Royal Privacy Gagging Row

The Duke of Edinburgh's attempt to ban the media from reporting on the private lives of the Royals means that in future, newspapers may be prevented from printing the sort of scoops which have for decades helped define our view of the first family.
Stories about the extramarital affairs of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Prince of Wales would have remained secret, meaning the public would not have found out about Princess Diana's relationship with the cavalry officer James Hewitt, or heard the "Squidgygate tapes" of her long, romantic conversations with another boyfriend, James Gilbey.

Lawyers would also have been able to argue that Prince Charles's affair with Camilla Parker Bowles was a private matter, though newspapers could have retorted that the constitutional implications of the future king cheating on the future queen were a matter of public interest.


Such a defence would have been unlikely to succeed, however, in the case of paparazzi photographs of a topless Duchess of York having her toes sucked by the American tycoon John Bryan whilst she was still married to the Duke of York, meaning the pictures would never have seen the light of day.
I think this is an interesting thing to look at - Privacy.
Monarchy since the dawn of them have always been in the public eye and a lot of time the information relayed back to the pulib is what ultimately made them or broke them - i think this aspect would be interesting to look at further back in history when public opinion could lead to severe smearing of names and even death penalties.