The royals’ shroud of secrecy serves a dismaying purpose | Jemimah Steinfeld

Prince Harry aside, the royals excel at hiding information about themselves - and this prevents them being held to account

This article won't feature any revelations about how the then third-in-line to the throne lost his virginity in a field. There will be no details as specific as a dog bowl or a necklace left broken on a kitchen floor. And there will be nothing as bizarre as family broigus sparked by a beard. It won't, in fact, reveal much about the royal family at all - and that is precisely the point.

When there is no disgruntled prince on a truth rampage, the British royal family is remarkably good at controlling information about itself - even for records dating back 100 years. In a new investigation at Index on Censorship, published today, we found that there are hundreds of inaccessible files related to the royals, leaving behind a trail of frustrated historians and journalists who have tried to access them.

Jemimah Steinfeld is editor in chief of Index on Censorship