The Heir Apparent

The Heir Apparent centers on a lightly fictionalized version of the British royal family. Lexi Villiers, the protagonist, is a princess who is third in line for the British crown, after her older twin brother, Louis, and her father, Frederick. Her grandmother, Eleanor, is the reigning monarch. The novel establishes multiple parallels between the fictional Villiers family and the real Mountbatten-Windsor family, beginning with the characters themselves. Eleanor is an analog for Queen Elizabeth II, Frederick for her firstborn son, Prince Charles (now Charles III), and Louis and Lexi for his sons William and Harry. Relatives by marriage have real-world counterparts as well, with Isla standing in for Princess Diana and Annabelle for Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Indeed, the circumstances surrounding Frederick’s two marriages parallel actual events particularly closely as a means of exploring overarching concerns about Duty Versus Personal Freedom. Charles and Diana married in 1981, when Diana was 20 years old. Similarly, Isla married Frederick at only 19. Also like Isla and Frederick, Charles and Diana had a tumultuous marriage. Charles, too, had a long-term affair after the palace refused to sanction his marriage to a divorced woman, marrying Diana while continuing his romance with Camilla. They would marry eight years after Diana’s death, much as Frederick marries Annabelle seven years after Isla’s. In the novel, Queen Eleanor didn’t attend Frederick’s second wedding ceremony, only the reception. This, too, parallels reality, as Queen Elizabeth II didn’t attend Charles and Camilla’s wedding ceremony, opting to attend the blessing afterward instead (Biggs, Jade, and Amber O’Connor. “The Crown: Why Didn’t the Queen Go to Charles and Camilla’s Wedding Ceremony?” Cosmopolitan UK, 15 Dec. 2023). Sources claimed the Queen didn’t want to draw attention to Charles and Camilla’s “low key” civil ceremony, but in the novel, Eleanor couldn’t attend the wedding of two divorcees (Biggs). This detail, like the broader depiction of Frederick’s marriages, suggests that the rulebound nature of the monarchy does significant harm to the lives and relationships it touches (a point the novel expands on through its depiction of Louis’s closeted relationship with Kris).

This in turn speaks to the novel’s engagement with mental illness. In part as a result of her husband’s infidelity, Diana developed disordered eating, confessing in an interview with the BBC, “I had bulimia for a number of years. And that’s like a secret disease. You inflict it upon yourself because your self-esteem is at a low ebb, and you don’t think you’re worthy or valuable” (Taylor, Elise. “Princess Diana’s Real-Life Battle with Bulimia.” Vogue, 15 Nov. 2020). The Heir Apparent depicts both Lexi and Isla as having dealt with disordered eating. Isla in particular serves as a mirror for Diana, as Vogue notes that Diana’s waist shrank from 26/27 inches to 23 inches between her engagement and wedding (Taylor). In The Heir Apparent, Lexi notes, “When Papa gave Isla the ring that now sat on Amira’s finger, she had a 27-inch waist. By their wedding day, she had shrunk down to 23 inches” (66). Armitage uses Diana’s exact measurements to underscore her criticism of the real-world pressures that drive disordered eating, particularly in high-profile roles.

Armitage establishes other connections between Isla and Diana. Like Isla, Diana broke the mold for the royal family, directly advocating for a variety of philanthropic causes, including some that were considered taboo, like HIV/AIDS. Armitage also loosely bases Isla’s death on Diana’s passing. Isla divorced Frederick before her passing and drowned after taking a yacht out alone at night with Lexi when Lexi and Louis were only 17. Diana divorced Charles in 1996 and died in 1997 after a high-speed car accident in Paris. Shortly before the crash, she and her partner, Dodi Al-Fayed, had gone on vacation on a yacht, and a famous photo of Diana sitting on the edge of the yacht’s diving board likely inspired Armitage to use a yacht as the setting for Isla’s demise (Dweck, Sophie. “How the Crown Recreated the Iconic Princess Diana Diving Board Photo.” Town and Country Magazine, 20 Nov. 2023).

Lexi herself mirrors Prince Harry, Charles and Diana’s second son. Lexi leaves royal life behind to start over in Australia, becoming a doctor. Prince Harry similarly left the royal family in 2020, as he and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down from serving as senior working royals and moved to Canada and then the United States. A year later, in March 2021, Harry and Meghan gave an interview to Oprah in which they stated that a “toxic environment” within the royal family, including racism among the family itself, motivated their departure (Ofori, Morgan. “Battle Royal: How Prince Harry’s Four Years of Family Exile Unfolded.” The Guardian, 2 May 2025). While the allegations of racism have no narrative parallel where Lexi is concerned, Lexi’s general skepticism of the institution and reputation for rebelliousness mirror Harry’s public persona. However, where Lexi relinquishes her claim to the throne at the end of the novel, Harry remains fifth in line for the succession.

Despite the numerous parallels, Armitage invents a different historical background for her fictional royal family. She imagines a past in which Barbara Villiers, the mistress of King Charles II, married Charles II after both their spouses died of smallpox and bore him a son, William. Barbara Villiers was in fact Charles II’s favorite mistress, but while she bore him six children out of wedlock and was awarded the title of Duchess of Cleveland, the couple never married (Long, Michael. “Barbara Villiers.” Historic UK, 15 Nov. 2023). Armitage’s reimagining of the origin of the royal family further grounds her novel in the genre of fiction.