Showing results by author "Alexander Larman" in All Categories

At the outbreak of WW2, the British monarchy was in a state of turmoil. The previous king, Edward VIII, had abdicated the throne, leaving his unprepared and terrified brother Bertie to become George VI. Meanwhile, as the now-Duke of Windsor awaited the decree that would allow him to marry his mistress Wallis Simpson, he took an increasing interest in the expansionist plans of the Führer of Germany.

In December 1936, Britain faced a constitutional crisis that was the gravest threat to the institution of the monarchy since the execution of Charles I. The ruling monarch, Edward VIII, wished to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson and crown her as his queen. His actions scandalised the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the king was rumoured to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary.

One was the mother who bore him; three were women who adored him; one was the sister he slept with; one was his abused and sodomised wife; one was his legitimate daughter; one was the fruit of his incest; another was his friend Shelley's wife, who avoided his bed and invented science fiction instead. Nine women; one poet named George Gordon, Lord Byron - mad, bad and very, very dangerous to know.

Power and Glory brings us to the dramatic conclusion of Larman's 'Windsors trilogy'. It begins with the fallout from the revelation of the Duke of Windsor's wartime treachery, and ends with the Coronation of Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953. In between, it depicts a monarchy - and a country - struggling to cope with the aftermath of World War Two, in an era where old certainties have been replaced by the rise of a new, uncertain world, and where love, tragedy and modernity battle for supremacy.