Eton Quotes

Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise. - Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College

My brother said that at Eton, students were told caning builds character. I suppose girls are caned less because we aren't thought to have much character." "Which is the sort of thing males say when they don't know any women.

Between the river in the mellow English landscape and the African mountain ridge, ran the path of this life. ... The bowstring was released on the bridge at Eton, the arrow described its orbit, and hit the obelisk in the Ngong Hills.

We have the oddest conversations.” “I find this conversation more than odd. It’s positively shocking.” “Why? Because I understand the principle of a logarithm? I know you’re used to speaking to me in small, simple words, but I did have the finest education England can offer a young aristocrat. Attended both Eton and Oxford.” “Yes, but . . . somehow, I never pictured you earning high marks in maths.

Bunter!” “Yes, my lord.” “Her Grace tells me that a respectable Battersea architect has discovered a dead man in his bath.” “Indeed, my lord? That's very gratifying.” “Very, Bunter. Your choice of words is unerring. I wish Eton and Balliol had done as much for me...

I was at Geelong Grammar.” The Eton of Australia meant nothing to her.

And what are we saying, anyway? That only old money is allowed to buy success? Isn’t that a little like telling Noel and Liam Gallagher that they aren’t allowed to make anything of themselves because they didn’t go to Eton?

The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton.

William had played [rugby] at Eton when it first became popular, and now he only spoke of it in a reverent tone he normally saved only for women and rifles. . . . . [in contrast] Cricket had rules: one was not allowed to stamp on the head of another player and pass it off as enthusiasm.

...it occurred to me, not for the first time, what a remarkably small world Britain is. That is its glory, you see--that it manages at once to be intimate and small scale, and at the same time packed to bursting with incident and interest. I am constantly filled with admiration at this--at the way you can wander through a town like Oxford and in the space of a few hundred yards pass the home of Christopher Wren, the buildings where Halley found his comet and Boyle his first law, the track where Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile, the meadow where Lewis Carroll strolled; or how you can stand on Snow's Hill at Windsor and see, in a single sweep, Windsor Castle, the playing fields of Eton, the churchyard where Gray wrote his "Elegy," the site where The Merry Wives of Windsor was performed. Can there anywhere on earth be, in such a modest span, a landscape more packed with centuries of busy, productive attainment?

Eton has been known to bend the rules when it comes to members of the aristocracy

Apparently, gentlemen not only liked to kiss and touch women everywhere, they did that and more, on a regular basis, and mostly not with ladies at all, but with women of less genteel breeding. Some gentlemen, her brothers had whispered, even did it with each other. Although this was considered quite uncouth, Sophronia gathered, once one left Eton.

You do remember my brothers?” Anthony queried politely. “Benedict and Colin. Benedict I’m sure you recall from Eton. He was the one who dogged our footsteps for three months when he first arrived.” “Not true!” Benedict said with a laugh. “I don’t know if you’ve met Colin, actually,” Anthony continued. “He was probably too young to have crossed your path.” “Pleased to meet you,” Colin said jovially. Simon noted the rascally glint in the young man’s green eyes and couldn’t help but smile in return. “Anthony here has said such insulting things about you,” Colin continued, his grin growing quite wicked, “that I know we’re sure to be great friends.” Anthony rolled his eyes. “I’m certain you can understand why my mother is convinced that Colin will be the first of her children to drive her to insanity.” Colin said, “I pride myself on it, actually.

Early laurels weigh like lead and of many of the boys whom I knew at Eton, I can say that their lives are over .... Once again romanticism with its death wish is to blame, for it lays an emphasis on childhood, on a fall from grace which is not compensated for by any doctrine of future redemption.

Just before the start of Summer Half, in April 1883, a very minor event took place at Eton College, that venerable and illustrious English public school for boys. A sixteen-year-old pupil named Archer Fairfax returned form a three-month absence, caused by a fractured femur, to resume his education. Almost every word in the preceding sentence is false.

Guy: So how'd you make an Eton Mess? Harry: Tell him he only got into Bristol?

Sending a teenager to jail costs more than it would to send him to Eton College,

In a word, the handsomest man I have ever seen, though, at the same time, perhaps slightly disgusting. " - Captain Hook at Eton

Seen on her own, the woman was not so remarkable. Tall, angular, aquiline features, with the close-cropped hair which was fashionably called an Eton crop, he seemed to remember, in his mother's day, and about her person the stamp of that particular generation. She would be in her middle sixties, he supposed, the masculine shirt with collar and tie, sports jacket, grey tweed skirt coming to mid-calf. Grey stockings and laced black shoes. He had seen the type on golf courses and at dog shows - invariably showing not sporting breeds but pugs - and if you came across them at a party in somebody's house they were quicker on the draw with a cigarette lighter than he was himself, a mere male, with pocket matches. The general belief that they kept house with a more feminine, fluffy companion was not always true. Frequently they boasted, and adored, a golfing husband. ("Don't Look Now")

Before becoming headmaster of Eton, Claude Elliott had taught history at Cambridge University, despite an ingrained distrust of academics and an aversion to intellectual conversation. But the long university vacations gave him plenty of time for mountain climbing.

For what can give a finer example of that frankness and manly self- confidence which our great public schools, and none of them so much as Eton, are supposed to inspire, of that buoyant ease in holding up one's head, speaking out what is in one's mind, and flinging off all sheepishness and awkwardness, than to see an Eton assistant-master offering in fact himself as evidence that to combine boarding-house- keeping with teaching is a good thing, and his brother as evidence that to train and race little boys for competitive examinations is a good thing?

They don’t teach kidnapping at Eton, dad

At Eton boys are woken at 5 a.m.; lessons begin at 6 a.m. and go on to 8 p.m. Teaching is generally in Latin and is a matter of learning by rote,

You see before you a man who is as near to being what is known as a toad at Harrow as a man can be who was educated at Eton.

They don’t teach you anything at Eton, do they? Just wanking and giving orders.

It must then have been nearly midnight: but so slowly did I creep along, that I heard a clock in a cottage strike four before I turned down the lane from Slough to Eton.

Eton produced Society's Monsters - everyone knew that. Politicians, mostly, and occasionally people who ran banks and all the other institutions that stole the world's spoils for themselves.

She transferred her gaze to me. "You are his secretary, I suppose?" "Er—yes," I said doubtfully. "Can you write decent English?" "I hope so." "H'm—where did you go to school?" "Eton." "Then you can't.

Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade, Ah, fields belov'd in vain, Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales, that from ye blow, A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring.

He told his son he could build his own boat for the contest from scrap lumber in the Eton boathouse and gave him some advice that George never forgot: “No one will ask you how long it took to build; they will only ask who built it.

The entire point of life was the ability to make one’s own choices. Foreknowledge of anything—especially the circular kind, such as Kashkari’s presence at Eton because he’d dreamed of it—was terribly limiting and ran counter to the concept of free will.

