Elizabeth & Philip : A Story of Young Love, Marriage, and Monarchy

This deeply moving story explores the attractions—and the tensions—that defined the mostextraordinary royal marriage of the past seventy-five years. She was peaches-and-cream innocence; he was a handsome war hero. Both had royal blood coursing through their veins. The marriage ofBritain's Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in November 1947 is remembered as the beginning of an extraordinary lifelong union, but their success was not guaranteed. Elizabeth and Philip: A Story of Young Love, Marriage, and Monarchy plunges the reader back into 1940sBritain, where a teenage princess fell in love with a foreign prince. There were fears of a flirtatious "Greek" fortune hunter stealing off with England'scrown jewels—and then subsequent efforts by the Establishment to reframe Philip as the perfect fit for Britain's most famous family. Drawing on original archives as well as interviews with Elizabeth and Philip's contemporaries who are still alive today, historian Dr. TessaDunlop discovers a post-war world on the cusp of major change. Unprecedented opinion on Philip's suitability was a harbinger of pressures to comefor a couple whose marriage was branded the ultimate global fairytale. Theirs was a partnership like no other. Six years after Elizabeth promised tobe an obedient wife, Philip got down on bended knee and committed himself as the queen's "liege man of life and limb." This deeply touching history explores the ups and downs, as well as the attractions and the tensions, that defined an extraordinaryrelationship. The high stakes involved might have devoured a less committed pair—but not Elizabeth and Philip. They shared a common purpose, one higher even than marriage, with roots much deeper than young love. Happy and glorious, for better or for worse, they were heavily invested ina God-given mission. Monarchy was the magic word.