Now I would go to London's Pudding Lane on 2 September 1666 and put out that little fire. I'd love to investigate the histories of a few of the buildings that burned for Restoration Home.

Between 1945 and 1965, the number of colonial people ruled by the British monarch plunged from 700 million to five million. In 1956, just three years after the coronation, the Suez canal crisis and Anthony Eden's humiliation ended all notions that Britain was a world superpower.

When Elizabeth II was crowned - the sixth female monarch since the Norman conquest - the world lit up in her favour.

Kate Williams Quotes