The lives of the Queen, Prince Philip and their children are examined and exposed in detail to reveal the Windsor family's disturbing history of adultery, jealousy and mental cruelty.Award-winning journalist Nicholas Davies examines the mood, the ambitions and the forebodings of the Queen at the start of the new millennium. He gives us, too, an insight into the harsh reality of the relationship between the Queen and her husband.Elizabeth: Behind Closed Doors also investigates the early years of Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward, covering their relationships with their parents and their own various love affairs, marriages, separations and divorces. The marriage of Charles and Diana is scrutinised to reveal the principle reason for their marital breakdown.For more than a decade the supporting cast of royals stole the limelight as their marriages fell apart in acrimony; but now, with nearly 50 years on the throne and her children more settled, the Queen is returning to centre stage. This compelling book looks at Elizabeth II's plans for her own future as she wrestles with the uncertainty of what lies ahead for the House of Windsor.

    

    

    One day, they'll sell their cramped city-centre antiques shop and the overflowing upstairs flat and relocate to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. When a smallholding in a remote Dales village comes on the market, it seems like the answer to their prayers.

    She has long deserved a full study and in Elisabeth Basford, she has found a dedicated and sympathetic biographer, who has done her full justice' - Hugo Vickers. Princess Diana is seen as the first member of the British royal family to tear up the rulebook, and the Duchess of Cambridge is modernising the monarchy in strides. But before them was another who paved the way. Princess Mary was born in 1897. Despite her Victorian beginnings, she strove to make a princess’s life meaningful, using her position to help those less fortunate and defying gender conventions in the process. As the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, she would live to see not only two of her brothers ascend the throne but also her niece Queen Elizabeth II. She was one of the hardest-working members of the royal family, known for her no-nonsense approach and her determination in the face of adversity. During the First World War she came into her own, launching an appeal to furnish every British troop and sailor with a Christmas gift, and training as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital. From her dedication to the war effort, to her role as the family peacemaker during the Abdication Crisis, Mary was the princess who redefined the title for the modern age. In the first biography in decades, Elisabeth Basford offers a fresh appraisal of Mary’s full and fascinating life.

    Now in her ninety-fourth year, this timely celebration sheds new light on the myriad attributes and personal qualities she brings to the nation. From fortitude in the face of adversity to standing as the nation's ambassador all over the world, no one could doubt the work ethic that powers this remarkable woman, even into her nineties. Equally, her love of family - from her rock of over sixty years' marriage, Prince Philip, to her great grandchildren - shines through. But what are the secrets of her success? How does she still approach her day-to-day with such vitality and aplomb, even when culture and society are changing rapidly all around her?The Queen on fame: When an MP commented that it must be a strain meeting so many strangers all the time, the Queen smiled, 'It is not as difficult as it might seem. You see, I don't have to introduce myself. They all seem to know who I am.'The Queen on fashion: In the late sixties when Mary Quant and the mini skirt came to epitomize all that was fashionable, Princess Anne suggested her mother might also consider shortening her hemline. The Queen was adamant, 'I am not a film star.' The Queen on family: As Great Britain's most famous great grandmother, it is no surprise that the Queen values family life. 'Marriage gains from the web of family relationships between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, cousins, aunts and uncles.'In this book Karen Dolby unpicks the key elements that make the Queen so special to - and so loved by - the nation and presents a guide to how you too could put into practice some of Her Majesty's traits to help overcome adversity, find inner strength and present yourself as wonderfully considered and calm, even when all about you seems in chaos.

    But in 1963, the year of the Profumo Affair, the 11th Duke of Argyll shocked the country when he alleged that his adulterous wife had slept with over eighty men behind his back. He produced, as his evidence, a set of sexually explicit Polaroid photographs and explosive love letters. The duke won a divorce, but this had a dramatic effect on Margaret's life. On the verge of financial destitution, she fell from grace and was abandoned by most of her friends prior to her death in a nursing home in Pimlico in 1993. Lyndsy Spence tells a tragic story of the life and downfall of this fascinatingly complex woman, and shows how she fell victim to a cruel husband, harsh social mores and an unforgiving class. It uses hitherto unpublished sources, including taped conversations, an unexpurgated transcript of her divorce trial, interviews and letters. The Grit in the Pearl is a meticulously researched and powerful biography, which acts as a potent lens on various themes in the last century: fame, privacy, the media, sex, power, and relationships between classes.

    From ancient Rome to Edwardian England, from the lavish rooms of Versailles to the dankest corners of the Bastille, the great royals of Europe have excelled at savage parenting, deadly rivalry, pathological lust, and meeting death with the utmost indignity-or just very bad luck.

    With all eyes on them, the duchesses select clothes that send a message about their values, interests, and priorities. Their thoughtful sartorial strategies follow in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth II and Diana, Princess of Wales, two towering figures known for using their personal style to great acclaim.With one section devoted to each woman, HRH is a celebration of their stories and their style, pairing hundreds of gorgeous photographs with extensive research. A picture emerges of the British monarchy’s evolution and the power of royal fashion, showing there’s always more than what meets the eye.

