Queen of Our Times

A definitive portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the seventieth anniversary of her reign by a renowned royal biographer. Shy but with a steely self-confidence; inscrutable despite ten decades in the public eye; unflappable; devout; indulgent; outwardly reserved, inwardly passionate; unsentimental; inquisitive; young at heart. All of these describe Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned through more seismic social change than any monarch in British history. From the Abdication to the Sussexes, from World War II to the loss of her life-long partner, she has witnessed family crises on a scale not seen since the days of George III. She is a 21st Century global phenomenon commanding unrivalled respect and affection. Sealed off during the greatest peacetime emergency of modern times, she has stuck to her own maxim: ‘I have to be seen to be believed.’ And now she is preparing for an event without parallel in Europe since the reign of Louis XIV: her Platinum Jubilee, celebrating seventy years on the Throne. Robert Hardman, the acclaimed and respected author of Her Majesty and Queen of the World has already examined the Queen as a modern monarch and her role as a stateswoman abroad. Now, in this entirely new study, including unpublished Royal Family papers and photographs along with personal stories from other world leaders, he wraps up the full story of one of the undisputed greats in a thousand years of monarchy. Hardman distils Elizabeth's complex life into a must-read study of dynastic survival and renewal. It is a portrait of a world leader who remains as intriguing today as the day she came to the Throne at age twenty-five. With peerless access to members of the Royal Family, staff, friends and royal records, Queen of Our Times brings fresh insights and scholarship to the modern royal story. There will be no more thorough, more readable, more original book on the record-breaking Elizabeth II as she reaches a landmark which, surely, can never be equaled.