An intimate portrait of Her Majesty the Queen As we celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, this brand new biography of Queen Elizabeth II is the first all-round, up-close picture of one of the most fascinating, enigmatic and admired women in the world. With exclusive access to the Queen's personal letters, close friends and associates, this intimate biography is a treasure trove of fresh insights on her public persona and her private life. Here we see Queen Elizabeth going about her daily duties, preparing for formal occasions, playing with her children at the Palace, crawling on her stomach to stalk deer, donning yellow Marigolds to wash up after Balmoral cookouts, and even changing a car wheel. Here we, at last, get to meet the leader, strategist, and diplomat; the daughter, wife, mother and grandmother - Elizabeth the Queen.
Elizabeth the Queen: The Woman Behind the Throne
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Extrait
ONE
A ROYAL EDUCATION
It was a footman who brought the news to ten-year-old Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on December 10, 1936. Her father had become an accidental king just four days before his forty-first birthday when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American. Edward VIII had been sovereign only nine months after taking the throne following the death of his father, King George V, making him, according to one mordant joke, "the only monarch in history to abandon the ship of state to sign on as third mate on a Baltimore tramp."
"Does that mean that you will have to be the next queen?" asked Elizabeth's younger sister, Margaret Rose (as she was called in her childhood). "Yes, someday," Elizabeth replied. "Poor you," said Margaret Rose.
Although the two princesses had been the focus of fascination by the press and the public, they had led a carefree and insulated life surrounded by governesses, nannies, maids, dogs, and ponies. They spent idyllic months in the English and Scottish countryside playing games like "catching the days"-running around plucking autumn leaves from the air as they were falling. Their spirited Scottish nanny, Marion "Crawfie" Crawford, had managed to give them a taste of ordinary life by occasionally taking them around London by tube and bus, but mostly they remained inside the royal bubble.
Before the arrival of Margaret, Elizabeth spent four years as an only- and somewhat precocious-child, born on the rainy night of April 21, 1926. Winston Churchill, on first meeting the two-year-old princess, extravagantly detected "an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant." Crawfie noted that she was "neat and methodical . . . like her father," obliging, eager to do her best, and happiest when she was busy. She also showed an early ability to compartmentalize-a trait that would later help her cope with the demands of her position. Recalled Lady Mary Clayton, a cousin eight years her senior: "She liked to imagine herself as a pony or a horse. When she was doing that and someone called her and she didn't answer right away, she would then say, 'I couldn't answer you as a pony.' "
The abdication crisis threw the family into turmoil, not only because it was a scandal but because it was antithetical to all the rules of succession. While Elizabeth's father had been known as "Bertie" (for Albert), he chose to be called George VI to send a message of stability and continuity with his father. (His wife, who was crowned by his side, would be known as Queen Elizabeth.) But Bertie had not been groomed for the role. He was in tears when he talked to his mother about his new responsibilities. "I never wanted this to happen," he told his cousin Lord Louis "Dickie" Mountbatten. "I've never even seen a State Paper. I'm only a Naval Officer, it's the only thing I know about." The new King was reserved by nature, somewhat frail physically, and plagued by anxiety. He suffered from a severe stammer that led to frequent frustration, culminating in explosions of temper known as "gnashes."
Yet he was profoundly dutiful, and he doggedly set about his kingly tasks while ensuring that his little Lilibet-her name within the family-would be ready to succeed him in ways he had not been. On his accession she became "heiress presumptive," rather than "heiress apparent," on the off chance that her parents could produce a son. But Elizabeth and Margaret Rose had been born by cesarean section, and in those days a third operation would have been considered too risky for their mother. According to custom, Lilibet would publicly refer to her mother and father as "the King and Queen," but privately they were still Mummy and Papa.
When Helen Mirren was studying for her role in 2006's The Queen, she watched a twenty-second piece of film repeatedly because she found it so revealing. "It was when the Queen was eleven or twelve," Mirren recalled, "and she got out of one of those huge black cars. There were big men waiting for her, and she extended her hand with a look of gravity and duty. She was doing what she thought she had to do, and she was doing it beautifully."