Q (Quiller-Couch) was all by himself my college education. I went down to the public library one day when I was seventeen looking for books on the art of writing, and found five books of lectures which Q had delivered to his students of writing at Cambridge. "Just what I need!" I congratulated myself. I hurried home with the first volume and started reading and got to page 3 and hit a snag: Q was lecturing to young men educated at Eton and Harrow. He therefore assumed his students − including me − had read Paradise Lost as a matter of course and would understand his analysis of the "Invocation to Light" in Book 9. So I said, "Wait here," and went down to the library and got Paradise Lost and took it home and started reading it and got to page 3, when I hit a snag: Milton assumed I'd read the Christian version of Isaiah and the New Testament and had learned all about Lucifer and the War in Heaven, and since I'd been reared in Judaism I hadn't. So I said, "Wait here," and borrowed a Christian Bible and read about Lucifer and so forth, and then went back to Milton and read Paradise Lost, and then finally got back to Q, page 3. On page 4 or 5, I discovered that the point of the sentence at the top of the page was in Latin and the long quotation at the bottom of the page was in Greek. So I advertised in the Saturday Review for somebody to teach me Latin and Greek, and went back to Q meanwhile, and discovered he assumed I not only knew all the plays by Shakespeare, and Boswell's Johnson, but also the Second books of Esdras, which is not in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament, it's in the Apocrypha, which is a set of books nobody had ever thought to tell me existed. So what with one thing and another and an average of three "Wait here's" a week, it took me eleven years to get through Q's five books of lectures.

Icompleted my education at Eton in June 2003, thanks to hours of hard work and some extra tutoring arranged by Pa. No small feat for one so unscholarly, so limited, so distracted, and while I wasn’t proud of myself, exactly, because I didn’t know how to be proud of myself, I felt a distinct pause in my nonstop internal self-criticism.

In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won’t tell you how cheap and good they were,

Society may be imagined so uniform that one education shall be suitable for all its members; we have not a society of that kind, nor has any European country.

When Richard created the Purple Gentian, the talent for ancient languages that had stunned his schoolmasters at Eton had come to his aid once again. While Sir Percy had pretended to be a fop, Richard bored the French into complacency with long lectures about antiquity. When Frenchmen demanded to know what he was doing in France, and Englishmen reproached him for fraternising with the enemy, Richard opened his eyes wide and proclaimed, ‘But a scholar is a citizen of the world!’ Then he quoted Greek at them. They usually didn’t ask again. Even Gaston Delaroche, the Assistant Minister of Police, who had sworn in blood to be avenged on the Purple Gentian and had the tenacity of…well, of Richard’s mother, had stopped snooping around Richard after being subjected to two particularly knotty passages from the Odyssey.

Dougal, your breath is disgusting." The noxious odour assaulted Aster's nose, rousing her from sleep. She screwed up her face and rolled over, but the smell leapt over her and continued its assault. "Honestly,

Eton and Oxford set a certain stamp upon a man’s mind, just as a Jesuit College does. It can hardly be said that Eton and Oxford have a conscious purpose, but they have a purpose which is none the less strong and effective for not being formulated. In almost all who have been through them they produce a worship of “good form,” which is as destructive to life and thought as the medieval Church. “Good form” is quite compatiblewith a superficial open-mindedness, a readiness to hear all sides, and a certain urbanity towards opponents. But it is not compatible with fundamental open-mindedness, or with any inward readiness to give weight to the other side. Its essence is the assumption that what is most important is a certain kind of behavior, a behavior which minimizes friction between equals and delicately impresses inferiors with a conviction of their own crudity.

It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things, of war’s brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the “hat trick” with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers’ knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told in the gilded salon of a French chateau, or at a mess-table. It was, I think, the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetry, all art, all religion had preached this gospel and this promise. Now that ideal had broken like a china vase dashed to hard ground. The contrast between That and This was devastating. It was, in an enormous world-shaking way, like a highly dignified man in a silk hat, morning coat, creased trousers, spats, and patent boots suddenly slipping on a piece of orange-peel and sitting, all of a heap, with silk hat flying, in a filthy gutter. The war-time humor of the soul roared with mirth at the sight of all that dignity and elegance despoiled. So we laughed merrily, I remember, when a military chaplain (Eton, Christ Church, and Christian service) described how an English sergeant stood round the traverse of a German trench, in a night raid, and as the Germans came his way, thinking to escape, he cleft one skull after another with a steel-studded bludgeon a weapon which he had made with loving craftsmanship on the model of Blunderbore’s club in the pictures of a fairy-tale. So we laughed at the adventures of a young barrister (a brilliant fellow in the Oxford “Union”) whose pleasure it was to creep out o’ nights into No Man’s Land and lie doggo in a shell-hole close to the enemy’s barbed wire, until presently, after an hour’s waiting or two, a German soldier would crawl out to fetch in a corpse. The English barrister lay with his rifle ready. Where there had been one corpse there were two. Each night he made a notch on his rifle three notches one night to check the number of his victims. Then he came back to breakfast in his dugout with a hearty appetite.

I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five-and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But intrinsically, he had slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's Aeschylus, and dipping into Francis's Horace. To this negative view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with mining speculations; namely, that scientific education was the really useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was clear that a shy, sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience of a public school. Mr. Letherall had said so very decidedly. Mr. Letherall was a large man in spectacles, who one day took my small head between his large hands, and pressed it here and there in an exploratory, suspicious manner - then placed each of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his thumbs across my eyebrows - 'The deficiency is there, sir-there; and here,' he added, touching the upper sides of my head, 'here is the excess. That must be brought out, sir, and this must be laid to sleep.' I was in a state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I was the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of my first hatred - hatred of this big, spectacled man, who pulled my head about as if he wanted to buy and cheapen it. ("The Lifted Veil")

young Harry was known to his mother’s staff as a contrarian who did the opposite of what he was told. As he grew up he became increasingly undisciplined. His father and his wider family watched helplessly as the boy refused to behave and rejected education. After he unsuccessfully tried to pass his entrance exam to Eton, his relations recognised that Harry’s ignorance was spilling over into arrogance. That reality was concealed during Diana’s funeral.

I hadn’t gone to Andover, or Horace Mann or Eton. My high school had been the average kind, and I’d been the best student there. Such was not the case at Eli. Here, I was surrounded by geniuses. I’d figured out early in my college career that there were people like Jenny and Brandon and Lydia and Josh—truly brilliant, truly luminous, whose names would appear in history books that my children and grandchildren would read, and there were people like George and Odile—who through beauty and charm and personality would make the cult of celebrity their own. And then there were people like me. People who, through the arbitrary wisdom of the admissions office, might share space with the big shots for four years, might be their friends, their confidantes, their associates, their lovers—but would live a life well below the global radar. I knew it, and over the years, I’d come to accept it. And I understood that it didn’t make them any better than me.

Tom had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter, when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powers were not at all deficient. I fancy they were quite as strong as those of the Rev. Mr Stelling; for Tom could predict with accuracy what number of horses were cantering behind him, he could throw a stone right into the centre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fraction how many lengths of his stick it would take to reach across the playground, and could draw almost perfect squares on his slate without any measurement. But Mr Stelling took no note of those things: he only observed that Tom's faculties failed him before the abstractions hideously symbolized to him in the pages of the Eton Grammar, and that he was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to the demonstration that two given triangles must be equal - though he could discern with great promptitude and certainty the fact that they were equal.

Yes, despite his shortcomings she envied young Roger with his thick, clumping boots, his cropped hair and his Etons; envied his school and his masculine companions of whom he would speak grandly as: 'all the other fellows!'; envied his right to climb trees and play cricket and football—his right to be perfectly natural; above all she envied his splendid conviction that being a boy constituted a privilege in life; she could well understand that conviction, but this only increased her envy.

