Windsors & Losers

Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson and Princess Diana were cousins, sisters-in-law, and co-conspirators against the royal family. Their relationship, and their centrality in the royal family during the late twentieth-century, was the stuff of legends — and tabloid headlines. Friends since adolescence, they fell out sometime in the mid '90s... and never spoke again. In the latest episode of Windsors & Losers'...

After there was young Fergie, there was... teen Fergie and young adult Fergie. And then, finally, Sarah Ferguson metamorphosed into her fully-realized self: royal Fergie. In this episode of the "Finding Fergie" season, Allie and Eva revisit the Duchess of York's late teens and early twenties. These were crucial, vital years in Fergie's life, where she lived with a girlfriend South of the river in...

Windsors & Losers is back! This season is about Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson, who is perhaps the most maligned modern royal. But in 1986 when Fergie married into the Windsor clan, she was hailed as the future of the monarchy: a confident, smiling, and up-for-anything country lass. She was just the sort to endear herself to the Queen — and the tabloids! But of course, the party didn't last long... In ep...

When Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson joined the British royal family in 1986 she was hailed as the future of the monarchy and "a breath of fresh air." A decade later she was divorced, broke, and exiled to the land of misfit (and embarrassing) royals, leaving a trail of scandal in her wake. Poking fun at her clothes and weight became a national bloodsport. Prince Philip apparently couldn't even stand to be...

Mark Bolland pulled off many coups during his seven-year tenure as Charles and Camilla's palace spin doctor... but he wasn't there to make friends. “There was an awful man there," one senior figure said 20 years later. "Absolutely destructive beyond belief." So who is this Rasputin-like magician who turned Camilla from most reviled woman in Britain into future queen? In the final episode of "The C...

Can queens be friends with their exes? Camilla is the first divorced queen in British history with a living husband. And — oh, is he ever living! The charming and roguish Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles is still a key member of Camilla’s inner circle, beloved by all, including Camilla, despite his cad antics. He regularly attends ceremonial occasions as Camilla’s guest and has on at least one occas...

As any royal biography will tell you, people really like Queen Camilla — they really, really like her. This week, hosts Eva and Allie are deep-diving into the former Camilla Parker-Bowles’s wide world of friendships. Camilla’s inner circle is a big one, from throwback childhood horse and pony pals to the six grown-up female friends she’s hooked up with (unpaid) jobs at the Palace. We meet this mot...

Central to Queen Camilla’s public image is the idea that she’s an unfussy, no-nonsense, ruddy British everywoman. But those with a nose for useless royal miscellany (ahem, your dedicated hosts) have picked up on Camilla’s frequent under-the-radar visits to an idyllic holistic health spa in southern India run by the charismatic healer to the (British) stars, Dr. Issac Mathai. The Soukya Internation...

In episode six of "The Camilla Season," Eva and Allie bravely go where no one ever wanted to go again... back to 1993, year of "Tampongate." This was the iconic conversation in which, as you will reluctantly recall, Charles talked about becoming Camilla's tampon. It wasn’t the future king's finest hour, nor was it the finest hour of the “amateur radio enthusiast” who taped someone else’s private p...

An unnamed relative of Queen Camilla’s once described her as “the laziest woman to have been born in England in the 20th century.” This was an assessment often (and rudely!) repeated by staffers, former staffers, biographers, and tabloid journalists to describe Camilla’s pre-royal work ethic. As far as Eva and Allie can tell, Camilla’s only paid gig was as gofer for a prestigious interior design f...

In Roman times, Diana was known as the goddess of the hunt — but nowadays, Queen Camilla is the British aristocrat most associated with the countryside past-time. In episode four of Windsors & Losers's "The Camilla Season," hosts Eva and Allie revisit Camilla's long association with the world of ponies and, eventually, hunting. It's a passion she shared with husband King Charles III — that is, unt...

