Ladies of the Bedchamber: the role of the royal mistress Dennis Friedman Peter Owen, 208pp, £17.95 ISBN 0720611601

Pretty, limpid eyes and soft bare shoulders: to judge by the pictures on this book's cover of the ladies concerned, they were lucky dogs, those kings and princes. But then, the chaps had their pick. There's nothing like a bit of gold lace and a jewelled garter to bring the girls in their droves: married or not, here they come, an unstoppable horde of lovely women, all keen to run their fingers over the organs of monarchy.

Six monarchs from the 16th century to the 20th, plus Charles, the current Prince of Wales, make up this slim but engaging book. The most exciting is Henry VIII, whose determination to father a male heir was so overweening that he broke with Rome and Spain and turned Britain decisively towards Protestantism. He has always struck me as a glorious character, a renaissance prince utterly aware of his role in history and, in some ways, darned unlucky in his women. The saddest is "Silly Billy", the Duke of Clarence, who became William IV and whose long affair with the actress Dora Jordan is described in Claire Tomalin's Mrs Jordan's Profession. The cartoon of the couple that I keep on my bathroom wall depicts a fat, breathless little man pushing a pram full of squalling brats while an ever-pregnant Dora walks at his side, learning lines for her next play. Hardly a mistress, I reckon, more a loving wife, at least until succession to the throne loomed, when poor Billy rushed into a suitable marriage and the ageing mistress was abandoned.

Possibly the most spectacular personality here is Barbara Villiers, mistress to Charles II. Now she was a tart of the first order. It is as "My Lady Castlemaine" that she makes her appearance in Pepys's diaries, and in his erotic dreams. Charles was besotted; he seriously suggested to his bride, Catherine of Braganza, that Barbara should be one of her ladies- in-waiting, but when that, too, proved too much, Barbara had her revenge by hanging out her underwear in the palace grounds in full view of the royal bedroom. What a gal.

It may have been with Barbara in mind that another of her lovers, William Wych-erley, wrote in his hit play The Country Wife the warning: "Mistresses are like Books; if you pore upon them too much, they doze you, and make you unfit for Company; but if used discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by 'em."

Friedman is right to comment that the male half of such a liaison is seen as enhanced by it, while the woman is dismissed as getting no better than she deserves. These double standards still rule. The reputation of the current Prince Charles isn't undermined by his talking dirty with Camilla; but she is still "not acceptable" in many circles.

Dennis Friedman is a psychiatrist, formerly at Bart's, who has published studies of "sexual problems and other psychological disorders". If I have an issue with him, it is exactly that: for him, extramarital antics are, by definition, a disorder. Opportunity, taste, genetics and politics play no part. Friedman cannot grasp that, for sexy beasts like Henry VIII or Charles II, the reason they dallied much, long and often was because they liked it. Loved it, indeed, and were probably rather good at it. And since they were in command, and could have their fill, what was there to stop them?

The Freudian analysis often made me laugh. Everything, apparently, stems from the kings' early relationships with their parents. Neglected or beaten as infants (as used to be common), the young bloods grew up hating women. That's why they got cracking as soon as they hit puberty, and were unstoppable from there on. So King Henry's really a man who loathes the dames, is he? And the Stuarts, too? Oh, come on.

What is missing here, however, is any sense of history. I don't deny Friedman's credentials as a psychiatrist; I do wonder if he has any grasp of the imperatives, and the mores, of the time. Henry "treated his wives as reproductive factories". Well, of course he did; if the first had had a dozen sons, he'd have been spared the divorce and five more weddings. But then Britain would have been more like Portugal, and the Americans might have spoken German.

Friedman may be on surer ground with more recent chaps: the ghastly Duke of Windsor called the unmaternal Wallis Simpson "Mummie" and wrote his most intimate letters to her in baby language. But there is only one explanation for a prince who, like the future Edward VII, could send his lover Alice Keppel a flag brooch that spells out the message: "Position quarterly and open. I am about to fire a Whitehead torpedo straight ahead."

He loved it. And I bet she did, too.

Edwina Currie's most recent book is Diaries 1987-92 (Time Warner)

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