LIFE The Years of the Crown

By Meredith Corporation

There is a royal way of being-stoic, dry-eyed, and most importantly, private. And by maintaining an air of opacity despite their very public lives, scandals, and mishaps, the royal family has captured the attention and intrigue of the world. Readers buy tabloids promising to expose their secrets, viewers have tuned in to watch their special moments since Elizabeth first took the throne, books telling inside accounts have sold millions of copies. The world eagerly wants to learn as much as they can about what this royal family is like behind closed doors. That's why the streaming hit The Crown, which has earned high praise for its relatively accurate historical account of Queen Elizabeth's life, has been held in such high regard by viewers season after season. The show evolves with the Queen's life, the cast rotating as the real-life royals grow in both age and confidence in their roles. And for all the insight the Netflix series provides, the real-life version of these stories, is just as rich and compelling. This special edition is a chronicle of the highs and lows of Queen Elizabeth's monarchy, with on-screen photo gallery interstitials showing the same moments in her life from

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meredith Corporation
• Release date: Nov 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781547854943

Book preview

2018.

1

An Unlikely Path to the Throne

Had all gone according to plan, Elizabeth would have lived her life largely out of the public eye. But when her uncle, King Edward VIII, gave up the throne in the midst of a romantic scandal, Elizabeth was thrust on a path to become a monarch herself

ELIZABETH WAS THE FIRST child of Prince Albert, Duke of York, and his wife, Elizabeth, Duchess of York. Albert was said to have called young Elizabeth his pride, and Margaret, Elizabeth’s sister, his joy.

IN THE SPRING OF 1926, GREAT BRITAIN was in turmoil, torn by economic woes and labor strife, specifically a coal miners’ dispute that would eventually trigger a general strike. But you’d never have guessed the bleak national mood in the rainy early hours of April 21, at least not if you were among the crowd amassed outside 17 Bruton Street, in London’s exclusive Mayfair district. There the atmosphere was electric with anticipation of a special event: the birth of a royal child—to Albert, Duke of York, younger son of King George V—and his wife, the former Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. At 2:40 a.m., a baby girl arrived by cesarean section. Named Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, she would be known to her family as Lilibet—and to the world, one day, as Queen Elizabeth II.

Elizabeth was the first future British monarch ever born in a private home (17 Bruton belonged to her maternal grandparents), though at the time no one remotely imagined she’d ever sit on the throne. Her father, nicknamed Bertie, was second in line of succession behind his elder brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, just as Prince William outranks his brother, Harry, today. Nevertheless, the new royal was met with great excitement and banner headlines. Cheers rang out when the king came by the house with his wife, Queen Mary, who described their first grandchild as a little darling with lovely complexion and pretty fair hair.

From an early age, Elizabeth displayed a preternatural poise, a quality that didn’t escape the keen eye of Winston Churchill. The future wartime prime minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer—Britain’s equivalent of treasury secretary—when he first met the two-year-old royal in 1928, and Churchill noted an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant.’ With this kind of start in life, Elizabeth might easily have become unendurably spoiled and arrogant. But instead she was infused with humility and unpretentiousness and grew into a reserved and studious girl—quite a contrast to her cheeky and rebellious younger sister, Margaret, who came along in 1930. For a decade Elizabeth enjoyed a blissfully privileged existence in the royal bubble—until it burst in 1936, transforming her life, and British history,