The Queen

In February 1952 King George VI died and his elder daughter Elizabeth succeeded to the throne. She was up a tree in Kenya, watching game, when she heard the news. She and her husband flew home at once and at the airport she was greeted by her Prime Minister Winston Churchill, sombre in black. Life for her and for the British people, her subjects, was never the same again. She was crowned in Westminster Abbey the following year and as Queen has borne two children to add to the prince and princess who were already part of the national furniture. Her grandson Prince William tied the knot in the same great abbey as the one in which she was married in 1947. Her husband, like William, was a serving officer in the armed forces, yet their partners could not, in a sense, be less alike. Hers was a German-born prince, his a British commoner. This is the story of the young girl who became an old lady and has reigned for six decades. Throughout these shifting, historic years, Her Majesty the Queen has sailed serenely on, a symbol of continuity while also an instrument of change. The world has altered in that time but in many ways she has not. It is this which provides her most significant strength and remains her greatest enigma. With access to remarkable interviews and material Tim Heald has produced a vivid and fascinating biography of the most significant public figure of our times.