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Queen Alexandra: Loyalty and Love
By kind permission of Her Majesty The Queen, this book has been based on extensive research over many years in the Royal Archives and elsewhere. The author was the first official Curator of the Royal Photograph Collection.
Queen Alexandra was a private person who destroyed or left instructions to destroy, much of her archive, but nevertheless enough remains in the form of original documents, such as engagement diaries and letters and informal information, to chart her life more completely than ever before and to attempt to rectify the negative or dismissive attitude towards her which has gained credence in some previous works. This method, rather than drawing mainly from over-salted and peppered memoirs written much later, aims to show her character, enables readers to get to know her and to appreciate what an enormous amount a senior member of the royal family has to accomplish, while still remaining the loving daughter, sister, wife and mother, and keen supporter of the arts, welfare and education, that Alexandra was.
During her life she met many famous, notable and intriguing people, while her own journey - from the young, modest Danish Princess who married the Prince of Wales in 1863, to the popular Queen Consort of King Edward VII, and the beloved Queen Mother - saw her personal development and courageous struggle against disability, especially deafness. She was a generous, thoughtful and caring woman, who maintained her sense of humour and interest in all kinds of things and under sometimes challenging circumstances. She could be a lively correspondent and her letters will help readers to understand her far better than has hitherto been possible. This book is long and detailed and readers may like to dip in and out of it, finding stories in all parts, rather than reading it straight through, but it might claim a place among the variety of entertainments which are comforting us in these difficult times.
Queen Alexandra was a private person who destroyed or left instructions to destroy, much of her archive, but nevertheless enough remains in the form of original documents, such as engagement diaries and letters and informal information, to chart her life more completely than ever before and to attempt to rectify the negative or dismissive attitude towards her which has gained credence in some previous works. This method, rather than drawing mainly from over-salted and peppered memoirs written much later, aims to show her character, enables readers to get to know her and to appreciate what an enormous amount a senior member of the royal family has to accomplish, while still remaining the loving daughter, sister, wife and mother, and keen supporter of the arts, welfare and education, that Alexandra was.
During her life she met many famous, notable and intriguing people, while her own journey - from the young, modest Danish Princess who married the Prince of Wales in 1863, to the popular Queen Consort of King Edward VII, and the beloved Queen Mother - saw her personal development and courageous struggle against disability, especially deafness. She was a generous, thoughtful and caring woman, who maintained her sense of humour and interest in all kinds of things and under sometimes challenging circumstances. She could be a lively correspondent and her letters will help readers to understand her far better than has hitherto been possible. This book is long and detailed and readers may like to dip in and out of it, finding stories in all parts, rather than reading it straight through, but it might claim a place among the variety of entertainments which are comforting us in these difficult times.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
756 pages, Hardcover
Published February 28, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
did-not-finish
October 5, 2022The first biography of a royal I've ever bailed on. Gave up a third of the way in. This was obviously a labor of love for the author, to whom the late Queen Elizabeth granted access to Alexandra's private correspondence. Dimond does a—to put it mildly—thorough job of recreating her daily and weekly goings-on; to put it less mildly, this is a massive diary-dump.
The truth is, I am so obsessed with the royals that I was quite enjoying that level of detail. It was taking forever to read, however; as is my wont, I spent a lot of time googling each and every unknown reference in each and every sentence. Plodding, yet engaging.
What ultimately led me to bail was that Frances Dimond couldn't see the forest for the trees. I read up until partway into the chapter covering the mid-to-late 1870s and there had been only three passing references to her partial deafness and only one - one! - to her hubby's extramarital pursuits, the briefest of references that pooh-poohed the extent of all those rumors. I had learned oodles more about how her life was shaped by these issues in biographies of her mama-in-law and errant hubby. Two of the biggest issues in Alexandra's personal life being given such short shrift, I decided to jump ship.
My plan now is to seek out an authoritative biography of Queen Alexandra (recommendations welcome) and then possibly come back to this one at some point and continue google-reading my way through the not-uninteresting minutiae.
The truth is, I am so obsessed with the royals that I was quite enjoying that level of detail. It was taking forever to read, however; as is my wont, I spent a lot of time googling each and every unknown reference in each and every sentence. Plodding, yet engaging.
What ultimately led me to bail was that Frances Dimond couldn't see the forest for the trees. I read up until partway into the chapter covering the mid-to-late 1870s and there had been only three passing references to her partial deafness and only one - one! - to her hubby's extramarital pursuits, the briefest of references that pooh-poohed the extent of all those rumors. I had learned oodles more about how her life was shaped by these issues in biographies of her mama-in-law and errant hubby. Two of the biggest issues in Alexandra's personal life being given such short shrift, I decided to jump ship.
My plan now is to seek out an authoritative biography of Queen Alexandra (recommendations welcome) and then possibly come back to this one at some point and continue google-reading my way through the not-uninteresting minutiae.
April 18, 2022
This book is a testament to research. It really is extraordinarily well-researched and detailed. Unfortunately, at times, it feels more like a wonderful book for research and less like one to read necessarily for pleasure.
Even the most zealous and well-informed royal expert might struggle with some of its early chapters in particular, in which dozens upon dozens of Alexandra’s relatives are introduced within sentences of one another. They are then referred to, with almost no internal sign-posting, by either their official titles, first names, or family nicknames. No man is an island and context adds flavour; it’s especially interesting to see how many people were involved in arranging royal marriages and meetings. However, with the dozens introduced at once coupled with inconsistent naming, the chapter surrounding Alexandra’s engagement was particularly difficult, to the point that it bordered on the impenetrable. Then, courtiers are added in, again frequently with almost no explanatory in-text information about who they are. Without an extremely detailed prior knowledge of 19th century central and Northern European royalty, this book could be a tough read.
