Among the many improprieties Sally Bedell Smith cites in her biography Elizabeth the Queen is the time former US president Jimmy Carter planted a kiss on the Queen Mother. She later said she hadn’t been kissed that way since the death of King George VI.
She can’t have been more shocked than the author, who never tires of sniffing at the ways commoners have improperly pressed, addressed or otherwise violated the sanctity of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her family. Yet Smith’s own prose comes at you like a spray of saliva, its reverence bordering on rapture: “Her role as the head of armed forces is one of her most sacrosanct duties. With her hierarchies, rituals, traditions and clothing created with a military-style sense of occasion, she is a soldier at heart.”
Elizabeth II ... or Joan of Arc? Compare a passage on the same topic from The Real Elizabeth, by the British journalist Andrew Marr: “The Queen is Head of the Armed Forces. It is to the queen that new soldiers, airmen and sailors pledge allegiance, and in whose name they fight and die. She has a special relationship with some regiments ... and a general one with all.”
After 600-plus pages of Smith, it’s a relief to read a writer who doesn’t give you the impression that if his subject appeared at his door he would lose control of his bladder. Marr is less chronological and more thoughtful (not to mention wittier) than Smith, and he gets the job done in a little more than half the page count.
He, too, is impressed with the queen. Who isn’t? “She has uttered not a single shocking phrase in public,” he marvels. “There are no reliable recorded incidents of the Queen losing her temper, using bad language or refusing to carry out a duty expected of her.”
Her 12 prime ministers have treasured their weekly audience with her, during which she questions them intently and, apparently, gives nothing away. Harold Wilson probably spoke for them all when he described these visits as “the only times when he could have a serious conversation, which would not leak, with somebody who wasn’t after his job.”
The queen is by all accounts a good judge of character, and she was shrewdest — unlike her children — when it counted the most. Philip Eade’s low-key, intelligent biography Prince Philip deals with Philip’s life only up to the coronation, but that’s enough to make it clear (though it’s hardly news) that the driven, hyper-virile prince consort was not a man born to play second fiddle — which, oddly, may be why he’s been so good at it.
Elizabeth never had eyes for anybody else. But though his bloodlines were impeccable (they are both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria), his funds were scarce, and a few courtiers thought he was “no gentleman” because he hadn’t been to Eton.
According to Marr, their marriage marks the sole instance of Elizabeth’s acting “against the grain of what was expected.” Both Marr and Smith are hostile to Diana, princess of Wales; both cite her comment to former prime minister Tony Blair (Marr calls it “icy calculation”) that she had “gone for the caring angle.”
Marr calls her “isolated, lonely and dangerous.” They both re-create the touching moment — familiar from the 2006 movie The Queen — when Elizabeth returned to London after Diana’s death and faced what seemed to be a hostile crowd. In Marr’s version, a girl came forward with flowers and the Queen asked, “Are these for Diana?” “No, Ma’am, for you.”
Marr gently lampoons such marmoreal figures as Winston Churchill and Dickie Mountbatten, but he can’t brush aside his awe of the queen.
Then again, neither can she. As Marr writes, “The Coronation was intended to awe and even to intimidate — and not only those watching, but also its subject.”
Only in a certain sense does she stand at the peak of the social pyramid: The modern monarchy is built on the paradox of “the ruler who is servant to her subjects.”
She has an amazing capacity to seem interested. I was once at a reception in Oxford she was attending, and I somehow managed to jockey myself into her path, allowing me to bore dinner parties with the story for years to come. During the five minutes or less that we exchanged banalities, although I was distracted by the diamonds in her hair, I was convinced, in spite of myself, that she was fascinated. I learned more in those five minutes about political skill and the graceful execution of duty than any book could teach me.”
Publication Notes
Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of A Modern Monarch
By Sally Bedell Smith
Random House
663 pages
Hardcover: UK
The Real Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II
By Andrew Marr
349 pages
Henry Holt and Co
Hardcover: UK
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
RSS