In this entertaining and insightful biography award-winning writer Andrew Morton author of Diana Her True Story and Elizabeth & Margaret: The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters takes you behind the scenes to uncover the woman and her world. For years she prayed for her mother to give birth to a son. She longed to be spared her destiny as Britains future Queen. Her dream was to live in the country surrounded by children dogs and horses. Elizabeth was set firmly on the road to becoming sovereign because of the D word divorce. In 1936 her uncle David King Edward VIII wanted to marry a twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. When he couldnt he abdicated. Since that national trauma divorce and the fall-out from divorce has shaped her reign. She has witnessed her sister Margaret three of her children and several grandchildren divorce. And she has lived long enough to see the wheel turn full circle watching as another American divorcee Meghan Markle walked down the aisle with her grandson Prince Harry. While her reign has been defined by divorce her private life has been moulded by an irascible husband an extravagant mother and a querulous eldest son. In the winter of her reign she refereed a war between two of her grandsons brothers William and Harry who were once inseparable friends. As she celebrates her platinum anniversary the first monarch to reign for seventy years she has during a once in a lifetime pandemic become the reassuring face of hope and optimism the grandmother to the nation.
