‘Power and the Palace’ examines how the relationship between the sovereign and the country’s political leadership has changed over the last 200 years. It shows how even in relatively recent history – the first half of the twentieth century – sovereigns were involved in politics in ways that would be regarded as totally unacceptable now. The stock phrase used by palace advisers today is that the sovereign is ‘above politics’. And yet the fascinating thing is that has changed without there ever being any change to the constitution: which, of course, there can’t be, because Britain doesn’t have a written constitution. Two main threads run through the book.