It was George VI who first called his extended family ‘the Firm’. Today, with so many injuries and key players on the bench, it might better be known as ‘the Team’ – and one struggling to avoid relegation. It’s what you might call a reign in pain. So it’s a good time for Alexander Larman to publish this appreciative, but not sycophantic, conclusion to his royal trilogy.
Its predecessors were The Crown in Crisis (2020) and The Windsors at War, published last year. The latest volume concerns the period between VE Day in 1945 and the coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth in 1953 when, in Larman’s telling, the royal family successfully rebranded itself after more than a decade of crises, both internal and external.
The rebranding was led by Elizabeth herself, whose ‘whether it be short or long’ radio broadcast of 1947 had 200 million Commonwealth subjects in synchronised floods of tears. Larman makes plain that the young princess was resolute, dignified and intelligent, easily claiming the respect and affection of all who knew her, as well as those hundreds of millions who did not.
Then there was the ailing George VI: gracious, but fragile and timid, ill-equipped for so demanding a role. And, of course, his elder brother the Duke of Windsor, briefly Edward VIII – a man who it was difficult to ignore, but worth making the effort to do so. He had helpmeets hand-cut his loo rolls and serve his pugs dinner on silver salvers. In a Prince Harry-like exile, he was selfish but needy, and ingratiating as well. Everybody just wanted him to go away.
Smaller roles are taken by Joseph Stalin, Tom Driberg, a gay Labour MP attracted to policemen, and Winston Churchill, who, we are told, used to cry a lot.
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