Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II was not born to reign. Like that other great queen in modern history, Victoria, the throne came to her by indirect means. Yet she would become one of the most beloved monarchs in history, surpassing almost every entry in the royal record book.

As a child, her idyllic life on the royal fringe was transformed first by the scandalous love life of her wayward uncle and then by war. Despite multiple attacks on the family home, she watched and learned from her father as he led his nation through much suffering to victory, falling in love along the way.

At the age of just twenty-five—a young wife and mother of two—she suddenly found herself head of state of much of the Earth, with the greatest statesman of the age as her senior adviser. Her coronation was a moment of national rejuvenation, though swiftly followed by the first of many challenges and crises—personal, political, and global—which would test her over seven decades.

The highs and lows of ordinary family life, for her, would be mercilessly scrutinised and magnified through the lens of the world’s media. Unlike Shakespeare’s monarchs, the dramatists would set to work in her own lifetime. Yet she also managed to remain an endlessly fascinating mystery to the end, revered and mourned worldwide.