Queen Elizabeth II is in direct descent from Egbert, King of Wessex and all England, who ascended the throne in 827. The blood of all the royal families of Europe flows in her veins. Among her ancestors are some of the great names of history: Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Alfred the Great, Rodrigo the Cid, the Emperor Barbarossa, and St. Louis, King of France. This notable lineage is unknown to millions who adore the Queen. The visible expressions of adoration and loyalty to the royal family can be profoundly moving, but there is nothing to suggest that the crowd's memory stretches back much further than George V, the present Queen's grandfather. Is "profoundly moving" too strong? I doubt it. London was a gray and somber city in November 1947 when Princess Elizabeth married the Duke of Edinburgh. A long war with Germany and two years of austerity had left their mark. The crowds, the buildings were shabby and tired. Yet the Crown evoked in these circumstances a sincere and unselfish affection such as few politicians can arouse. What did it? The pageantry of the Household Cavalry, restored to their pre-war glory of cuirass, helmet, and plume, scarlet and blue and white? The state coach with the smiling, excited, pretty girl inside? The bands and the stirring familiar tunes? There is no single convincing answer. Yet the affection was there: the sense of a living and expanding connection between the people and the throne. But some aspects of the connection can be embarrassing, to Britons as well as to Americans. The doings of the royal family are recounted by popular British newspapers and periodicals in nauseating prose. Special articles on the education of Prince Charles or on Princess Margaret's religious views (which are deep, sincere, and, to any decent person's mind, her own business) are written in a mixture of archness, flowery adulation, and sugary winsomeness. The newspapers are full of straight reporting (the Queen, asked if she would have a cup of tea, said: "Yes, thank you, it is rather cold") but this does not suffice to meet the demand for "news" about the royal family. Periodically the Sunday newspapers publish reminiscences of life in the royal household. Former governesses, valets, and even the man who did the shopping for the Palace write their "inside stories." These are as uninformative as the special campaign biographies that appear every four years in the United States, but the public loves them. I have been told that a "royal" feature in a popular magazine adds 25,000 or 30,000 in circulation for that issue. The _Sunday Express_ is said to have picked up 300,000 circulation on the Duchess of Windsor's memoirs. Like sex and crime, the royal family is always news--and the news is not invariably favorable.