Philippa Gregory - The Princess Rules

First published in Great Britain in three separate editions:

Princess Florizella by Viking Kestrel 1988, Florizella and the Wolves by Walker Books Ltd 1991 and Florizella and the Giant by Walker Books Ltd 1992

This edition published in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019

Published in this ebook edition in 2019

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

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1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Philippa Gregory 1988, 1991, 1992, 2019

Illustrations copyright © Chris Chatterton 2019

Cover design copyright © HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Philippa Gregory and Chris Chatterton assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008375485

Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008339807

Version: 2019-10-23

For Freddie and Sebastian

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain in three separate editions: Princess Florizella by Viking Kestrel 1988, Florizella and the Wolves by Walker Books Ltd 1991 and Florizella and the Giant by Walker Books Ltd 1992 This edition published in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019 Published in this ebook edition in 2019 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © Philippa Gregory 1988, 1991, 1992, 2019 Illustrations copyright © Chris Chatterton 2019 Cover design copyright © HarperCollins Publishers 2019 Philippa Gregory and Chris Chatterton assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008375485 Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008339807 Version: 2019-10-23

Dedication For Freddie and Sebastian

Princess Florizella

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Florizella and the Wolves

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Florizella and the Giant

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

About the Publisher

Once upon a time (that means I don’t exactly know when, but it wasn’t that long ago), in the land called the Seven Kingdoms, the king and queen very much wanted a son. They waited and waited until one day the queen told her husband, ‘I have news for you. We are going to have a beautiful baby boy!’

‘And when he grows up he will be king,’ said the king, very pleased. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

But when the baby came, it was not a boy. It was a girl.

This was a big shock for the king and queen, but since they were royal they put on a smile and took the baby through the tall windows to the balcony of the palace and waved at everyone. They pretended that they did not mind that she was a girl when they had been counting on a boy, and after a little while they loved her anyway. ‘Besides,’ the king said, ‘undoubtedly she will marry a handsome rich prince, and they can be king and queen over his kingdom and ours. Undootedly!’

‘We’ll call her Florizella,’ said the queen. ‘Princess Florizella.’

Though they started with good intentions, the king and queen were dreadfully careless parents. They messed up the christening by inviting everyone, so that nobody was furiously offended. No angry witches blew in and put a fatal spell on the baby, nobody turned her into a mouse. The king and queen forgot all about locking her in a high tower so that a prince could climb up her hair to rescue her, they did not forbid her from spinning, or ban her from sharp needles. They did remind her not to run with scissors in her hands, but this is of no use to a fairytale princess – it’s just normal. They did not strap her into tight gowns so she had a tiny, tiny waist that a prince could span with one hand. They did not feed her poisoned apples and bury her in a glass coffin. The queen was particularly neglectful – she completely failed to die and leave her daughter to a cruel stepmother to make her herd geese or sit in the cinders.

They let Florizella do as she liked, and so it was partly their fault that she did not learn the Princess Rules, but grew up into a cheerful, noisy, bossy, happy girl who spent her mornings on her horse called Jellybean, and her afternoons working with them in the royal office. She particularly liked answering letters of complaint about the expense and the unimportance of a royal family. Mostly, she agreed with them. ‘We are dretfully ex-pence-sieve’ she wrote when she was six years old.