Sending a teenager to jail costs more than it would to send him to Eton College, the private boarding school in England that educated Princes William and Harry. It seems especially odd that the United States, a country with a proud history of limited government, is so unquestioningly generous when it comes to this particular public service, on which it blows $80 billion a year. Does it really need to lock up five times as many people per capita as Britain, six times as many as Canada, and nine times as many as Germany

It touches me to think that in his declining years he [George IV.] actually thought that he had led one of the charges at Waterloo. He would often describe the whole scene as it appeared to him at that supreme moment, and refer to the Duke of Wellington, saying, "Was it not so, Duke ? " " I have often heard you say so, your Majesty," the old soldier would reply, grimly. I am not sure that the old soldier was at Waterloo himself. In a room full of people he once referred to the battle as having been won upon the playing-fields of Eton. This was certainly a most unfortunate slip, seeing that all historians are agreed that it was fought on a certain field situate a few miles from Brussels.

There were a few exotics among them—some South American boys, sons of Argentine beef barons, one or two Russians, and even a Siamese prince, or someone who was described as a prince. Sim had two great ambitions. One was to attract titled boys to the school, and the other was to train up pupils to win scholarships at public schools, above all Eton. He did, towards the end of my time, succeed in getting hold of two boys with real English titles. One of them, I remember, was a wretched little creature, almost an albino, peering upwards out of weak eyes, with a long nose at the end of which a dew drop always seemed to be trembling. Sam always gave these boys their titles when mentioning them

Richard found his quarry in the library. ‘Selwick!’ The Honourable Miles Dorrington flung aside the news sheet he had been reading, leapt up from his chair and pounded his friend on the back. He then hastily reseated himself, looking slightly abashed at his unseemly display of affection. In a fit of temper, Richard’s sister Henrietta had once referred irritably to Miles as ‘that overeager sheepdog,’ and there was something to be said for the description. With his sandy blond hair flopping into his face, and his brown eyes alight with good fellowship, Miles did bear a striking resemblance to the more amiable varieties of man’s best friend. He was, in fact, Richard’s best friend. They had been fast friends since their first days at Eton.

Catherine Elizabeth MiddlEton, Kate, Waity Katie, Sizzler Sister, the Duchess of Cambridge, the High Street Duchess. The woman who has held all of these titles is fonder of some than of others, but it is important to remember that, over the years, each of these names has been bestowed on her by someone else. Because she is a naturally private person, others have often projected an image onto her, associated with one of these names, which is completely at odds with who she really is. Underneath, she has remained the same person throughout, and that person remains something of an enigma. For over ten years she has been the person closest to the man who will one day be king, but she only slowly slipped into the public's consciousness, like the royal family's stealth missile.

During my time at Eton, I led regular nighttime adventures, and word spread. I even thought about charging to take people on trips. I remember one where we tried to cross the whole town of Eton in the old sewers. I had found an old grill under a bridge that led into these four-foot-high old brick pipes, running under the streets. It took a little nerve to probe into these in the pitch black with no idea where the hell they were leading you; and they stank. I took a pack of playing cards and a flashlight, and I would jam cards into the brickwork every ten paces to mark my way. Eventually I found a manhole cover that lifted up, and it brought us out in the little lane right outside the headmaster’s private house. I loved that. “All crap flows from here,” I remember us joking at that time.

But it was in the life-saving competition that Stanley Judkins's conduct was most blameable and had the most far-reaching effects. The practice, as you know, was to throw a selected lower boy, of suitable dimensions, fully dressed, with his hands and feet tied together, into the deepest part of Cuckoo Weir, and to time the Scout whose turn it was to rescue him. On every occasion when he was entered for this competition Stanley Judkins was seized, at the critical moment, with a severe fit of cramp, which caused him to roll on the ground and utter alarming cries. This naturally distracted the attention of those present from the boy in the water, and had it not been for the presence of Arthur Wilcox the death-roll would have been a heavy one. As it was, the Lower Master found it necessary to take a firm line and say that the competition must be discontinued. It was in vain that Mr. Beasley Robinson represented to him that in five competitions only four lower boys had actually succumbed. The Lower Master said that he would be the last to interfere in any way with the work of the Scouts; but that three of these boys had been valued members of his choir, and both he and Dr. Ley felt that the inconvenience caused by the losses outweighed the advantages of the competitions. Besides, the correspondence with the parents of these boys had become annoying, and even distressing: they were no longer satisfied with the printed form which he was in the habit of sending out, and more than one of them had actually visited Eton and taken up much of his valuable time with complaints. So the life-saving competition is now a thing of the past.

These examinations and certificates and so on--what did they matter? And all this efficiency and up-to-dateness--what did that matter, either? Ralston was trying to run Brookfield like a factory--a factory for turning out a snob culture based on money and machines. The old gentlemanly traditions of family and broad acres were changing, as doubtless they were bound to; but instead of widening them to form a genuine inclusive democracy of duke and dustman, Ralston was narrowing them upon the single issue of a fat banking account. There never had been so many rich men's sons at Brookfield. The Speech Day Garden Party was like Ascot. Ralston met these wealthy fellows in London clubs and persuaded them that Brookfield was the coming school, and, since they couldn't buy their way into Eton or Harrow, they greedily swallowed the bait. Awful fellows, some of them--though others were decent enough. Financiers, company promoters, pill manufacturers. One of them gave his son five pounds a week pocket money. Vulgar . . . ostentatious . . . all the hectic rotten-ripeness of the age. . . . And once Chips had got into trouble because of some joke he had made about the name and ancestry of a boy named Isaacstein. The boy wrote home about it, and Isaacstein père sent an angry letter to Ralston. Touchy, no sense of humor, no sense of proportion--that was the matter with them, these new fellows. . . . No sense of proportion. And it was a sense of proportion, above all things, that Brookfield ought to teach--not so much Latin or Greek or Chemistry or Mechanics. And you couldn't expect to test that sense of proportion by setting papers and granting certificates...

Sadly, we were going to have to flee. We’d need to find somewhere new, and soon, and that would mean paying for our own security. I went back to my notebooks, started contacting security firms again. Meg and I sat down to work out exactly how much security we could afford, and how much house. Exactly then, while we were revising our budget, word came down: Pa was cutting me off. I recognized the absurdity, a man in his mid-thirties being financially cut off by his father. But Pa wasn’t merely my father, he was my boss, my banker, my comptroller, keeper of the purse strings throughout my adult life. Cutting me off therefore meant firing me, without redundancy pay, and casting me into the void after a lifetime of service. More, after a lifetime of rendering me otherwise unemployable. I felt fatted for the slaughter. Suckled like a veal calf. I’d never asked to be financially dependent on Pa. I’d been forced into this surreal state, this unending Truman Show in which I almost never carried money, never owned a car, never carried a house key, never once ordered anything online, never received a single box from Amazon, almost never traveled on the Underground. (Once, at Eton, on a theater trip.) Sponge, the papers called me. But there’s a big difference between being a sponge and being prohibited from learning independence. After decades of being rigorously and systematically infantilized, I was now abruptly abandoned, and mocked for being immature? For not standing on my own two feet? The question of how to pay for a home and security kept Meg and me awake at nights. We could always spend some of my inheritance from Mummy, we said, but that felt like a last resort. We saw that money as belonging to Archie. And his sibling. It was then that we learned Meg was pregnant.