"I have a feeling that in the end probably that training is the answer to a great many things," the Queen said on the eve of her fortieth year as monarch. "You can do a lot if you are properly trained, and I hope I have been." Her formal education was spotty by today's standards. Women of her class and generation were typically schooled at home, with greater emphasis on the practical than the academic. "It was unheard of for girls to go to university unless they were very intellectual," said Lilibet's cousin Patricia Mountbatten. While Crawfie capably taught history, geography, grammar, literature, poetry, and composition, she was "hopeless at math," said Mary Clayton, who had also been taught by Crawfie. Additional governesses were brought in for instruction in music, dancing, and French.
Elizabeth was not expected to excel, much less to be intellectual. She had no classmates against whom to measure her progress, nor batteries of challenging examinations. Her father's only injunction to Crawfie when she joined the household in 1932 had been to teach his daughters, then six and two, "to write a decent hand." Elizabeth developed flowing and clear handwriting similar to that of her mother and sister, although with a bolder flourish. But Crawfie felt a larger need to fill her charge with knowledge "as fast as I can pour it in." She introduced Lilibet to the Children's Newspaper, a current events chronicle that laid the groundwork for following political news in The Times and on BBC radio, prompting one Palace adviser to observe that at seventeen the princess had "a first-rate knowledge of state and current affairs."
Throughout her girlhood, Elizabeth had time blocked out each day for "silent reading" of books by Stevenson, Austen, Kipling, the Brontës, Tennyson, Scott, Dickens, Trollope, and others in the standard canon. Her preference, then and as an adult, was for historical fiction, particularly about "the corners of the Commonwealth and the people who live there," said Mark Collins, director of the Commonwealth Foundation. Decades later, when she conferred an honor on J. K. Rowling for her Harry Potter series, the Queen told the author that her extensive reading in childhood "stood me in good stead because I read quite quickly now. I have to read a lot."
Once she became first in line to the throne, Elizabeth's curriculum intensified and broadened. Her most significant tutor was Sir Henry Marten, the vice provost of Eton College, the venerable boys' boarding school down the hill from Windsor Castle whose graduates were known as Old Etonians. Marten had coauthored The Groundwork of British History, a standard school textbook, but he was hardly a dry academic. A sixty- six-year-old bachelor with a moon face and gleaming pate, he habitually chewed a corner of his handkerchief and kept a pet raven in a study so heaped with books that Crawfie likened them to stalagmites. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who would serve as Queen Elizabeth II's fourth prime minister, remembered Marten as "a dramatic, racy, enthusiastic teacher" who humanized figures of history.
Beginning in 1939, when Elizabeth was thirteen, she and Crawfie went by carriage to Marten's study twice a week so she could be instructed in history and the intricacies of the British constitution. The princess was exceedingly shy at first, often glancing imploringly at Crawfie for reassurance. Marten could scarcely look Elizabeth in the eye, and he lapsed into calling her "Gentlemen," thinking he was with his Eton boys. But before long she felt "entirely at home with him," recalled Crawfie, and they developed "a rather charming friendship."
Marten imposed a rigorous curriculum built around the daunting three- volume The Law and Custom of the Constitution by Sir William Anson. Also on her reading list were English Social History by G. M. Trevelyan, Imperial Commonwealth by Lord Elton, and The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot, the gold standard for constitutional interpretation that both her father and grandfather had studied. Marten even included a course on American history. "Hide nothing," Sir Alan "Tommy" Lascelles, private secretary to King George VI, had told Marten when asked about instructing the princess on the crown's role in the constitution.
Unlike the written American Constitution, which spells everything out, the British version is an accumulation of laws and unwritten traditions and precedents. It is inherently malleable and dependent on people making judgments, and even revising the rules, as events occur. Anson called it a "somewhat rambling structure . . . like a house which many successive owners have altered." The constitutional monarch's duties and prerogatives are vague. Authority rests more in what the king doesn't do than what he does. The sovereign is compelled by the constitution to sign all laws passed by Parliament; the concept of a veto is unthinkable, but the possibility remains.
Elizabeth studied Anson for six years, painstakingly underlining and annotating the dense text in pencil. According to biographer Robert Lacey, who examined the faded volumes in the Eton library, she took note of Anson's assertion that a more complex constitution offers greater guarantees of liberty. In the description of Anglo-Saxon monarchy as "a consultative and tentative absolutism" she underlined "consultative" and "tentative." Marten schooled her in the process of legislation, and the sweeping nature of Parliament's power. Elizabeth's immersion in the "procedural minutiae" was such that, in Lacey's view, "it was as if she were studying to be Speaker [of the House of Commons], not queen." Prime ministers would later be impressed by the mastery of constitutional fine points in her unexpectedly probing questions.
