A biography of Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher who for nearly 30 years exerted an incredible influence on British royalty and politics. The intimate of every Prime Minister from Rosebery to Stanley Baldwin, of Kitchener, Haig and Lord Curzon, he declined high office, preferring to manipulate events from backstage. The author relates how in the late 1890s he gave Queen Victoria details about the Boer War which her government was keeping from her. He founded the Committee of Imperial Defence and in World War I he liaised between French and British forces, while Queen Mary consulted him about the upbringing and education of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII. Alongside his public role, the author tells of Lord Esher's private life where he indulged in a series of relationships with youths and was seen to develop an unhealthy passion for Maurice, considered to be the dullest and least attractive of his children.