Gyles Brandreth
Philip and Elizabeth
Portrait of a Royal Marriage
“Great fun to read; written with bouncy charm, but shot through with penetrating insights.”—Sunday Telegraph
This is the first major biography of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh—both royal, both great-great-great grandchildren of Queen Victoria, but in temperament and upbringing very different people. Her childhood was loving and secure, his turbulent: the Duke’s grandfather was assassinated, his father arrested, his family exiled, his parents separated by the time he was ten. 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.
Gyles Brandreth has met all the principal players in the story. He quotes no anonymous sources; he has known the Duke of Edinburgh for twenty-five years and has interviewed him. This is a unique and revealing portrait of a remarkable partnership.
“Thoughtful and outrageous . . . chirpy, energetic. . . . Intrusive, sympathetic, wholly original, often hilarious . . . unfailingly interesting.”—Mail on Sunday
Broadcaster, interviewer, novelist, children’s author, and biographer, Gyles Brandreth 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, for twenty-five years. He lives in England.
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