QEII

As school is winding down, so are the days that my honors thesis is due. Thank goodness I will be out of town for the original due date so my professor extended the time that I could turn it in!!! Now I have an extra weekend to finalize everything. To give you a brief summary of it, I am writing about how the media has portrayed and affected the behaviors of Queen Elizabeth II. It really is amazing to see what had been published about her and to see her reactions. Mostly, I am honing in on the change in her emotions pre and post Diana's death. This was the time that most greatly changed the way the Queen's attitudes and emotions were displayed to the public.


If you are interested in learning more about QEII, I have 2 excellent recommendations. First you should read the book Monarch by Robert Lacey. It is a quick read and would be a great book to throw in the beach tote this summer.

Here is the review from Publishers Weekly:
As a child, Princess Elizabeth longed "to live in the country with lots of horses and dogs." That dream came to a crashing end when her uncle, King Edward VII, followed his heart instead of his head, giving up the throne for an American divorcee. The princess's fate was sealed: not only was she destined to become Queen of England, but as Lacey shows in this skillfully constructed biography, nearly every upheaval of her otherwise quiet and dutiful 50-year reign would be the direct consequence of impetuous relatives putting personal needs above royal responsibility. It's all here: the romantic debacles of Di, Fergie, Margaret, Ann, Charles and Andrew, as well as Prince Philip's unfailing ability to insert his foot in his mouth ("How nice to be in a country that is not ruled by its people," he said to Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner in 1969). Through it all, there have been two constants: the Queen is pragmatic and restrained, and the media is all over every mucky story. Lacey, veteran royal historian and biographer (The Queen Mother's Century, etc.), writes with the cooperation of the Palace, and his portrait is sympathetic, but he also offers an incisive analysis of the development of royal media coverage (which started with Queen Victoria and the invention of the camera) and the relationship between the two powerful entities, setting this apart from and far above the average by-the-numbers royal bio.


Next, you should watch the movie The Queen. As soon as I saw this movie in theater, I knew that I would have to buy it when it came out. It focuses in on the Queen and the rest of the family during Diana's death. I thought it was historically accurate is most senses and they also incorporated actually new footage from the event. Even if you are not interested in QEII, you will love to watch Helen Mirren who does an outstanding job with the role!