Robert Hardman > Quotes

“She sleeps well, she’s got very good legs and she can stand for a long time. The Queen is as strong as a yak.”
― Robert Hardman, Her Majesty: The Court of Queen Elizabeth II

“leaders who have seen so much, whose lives span such momentous epochs, that they find no need to posture or traffic in what’s popular in the moment; people who speak with depth and knowledge, not in sound bites. They find no interest in polls or fads.”
― Robert Hardman, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II

“Prince Philip can be equally forthright when it comes to long sermons. As he once remarked: ‘The mind cannot absorb what the backside cannot endure.”
― Robert Hardman, Her Majesty: The Court of Queen Elizabeth II

“He's a very charming person - very warm and very friendly...I admire the way he interacts with people. That, to me, speaks to the measure of our King.”
― Robert Hardman, Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story.

“small steps’ philosophy and her conviction that cumulative deeds achieve more than the grand gesture.”
― Robert Hardman, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II

“And, short of a revolution, the greatest threat to the throne has always been indifference. By”
― Robert Hardman, Her Majesty: The Court of Queen Elizabeth II

“Alan Titchmarsh. ‘If you leave behind your bit of earth better than it was before, then you’ve paid your rent.”
― Robert Hardman, The Making of a King: King Charles III and the Modern Monarchy

“be”
― Robert Hardman, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II

“I like her because she takes her job seriously. But it seems to me that she doesn’t take herself too seriously.”
― Robert Hardman, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II

“people of Wales gave Princess Elizabeth a child-sized, two-storey thatched cottage for her sixth birthday. Called ‘Y Bwthyn Bach’, this was no mere Wendy house, but a work of art as remarkable as Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House.IV With electricity and plumbing, it included a working wireless, the complete works of Beatrix Potter in miniature, an oil painting of the Duchess, personalized bed linen, a ship with Elizabeth’s crest on the vellum sail and a Lilliputian deed of gift from the Lord Mayor of Cardiff to ‘HRH Princess Elizabeth of York, hereinafter called the donee…’31”
― Robert Hardman, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II

“try and keep an open, unbigoted, inquiring mind. Admit your mistakes and be reasonably modest about your success.”
― Robert Hardman, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II

“From the First World War to his death eighteen years later, George V spent just eight weeks abroad. George VI travelled widely as Duke of York but for much of his reign his capacity for travel was curtailed by war and ill health. The Queen, who had never left the country until shortly before her twenty-first birthday, has visited 135 separate nations, some of them several times. And yet she had to wait until she was eighty-five to visit the nearest of the lot – the Republic of Ireland – in May 2011.”
― Robert Hardman, Her Majesty: The Court of Queen Elizabeth II

“Upstairs, on the balcony, the chairs are laid out for one of the most extraordinary – though invisible – rituals of a Palace banquet. In a tradition harking back to the medieval custom of royal meals as public entertainment, two dozen people will have tickets to sit behind the Band of the Grenadier Guards and simply watch the banquet. The ‘audience’ will be made up of members of staff, each of whom can bring a guest, and it’s always extremely popular as the ‘audience’ have dinner thrown in. However, once seated no one is allowed to budge for the best part of two hours.”
― Robert Hardman, Her Majesty: The Court of Queen Elizabeth II