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The Queen's Knight: The Extraordinary Life of Queen Victoria's Most Trusted Confidant
Contemporary Review, Spring, 2008
The Queen's Knight: The Extraordinary Life of Queen Victoria's Most Trusted Confidant. Martyn Downer. Bantam Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 452 pages. ISBN 978-0-593-05485-7. This is the author's first biography of someone attached to Queen Victoria's Court and it inevitably is partly a biography of the Queen.
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The author has done extensive work in the Royal Archives and family records. He sheds much new light not only on the Queen and her Court but on the life of her eldest daughter, later the Empress Frederick of Germany. Yet Mr Downer never loses sight of Howard Elphinstone: his unusual family background, his military career, his bravery in the Crimean War (for which he won the VC), his work as Governor to Prince Arthur, his renewed military career, his late but happy marriage and his work for Victoria and her daughter. Occasionally the author seems a bit unsure of his politics and exaggerates the Queen's collapse after the Prince Consort's death: she never ceased doing her constitutional duties. Having said that this remains an excellent book. (J.M.)
COPYRIGHT 2008 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