This is absurd,” Colin grumbled. “At this rate, we’ll arrive next Tuesday.” “Stop talking. Start moving.” Bram nudged a sheep with his boot, wincing as he did. With his leg already killing him, the last thing he needed was a pain in the arse, but that’s exactly what he’d inherited, along with all his father’s accounts and possessions: responsibility for his wastrel cousin, Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne. He swatted at another sheep’s flank, earning himself an indignant bleat and a few inches more. “I have an idea,” Colin said. Bram grunted, unsurprised. As men, he and Colin were little more than strangers. But during the few years they’d overlapped at Eton, he recalled his younger cousin as being just full of ideas. Ideas that had landed him shin-deep in excrement. Literally, on at least one occasion. Colin looked from Bram to Thorne and back again, eyes keen. “I ask you, gentlemen. Are we, or are we not, in possession of a great quantity of black powder?

There had been a time when she admired the way that David became a doctor. When he had told his father of his intention, General Melrose had immediately cut off his annuity, preferring to use the money to rear pheasants. Shooting men and animals were the occupations of a gentleman, tending their wounds the business of middle-class quacks. That was the General’s view, and he was able to enjoy more shooting as a consequence of holding it. General Melrose did not find it difficult to treat his son coldly. The first time he had taken an interest in him was when David left Eton, and his father asked him what he wanted to do. David stammered, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir,’ not daring to admit that he wanted to compose music. It had not escaped the General’s attention that his son fooled about on the piano, and he rightly judged that a career in the army would put a curb on this effeminate impulse. ‘Better join the army,’ he said, offering his son a cigar with awkward camaraderie.

Eton’s great strength is that it does encourage interests--however wacky. From stamp collecting to a cheese-and-wine club, mountaineering to juggling, if the will is there than the school will help you. Eton was only ever intolerant of two things: laziness and a lack of enthusiasm. As long as you got “into something,” then most other misdemeanors were forgivable. I liked that: it didn’t only celebrate the cool and sporty, but encouraged the individual, which, in the game of life, matters much more. Hence Eton helped me to go for the Potential Royal Marines Officer Selection Course, age only sixteen. This was a pretty grueling three-day course of endless runs, marches, mud yomps, assault courses, high-wire confidence tests (I’m good at those!), and leadership tasks. At the end I narrowly passed as one of only three out of twenty-five, with the report saying: “Approved for Officer Selection: Grylls is fit, enthusiastic, but needs to watch out that he isn’t too happy-go-lucky.” (Fortunately for my future life, I discarded the last part of that advice.) But passing this course gave me great confidence that if I wanted to, after school, I could at least follow my father into the commandos.

I’m here to horrify you,” he said. And then, because he couldn’t bear it any longer, he reached out and pulled her to him. She was warm and soft in his arms, and she smelled so deliciously right. He could have inhaled her scent for hours. “Hugo—” He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to answer any questions. He didn’t know who he was or what he wanted or what dreams would come to fill his heart. He only knew that if he couldn’t have her, nothing would ever be right again. And so he kissed her. He tasted her, sweet and steady against him, put his hand in the small of her back and drew her toward him. She kissed him back. “I love you,” he said. The truth took root inside him. For the first time in years, the dark words of his past receded. “But, Hugo…” He set his fingers over her lips. “Let me do this,” he said. “I thought I had to prove myself with money and accomplishments. But those will always ring hollow. They will never be enough. I want to be somebody. Let me be your husband. Let me be the father of your child—of all your children. I got more satisfaction from striking Clermont than I did from any success I found in business.” She pulled back from him. “You struck Clermont?” “Twice. And—that reminds me—I blackmailed him into promising to send your child to Eton.” Hugo tightened his grip around her. “I’ve never pretended to be a good man, you know. It’s just that…I’m yours.” He leaned his head against hers. Her breath was warm against his face. “Did you hit him hard?” “I’m afraid I did.” “That’s my Hugo.” There was a grim satisfaction in her voice. “I love you, you know. If you hadn’t come, as soon as winter set in and the ground became too hard to work, I’d planned to come for you.” “Well, I’m glad I came to my senses,” Hugo said. “You shouldn’t have traveled, not in your condition. Yet curiosity impels me to inquire. What did you plan to do, once you arrived?” “Allow me to demonstrate.” She lifted her face to his, traced the line of his jaw with her fingers. “This.” She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “And this.” She kissed the other corner. “And…” She took his mouth full on, her lips soft against his, tasting of all the things he’d most wanted. “I’d do that,” she whispered, “until you were forced to admit you loved me.” “I love you.” “Well, that’s no fun.” She kissed him again. “Now what excuse do I have?” He drew in a shuddering breath and pulled her closer. “You could make me say it again,” he whispered. “Make me say it always. Make me say it so often that you never have cause to doubt. I love you.

My time at Eton did develop in me a character trait that is essentially, I guess, very English: the notion that it is best to be the sort of person who messes about and plays the fool but who, when it really matters, is tough to the core. I think it goes back to the English Scarlet Pimpernel mentality: the nobility of aspiring to be the hidden hero. (In fact, I am sure it is no coincidence that over the years, so many senior SAS officers have also been Old Etonians. Now explain that one, when the SAS really is the ultimate meritocracy? No school tie can earn you a place there. That comes only with sweat and hard work. But the SAS also attracts a certain personality and attitude. It favors the individual, the maverick, and the quietly talented. That was Eton for you, too.) This is essentially a very English ethos: work hard, play hard; be modest; do your job to your utmost, laugh at yourself; and sometimes, if you have to, cuff it. I found that these qualities were ones that I loved in others, and they were qualities that subconsciously I was aspiring to in myself--whether I knew it or not. One truth never changed for me at Eton: however much I threw myself into life there, the bare fact was that I still really lived for the holidays--to be back at home with my mum and dad, and Lara, in the Isle of Wight. It was always where my heart really was.

I soon found my feet, and was much less homesick than I was at prep school. Thank God. I learned that with plenty of free time on our hands, and being encouraged to fill the time with “interests,” I could come up with some great adventures. A couple of my best friends and I started climbing the huge old oak trees around the grounds, finding monkey routes through the branches that allowed us to travel between the trees, high up above the ground. It was brilliant. We soon had built a real-life Robin Hood den, with full-on branch swings, pulleys, and balancing bars high up in the treetops. We crossed the Thames on the high girders above a railway bridge, we built rafts out of old Styrofoam and even made a boat out of an old bathtub to go down the river in. (Sadly this sank, as the water came in through the overflow hole, which was a fundamental flaw. Note to self: Test rafts before committing to big rivers in them.) We spied on the beautiful French girls who worked in the kitchens, and even made camps on the rooftops overlooking the walkway they used on their way back from work. We would vainly attempt to try and chat them up as they passed. In between many of these antics we had to work hard academically, as well as dress in ridiculous clothes, consisting of long tailcoats and waistcoats. This developed in me the art of making smart clothes look ragged, and ever since, I have maintained a lifelong love of wearing good-quality clothes in a messy way. It even earned me the nickname of “Scug,” from the deputy-headmaster. In Eton slang this roughly translates as: “A person of no account, and of dirty appearance.

