Word: lacey
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...ROBERT LACEY...
Biographer Robert Lacey's task is to relate the woman who happens to live in Buckingham Palace to this "flourishing of the British constitutional monarchy"-one of the more "curious social phenomena of the 20th century," as he rightly observes. It is no easy job, and the word paradox gets used freely. In the end, Lacey, the author of a biography of Sir Walter Raleigh (and a staffer on the London Sunday Times), has spread his cloak over the puddle and gallantly invented a second Elizabeth to walk across it. If this act of prestidigitation is not a work...
Sensible Shoes. In effect, Lacey has treated Elizabeth as a minor character in a Jane Austen novel. An "unassuming mother of four" who dotes on a "quiet life in the country surrounded by horses and dogs," she tramps over for tea in her sensible shoes and serves modestly to swell a scene or two, mostly by making other people look brilliant. But how to turn her into a heroine...
Even as a child, "Lillibet," as royal baby talk dubbed her, proves a hard act for Lacey to humanize. It is as if she were born with her crown on. Her grandfather George V had written to her father George VI: "Now that you are five years old I hope you will always try and be obedient and do at once what you are told, as you will find it will come much easier to you the sooner you begin." The advice helped give her father a lifelong case of the stammers. Elizabeth appears to have thrived on it, suffering...
Ginger Cookies. What can a poor legendmaker do with a late 20th century woman whose avowed model is Queen Victoria? By way of apology, Lacey theorizes that the sepulchral gloom of blacked-out Windsor Castle during World War II helped turn a "serious child into a serious girl." Certainly nobody could work harder than Lacey to put a little color in the girl's cheeks. He makes the most of her first meeting at 13, over ginger cookies and lemonade, with the brilliantly blue-eyed naval cadet who was to become her husband. Whenever possible the subject is shown...