When Elizabeth turned sixteen, her parents hired Marie-Antoinette de Bellaigue, a sophisticated Belgian vicomtesse educated in Paris, to te... --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .
A ROYAL EDUCATION
It was a footman who brought the news to ten-year-old Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on December 10, 1936. Her father had become an accidental king just four days before his forty-first birthday when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American. Edward VIII had been sovereign only nine months after taking the throne following the death of his father, King George V, making him, according to one mordant joke, "the only monarch in history to abandon the ship of state to sign on as third mate on a Baltimore tramp."
"Does that mean that you will have to be the next queen?" asked Elizabeth's younger sister, Margaret Rose (as she was called in her childhood). "Yes, someday," Elizabeth replied. "Poor you," said Margaret Rose.
Although the two princesses had been the focus of fascination by the press and the public, they had led a carefree and insulated life surrounded by governesses, nannies, maids, dogs, and ponies. They spent idyllic months in the English and Scottish countryside playing games like "catching the days"-running around plucking autumn leaves from the air as they were falling. Their spirited Scottish nanny, Marion "Crawfie" Crawford, had managed to give them a taste of ordinary life by occasionally taking them around London by tube and bus, but mostly they remained inside the royal bubble.
Before the arrival of Margaret, Elizabeth spent four years as an only- and somewhat precocious-child, born on the rainy night of April 21, 1926. Winston Churchill, on first meeting the two-year-old princess, extravagantly detected "an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant." Crawfie noted that she was "neat and methodical . . . like her father," obliging, eager to do her best, and happiest when she was busy. She also showed an early ability to compartmentalize-a trait that would later help her cope with the demands of her position. Recalled Lady Mary Clayton, a cousin eight years her senior: "She liked to imagine herself as a pony or a horse. When she was doing that and someone called her and she didn't answer right away, she would then say, 'I couldn't answer you as a pony.' "
The abdication crisis threw the family into turmoil, not only because it was a scandal but because it was antithetical to all the rules of succession. While Elizabeth's father had been known as "Bertie" (for Albert), he chose to be called George VI to send a message of stability and continuity with his father. (His wife, who was crowned by his side, would be known as Queen Elizabeth.) But Bertie had not been groomed for the role. He was in tears when he talked to his mother about his new responsibilities. "I never wanted this to happen," he told his cousin Lord Louis "Dickie" Mountbatten. "I've never even seen a State Paper. I'm only a Naval Officer, it's the only thing I know about." The new King was reserved by nature, somewhat frail physically, and plagued by anxiety. He suffered from a severe stammer that led to frequent frustration, culminating in explosions of temper known as "gnashes."
Yet he was profoundly dutiful, and he doggedly set about his kingly tasks while ensuring that his little Lilibet-her name within the family-would be ready to succeed him in ways he had not been. On his accession she became "heiress presumptive," rather than "heiress apparent," on the off chance that her parents could produce a son. But Elizabeth and Margaret Rose had been born by cesarean section, and in those days a third operation would have been considered too risky for their mother. According to custom, Lilibet would publicly refer to her mother and father as "the King and Queen," but privately they were still Mummy and Papa.
When Helen Mirren was studying for her role in 2006's The Queen, she watched a twenty-second piece of film repeatedly because she found it so revealing. "It was when the Queen was eleven or twelve," Mirren recalled, "and she got out of one of those huge black cars. There were big men waiting for her, and she extended her hand with a look of gravity and duty. She was doing what she thought she had to do, and she was doing it beautifully."
"I have a feeling that in the end probably that training is the answer to a great many things," the Queen said on the eve of her fortieth year as monarch. "You can do a lot if you are properly trained, and I hope I have been." Her formal education was spotty by today's standards. Women of her class and generation were typically schooled at home, with greater emphasis on the practical than the academic. "It was unheard of for girls to go to university unless they were very intellectual," said Lilibet's cousin Patricia Mountbatten. While Crawfie capably taught history, geography, grammar, literature, poetry, and composition, she was "hopeless at math," said Mary Clayton, who had also been taught by Crawfie. Additional governesses were brought in for instruction in music, dancing, and French.
