…the whole foundation of royalty is based on the notion that one bloodline is superior to another, and therefore shouldn’t be messed with. “The way said contamination is prevented is through inbreeding, which, of course, is often the genetic cause of a royal dynasty’s demise through sterility, miscarriages, stillbirths, and sickliness… In other words, one of the reasons that my own country is in such a mess is that there simply hasn’t been enough in-breeding: if there had, we might be shot of our Royal Family by now. Incest is more complicated than it looks.
Nick Hornby on Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes - http://www.believermag.com/issues/201106/?read=column_hornby