The Queen's House: A Social History of Buckingham Palace

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Overview

A biography of the world’s most famous house and the story of its vital role in the history of a nation.

In this social history of Buckingham Palace, Edna Healey mines the royal archives to take the reader into its moonlit gardens, up the grand staircase, and inside its tapestried walls. Dr. Johnson again holds forth in the library, Queen Victoria encores Mendelssohn in the music room, and in the royal chambers Fanny Burney wrestles once more ...

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The Queen's House: A Social History of Buckingham Palace

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More About This Book

Overview

A biography of the world’s most famous house and the story of its vital role in the history of a nation.

In this social history of Buckingham Palace, Edna Healey mines the royal archives to take the reader into its moonlit gardens, up the grand staircase, and inside its tapestried walls. Dr. Johnson again holds forth in the library, Queen Victoria encores Mendelssohn in the music room, and in the royal chambers Fanny Burney wrestles once more with protocol.

Written with the assistance of the royal family, this lively and colorful biography of a house reveals not only the changing façade of the palace but also the changing face of a nation’s culture, morals, fashions, and tastes.

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Editorial Reviews

Booklist
“Welcome to Chez Windsor! The book, prepared with the cooperation of the queen, Princess Margaret, and various members of the royal household, will definitely hold the interest of European history buffs.”— Brad Hooper
Times Literary Supplement
“Meticulously chronicled and sumptuously illustrated. Edna Healey is conspicuously skillful.”— Jonathan Keates
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
The mansion the Duke of Buckingham built overlooking St. James's Park was so elegant that King George II tried to buy it--he couldn't afford the asking price. But the Buckinghams fell on hard times, so, in 1761, George II's grandson, George III, bought it for 28,000. That is the real beginning of this entertainingly gossipy look at Buckingham Palace and its royal inhabitants that Healey (Lady Unknown) has researched in the Royal Archives and in interviews with many members of the present queen's household. The house was transformed by John Nash under George IV into an extravagant palace for his rich furnishings and art, but his successor, William IV, so hated the huge pile that he tried to give it away to Parliament. Healey gives a lively description of succeeding changes in monarchs, entertainments, ceremony, architecture and amenities from Victoria (who introduced water closets) to Elizabeth II (who has lived in the palace since she was 10). Healey reserves her greatest admiration for George VI and Queen Mum and their decision to remain in the palace throughout WWII, despite the heavy damage caused by Nazi air raids. In her final chapter, Healy abandons a witty pungent style for a more defensive, sycophantic tone praising Elizabeth II's thrifty ways, devotion to duty and warm, open manner. Perhaps Princess Di's partisans will resent the cozy portrayal, but others will delight in this well-written chronicle of the house of the House of Windsor. 8 pages b&w and 16 pages color photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)
Library Journal
Healey, wife of former cabinet minister Lord Healey, has written an informative and entertaining history of Buckingham Palace. The palace has been home to British monarchs since George III bought Buckingham House in 1761 for 28,000. He gave it to his young bride, Charlotte, and throughout his lifetime it was known as the Queen's House. Healey does a fine job of detailing the building's transformation into a palace, but those looking for scandal won't find it--Healey is interested in art, architecture, and history, and her stories of the royal family, while fascinating, relate strictly to her subject. Andrew Morton's Inside Buckingham Palace (Summit Bks., 1991), in contrast, deals with the people inside the palace and not the palace itself. Libraries that own Compton Mackenzie's The Queen's House (1953) will want to purchase Healey's more thorough work. Recommended for academic and public libraries.--Elizabeth Mary Mellett, Brookline P.L., MA
Kirkus Reviews
A tireless biography of the house first dubbed a gift to Queen Charlotte in 1763 and its transformations during nine generations of British monarchy. The politics of choosing an architect and designer are proportionate to appointing a successor to the British crown, according to Healey's enormously detailed account of Buckingham Palace and the goings-on within, which will satisfry the most voracious Anglophile. Two hundred years of palatial minutiae are revealed through the lens of royal choices in aesthetics. Healey writes affectionately of the sovrreigns' inspirations and idiosyncrasies, and although more is said of the royals and how they ruled than of the palace and how it stood, Healey valiantly chronicles each architectural reconstruction and takes every opportunity to link the dwellers to their home. "When King George came to the throne he inherited two immediate problems: the front of the Palace, which needed urgent attention, and the stormy passage of the Liberal government's Parliament Bill, aimed at curbing the power of the Lords." Indeed, it would seem every coronation led to an equal number of architectural and political concerns. Healey's moderate doses of imagination lend poignancy to profiles, like his depiction of King George III's patience with sculptor Joseph Nolleken's pinching "his nose while measuring with his calipers" and Queen Victoria's wish to be in spirit with her deceased, beloved Prince Albert "at breakfast under the trees at Frogmore" the morning of her Golden Jubilee. By the time the palace is bombed in WWII, Healey has made it sufficiently heroic, as proven by King George VI's and Queen Elizabeth I's determination to remain in their home, despite theinvasion it suffers. Nine air attacks on the edifice takes on heartbreaking grandeur, thanks to Healey's dramatic account of its well-being. A clever inclusion of architecture in the essence of English royal history.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781605983332
  • Publisher: Pegasus
  • Publication date: 8/1/2012
  • Pages: 464
  • Sales rank: 587,440
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.20 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Lady Edna Healey, beloved author of Wives of Fame and Lady Unknown: The Life of Angela Burdett-Coutts, died in 2010 in Sussex, England.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

List of Illustrations ix

Prologue xiii

Chapter 1 The Duke of Buckingham 1

Chapter 2 George III and Queen Charlotte 28

Chapter 3 George IV 82

Chapter 4 William IV 100

Chapter 5 Queen Victoria 116

Chapter 6 Edward VII 190

Chapter 7 King George V and Queen Mary 208

Chapter 8 King Edward VIII 264

Chapter 9 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth 281

Chapter 10 Queen Elizabeth II 338

Notes 395

Sources and Select Bibliography 415

Index 421

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