Elizabeth & Margaret
The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
They were the closest of sisters and the best of friends.
But when, in a quixotic twist of fate, their uncle Edward VIII decided to abdicate the throne, the dynamic between Elizabeth and Margaret was dramatically altered. Forever more, Margaret would have to curtsey to the sister she called ‘Lillibet’. And bow to her wishes.
Elizabeth would always look upon her younger sister’s antics with a kind of stoical amusement but Margaret’s struggle to find a place and position inside the royal system – and her fraught relationship with its expectations – was often a source of tension. Famously, the Queen had to inform Margaret that the Church and government would not countenance her marrying a divorcee, Group Captain Peter Townsend, forcing Margaret to choose between keeping her title and royal allowances or her divorcee lover.
From the idyll of their cloistered early life, through their hidden wartime lives, into the divergent paths they took following their father’s death and Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne, this book explores their relationship over the years. Andrew Morton, renowned bestselling author of Diana: Her True Story, offers unique insight into these two drastically different sisters – one resigned to duty and responsibility, the other resistant to it – and the lasting impact they have had on the Crown, the royal family and the way it has adapted to the changing mores of the twentieth century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biographer Morton (Diana: Her True Story) examines in this vibrant history the "push-and-pull between... deep love and primal jealousy" that bonded Queen Elizabeth II and her younger sister, Princess Margaret. Opening in 1936 as Edward VIII ceded the throne to his younger brother, George VI, Morton draws a sharp contrast between duty-bound George and self-indulgent Edward, and between Elizabeth and Margaret, who once confessed that "disobedience is my joy." Growing up in Buckingham Palace under the care of Scottish governess Marion "Crawfie" Crawford, the sisters studied and played only with each other until May 1940, when they were evacuated to Windsor Castle, a "medieval fortress... virtually impregnable to aerial attack." At Windsor, Elizabeth and Margaret got a taste of civilian life, mingling with Girl Guides and putting on plays. In 1947, however, their dynamic shifted inexorably when 21-year-old Elizabeth married Prince Philip. Elizabeth emerges in Morton's account as a somewhat distant figure and a reluctant player in the Windsor family soap opera, while much attention is paid to Margaret's intrigues, including her affair with Royal Air Force officer Peter Townsend in the 1950s, her 1978 divorce, and her falling-out with Princess Diana for "question Prince Charles's fitness to be king" in a 1995 TV interview. Royal watchers will be enthralled.
