Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage - Softcover

Brandreth, Gyles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393329496 ISBN 13: 9780393329490

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006

Synopsis

“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.

About this title

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.

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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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0393329496
• ISBN 13: 9780393329490
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480