The next section of this biography of Queen Elizabeth II focuses on the time between Prince Charles' marriage and Diana's death. Once again, it follows mainly Charles and Diana's relationship and the queen's reaction to their problems. Lacey's book gives a vary detailed description of Charles' and Diana's marriage problems, their separation and divorce and Diana's death. However, on interesting story about the queen involves a man, Michael Fagan, who broke into Buckingham palace, entered the Queen's bedroom, sat down on her bed and started to talk to her. The Queen pressed her alarm button several times, but got no response. It took two phone calls to get the police to come and arrest the intruder. During all this, the Queen kept Fagan talking and remained calm. This section also talks about the Queen's parenting style-- she let her children make their own mistakes, and she would not block embarrassing press coverage when they get themselves into it (such as when Prince Edward agreed to appear on a game show on which people made themselves look stupid playing games). There is also a chapter about the "annus horriblis" (328). During 1992, Diana and Charles announced their formal separation and Winsdor palace burned down.
The Queen, during all this, did not hesitate to make changes that needed to be made in a new era. She surrendered the monarch's traditional tax exemption and authorized many changes in the way the palace and royal staff were run. According to Lacey, "'Fine, Let's go,' ran one account of her reaction. 'Stop mucking around'" (329). However, she remained stubbornly opinionated on the way she conducted herself in public. Lacey writes that, " her regal instincts revived when an over-officious producer tried to hurry the family out onto the balcolny to fit inside the BBC's scheduled time slot. Elizabeth II declined to be hurried, and the seconds ticked down to the deadline" (342). Clearly, Elizabeth still possessed the stubborness for which she is famous.
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2 comments:
This seems like a really cool book. It shows you the sides of the queen that define her. It makes you see how she's great queen and in a way shows what it takes. I really like her ideas on letting her children make their own mistakes. I think that's very true and punishment wasn't needed because nasty press comments would be worse. It would keeps kids in-lin without the whole strict parents thing. It all shows how the queen kept her head up even through the Charles, Dianna situation.Great post!
I agree that it is a good decision for Queen Elizabeth II to let kids make mistakes and be punished by the press for them. There have been so many people who have turned out to be total idiots because they were never allowed to suffer the consequences of there actions and solve their own problems. It is always nice to have people who can think for themselves
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