When the inhabitants of the United Kingdom and television audiences across the world celebrate Elizabeth II¡¯s Platinum Jubilee this weekend, one telling secret of her popularity is likely to be overlooked. As her most authoritative recent biographer, Robert Hardman puts it, ¡°the queen genuinely enjoys being queen.¡±
That is not the dominant narrative about the ¡°Firm.¡± Watch the Netflix drama series ¡°The Crown¡± (regarded by millions of viewers as historical fact, rather than truth mixed with surmise and exaggeration), and you see a family in which personal feelings are forever sacrificed to the claims of duty. It presents a joyless, careworn monarch forced to overcome crisis after crisis over her seven-decade reign.
If modern monarchy is such a vale of tears, why didn¡¯t the queen hand over the reins to her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, long ago?
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