Royalty Inc

Stephen Bates

It is an amazing feat in the 21st century that Queen Elizabeth II, a small, elderly woman in her mid-eighties, should be one of the most recognisable people on the planet, and the head of arguably the world's most prestigious and enduring brand'. Her voice is redolent of another era, her interests are esoteric to many of her people, her opinions on anything from the weather to politics are almost entirely unknown, and her whole life has been lived without ever mingling on equal terms with anybody, except for one heady evening in 1945 when she slipped out of Buckingham Palace incognito to join the crowds celebrating the end of the war in Europe. The world has utterly, irreversibly, and radically evolved since she ascended the throne in 1952 and yet, in an era of instant celebrity, she remains, more popular than ever and seemingly largely unchanged: a bastion of certainty and comfort to...