November 2018Contested

Somebody cried over the bridesmaids' dresses

British newspapers report that Meghan had reduced Catherine to tears. Meghan's account, given to Oprah Winfrey in 2021, is that the reverse happened.

The palace has never commented. There is no way to establish which version is accurate, and this book is not going to pretend there is.

Source — British press reporting, November 2018; the Duchess of Sussex's account, CBS, 7 March 2021. No party has produced a contemporaneous record.

Every entry carries one of four marks, so you always know what you are holding:

RecordA matter of public record. A dated event, a document, a broadcast, a court judgment.

AccountSomebody's account of something. You are told who said it, where, and when.

ContestedThe accounts conflict. You get both, and you decide.

LukeMy opinion, clearly labelled. Skippable. Never dressed up as a fact.

No invented quotes. No fabricated documents. No fake receipts. Every quotation was actually said, in public, by the person it is attributed to, and the source is printed underneath it.

Fourteen things almost everyone gets wrong. Here are three.

Myth"The Queen refused to lower the flag in 1997 as a snub."

RecordThe flag flying there was the Royal Standard, which signals that the sovereign is in residence and is never lowered to half mast, because the Crown does not die. The palace flew the Union Flag instead on 5 September. The Rules VII.

Myth"Diana broke the silence first with Panorama."

RecordCharles admitted adultery on ITV in June 1994. Panorama was November 1995 — seventeen months later. Part III.

Myth"Archie and Lilibet were denied titles permanently."

RecordThey became a prince and a princess automatically on 8 September 2022, the instant Charles acceded, under an unchanged document from 1917. The Rules XI and XII.

There are eleven more, and every one points at the entry where the evidence is.

Section III

What's inside

A prologue, ten parts, 104 dated entries, fifteen explainers and eight diagrams. A few of the headings:

Prologue1936

A king who did not want the job gets it anyway
The punishment was not exile — it was three letters

I–IV · Diana1961–1997

She is born on the Queen's estate, in a house her family rents from her
Her blood was older than theirs, and royal by a route nobody mentions
He confesses on television seventeen months before she does
She wrote down what she thought was going to happen to her, and sealed it in an envelope
Three minutes of television that saved the reign

V–VI · The brothers1997–2016

The Queen remembers something, and a criminal trial stops dead
A reporter goes to prison for listening to the princes' voicemail
A nurse answers a telephone, and is dead three days later

VII–IX · Meghan2016–2022

The palace uses the word racism, and Fleet Street cannot quite believe it
Archie is born, and a document from 1917 decides what he is called
Two brothers, two press offices, and the day it became a war
A judge seals a will until 2111, and reveals a safe nobody knew about

X · Where it stands2022–2026

They are asked to hand back the keys to the only home they had here
Three days in July: a courtroom defeat, then Highgrove
Where each of them actually stands, this week

Plus fifteen boxes marked The Rules, explaining the machinery — what an HRH actually is, where the money comes from, who decides royal security, why the three palace press offices brief against each other.

Section V

Who I am, and who I am not

I should tell you what I am not, because in this subject it matters more than what I am.

I am not a journalist. I have never worked for a newspaper. I have no sources inside any palace and nobody has ever leaked me anything. I have never met a single person in this book. I hold no credential of any kind that bears on this subject, and if you ever see me claim one, stop believing me.

What I have is more ordinary, and I think more useful. I have followed this story closely for years, I have read the documents rather than the write-ups of the documents, and I have got into the habit of checking a claim before repeating it. That habit is the entire product.

You are not buying access here. You are buying the ordering, and a promise that nothing in it was made up. That is a smaller claim than most books on this subject make. It is also one I can keep.

— Luke

Section VI

The file

The Windsor File — 110 pages, illustrated$27
The printable timeline$19
Who's Who — the cast, in one place$14
Myths & Facts — fourteen things people get wrong$9
Lifetime updates, free$21
Total value$90

$47

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If it is not what you wanted, email me at luke@windsorfile.com within seven days and I will send the money back. No form, and I will not ask you why. I would rather refund you than have you feel sold to.

Section VII

Before you buy

Is this just the videos written down?

No — and it is not trying to be. The videos cover one thing at a time, as it happens. This is the whole of it in sequence, 1936 to now, with dates and sources attached, including a great deal that has never come up on the channel because it does not suit a ten-minute video. If you have watched every one, the material will be familiar. The order will not be.

Do I need to know the background already?

No. It starts at the beginning and assumes nothing. There is a Who's Who at the back for when you lose track of who somebody is — and with this family, you will. It also comes as a separate sheet you can print and keep beside you.

What format is it? Do I need an app?

It is a PDF. It opens on any phone, tablet or computer with nothing installed, and you can print it. No app, no account, no subscription, no DRM. You pay once and the file is yours.

Is there a paper copy?

Not yet. A printed edition is planned, and the book is set at a standard 6×9 size for exactly that reason. Buy now and you will hear about it first — lifetime updates are included, so any new edition comes to you free.

Is it fair, or does it take a side?

It takes no side, and that is a design decision rather than a boast. Every person in it has done something admirable and something indefensible, and a book that only notices one of those has an errand to run. Where two people tell the story differently you get both versions and a mark saying so. Where I give an opinion it is in a labelled box you can skip.

What if it's not for me?

Email me at luke@windsorfile.com within seven days and I will refund you in full, no questions and no forms. I would rather give you your money back than have you feel sold to.

You already know most of this. What you do not have is the order — and without the order, none of it means what people say it means.

That is the whole of what I am selling. Sixty-five years, in sequence, every line of it checkable, and nothing in it made up. Twenty-seven dollars, once. It arrives in a minute. If it is not what you wanted, tell me within seven days and I will send the money back.

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