Philip & Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage

Gyles Brandreth

Arrow, May 5, 2005 - Great Britain - 567 pages

This is the first biography of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh - both royal, both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, but, in temperament and upbringing, two very different people. The Queen's childhood was loving and secure, the Duke's was turbulent: his grandfather assassinated, his father arrested, his family exiled, his parents separated when he was only ten.Elizabeth and Philip met as cousins in the 1930s. They married in 1947, aged twenty-one and twenty-six. A little more than four years later, they were Queen and consort. For almost sixty years theirs have been among the most famous faces in the world - yet the personalities behind the image remain elusive and the nature of their marriage is an enigma.PHILIP & ELIZABETH tells the extraordinary story of these two contrasting lives, assesses their achievement, together and apart, and explores the nature of their relationships, with one another and with their children. Here is a unique royal biography: the author has met all the principal players in the story: he quotes no anonymous sources; he has had privileged access to the Queen: he has known the Duke of Edinburgh over twenty-five years and has interviewed him. This is a powerful and revealing portrait of a remarkable partnership, told with authority and unique insight, and illustrated with Prince Philip's family photographs and pictures from the Queen's royal collection.

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Philip and Elizabeth: portrait of a royal marriage

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Having been asked in 2002 to write a short account of Prince Philip's life in honor of his 80th birthday, Brandreth decided to expand it into a biography of a man he believes to be seriously ...

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Chapter One: 49
• Chapter Two: 64

About the author

A former Oxford Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester, Gyles Brandreth's varied career has ranged from being a Whip and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major's government to starring in his own award-winning musical revue in London's West End. A prolific broadcaster, an acclaimed interviewer (principally for the Sunday Telegraph), a novelist, children's author and biographer, his best-selling diary, Breaking the Code, was described by The Times as 'By far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and revealing than Alan Clark's'. For twenty-five years he has been involved in the work of the National Playing Fields Association, whose Patron is the Queen and whose President is the Duke of Edinburgh.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Philip & Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage
• Author: Gyles Brandreth
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Arrow, 2005
• ISBN: 0099446731, 9780099446736
• Length: 567 pages