The title is slightly misleading, in calling Queen May a matriarch, and then painstakingly being accurate in how she was first and foremost a devoted loyal monarchist - for, being a queen consort and not a Regina, not born to rule, her being a matriarch is halfway at best, and that limited to how she brought up her children and held power over her brood - which was only by setting example they all looked up to and some tried to aspire to, at best. As the author establishes over and over, she was not very maternal, mothering at best at a distance and certainly not when her brood was young, so much so her first two sons suffered as babies at hands of their then nanny and it went undetected for years, enough to perhaps leave a mark that defined them for ever, until the famous abdication by the elder and the suffering of the second in having to take over.
Matriarch is a title that best fits Queen Victoria of course, clear in her role almost at or soon enough after birth, and a Regina, but one that directed the course of European history with her matchmaking between her brood and other royal houses of Europe, and preferably between cousins so the ties of familial loyalty binded them, which did not always succeed as she wished - since familiarity and familial ties can do just the opposite, but succeeded enough that all royal houses of Europe were and are related closely. That few survived as royal is another story.
Queen May, born Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, was none of that, however close a relative of Queen Victoria and however admiring of royalty, or beloved of her people and her descendents. What she certainly was is the queen that defined the monarchy and the British royal family for future generations, The author repeats over and over how royal, how queenly she always was, far more so than those that were more royal. This is more a trait of character of course, and rarely acquired by mere will, or even due to birth and training. May was born in and brought up in an impecunious family, her father being the son of a morganatic marriage and thereby deprived of the benefits of the Teck and other estate holdings, and so at mercy of the greater royal relative Queen Victoria. If May was as royal as, or more royal in her bearing than, Victoria, this was certainly due to her own persona.
What examples she set have survived a few generations, and only Princess Diana was different in ways that were remarked about, in her keeping her children close and showing affection openly in private and public - and this perhaps is one of the few ways where emulation by example of a beloved and revered ancestor and Queen was not always the best idea. Queen May was uncomfortable with babies although she had six, never was close to them until they were adult if then, and this had a negative effect best not discussed - and it isn't, even in this book, albeit one might be given the impression there was no such taboo. One cannot help being oneself, of course, but bringing up babies is vital and leaving it to care of nannies quite so much can and often enough does have effects not possible to countermand later, and one has to reflect how much superior the joint familes of Asia and other older cultures are in this respect where grandparents and other relatives are not far away sporadic visitors but on hand to spare the young mother and babies of the stress. In this case the grandparents of May's children were Prince and Princess of Wales, later King Edward and Queen Alexandra, usually not far away but limited by European or English tradition of not being everyday presence, and thus not able to detect the hurt to the young princes their grandsons.
So there are comparisons, inevitably brought to mind, with more recent royals, and this is perhaps not an accident or unintended effect but even so much as the very purpose of the book - the repeated references to the beauty of Princess and later Queen Alexandra, her identity as the beauty, her vanity, her attachment to her children and especially to her first and second son, are just a tad too often enough to make one wonder if this is yet another attempt by royals to get the people to not quite love and revere the beloved recent Princess of Wales, Diana.
There is more - there are references often and frequent to various women the princes, and especially those who were Prince of Wales at one time or another, played with - and were loyal to, for years; which does make one wonder, is the reader being subliminally suggested to play the game as the people of England then did, accepting and loving the prince no matter what, and more - since Princess of Wales and later Queen Alexandra played her role as required, is the reader suggested to follow the example of the royal family in censuring Princess Diana for not doing so, and instead attempting to live rather than complying and following the example, to be a decorative living fossil in a palace?
Inevitably also the comparison of Edward eighth and his abdication which his mother disapproved of enough to receive him rarely thereafter, and his wife never, is unmistakable with the present circumstances with question about whether succession should pass directly to Diana's son William who inherits his mother's popularity and looks, or is the reader being again subliminally suggested to adhere to English tradition and approve, indeed love, the erring ex husband of Diana, as Edward was even when he abdicated and only visited rarely as Duke of Windsor?
Whatever the truth of that, and those are not small considerations, one does enjoy reading this, due to the times and the scope of the subject, and in that it disappoints in more than one way. - of the most interesting events and persona there is but fleeting reference on the whole, except as it affected the royal family and England. So the world wars first and second are referred to a bit more than the Russian events, latter more in that the then King of England failed to save his cousins and their children, which is blamed conveniently on Lloyd George, and as for India, the longer references are to the royal visits, while the millions starved due to harvests being taken away for soldiers is not mentioned other than as a quirk of India millions dying of famines, Jalianwala is a passing mention, Gandhi is a nuisance (author might have used another word, or not), and independence of India with the hurried and badly done partition resulting in ten million deaths due to British taking flight in a hurry is not mentioned at all.
One does get copious descriptions of clothes and jewellery worn by various persona royal or otherwise, and there are photographs not as satisfactory as found elsewhere, but then perhaps the book was commissioned for the subliminal purposes and might just do the job, of making people accepting substitutes preferred by husbands - Alice Keppel was, would be the royal diktat, and look at how everyone suffered only because Wallis wasn't, would be another subliminal suggestion.
One comparison not mentioned is inevitable though, of the present queen being a lot more like her grandmother in looks and bearing, albeit more like her mother in other respects.