Dorian, like a good boy," said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. "And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame-

The school regime refused to make it easy for us on the dress side of things, and it dictated that even if we wanted to walk into the neighboring town of Windsor, then we had to wear a blazer and tie. This made us prime targets for the many locals who seemed to enjoy an afternoon of beating up the Eton “toffs.” On one occasion, I was having a pee in the loos of the Windsor McDonald’s, which were tucked away downstairs at the back of the fast-food joint. I was just leaving the Gents when the door swung open, and in walked three aggressive-looking lads. They looked as if they had struck gold on discovering this weedy, blazer-wearing Eton squirt, and I knew deep down that I was in trouble and alone. (Meanwhile, my friends were waiting for me upstairs. Some use they were being.) I tried to squeeze past these hoodies, but they threw me back against the wall and laughed. They then proceeded to debate what they were going to do to me. “Flush his head down the toilet,” was an early suggestion. (Well, I had had that done to me many times already at Eton, I thought to myself.) I was okay so far. Then they suggested defecating in the loo first. Now I was getting worried. Then came the killer blow: “Let’s shave his pubes!” Now, there is no greater embarrassment for a young teenager than being discovered to not have any pubes. And I didn’t. That was it. I charged at them, threw one of them against the wall, barged the other aside, squeezed through the door, and bolted. They chased after me, but once I reached the main floor of the McDonald’s I knew I was safe. I waited with my friends inside until we were sure the thugs had all left, then cautiously slunk back across the bridge to school. (I think we actually waited more than two hours, to be safe. Fear teaches great patience.)

There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr Gray. All influence is immoral — immoral from the scientific point of view.' 'Why?' 'Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly — that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion — these are the two things that govern us. And yet —' 'Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy,' said the painter, deep in his work, and conscious only that a look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. 'And yet,' continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that always was so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, 'I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream — I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediævalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal — to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame—

An unemployed electrician,whom I had been taunting with my reminder of how much richer I was, leaned forward and said:'What are your qualifications? I know exactly what your qualifications are.You bent over in the shower to pick up some soap at Eton and Harrow, like all the rest of them.

His full name may be Henry Charles Albert David. But since his 1984 birth, he’s been known as Harry, a name that fits. At first, Diana’s younger was the shier of her boys. But as he grew, Harry seems to have inherited her high spirits. Molded by Eton and Sandhurst, he’s grown into a confident young man who revels in the role of second son. Mother would probably approve. “Royal firstborns may get all the glory,” said Diana. “Secondborns enjoy more freedom

So is that what you love about sailing?" she asked. "It keeps your mind busy and occupied?" He still seemed distracted as he tipped his head up to inspect the mainsail. "I guess that's part of it. I like to get everything working just so in order to get the most out of the boat, and I can't rest until she's moving as fast as she can." Evelyn turned the wheel slightly. "And you tell me I'm the one who needs to relax?" His gaze darted to her profile, then he laughed and shook his head. "I did say we were similar creatures, didn't I? We have that in common, I suppose- we both need some slack in our lines." "Speak for yourself!" she replied, feigning great umbrage. "I like my lines pulled very tight, sir, because with my inconceivable beauty, I have to do something to keep the wicked rakes like you at a safe distance." He stared at her, dumbfounded, then they both gave in to their laughter. She wondered how it was possible they could be having this conversation. Who knew she could be amusing? "You're quite a woman, Evelyn." Then he wagged a warning finger at her. "It's a good thing I didn't know you better back at Eton, or you would have been in considerable trouble.

lately a scholar at Eton, who aroused everyone’s suspicions by knowing Latin and Greek [at the Billing trial, the judge made a point of not knowing any Greek, and disparaged those who did]

lost

Nobody hits you while I've got breath in my body." Shock sent her heart crashing against her ribs. Jonas had fought William not because of what happened at Eton but because he wouldn't see her hurt. He'd been her champion, not avenger of his own wrongs. An astonishing surge of emotion that extended far beyond mere gratitude left her reeling. Roberta had been her protector when she'd been a little girl but since then, she'd fought every battle alone. "Thank you," she whispered, the words utterly inadequate. Briefly forgetting their audience, she lifted his fist and pressed a reverent kiss to his broken knuckles. "But you can't kill him." With her kiss, the inhuman chill slowly drained from Jonas's expression. Thank heaven. Once more he looked like the man she knew. He sucked in a choked breath and she felt his coiled tension ease. "As you wish.

Shamelessness is the superpower of a certain section of the English upper classes. While so many other people in the country are hamstrung by the deference and social embarrassment they have been taught since birth, the upper classes calmly parade on through the street and boardrooms to claim the spoils. They don't learn shamelessness at Eton, but this is where they perfect it.

AFTER World War II, General Holland M. Smith said that if Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, the great battles of the Pacific were won in the Caribbean.

My mind flashed back to Eton.

As with war, suppressing reactive aggression and following rules are fundamental to most sports. Indeed, sports might have evolved as a way to teach impulse control along with skills useful for hunting and controlled proactive fighting. What is more unsportsmanlike than punching an opponent who scores a goal or, even worse, punching a teammate who scores instead of you? Professional tennis players aren’t even allowed to say rude things on court. Surely other hominins including Neanderthals engaged in play, but I hypothesize that sports evolved when humans became self-domesticated. As noted above, it is primarily among domesticated species that adults play, and among the many reasons humans in every culture play sports, one is to teach cooperation and learn to restrain reactive aggression. Regardless of whether you are trying to beat your opponent to a pulp in a cage or impress the judges of a synchronized swimming competition, to be a “good sport” you have to play by the rules, control your temper, and get along with others. Sports also foster habits like discipline and courage that are crucial for proactive aggression such as warfare. Perhaps the Battle of Waterloo really was won on the playing fields of Eton.

I’d been forced into this surreal state, this unending Truman Show in which I almost never carried money, never owned a car, never carried a house key, never once ordered anything online, never received a single box from Amazon, almost never traveled on the Underground. (Once, at Eton, on a theater trip.) Sponge, the papers called me. But there’s a big difference between being a sponge and being prohibited from learning independence.

For the English aristocracy, the horse was a symbol of social, political, and economic dominance. Those who rode and those who owned horses viewed society as composed of “a small, select aristocracy, booted and spurred to ride, and a large, dim mass, born, saddled and bridled to be ridden.”5 At Eton, Randolph

Johnson, a member of the British Conservative Party and the product of prestigious Eton and Oxford, found the conversation with Putin “very creepy,” later confiding to an associate that the Russian autocrat was a “small, puckish, lowlife.

It is to the English schoolboy that the game of football really owes its origin. During the middle of the nineteenth century there was an athletic revival throughout England and football became the favorite pastime of the winter months in such schools as Rugby, Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse and others. The game came to its present important position through a gradual evolutionary process in which both a standard of play and of rule were developed together. In the growth of the two principal forms of modern play, "Association" and "Rugby", the size of the particular school ground was the determining factor. In 1850 the only school playground in England large enough to permit the running and tackling game was connected with Rugby.

Major Rutledge of the Buffs, Eton and Sandhurst as to intonation, millimetrically tooth-brushed as to moustache, Savile Row as to the quite dazzling sartorial perfection of his khaki drill, was so magnificently out of place in the wild beauty of the rocky, tree-lined bluffs of that winding creek that his presence there seemed inevitable.

The student with whom Hal shared a bedroom, Englishman John Abel Smith, bore educational credentials that Hal could only dimly conceive. John was the namesake of a renowned merchant banker and British Member of Parliament. He had attended Eton, one of the world’s most famous preparatory schools, before entering Cambridge, where he had “read” under the personal tutelage of English scholars. Hal began to understand the difference between his public-school education and the background of his roommates when he surveyed them relative to a reading list he came across. It was titled, “One Hundred Books Every Educated Person Ought to Have Read.” George Montgomery and Powell Cabot had read approximately seventy and eighty, respectively. John Abel Smith had read all but four. Hal had read (though not necessarily finished) six. Hal also felt his social inferiority. He had long known that his parents weren’t fashionable. His mother never had her hair done in a beauty parlor. His father owned only one pair of dress shoes at a time and frequently took long trips abroad with nothing but his briefcase and a single change of underwear, washing his clothes—including a “wash-and-wear” suit—in hotel sinks at night. That was part of the reason why Hal took an expensive tailored suit—a broad-shouldered pinstripe—and a new fedora hat to Boston. He knew that he needed to rise to a new level, fashion-wise. But he realized that his fashion statement had failed when Powell Cabot asked, late in October, to borrow his suit and hat. Hal’s swell of pride turned to chagrin when Powell explained his purpose—he had been invited to a Halloween costume party, and he wanted to go as a gangster.

