The Queen: Elizabeth II and the Monarchy (Text Only)

I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great Imperial family to which we all belong, but I shall not have the strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in with me, as I now invite you to do. I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.52

below-stairs gossip

Dermot Morrah, always ready with a loyal argument, claimed that the Princess was as representative in the second sense as in the first – and that her representative status came from the happy chance of her intellectual and cultural limitations. Like her father and grandfather, he pointed out, she was ‘normal’ – that is, average – in capacity, taste and training.

had a capacity to attract admiration and to cause irritation in equal measure.

the landed classes

adult tastes in literature and drama were, as a British observer put it delicately in the 1950s, ‘those of the many rather than the few’.19

After a hard day, the final bag in the game book was 1 pheasant, 12 partridges, 1 mountain hare, 1 brown hare, 3 rabbits, 1 woodcock, 1 snipe, 1 wild duck, 1 stag, 1 roe deer, 2 pigeons, 2 black game, 17 grouse, 2 capercailzie, 6 ptarmigan, 2 salmon, 1 trout, 1 heron and a sparrow hawk.

Eton engenders friendships.

In March, Time declared her ‘the Woman of the Week’, and praised her for her ‘Pin-Up Charm’. Devoting four pages to her life story, it revealed her as a princess the magazine’s readers could take to their hearts. She was practical, down-to-earth, human – the essence of suburban middle America. As well as being an excellent horsewoman she was, the article declared, a tireless dancer and an enthusiastic lover of swing music, night clubs, and ‘having her own way’. She enjoyed reading best-sellers, knitting and gossipy teas with her sister and a few girlfriends in front of the fire at Buckingham Palace.17

and in a sense they are right