Elizabeth was not expected to excel, much less to be intellectual. She had no classmates against whom to measure her progress, nor batteries of challenging examinations. Her father's only injunction to Crawfie when she joined the household in 1932 had been to teach his daughters, then six and two, "to write a decent hand." Elizabeth developed flowing and clear handwriting similar to that of her mother and sister, although with a bolder flourish. But Crawfie felt a larger need to fill her charge with knowledge "as fast as I can pour it in." She introduced Lilibet to the Children's Newspaper, a current events chronicle that laid the groundwork for following political news in The Times and on BBC radio, prompting one Palace adviser to observe that at seventeen the princess had "a first-rate knowledge of state and current affairs."
Throughout her girlhood, Elizabeth had time blocked out each day for "silent reading" of books by Stevenson, Austen, Kipling, the Brontës, Tennyson, Scott, Dickens, Trollope, and others in the standard canon. Her preference, then and as an adult, was for historical fiction, particularly about "the corners of the Commonwealth and the people who live there," said Mark Collins, director of the Commonwealth Foundation. Decades later, when she conferred an honor on J. K. Rowling for her Harry Potter series, the Queen told the author that her extensive reading in childhood "stood me in good stead because I read quite quickly now. I have to read a lot."
Once she became first in line to the throne, Elizabeth's curriculum intensified and broadened. Her most significant tutor was Sir Henry Marten, the vice provost of Eton College, the venerable boys' boarding school down the hill from Windsor Castle whose graduates were known as Old Etonians. Marten had coauthored The Groundwork of British History, a standard school textbook, but he was hardly a dry academic. A sixty- six-year-old bachelor with a moon face and gleaming pate, he habitually chewed a corner of his handkerchief and kept a pet raven in a study so heaped with books that Crawfie likened them to stalagmites. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who would serve as Queen Elizabeth II's fourth prime minister, remembered Marten as "a dramatic, racy, enthusiastic teacher" who humanized figures of history.
Beginning in 1939, when Elizabeth was thirteen, she and Crawfie went by carriage to Marten's study twice a week so she could be instructed in history and the intricacies of the British constitution. The princess was exceedingly shy at first, often glancing imploringly at Crawfie for reassurance. Marten could scarcely look Elizabeth in the eye, and he lapsed into calling her "Gentlemen," thinking he was with his Eton boys. But before long she felt "entirely at home with him," recalled Crawfie, and they developed "a rather charming friendship."
Marten imposed a rigorous curriculum built around the daunting three- volume The Law and Custom of the Constitution by Sir William Anson. Also on her reading list were English Social History by G. M. Trevelyan, Imperial Commonwealth by Lord Elton, and The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot, the gold standard for constitutional interpretation that both her father and grandfather had studied. Marten even included a course on American history. "Hide nothing," Sir Alan "Tommy" Lascelles, private secretary to King George VI, had told Marten when asked about instructing the princess on the crown's role in the constitution.
Unlike the written American Constitution, which spells everything out, the British version is an accumulation of laws and unwritten traditions and precedents. It is inherently malleable and dependent on people making judgments, and even revising the rules, as events occur. Anson called it a "somewhat rambling structure . . . like a house which many successive owners have altered." The constitutional monarch's duties and prerogatives are vague. Authority rests more in what the king doesn't do than what he does. The sovereign is compelled by the constitution to sign all laws passed by Parliament; the concept of a veto is unthinkable, but the possibility remains.
Elizabeth studied Anson for six years, painstakingly underlining and annotating the dense text in pencil. According to biographer Robert Lacey, who examined the faded volumes in the Eton library, she took note of Anson's assertion that a more complex constitution offers greater guarantees of liberty. In the description of Anglo-Saxon monarchy as "a consultative and tentative absolutism" she underlined "consultative" and "tentative." Marten schooled her in the process of legislation, and the sweeping nature of Parliament's power. Elizabeth's immersion in the "procedural minutiae" was such that, in Lacey's view, "it was as if she were studying to be Speaker [of the House of Commons], not queen." Prime ministers would later be impressed by the mastery of constitutional fine points in her unexpectedly probing questions.
When Elizabeth turned sixteen, her parents hired Marie-Antoinette de Bellaigue, a sophisticated Belgian vicomtesse educated in Paris, to te... --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .
Revue de presse
Sally Bedell Smith offers her readers the illusion of knowing the queen as a friend (The Economist )
The book has much to recommend it, being extensively researched, fluently written and containing quite a lot of intriguing "new" information (The Telegraph )
A worthy addition to the shelves of royal watchers everywhere (Sunday Independent )
Incisive... well researched (Choice Magazine )
A thoroughly good read (Daily Mail )
The book has much to recommend it, being extensively researched, fluently written and containing quite a lot of intriguing "new" information (The Telegraph )
A worthy addition to the shelves of royal watchers everywhere (Sunday Independent )
Incisive... well researched (Choice Magazine )
A thoroughly good read (Daily Mail )
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Fascinating and heart-warming
21 décembre 2011
Par P. B. Sharp
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Commentaire Amazon Vine™
(De quoi s'agit-il?)
As author Bedell-Smith points out in this comprehensive, balanced biography Elizabeth II is the only person in the world for whom all the world is a stage. She learned at a very early age to exhibit a public persona which is controlled but not phony. She is dignified and friendly but not a friend. The line is drawn and neither she nor her subjects can step over it.
We follow Elizabeth from her long-ago childhood to the present, learning an immense amount of interesting stuff, such as the fact Queen Mary, Elizabeth's grandmother, wore her tiara to dinner even when she and her husband, George V, dined alone. Queen Mary walked on her stage as a rigid, unbending poker, advising her granddaughter that smiling in public is vulgar, and although she inculcated in her granddaughter a sense of presence, Elizabeth put her own spin on her own image, a much warmer one.
Elizabeth's mother. the Queen Mum Elizabeth, who was a star in her own right, exuded a graciousness in public that endeared her to all . Elizabeth publically is shyer, less ebullient than her Mum, but comfortable in her unique role.Her father, George VI, was tossed on the throne by the abdication of Edward VIII, and he was horrified. He was a sensitive man but insecure, and suffered a pronounced stutter that made public speeches for him a nightmare. But he had courage, he persevered and brought Britain through the agonies of World War II.
The young Princess Elizabeth and her sister, Margaret Rose, lead idealized childhoods but duty was considered before all. The Princess had a role to play, and even though her ownchildhood friends had to bow and curtsy and call her "Ma'am," she was not arrogant. Compare her to her uncle, the Duke of Windsor, a massively selfish man who believed the world was there to serve him and he was a Nazi sympathizer, to boot. If Queen Mary tried to teach him that duty came first, the advice fell on deaf ears. However, when Elizabeth returned from Kenya and was dressed in black for her dead father, Queen Mary curtsied then whispered "Lilibet, those skirts are much too short for mourning!"
We can say that Elizabeth was prepared to be the future Queen from her early childhood on and that she grew more confidently and efficiently into the role as she aged. With hindsight, it could be said that as Head of the Church of England she should not have refused to allow her sister Margaret to marry Peter Townsend, a divorcee with two children unless she gsve up her royal title and all the perks. Margaret didn't relish becoming plain Mrs. Townsend, living in a cottage. Margaret was more or less propelled into an alternative disastrous marriage with Anthony Armstrong-Jones. However, Tony who was not divorced was awarded a peerage so Margaret remained a royal highness.
With hindsight, too, Elizabeth agonized over public remarks made many years later by her son Charles who felt abandoned and bullied into remaining at Cheam snd Gordonstoun Schools, where his father Philip had gone. Charles especially loathed Gordonstoun where he was picked on and harrassed and begged to leave, his unhappy letters home cutting no ice with his parents. I am sure Queen Elizabeth feels now she made mistakes in regard to Charles and her sister Margaret, too. And it's likely, if they could turn back the clock, that she would have allowed Margaret to marry Townsend and to pay more heed to Charles' unhappiness.
Prince Philip is treated with considerable sympathy by author Bedell-Smith. As she points out, Philip's situation is quite reminiscent to that of Albert, the Prince Consort to Queen Victoria. Publically both princes had to walk behind their wives but on the domestic front, in private, both Queens deferred to their husbands as head of the household. However, unlike Albert, in public at least, Philip often makes acerbic remarks, is often tactless and prefers calling a spade a spade.
During the early years of his marriage Philip was treated disrespectfully by palace servants who probably considered him a parvenu. There is nobody snobbier than a royal servant. Rumors have been circulating for years that Philip had many affairs when he was traveling alone around the Commonwealth. He's had to put up with a lot but he is supportive of the Queen and is rather like a rottweiler, a guardian protecting her interests. He has earned the respect of the British people but not their love. However, even if he is not able to keep his mouth shut when he should, he has established literally hundreds of charities and causes all of which he oversees. And he now is admired by his staff who are very loyal.