There is an old story about the boy at Eton who committed suicide. The other boys in his house were gathered together and asked if any of them could suggest a reason for the tragedy. After a long silence a small boy in the front put up his hand: 'Could it have been the food, sir?

At the end of World War II, some of the Grant Study men were majors; others were still privates. What made the difference? It turned out that the men’s attained military rank at discharge bore no relation to their body build, their parents’ social class, their endurance on the treadmill, or even their intelligence. What did correlate significantly with attained military rank was a generally cohesive home atmosphere in childhood and warm relationships with mother and siblings. Twenty-four of the twenty-seven men with the warmest childhoods made at least first lieutenant, and four became majors. In contrast, of the thirty men with the worst childhoods, thirteen failed to make first lieutenant, and none became majors. We don’t breed good officers; we don’t even build them on the playing fields of Eton; we raise them in loving homes. This result would undoubtedly have astonished physical anthropologist Earnest Hooton (see Chapter 3), whom the Study asked to write its first book.4 I offer this story for its morals. One is that belief isn’t enough—however impassioned our convictions, they need to be tested. Another is that information does nothing for us if we don’t make use of it. My brief excursion here answered a question that the Study had been entertaining from its very beginnings; the data that finally answered it had been available for almost seventy years. And a third: that longitudinal studies protect us from exactly such pitfalls, and from our other shortcomings of foresight and method. They give us the flexibility to re-ask old questions in new contexts, and to ask new questions of old data. That is a very important point of this book, and one I’ll keep returning to.

Death becomes Us All

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. I mentioned I’d been in contact with her mother. “Oh crikey, that sounds dangerous!” “She’s a feisty woman, isn’t she?” William giggled. “Granny’s great fun after a few gin and tonics.” “Sh, William,” Diana said, giggling too. “My mother’s been a tremendous source of support to me. She never talks publicly; she’s just there for me.” “And what about William’s other granny?” “I have enormous respect for the Queen; she has been so supportive, you know. People don’t see that side of her, but I do all the time. She’s an amazing person.” “Has she been good over the divorce?” “Yes, very. I just want it over now so I can get on with my life. I’m worried about the attacks I will get afterward.” “What attacks?” “I just worry that people will try and knock me down once I am out on my own.” This seemed unduly paranoid. People adored her. I asked William how he was enjoying Eton. “Oh, it’s great, thanks.” “Do you think the press bother you much?” “Not the British press, actually. Though the European media can be quite annoying. They sit on the riverbank watching me rowing with their cameras, waiting for me to fall in! There are photographers everywhere if I go out. Normally loads of Japanese tourists taking pictures. All saying “Where’s Prince William?’ when I’m standing right next to them.” “How are the other boys with you?” “Very nice. Though a boy was expelled this week for taking ecstasy and snuff. Drugs are everywhere, and I think they’re stupid. I never get tempted.” “Does matron take any?” laughed Diana. “No, Mummy, it gives her hallucinations.” “What, like imagining you’re going to be king?” I said. They both giggled again. “Is it true you’ve got Pamela Anderson posters on your bedroom wall?” “No! And not Cindy Crawford, either. They did both come to tea at the palace, though, and were very nice.” William had been photographed the previous week at a party at the Hammersmith Palais, where he was mobbed by young girls. I asked him if he’d had fun. “Everyone in the press said I was snogging these girls, but I wasn’t,” he insisted. Diana laughed. “One said you stuck your tongue down her throat, William. Did you?” “No, I did not. Stop it, Mummy, please. It’s embarrassing.” He’d gone puce. It was a very funny exchange, with a flushed William finally insisting: “I won’t go to any more public parties; it was crazy. People wouldn’t leave me alone.” Diana laughed again. “All the girls love a nice prince.” I turned to more serious matters. “Do you think Charles will become king one day?” “I think he thinks he will,” replied Diana, “but I think he would be happier living in Tuscany or Provence, to be honest.” “And how are you these days--someone told me you’ve stopped seeing therapists?” “I have, yes. I stopped when I realized they needed more therapy than I did. I feel stronger now, but I am under so much pressure all the time. People don’t know what it’s like to be in the public eye, they really don’t.

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. Lunch with Diana. A big day--a massive, humongous day, in fact. I got there ten minutes early, feeling decidedly nervous. The Kensington Palace front door was opened by her beaming butler. He walked me up the stairs, chatting cheerfully about the weather and my journey, as if a tabloid editor prowling around Diana’s home was a perfectly normal occurrence. He said that the “Boss” was running a bit late, joking that “she’ll be furious you are here first!” and invited me to have a drink. “What does she have?” I asked. “Water, usually,” he replied, “but wouldn’t you rather have a nice glass of wine? She won’t mind in the slightest.” I readily agreed, if only to calm my racing heartbeat. He then left me alone in the suitably regal sitting room. Diana had a perfectly normal piano covered in perfectly normal family snaps. It’s just that this family was the most photographed on the planet. Lots of pictures of her boys, the young heirs, perhaps the men who will kill off, or secure, the very future of the monarchy. To us, they were just soap opera stars, semi-real figments of tabloid headlines and the occasional palace balcony wave. But here they were, her boys, in picture frames, like any other adored sons. Just sitting in her private room was fascinating. Her magazines lay on the table, from Vogue to Hello, as well as her newspapers--the Daily Mail at the top of the pile, obviously, if distressingly. After I had spent ten minutes on my own, she swept in, gushing: “I’m so sorry to have kept you, Piers. I hope Paul has been looking after you all right.” And then came what was surely one of the most needless requests of all time: “Would you mind awfully if William joins us for lunch? He’s on an exeat from Eton, and I just thought that given you are a bit younger than most editors, it might be good for both of you to get to know each other.” “I’m sorry, but that would be terribly inconvenient,” I replied sternly. Diana blushed slightly and started a stuttering “Yes, of course, I’m so sorry…” apology, when I burst out laughing. “Yes, ma’am, I think I can stretch to allowing the future king to join us for lunch.” The absurdity of this conversation held no apparent bounds.

