Power and Glory: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty

Historian Larman (The Windsors at War) brings his trilogy on the WWII-era royal family to a close with a scrupulous and immersive double portrait of the abdicated King Edward VIII (1894–1972) in exile and his niece Elizabeth II (1927–2023) as a young princess through her 1953 coronation. Larman begins in 1945, when, “dogged by endless controversy” (for his friendships with Nazi sympathizers among other transgressions), Edward “ostentatiously” abandoned his governorship of the Bahamas for a “bored and underemployed” stayover at the Waldorf Towers in New York City. His status as royal pariah in the wake of his marriage to American divorcée Wallis Simpson was newly compounded by the discovery of the Marburg Files, which revealed the extent of his collusion with the Germans during the war. Retreating to a chateau on the French Riviera, Edward and Wallis lost their annual income from the Crown upon the death of his brother, King George VI, and were excluded from Elizabeth’s wedding to Prince Philip as well as her coronation. The romance between Elizabeth and Philip, meanwhile, sparked public support in the grim aftermath of war. Drawing from diaries and memoirs of the royals and their retinue, Larman produces an elegant study of the interplay between the personal and the political. Royal watchers will be satisfied with this fitting final installment. (Apr.)