Product Description

“Great fun to read; written with bouncy charm, but shot through with penetrating insights.”—Sunday Telegraph This is the first major biography of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh—both royal, both great-great-great grandchildren of Queen Victoria, but in temperament and upbringing very different people. Her childhood was loving and secure, his turbulent: the Duke's grandfather was assassinated, his father arrested, his family exiled, his parents separated by the time he was ten. For almost sixty years theirs have been among the most famous faces in the world—yet the personalities behind the image remain elusive, and the nature of their marriage is an enigma.

Gyles Brandreth has met all the principal players in the story. He quotes no anonymous sources; he has known the Duke of Edinburgh for twenty-five years and has interviewed him. This is a unique and revealing portrait of a remarkable partnership. .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #177324 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Princess Elizabeth fell for Prince Philip in 1939, when she was 13 and he, 18. But though Philip was a direct descendent of Queen Victoria, some at court thought him an unsuitable match. But as longtime royal acquaintance Brandreth shows, Philip has been the perfect mate: dutiful, loyal, hard-working and deeply respectful. As Brandreth makes clear, the marriage has succeeded not only because Philip loves his wife, but because he understands the nature of royal life. Social and outgoing, Philip balances the queen's reserve. He's also likely the only person who has ever threatened her and gotten away with it: Brandreth relates how Philip grew so fed up with his wife's wordless but potent backseat driving that he told her to stop or he'd put her out of the car. She stopped. Brandreth goes to great and mostly convincing lengths to disprove rumors of the Prince's extramarital affairs and the queen's tendency to lavish more affection on her corgis and horses than on her family. But the biggest surprise here is the portrayal of the royal couple as typical married folks: the prince thinks the queen spends too much time on the telephone, and she has no qualms about telling him to shut up. 40 pages of illus.
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Review
Thoughtful and outrageous . . . chirpy, energetic. . . . Intrusive, sympathetic, wholly original, often hilarious . . . unfailingly interesting. (Mail on Sunday )

About the Author
Broadcaster, interviewer, novelist, children’s author, and biographer, Gyles Brandreth has been involved in the work of the National Playing Fields Association, whose patron is the Queen and whose president is the Duke of Edinburgh, for twenty-five years. He lives in England.

Customer Reviews

A Revealing look at the House of Windsor.
When I started this book, I thought that it was going to be yet another listing of scandals, rumors, and other tattletale journalism. Instead, what I got was a sensitive, objective look at England's Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. While the author takes the traditional approach -- reviewing the couple's separate childhoods, and their married life together -- he does what many biographers don't do. He went to the sources to help dispell some of the rumors that surround the more private aspects of this royal marriage. For years I had thought that the Duke was a handsome, rather decorative, ram-his-foot-in-his-mouth, inbred idiot. What I discovered was a tough, honorable man who has grown up in desperate situations (exiled from his country of birth, watching hs mother suffer from mental illness, the breakup of his parent's marriage, service under combat in WWII, and being the source of wild rumors) who took the route of being a stoic, and knowing that he was going to be the lesser member of a very public relationship. While most of the book focuses on Philip, there are also some insights into the Queen's own psyche and life, and this makes for one of the best biographies on modern monarchy that I've read in a long, long time. Definately recommended and a real eye opener for anyone wanting to see the reality rather than salacious gossip.

An Informal And Positive Conversation About The Windsors
Gyles Brandreth begins his book with the assurance that he knows and admires Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Ordinarily this would mean that the book will be more hagiography than biography: utterly reverent, careful to ignore any negative aspects of its subject, and completely useless. Fortunately, this is not the case with Philip and Elizabeth.

Brandreth writes to inform but also to entertain. He reveals the names of his informants (many of them cousins and/or other close friends of The Queen and Duke) and includes much of their interviews almost verbatim. This makes for a much more interesting read than the usual "those close to the palace maintain . . ." sort of thing. Brandreth also includes some of Prince Philip's own remarks and comments on the text (evidently The Duke read the manuscript well before publication), which adds an additional sparkle and means that this book is probably the closest we will ever get to an autobiography by The Prince himself.

Much of the book is standard biography, giving parallel lives of The Queen and The Duke before and after their marriage. The sections dealing with Prince Philip are the liveliest, since Brandreth had quite a bit of cooperation with his subject and also because The Prince has led a much more colorful and eventful life (war, revolution, etc.) than has The Queen. I've read quite a bit of twentieth century royal history, but Brandreth includes material, including some very funny anecdotes, that I've never seen before. The Queen, being far more reticent than her husband, doesn't seem to have read the manuscript or otherwise collaborated with Brandreth, so the chapters dealing specifically with her life don't sparkle quite as much, but they make worthwhile reading nevertheless. Much of the most interesting information is given in the footnotes. This enhances the feeling that the reader is having a conversation with Brandreth, and rather than interrupt the flow of the story the footnotes increase the pleasure.

Brandreth is particularly at pains to disprove the many unsavory rumors about Prince Philip's possible romantic affairs over the years. He does a good job of pointing out how obviously exagerrated and false some of the wilder stories are, but I can't help wondering whether Prince Philip's cousins, friends, and former servants/advisors were really as forthcoming about their knowledge of the Prince's activities as Brandreth claims they were. In the end, as Brandreth himself admits, there are still questions that only the Prince and The Queen themselves could answer completely. (Of course this applies to any married couple, and its unfortunate that interest in the lives of public figures extends so deeply into matters which are no one else's business.) The same thing applies to the various marital problems of the couple's four children, particularly those of The Prince of Wales and his late wife. Here Brandreth does a particularly good job of defending Princess Diana's in-laws against the many criticisms leveled against them by her supporters before and after her death.

As I mentioned above, the many new anecdotes Brandreth includes are among the chief pleasures of this book. Its also enjoyable that Brandreth makes himself a part of the story, mentioning when and where he first met various characters and poking fun at himself from time to time (I would so love to have been present to see Brandreth trying to flirt with The Queen and Princess Anne!)

Philip and Elizabeth will not please the Windsor-haters nor those who still idolize The Royal Family. Brandreth has given us a picture of a nice couple who have soldiered on through numerous public and private storms,dutiful to their country and loving and protective of each other. They've done their job with dignity and grace, and we are all the better for their labors. Gyles Brandreth's work helps us recognize that and feel duly appreciative.

Another Royal Book?
Having read a lot of books about the royals, I didn't know if I wanted to read another. I'm very glad I read this one. Enjoyed how it was written. Very witty remarks, a lot of them in parenthesis. Having the book notes at the bottom of the various pages was a great help. One can't help but read them. There was alot of info that I had read before, but Mr Brandreth gave a more balanced view. It was a fun read!