How many kings live in the tropics? Even those would go swimming for “air conditioning”.
Overseas trade was quite active less than (and even more than) a century ago, and that included the ice trade for refrigeration before electronic refrigeration.
Technology availability is not the same as living like royalty; it’s like what the proles were given in Nineteen Eighty-Four to keep them desensitized while the Upper Party lived in true luxury and relative freedom.
Make that “Inner Party”. (The “essence” may have been close, but no, “Upper Party” not accurate.)
We have fat “poor”, they had fat kings.
I’m amazed so many can’t (didn’t bother?) seem to get by the first sentence. I’ve yet to see a single response from someone who seems to have actually read the thing. Such is reality in the social media world.