Word: sovereigns
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Cecil Woodham-Smith's Victoria is the first of two books. It takes the sovereign's life as far as the death of Albert, her prince consort, in 1861. The author had access to the Royal Family Archives at Windsor, and her rich effort at historical reconstruction is one of the finest biographies in English since George Painter's classic Marcel Proust. It is also an engrossing love story. Woodham-Smith is a historian, not a Crawfie. Her romance, moreover, is told without sentimentality and is set against the forbidding complexities of 19th century European politics...
...time when it seemed the English monarchy could be either liked or respected, but not both. "Notwithstanding his feebleness of purpose and littleness of mind, his ignorance and his prejudices," the Spectator editorialized after her uncle's death, "William the Fourth was to the last a popular sovereign; but his very popularity was acquired at the price of something like public contempt...
...principle that the crown should be above politics, she remained, as one expects queens to be, a natural Tory. Thus she ignored the Chartist riots of 1839, largely because no minister could persuade her that the rabble mattered. Albert and Victoria concurred on one political principle, that a sovereign's duty was to save "her" people from the blunders of their elect ed representatives. By custom, the Queen ruled her consort. In practice he eventually tamed and directed her. "I treasured up everything I heard," she wrote, "kept every letter in a box to tell & show him, & was always...
Some experiments like Caravan's succeed, some fail, and some don't much matter-this God of falls into the last group. As much as it has been performed, explicated, and embroidered, Godot remains as sovereign and unfathomable as ever. "Godot?" said Didi, "he's a kind of acquaintance." "Nothing of the kind," replies Gogo, "we hardly know...
...pomp and circumstance that surrounded Queen Elizabeth's marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh would have greatly pleased her distant ancestor, Charles I, who insisted that "a subject and a sovereign are clean different things." But when the Queen and Prince Philip celebrate their silver wedding anniversary this week, Charles may be twitching in his burial vault at Windsor Castle. As one part of the celebration, Elizabeth has invited to a commemorative service in Westminster Abbey 100 couples from round the realm whose only connection with royalty is that they share Her Majesty's wedding date...