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. Just sitting in her private room was fascinating. Her magazines lay on the table, from Vogue to Hello, as well as her newspapers--the Daily Mail at the top of the pile, obviously, if distressingly. After I had spent ten minutes on my own, she swept in, gushing: “I’m so sorry to have kept you, Piers. I hope Paul has been looking after you all right.” And then came what was surely one of the most needless requests of all time: “Would you mind awfully if William joins us for lunch? He’s on an exeat from Eton, and I just thought that given you are a bit younger than most editors, it might be good for both of you to get to know each other.” “I’m sorry, but that would be terribly inconvenient,” I replied sternly. Diana blushed slightly and started a stuttering “Yes, of course, I’m so sorry…” apology, when I burst out laughing. “Yes, ma’am, I think I can stretch to allowing the future king to join us for lunch.” The absurdity of this conversation held no apparent bounds. But before he joined us, Diana wanted a little chat. “How’s your circulation?” she asked. Bloody rampant, I thought, as she nestled into her sofa, radiating a surprisingly high degree of sexual allure. “Oh very healthy, ma’am, thanks to you.” She laughed, a tad insincerely. We discussed her mate Fergie. “Can’t you go a bit easier on her?” Diana pleaded, with genuine concern in those extraordinarily big, expressively deep, blue eyes. “Well, she’s her own worst enemy,” I replied. “Look at this morning’s front pages--I mean, who the hell takes the Concorde the day after the papers reveal she’s 3 million in debt?” “I know, I know,” sighed the Princess, “but she means well; she has a big heart. It’s not easy for her.” We debated the merits of Fergie, or even Diana herself, emigrating away from the media firestorm. “Yes, but to where? I’ve thought about it often, but somebody would find me wherever I went.” And then I saw a flash of real sadness in her face, a desperation almost to have her anonymity back, but knowing it is gone forever. I asked what it was like “being Diana.” “Oh God, let’s face it, even I have had enough of Diana now--and I am Diana.” She screeched with laughter, and I saw her chameleon side. Able to switch so easily from misery to hilarity. “It’s been ridiculous recently, just one thing after another. But I can’t stop the press writing about me, can I? You are hardly going to say ‘Oh, okay then, we’ll leave you alone.’ I would like to have a good break. I meet a lot of ordinary people, and they are always so kind to me. They shout out things like ‘Eh, Di, I know what you’re going through, luv,’ and I laughed and think: ‘If only you really knew. He’s worrying about his allotment or whatever, and I’ve got things like the future of the monarchy on my mind.’” More screeches--she has a great laugh. A really earthy infectious cackle. Like a Sloaney Barbara Windsor.

I was also really fortunate at Eton to have had a fantastic housemaster, and so much of people’s experience of Eton rests on whether they had a housemaster who rocked or bombed. I got lucky. The relationship with your housemaster is the equivalent to that with a headmasterat a smaller school. He is the one who supervises all you do, from games to your choice of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), and without doubt he is the teacher who gets to know you the best--the good and the bad. In short, they are the person who runs the show. Mr. Quibell was old-school and a real character--but two traits made him great: he was fair and he cared. And as a teenager those two qualities really matter to one’s self-esteem. But, boy, did he also get grief from us. Mr. Quibell disliked two things: pizzas and the town of Slough. Often, as a practical joke, we would order a load of Slough’s finest pizzas to be delivered to his private door; but never just one or two pizzas--I am talking thirty of them. As the delivery guy turned up we would all be hidden, peeping out of the windows, watching the look of both horror, then anger, as Mr. Quibell would send the poor delivery man packing, with firm instructions never to return. The joke worked twice, but soon the pizza company got savvy.

Even Quinn joined in and took his turn picking obscure items, like a feather cloak that originated in far-off New Zealand.

You hurt me to free me,” Eton whispered. “You are like the thorns on a rose, Thanos. A painful beauty. One I will always want to hold, no matter the blood it draws from me.” Thanos

Eton, for all its virtues, seriously lacked girls. (Well, apart from the kitchen girls who we camped out on the roof waiting for night after night.) But beyond that, and the occasional foxy daughter of a teacher, it was a desert. (Talking of foxy daughters, I did desperately fancy the beautiful Lela, who was the daughter of the clarinet teacher. But she ended up marrying one of my best friends from Eton, Tom Amies--and everyone was very envious. Great couple. Anyway, we digress.) As I said, apart from that…it was a desert. All of us wrote to random girls whom we vaguely knew or had maybe met once, but if we were honest, it was all in never-never land. I did meet one quite nice girl who I discovered went to school relatively nearby to Eton. (Well, about thirty miles nearby, that is.) I borrowed a friend’s very old, single-geared, rusty bicycle and headed off one Sunday afternoon to meet this girl. It took me hours and hours to find the school, and the bike became steadily more and more of an epic to ride, not only in terms of steering but also just to pedal, as the rust cogs creaked and ground. But finally I reached the school gates, pouring with sweat. It was a convent school, I found out, run entirely by nuns. Well, at least they should be quite mild-natured and easy to give the slip to, I thought. That was my first mistake. I met the girl as prearranged, and we wandered off down a pretty, country path through the local woods. I was just summoning up the courage to make a move when I heard this whistle, followed by this shriek, from somewhere behind us. I turned to see a nun with an Alsatian, running toward us, shouting. The young girl gave me a look of terror and pleaded with me to run for my life--which I duly did. I managed to escape and had another monster cycle ride back to school, thinking: Flipping Nora, this girl business is proving harder work than I first imagined. But I persevered.

One of the optional subjects that we could study at Eton was motor mechanics, roughly translated as “find an old banger, pimp it up, remove the exhaust, and rag it around the fields until it dies.” Perfect. I found an exhausted-looking, old brown Ford Cortina station wagon that I bought for thirty pounds, and, with some friends, we geared it up big-time. As we were only sixteen we weren’t allowed to take it on the road, but I reckoned with my seventeenth birthday looming that it would be perfect as my first, road-legal car. The only problem was that I needed to have it pass inspection, and to do that I had to get it to a garage. This involved having an adult drive with me. I persuaded Mr. Quibell that there was no better way that he could possibly spend a Saturday afternoon than drive me to a repair garage (in his beloved Slough). I had managed to take a lucky diving catch for the house cricket team the day before, so was in Mr. Quibell’s good books--and he relented. As soon as we got to the outskirts of Slough, though, the engine started to smoke--big-time. Soon, Mr. Quibell had to have the windshield wipers on full power, acting as a fan just to clear the smoke that was pouring out of the hood. By the time we made it to the garage the engine was red-hot and it came as no surprise that my car failed its inspection--on more counts than any car the garage had seen for a long time, they told me. It was back to the drawing board, but it was a great example of what a good father figure Mr. Quibell was to all those in his charge--especially to those boys who really tried, in whatever field it was. And I have always been, above all, a trier. I haven’t always succeeded, and I haven’t always had the most talent, but I have always given of myself with great enthusiasm--and that counts for a lot. In fact my dad had always told me that if I could be the most enthusiastic person I knew then I would do well. I never forgot that. And he was right. I mean, who doesn’t like to work with enthusiastic folk?

Callie a wink. As Will and Beth took turns with the Eton Mess, Sid

The most insidous influence on the young is not violence, drugs, drink or sexual perversion, but our pursuit of the trivial and tolerance of the third rate.

As we chatted, it became instantly clear why he was projected to become the next prime minister. Everything about him radiated competence and confidence. He looked to be exactly the sort of man whom deans at Eton and Oxford envision when they are first handed the boy.

During the war, my son Alfred [Cochrane] went up [to Bsharre, in Lebanon] to see some friends. On the road, he was stopped by the Marada militia. They put a gun to his head and tied him to a tree. When Alfred was at Eton he quickly learned how to get out of beatings, and his experience came in very handy on this occasion. They said they were going to execute him. He kept telling them he was great friends with the Franjiehs – the ex-President’s family who commanded the militia – and said that he was going to spend the weekend with them. Of course he had no such plans, but the lie eventually did the trick. Most of the militia men did not believe him, but Alfred kept going on about his important Maronite friends and eventually one of them got cold feet. The others were saying, ‘Let’s just shoot him first and ask questions afterwards,’ but the one with the cold feet said, ‘No we must telephone the Franjiehs and check what he’s saying.’ So they did.” “Luckily they got the former President, Suleiman Franjieh. He was a little surprised to hear Alfred thought he had been invited over the weekend, but he told the militiamen to release Alfred immediately nonetheless. The next day Robert Franjieh, the President’s son, rang up here. He and Alfred had known each other since they were in playpens together: it’s a very small world here in Lebanon. Robert said: ‘I’m so sorry, Alfred. Rotten luck. Won’t you come to lunch?’” “And what was Alfred’s reply?” “He said, ‘Thanks a lot Robert, but not today. I’m afraid I’m a little busy.

