Letter: Georgian 'royal' was a fraud

I AM dismayed that Jonathan Sale's review of Lady Maclean's book Crowned Heads, which has no mention of my country in it, begins and ends with an attack on my family and Georgia, which is at this moment experiencing political and social unrest.

Firstly, Mr Sale states that his fellow Cambridge student and the adopted son of an English clergyman (whom he does not mention by name), Michael Grousinsky, was the Head of the Royal House of Georgia. This has never been the case and Grousinsky was yet another bogus individual, who during the Cold War years abused our family name for his own social and economic gain. He was never able to produce any documentary evidence to even suggest that he was of the blood royal.

Furthermore, Mr Sale's advice to the Georgian people, that in view of his relationship with Grousinsky they should avoid at all costs the return of the monarchy, is most unfair. Our family has served the Georgian people well and were removed not by the Georgians, but by the Russians.

It should therefore be the Georgian people and not the likes of Mr Sale who should decide what form of government it wishes to have.

From HRH Prince Guiorgui Bagrationi

Head of the Royal House

of Georgia, Madrid