Keen (but formally untrained) royal anthropologists Eva and Allie have noticed that Queen Camilla seems to spend an awful lot of time at a mystery house called “Ray Mill” in Wiltshire, England. It turns out that Ray Mill is Camilla’s private home, one she’s hung onto from her pre-royal days. It’s where she flees on weekends, holidays, and pretty much anytime she fancies a big ol’ G&T in front of C...

Camilla Parker Bowles, soon-to-be Queen, is many things. And one of those things is: a mom. This week's episode of Windsors & Losers — part of our "Camilla Season" — is all about Camilla's two "royally adjacent" children, Tom and Laura. Learn about how the now King Charles was a regular visitor at their childhood home, why Tom calls himself “a camp old raver,” how Laura married an underwear model,...

On February 18th of 2005, The Guardian published the decidedly unglamorous headline “Charles and Camilla Forced to Wed in Local Register Office.” The tabloids, meanwhile, crowned future queen Camilla Parker Bowles the "Town Hall Bride.” So how did King Charles's second wife come to have her own second wedding in such an understated location when royal nuptials are usually held in more august venue...

Windsors & Losers, the podcast that tells you a lesser-known story about the British royal family in every episode, will be back with a new season just in time for the coronation on May 6! And this time it’s all about the new queen, Camilla. Let’s really get to know the woman formerly known as “Mrs. PB” (for Parker Bowles) by palace staff, and “the other woman” by Fleet Street — independent of the...

The year was 1960, and Princess Margaret, along with her new husband Anthony Armstrong-Jones, made a fateful trip ashore to the tiny Caribbean island of Mustique during their six week (checks notes — yes, six week) honeymoon aboard the royal yacht. Margaret's party pal from back in London, Colin Tennant (later, Glenconner), had just purchased the island and he cannily offered the princess a plot o...

Prince Philip was born, er, a prince — and then, of course, went on to marry a queen — but he had a challenging childhood. A central figure in his adolescence was his mother's brother, an aristocrat named George Mountbatten, who provided Philip with a stable family life (for a time). But George sadly died young, when Philip was only 17, and as a result the uncle's story is a mere footnote in royal...

Join us for an extremely niche Windsors & Losers analysis of "Spare," Prince Harry's monumental biography released last month. Many readers and reporters quite naturally focused on the biggest and most sensational sections, whether it was physical aggression from "Willy" — also known as Prince William — or the claim that Queen Consort Camilla (FKA Camilla Parker Bowles) planted stories about Harry...

Harry and Meghan who? Long before Netflix came a callin' — there was one royal who wanted to make it in Hollywood, and his name is Edward. Who the heck is Prince Edward, you so rightly ask? He's the Queen's fifty-eight-year-old son (the third male child — the spare's spare, so to speak). He spent most of the nineties and noughties running a production company that made... nothing most of us have h...

Before there was Camilla and Charles, there was Camilla and Andrew. She was Camilla Shand, country girl and horse fan, who was a social star in the classroom, finishing school, and the debutante balls of London. He was Andrew Parker Bowles, a young cavalry officer and the most lusted-after gentleman of her deb season. In episode three of Windsors & Losers, hosts Allie & Eva revisit Camilla and And...

Windsors & Losers is created and produced by Eva Wolchover and Allie Merriam. Our episode was mixed by Kristin Mueller. Special thanks to Jesse Baker, Eric Nuzum, Ian Chillag, Sabrina Farhi, Lee Lawrence, Tom Merriam, and Debbie Merriam.  Give us your feedback at WindsorsLosers.com. And please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Windsors & Losers is created and produced by Eva Wolchover and Allie Merriam. Our episode was mixed by Kristin Mueller.  Give us your feedback at WindsorsLosers.com. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Who among us can... build their own town? King Charles created an opportunity to flex his untrained architect muscles and create a village, Poundbury, from the ground up. It's taken him more than 30 years, but the results are actually pretty good. Hosts Eva Wolchover and Allie Merriam tee up episode one — out in January! — and introduce themselves and their uniquely American POV on royal commentar...