There’s also quite a lot of special pleading for Edward VII. Dimond successfully and persuasively argues that the King was a more sympathetic figure than usually assumed, but the rehabilitation is nonetheless sometimes taken too far. For instance, the book argues that the young prince didn’t tell his father he had lost his virginity to an Irish actress because he was so chivalrous that he didn’t want to besmirch a lady’s name by discussing their tryst. He discussed it, at length, with fellow officers in the army, however. Surely, the more likely explanation is that he felt no urge to tell his father about his sex life, especially since Prince Albert was obsessively controlling of his eldest son and had very firm moral standards on sex outside of marriage? Even without that, how many people are in a rush to impart that news to a parent? Edward VII benefits from Dimond’s sympathetic re-evaluation, but he may not always have been so thoroughly on the “side of the angels”.
If the book is, at times, a little heavy going, there is no denying the depth of its devotion to reconstructing Queen Alexandra’s life. It is a monument to thoroughness and precision. Dimond’s archival expertise is astonishing and she deals particularly well with the lack of Alexandra’s private papers, many of which were destroyed by the privacy-prioritising queen before her death. As a thorough and precise biography of Queen Alexandra, it is hard to imagine how it could be bettered.
Even the most zealous and well-informed royal expert might struggle with some of its early chapters in particular, in which dozens upon dozens of Alexandra’s relatives are introduced within sentences of one another. They are then referred to, with almost no internal sign-posting, by either their official titles, first names, or family nicknames. No man is an island and context adds flavour; it’s especially interesting to see how many people were involved in arranging royal marriages and meetings. However, with the dozens introduced at once coupled with inconsistent naming, the chapter surrounding Alexandra’s engagement was particularly difficult, to the point that it bordered on the impenetrable. Then, courtiers are added in, again frequently with almost no explanatory in-text information about who they are. Without an extremely detailed prior knowledge of 19th century central and Northern European royalty, this book could be a tough read.
There’s also quite a lot of special pleading for Edward VII. Dimond successfully and persuasively argues that the King was a more sympathetic figure than usually assumed, but the rehabilitation is nonetheless sometimes taken too far. For instance, the book argues that the young prince didn’t tell his father he had lost his virginity to an Irish actress because he was so chivalrous that he didn’t want to besmirch a lady’s name by discussing their tryst. He discussed it, at length, with fellow officers in the army, however. Surely, the more likely explanation is that he felt no urge to tell his father about his sex life, especially since Prince Albert was obsessively controlling of his eldest son and had very firm moral standards on sex outside of marriage? Even without that, how many people are in a rush to impart that news to a parent? Edward VII benefits from Dimond’s sympathetic re-evaluation, but he may not always have been so thoroughly on the “side of the angels”.
If the book is, at times, a little heavy going, there is no denying the depth of its devotion to reconstructing Queen Alexandra’s life. It is a monument to thoroughness and precision. Dimond’s archival expertise is astonishing and she deals particularly well with the lack of Alexandra’s private papers, many of which were destroyed by the privacy-prioritising queen before her death. As a thorough and precise biography of Queen Alexandra, it is hard to imagine how it could be bettered.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 19, 2025
This book was a lot to digest. It was, without a doubt, a labor of love on the part of its author. Frances Dimond has unearthed every possible detail, leaving no stone unturned and no fact omitted. The author herself pronounces the book "overwhelmingly chronological" in one of the author's note sections. And this is where the main drawback of the book lies.
Every moment of Alexandra's life is documented. Every. Moment. In fact, it makes for tedious reading. At times I struggled to get through it. Another drawback is the lack of photographs. There are only a few. This comes as a surprise as the author had previously published a book about photographs taken by Queen Alexandra.
But still there are gold nuggets of information to be unearthed in this mammoth tome. There were things I had been previously unaware of that I was glad to learn of.
Recommended for the most hardcore of Queen Alexandra fans. While this book may be the most complete picture we have of the late Queen, it is not the most readable.
Every moment of Alexandra's life is documented. Every. Moment. In fact, it makes for tedious reading. At times I struggled to get through it. Another drawback is the lack of photographs. There are only a few. This comes as a surprise as the author had previously published a book about photographs taken by Queen Alexandra.
But still there are gold nuggets of information to be unearthed in this mammoth tome. There were things I had been previously unaware of that I was glad to learn of.
Recommended for the most hardcore of Queen Alexandra fans. While this book may be the most complete picture we have of the late Queen, it is not the most readable.
October 19, 2023
The author warned in the introduction that the reader may want to partake of this book in pieces. I see why. While I learned a great deal about Queen Alexandra in this book - not least of which was just how busy she was in engagements and obligations her whole life -the format read like the Court Circular. Every detail of every day of her official life is written into the text.
I suspect that since Alexandra’s children destroyed all her diaries and letter upon her death, much of what Ms Diamond had to go on was the Court Circular. She interwove letters to and from other people when she found them and the overall effect was a very good book. But a bit more detailed than was really necessary.
I suspect that since Alexandra’s children destroyed all her diaries and letter upon her death, much of what Ms Diamond had to go on was the Court Circular. She interwove letters to and from other people when she found them and the overall effect was a very good book. But a bit more detailed than was really necessary.
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