We follow closely in the Queen's wake as she sails through the years. There will be many storms -her sister Margaret's alcoholism, the IRA assassination of Dickie Mountbatten, the indiscretions of daughter-in-law Fergie and the biggest tsunami of all, Diana. The Queen has weathered the tragedies. She is simply THERE. She has become a symbol of strength and inspiration. She has seen happiness in the apparent contentment of Charles and his wife, Camilla. She has rejoiced at the marriage of William and Catherine Middleton. She knows that her kingdom will be in good hands. You'll root for her as you read this fine biography and you'll probably say to yourself when you finish it, as I did:"God save the Queen!"
We follow Elizabeth from her long-ago childhood to the present, learning an immense amount of interesting stuff, such as the fact Queen Mary, Elizabeth's grandmother, wore her tiara to dinner even when she and her husband, George V, dined alone. Queen Mary walked on her stage as a rigid, unbending poker, advising her granddaughter that smiling in public is vulgar, and although she inculcated in her granddaughter a sense of presence, Elizabeth put her own spin on her own image, a much warmer one.
Elizabeth's mother. the Queen Mum Elizabeth, who was a star in her own right, exuded a graciousness in public that endeared her to all . Elizabeth publically is shyer, less ebullient than her Mum, but comfortable in her unique role.Her father, George VI, was tossed on the throne by the abdication of Edward VIII, and he was horrified. He was a sensitive man but insecure, and suffered a pronounced stutter that made public speeches for him a nightmare. But he had courage, he persevered and brought Britain through the agonies of World War II.
The young Princess Elizabeth and her sister, Margaret Rose, lead idealized childhoods but duty was considered before all. The Princess had a role to play, and even though her ownchildhood friends had to bow and curtsy and call her "Ma'am," she was not arrogant. Compare her to her uncle, the Duke of Windsor, a massively selfish man who believed the world was there to serve him and he was a Nazi sympathizer, to boot. If Queen Mary tried to teach him that duty came first, the advice fell on deaf ears. However, when Elizabeth returned from Kenya and was dressed in black for her dead father, Queen Mary curtsied then whispered "Lilibet, those skirts are much too short for mourning!"
We can say that Elizabeth was prepared to be the future Queen from her early childhood on and that she grew more confidently and efficiently into the role as she aged. With hindsight, it could be said that as Head of the Church of England she should not have refused to allow her sister Margaret to marry Peter Townsend, a divorcee with two children unless she gsve up her royal title and all the perks. Margaret didn't relish becoming plain Mrs. Townsend, living in a cottage. Margaret was more or less propelled into an alternative disastrous marriage with Anthony Armstrong-Jones. However, Tony who was not divorced was awarded a peerage so Margaret remained a royal highness.
With hindsight, too, Elizabeth agonized over public remarks made many years later by her son Charles who felt abandoned and bullied into remaining at Cheam snd Gordonstoun Schools, where his father Philip had gone. Charles especially loathed Gordonstoun where he was picked on and harrassed and begged to leave, his unhappy letters home cutting no ice with his parents. I am sure Queen Elizabeth feels now she made mistakes in regard to Charles and her sister Margaret, too. And it's likely, if they could turn back the clock, that she would have allowed Margaret to marry Townsend and to pay more heed to Charles' unhappiness.
Prince Philip is treated with considerable sympathy by author Bedell-Smith. As she points out, Philip's situation is quite reminiscent to that of Albert, the Prince Consort to Queen Victoria. Publically both princes had to walk behind their wives but on the domestic front, in private, both Queens deferred to their husbands as head of the household. However, unlike Albert, in public at least, Philip often makes acerbic remarks, is often tactless and prefers calling a spade a spade.
During the early years of his marriage Philip was treated disrespectfully by palace servants who probably considered him a parvenu. There is nobody snobbier than a royal servant. Rumors have been circulating for years that Philip had many affairs when he was traveling alone around the Commonwealth. He's had to put up with a lot but he is supportive of the Queen and is rather like a rottweiler, a guardian protecting her interests. He has earned the respect of the British people but not their love. However, even if he is not able to keep his mouth shut when he should, he has established literally hundreds of charities and causes all of which he oversees. And he now is admired by his staff who are very loyal.
