All the Men’s Queen

It is entirely possible that nobody, not even perhaps Queen Elizabeth herself, has ever known what she was really like, so great the charm, the smiling gaze, the gloved arm, the almost wistful voice, the lilting politeness, yet so strong the nerve, so dogged the spirit, so determined the trajectory. And so many were the gossamer veils that enwrapped her aura that these two extremes invariably melded into a rose-centered sweetness. For nearly 70 years Queen Elizabeth, like most royalty, nurtured the cultivation of a façade. To an adoring mass, she was Titania; few glimpsed the dagger beneath her flower-strewn couch.

In William Shawcross’s majestic and elegantly written biography, we come closer than any other to the kernel of Queen Elizabeth’s being. His diligent research brings her alive. Her early letters, for decades lain in stout towers and distant castles, reveal an amorous playfulness; they become ever more sober and poignant as destiny hurls some dastardly thunderbolts.