THE GREAT STRENGTH OF ED OWENS’S After Elizabeth is that it takes seriously the monarchy as a fundamentally political institution. While Owens, an historian and “royal commentator”, gives the customary overview of twentieth-century royal triumphs and scandals, his real thrust is considerably more serious than the conventional recitation of the House of Windsor’s flirtations with celebrity and soap opera.
Owens casts a historian’s eye over the institution in its modern (nineteenth- to twenty-first-century) form. He is judicious in his analysis of the evolution of cabinet government under Victoria, noting the Prince Consort’s deft use of royal soft power and Victoria’s sly attempts to undermine Mr Gladstone’s liberal ministries.
He presents George V