We follow closely in the Queen's wake as she sails through the years. There will be many storms -her sister Margaret's alcoholism, the IRA assassination of Dickie Mountbatten, the indiscretions of daughter-in-law Fergie and the biggest tsunami of all, Diana. The Queen has weathered the tragedies. She is simply THERE. She has become a symbol of strength and inspiration. She has seen happiness in the apparent contentment of Charles and his wife, Camilla. She has rejoiced at the marriage of William and Catherine Middleton. She knows that her kingdom will be in good hands. You'll root for her as you read this fine biography and you'll probably say to yourself when you finish it, as I did:"God save the Queen!"
120 internautes sur 140 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
2.0 étoiles sur 5
The authorized unauthorized biography...
8 janvier 2012
Par Cynthia K. Robertson
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Commentaire Amazon Vine™
(De quoi s'agit-il?)
I enjoy reading about Queen Elizabeth II and the British Royal Family, so I selected Sally Bedell Smith's Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. Although Smith claims that this is not an authorized biography, it didn't take long to realize that this is actually an authorized unauthorized biography. While I admire Queen Elizabeth II, she has shown some warts over the years. Yet, this book follows the strict party-line when writing about the queen and Smith downplays anything that could be critical.
Elizabeth the Queen provides just the shortest of backgrounds about Elizabeth's childhood. In fact, World War II has ended and Elizabeth turned 19 by page 23. Most of this book is dedicated to Elizabeth's time as queen, her marriage, her children, her mother and sister, her royal duties, her prime ministers, her travels, her estates, her horses and her dogs. There is much to admire about Elizabeth, who came to the throne as a young woman of 25. She always has a seriousness of purpose and devoted her life to her country and the Commonwealth. She has also adapted to change, although not something that Elizabeth found easy over the years. But red flags went up when I started to see all the friends, employees, and even cousins that were extensively quoted in Elizabeth the Queen. Smith even provides entries from Prince Charles' diaries. Such interviews would not be tolerated unless Elizabeth gave her approval for this biography. And because of this, this book is just a little too much of a white-wash.
Smith's harshest treatment is saved for Diana, Princess of Wales. The adjectives that she uses to describe Diana are anything but complimentary (unstable, conniving, secretive, manipulative, etc.) and speculates that she may have suffered from "borderline personality disorder." Of course, Smith claims that the Royal Family was in no way responsible for what happened to Diana and that they were never cold and uncaring. Yet while the Royal Family takes no responsibility for Diana's actions, they certainly made sure to not make the same mistakes when Prince William married Catherine Middleton recently. Also, Smith mentions the tears that were in Elizabeth's eyes when Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, was buried. Yet, she doesn't mention the hatred for Wallis that consumed the Queen Mum, and was thus transferred to Queen Elizabeth II. During the funeral service for the Duchess of Windsor, the name of the deceased was not once said aloud.
Published in time for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, I'm sure Elizabeth the Queen will be a best seller. But overall, I found this biography a disappointment.
Elizabeth the Queen provides just the shortest of backgrounds about Elizabeth's childhood. In fact, World War II has ended and Elizabeth turned 19 by page 23. Most of this book is dedicated to Elizabeth's time as queen, her marriage, her children, her mother and sister, her royal duties, her prime ministers, her travels, her estates, her horses and her dogs. There is much to admire about Elizabeth, who came to the throne as a young woman of 25. She always has a seriousness of purpose and devoted her life to her country and the Commonwealth. She has also adapted to change, although not something that Elizabeth found easy over the years. But red flags went up when I started to see all the friends, employees, and even cousins that were extensively quoted in Elizabeth the Queen. Smith even provides entries from Prince Charles' diaries. Such interviews would not be tolerated unless Elizabeth gave her approval for this biography. And because of this, this book is just a little too much of a white-wash.
Smith's harshest treatment is saved for Diana, Princess of Wales. The adjectives that she uses to describe Diana are anything but complimentary (unstable, conniving, secretive, manipulative, etc.) and speculates that she may have suffered from "borderline personality disorder." Of course, Smith claims that the Royal Family was in no way responsible for what happened to Diana and that they were never cold and uncaring. Yet while the Royal Family takes no responsibility for Diana's actions, they certainly made sure to not make the same mistakes when Prince William married Catherine Middleton recently. Also, Smith mentions the tears that were in Elizabeth's eyes when Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, was buried. Yet, she doesn't mention the hatred for Wallis that consumed the Queen Mum, and was thus transferred to Queen Elizabeth II. During the funeral service for the Duchess of Windsor, the name of the deceased was not once said aloud.