    When he was just five years old, Prince Charles was reunited with his mother, who had been away for months touring the Empire and Commonwealth. Newsreels show him waiting for her at Victoria station. Immaculately dressed, as a trophy child should be, he was expected not to act his age. When his mother gets off the train, she does not rush towards him, kiss him or hug him. Instead, she shakes her son's hand. In a nice display of 'spurious maturity', he shakes her hand back. Achingly formal, it is an almost perfect example of protocol taking precedence over love.When Princess Diana became a mother, many were surprised by her parenting style – warm and nurturing. She stood in stark contrast to the generations of aloof, insensitive royal parents who had gone before her. Stories abound of Prince Philip reducing a young Charles to tears with his bullying – yet by royal standards he was a model of parental indulgence.As a new generation of princes and princesses comes of age, Bringing Them Up Royal reveals the truth about what it's like to be raised as a member of the royal family. Tracing hundreds of years of British history, David Cohen weaves a compelling and sometimes shocking tale, full of arresting psychoanalytic insights and twists. Intertwining history with child psychology, this unique study maps the changing face of royal parenting from 1066 to the present day – and suggests how it might develop in the twenty-first century.Bringing Them Up Royal is the first case study of its kind, and with it comes an unexpected story of violence, sex, betrayal, cruelty – and the occasional gem of kindness and wisdom.

    One day, she received a message from a stranger. This woman offered to lead her on a self-healing trip hiking through the Scottish highlands.It seemed like a sign—a big sister sent when she needed one most.In this sometimes hilarious, sometimes terrifying, but always inspiring memoir, an introverted pollyanna is paired up with her polar opposite—a steamrolling, abrasive female with completely unorthodox healing methods. As they barrel through the winding one lane roads in a tiny rental car stopping to hike at breathtaking mountains and glens, an outrageous series of events forces Ninya to reclaim her power and find the strength to heal herself in one of the most beautiful places on earth.Readers of “Eat, Pray, Love” and “Wild” will love this memoir.

    Born in splendor difficult to imagine today, she endured a lifetime of relentless tragedy with courage and exceptional powers of adjustment.The Last Grand Duchess is a valuable account of the final decades of the house of Romanov as seen through the eyes of its last surviving member. Through Olga, we meet Queen Victoria, George V of England, Rasputin, Mrs. Anderson - on whose story the movie Anastasia was made - and other impostors who plagued the exiled duchess with false hope.In this official memoir, Ian Vorres captures the loneliness and violence of Olga's years in Russia, her loveless first marriage to Prince Peter of Oldenburg, her years of exile in England and Denmark, and her final settlement with her second husband and family in Canada.Long out of print, and now reissued in a handsomely illustrated edition, The Last Grand Duchess is the thorough and engaging official biography of an extraordinary woman.

    Diana, Princess of Wales and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were two of these rare creatures. They were the most famous women of the twentieth century ~ admired, respected, even adored at times; rebuked, mocked and reviled at others. Separated by nationality and a generation apart, they led two surprisingly similar lives.Both were the daughters of acrimonious divorce. Both wed men twelve years their senior, men who needed "trophy brides" to advance their careers. Both married into powerful and domineering families, who tried, unsuccessfully, to tame their willful independence. Both inherited power through marriage and both rebelled within their official roles, forever crushing the archetype. And both revolutionized dynasties.And yet in many ways they were completely different: Jackie lived her life with an English "stiff upper lip" ~ never complaining, never explaining in the face of immense public curiosity. Diana lived her life with an American "quivering lower lip" ~ with televised tell-alls, exposing her family drama to a world eager for every detail.These two lives have been well documented but never before compared. And never before examined in the context of their times. Jay Mulvaney, author of Kennedy Weddings and Jackie: The Clothes of Camelot, probes the lives of these two twentieth century icons and discovers: The nature of their personalities forged from the cradle by their relationships with their fathers, Black Jack Bouvier and Johnny Spencer.·Their early years, and their early relationships with men.·Their marriages, and the truth behind the lies, the betrayals and the arrangements.·Their greatest achievements: motherhood.·Their prickly relationships with their august mothers-in-law, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II· Their lives as single women, working mothers.· Their roles as icons and archetypes.Graced with never before seen photographs from many private collections, and painstakingly researched, 0Diana and Jackie presents these two remarkable and unique women as they have never been seen before.

    This book lets us take a tour round a courtly palace and peep around each door, as we encounter the kitchens, the bakery, the laundry, the bedrooms, the gardens and the privvies! Everything you could wish to know is here, as the book describes the different lifestyles of the court, and the people who served them.

    Sophisticated beyond her years, as well as academically gifted, Kate has charmed William's louche circle of friends as well as the House of Windsor.Yet behind her polished veneer lies the extraordinary tale of an impoverished working-class family that overcame deprivation and adversity to rise to the upper echelons of society.Claudia Joseph has spoken to members of Kate's family and friends, who have provided an intriguing insight into the extraordinary journey her family has made from the mining villages of Durham to an apartment in the royal residence of Clarence House.Drawing on exclusive interviews and containing previously unpublished photographs, this is an authoritative account of Kate Middleton's life so far.