Book description
This is the first biography of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh -
both royal, both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, but, in
temperament and upbringing, two very different people. The Queen's
childhood was loving and secure, the Duke's was turbulent: his
grandfather assassinated, his father arrested, his family exiled, his
parents separated when he was only ten. Elizabeth and Philip met as
cousins in the 1930s. They married in 1947, aged twenty-one and
twenty-six. A little more than four years later, they were Queen and
consort. 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. Philip &
Elizabeth tells the extraordinary story of these two contrasting lives,
assesses their achievement, together and apart, and explores the nature
of their relationships, with one another and with their children. Here
is a unique royal biography: the author has met all the principal
players in the story; he quotes no anonymous sources; he has had
privileged access to the Queen; he has known the Duke of Edinburgh over
twenty-five years and has interviewed him. This is a powerful and
revealing portrait of a remarkable partnership, told with authority and
unique insight, and illustrated with Prince Philip's family photographs
and pictures from the Queen's royal collection. A former Oxford
Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester,
Gyles Brandreth's varied career has ranged from being a Whip and Lord
Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major's government to starring in
his own award-winning musical revue in London's West End. A prolific
broadcaster, an acclaimed interviewer (principally for the Sunday
Telegraph), a novelist, children's author and biographer, his
best-selling diary, Breaking the Code, was described by The Times as 'By
far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and
revealing than Alan Clark's'. For twenty-five years he 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.