Published in time for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, I'm sure Elizabeth the Queen will be a best seller. But overall, I found this biography a disappointment.
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If you think you know Her Majesty
23 décembre 2011
Par wogan
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Commentaire Amazon Vine™
(De quoi s'agit-il?)
I have always been fascinated by history and especially the House of Windsor. I lived in England, I subscribed to `Majesty', I joined my English friends in lining the streets for walkabouts and ceremonies...so it is a surprise to me to find a book on any of the Windsors that can say something new. The book, of course, does not have any direct personal interviews with the Queen; what it has are the insights of those around her and the records of how her time is spent. We learn of time blocked out for silent reading when she was a girl and later, even though she makes no comment on what she reads, we do learn something about her tastes.
It is especially interesting to be able to feel we know the monarch, through statements she makes to those around her, that are reported in these pages and to the author's credit most of them accredit the person and under what circumstance they were made. Her sense of humor is portrayed frequently, for example, when she tells how she met one of her security guards...during a hunt where a pheasant flew out of a hedge, knocked her over and left blood on her clothing. The detective fearing she had been shot threw himself on top of her and began mouth to mouth. She simply states, "I consider we got to know each other rather well".
There are touching insights to others in the family. Queen Mary saying she wished that just once, she had gotten to climb over a fence and King George leading conga lines through Windsor Castle. The Queen's early life through WWII is dealt with in the first 22 pages. The book is mostly from the time of her marriage to the wedding of William and Catherine and the planning of her Diamond jubilee in 2012.
This is a more sympathetic and affectionate portrait of the Queen than most. There is little criticism of her actions. Her motives are described as pure and honest. Even the infamous photo of her shaking hands with Charles when he was 3, is left out and instead we are told she gave him a peck on the head. Motherly love must wait. Even Prince Philip is dealt with in a most sympathetic manner - describing him holding John Jr's hand at the dedication of the memorial to JFK at Runnymede.
There are some amazing details about the Queen in these pages. Her complete and thorough interest in her horses, even attending their breeding sessions. Her "annus horrendous" is examined as well as Charles and Camilla's affair, Diana's death and 9/11. Although there is almost nothing given at all of her opinion of British troops fighting alongside their American allies in the Middle East.
This is a 537 page biography that, especially if you have a fascination with England's royals, reads like a novel. No matter what you have already read this book will give you a clearer and more personal perspective on the Queen and her family.
It is especially interesting to be able to feel we know the monarch, through statements she makes to those around her, that are reported in these pages and to the author's credit most of them accredit the person and under what circumstance they were made. Her sense of humor is portrayed frequently, for example, when she tells how she met one of her security guards...during a hunt where a pheasant flew out of a hedge, knocked her over and left blood on her clothing. The detective fearing she had been shot threw himself on top of her and began mouth to mouth. She simply states, "I consider we got to know each other rather well".
There are touching insights to others in the family. Queen Mary saying she wished that just once, she had gotten to climb over a fence and King George leading conga lines through Windsor Castle. The Queen's early life through WWII is dealt with in the first 22 pages. The book is mostly from the time of her marriage to the wedding of William and Catherine and the planning of her Diamond jubilee in 2012.
This is a more sympathetic and affectionate portrait of the Queen than most. There is little criticism of her actions. Her motives are described as pure and honest. Even the infamous photo of her shaking hands with Charles when he was 3, is left out and instead we are told she gave him a peck on the head. Motherly love must wait. Even Prince Philip is dealt with in a most sympathetic manner - describing him holding John Jr's hand at the dedication of the memorial to JFK at Runnymede.
There are some amazing details about the Queen in these pages. Her complete and thorough interest in her horses, even attending their breeding sessions. Her "annus horrendous" is examined as well as Charles and Camilla's affair, Diana's death and 9/11. Although there is almost nothing given at all of her opinion of British troops fighting alongside their American allies in the Middle East.
This is a 537 page biography that, especially if you have a fascination with England's royals, reads like a novel. No matter what you have already read this book will give you a clearer and more personal perspective on the Queen and her family.
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