Berry and three other old Etonians, James Bolton, Alex Lyle and Christian De Lotbiniere, were the brains behind “Ski Bob” travel. This was a company, named after their Eton housemaster Bob Baird, which had been formed when they discovered that they were too young legally to book holidays themselves. So these young entrepreneurs started their own company and within the twenty-strong group, which mainly compromised old Etonians, the greatest accolade was to be called “Bob.” Diana was soon Bob, Bob, Bobbing along. “You’re skating on thin ice,” she yelled in her Miss Piggy voice as she skied dangerously close behind members of the group. She joined in the pillow fights, charades, and satirical singsongs. Diana was teased mercilessly about a framed photograph of Prince Charles, taken at his Investiture in 1969, which hung in her school dormitory. Not guilty, she said. It was a gift to the school. When she stayed in the Berry chalet she slept on the living-room sofa. Not that she got much sleep. Medical student, James Colthurst, liked to regale the slumbering throng with unwelcome early morning renditions of Martin Luther King’s famous “I had a dream” speech or his equally unamusing Mussolini impersonation.

My name was down for Eton, you know, I can’t tell you how glad I am I came here instead. Of course, mother was slightly disappointed, but since I made her read Lockhart’s books I think she’s begun to see how useful it’ll be to have a fully trained wizard in the family …’ After that they didn’t have much chance to

home on 25 November 1854. He settled down in Surrey, married and continued to serve in the militia. He died in 1889. Temple Godman He was born in 1832 into a wealthy Surrey landed family and was educated at Eton. He joined the 5th Dragoon Guards in 1851 as a Cornet – the commission cost £840. He bought his promotion to Lieutenant in March 1854 and to Captain just over a year later. (The latter promotion cost £3,225 – about £150,000 at today’s prices.)

After I had spent ten minutes on my own, she swept in, gushing: “I’m so sorry to have kept you, Piers. I hope Paul has been looking after you all right.” And then came what was surely one of the most needless requests of all time: “Would you mind awfully if William joins us for lunch? He’s on an exeat from Eton, and I just thought that given you are a bit younger than most editors, it might be good for both of you to get to know each other.” “I’m sorry, but that would be terribly inconvenient,” I replied sternly. Diana blushed slightly and started a stuttering “Yes, of course, I’m so sorry . . .” apology, when I burst out laughing. “Yes, ma’am, I think I can stretch to allowing the future king to join us for lunch.” The absurdity of the conversation held no apparent bounds. “How’s your circulation?” she asked. Bloody rampant, I thought, as she nestled into her sofa, radiating a surprisingly high degree of sexual allure. “Oh very healthy, ma’am, thanks to you.” —Piers Morgan

Warmth cocooned her, and she slipped into sleep without even noticing where she was.

Turning to Patrick and Caroline, Diana asked if I had trouble getting them to do their homework. They both replied, “No, we just sit down and do it.” I know I embarrassed Patrick when I told Diana what a good student he was turning out to be. With a grin, Diana confessed, “I have to bribe my boys to do their homework.” The bribes were only little treats, like a piece of candy. Diana was determined to teach her sons about the real world and how people live. She was trying to give Prince William, at ten, and Prince Harry, soon to turn eight, as “normal an upbringing as possible,” given their station in life. With regard to this aim, she observed, “My husband thinks I’m overdoing it.” This was her only reference to Prince Charles that afternoon. For instance, so that the boys would learn to handle money, Diana gave them pocket money to buy candy and other small treats in the local shops in Tetbury, the market town near Highgrove, the royal couple’s country estate. It had been difficult to send William to boarding school at eight, but it was not as harsh as it sounded, Diana assured me. Parents could visit on weekends and come to watch sports matches, as she and Harry had done that morning. Also, the boys were allowed to come home for a weekend about once a month. Harry would be joining his big brother at Ludgrove in September. “After prep school,” I asked, “where will you send Prince William? Not to Gordonstoun, I hope.” Gordonstoun was the boarding school in northern Scotland where Prince Charles had been unhappy as a teenager. “Oh, no,” Diana answered. “I’d like William to go to Eton, if he can get in.” I smiled, “I don’t imagine that will be a problem.” Prince William is currently attending Eton and Prince Harry is finishing up at Ludgrove.

Pain wrung his heart. So, then, it was to be the same in death as it had always been in life. He concealed the bitter ache, pretending to laugh at something Chilcot was going on about. It was inevitable that during all those years they were growing up, people had compared him and Charles with each other. After all, they'd both been so close in age, so similar in looks and build. But in the eyes of those adults around them — adults who behaved as though neither child had ears nor feelings — Charles had been the golden boy — the Beloved One. Gareth's carefree, devil-may-care nature had never stood a chance against Charles's serious-minded ambition, his dogged pursuit of perfection at whatever he did. It was Charles who had the keener wit, the better brain, the more serious mind. It was Charles who'd make a magnificent MP or glittering ambassador in some faraway post, Charles who was a credit to his family, Charles, Charles, Charles — while he, Gareth ... well, God and the devil only knew what would become of poor Gareth. Charles had never been one to gloat or rub it in. Indeed, he'd resented the inevitable comparisons far more than Gareth, who laughingly pretended to accept them and then did his best to live down to what people expected of him. And why not? He had nothing to prove, no expectations to aspire to. Besides, he hadn't envied Charles. Not really. While Charles had been groomed to succeed to the dukedom should Lucien die without issue, he, Gareth, had been having the time of his life — running wild over Berkshire, over Eton, and most recently, over Oxford. Never in his twenty-three years, had he allowed himself to feel any envy or resentment toward his perfect, incomparable older brother. Until now — when he found himself wanting the one thing Charles had owned that he himself did not have:  the love of Juliet Paige. He looked at her now, standing off by herself with her head bent over Charlotte as she tried to soothe her. The child was screaming loudly enough to make the dead throw off their tombstones and rise up in protest, but her mother remained calm, holding the little girl against her bosom and patting her back. Gareth watched them, feeling excluded. Charles's bride. Charles's daughter. God help me. He knew he was staring at them with the desperation of one confined to hell and looking wistfully toward heaven. He thought of his wife's face when he'd taken Charles's ring off and put it on her other finger, the guilty gratitude in her eyes at this noble act of generosity that had cost him so little but had obviously meant so much to her. What could he do to deserve such a look of unabashed worship again? Why, she was looking at me as she must have looked at Charles. She still loved his brother. Everyone had loved his brother. He could only wonder what it might take to make her love him. But it's not me she wants. It's him. 'Sdeath. I could never compete with Charles when he was alive. How can I compete with him now? Lucien's cold judgment of the previous morning rang in his head:  You are lazy, feckless, dissolute, useless. He took a deep breath, and stared up through the great stained glass windows. You are an embarrassment to this family — and especially to me. He was second-best. Second choice. Perry