Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story – the royal biographer Robert Hardman’s centenary portrait of the late Queen – was launched at The Phoenicia Malta on Tuesday.
The event was held in coordination with the British High Commission and the US Embassy and took place just weeks after the book’s UK publication by Macmillan in April.
Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story draws on Hardman’s unprecedented access to her family, staff and advisers, and includes an interview with the last state visitor of her record-breaking reign, US President Donald Trump.
Hardman has penned several acclaimed works on the British royal family, including his 2024 Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Charles III. The Inside Story and Queen of Our Times, which was the Sunday Times ‘Biography of the Year’ in 2022.
The choice of venue for the Malta launch of his latest book was especially poignant, given the late queen’s history with – and affection for – The Phoenicia Malta.
“Malta plays such an important part in the story of Elizabeth II,” Hardman says. “She adored her time here as the young wife of a Royal Navy officer – regarding it as her ‘happy place’ – and both she and the Duke of Edinburgh loved the country in later life, too.
“One of the landmarks of her carefree younger days in Malta was the famous Phoenicia Hotel. So, where better to talk about the life of the most famous woman in the world?”
The hotel had been open for just two years when the then-Princess Elizabeth came to live on the island in 1949 as a young Royal Navy wife. The Grand Ballroom had already become the smartest room in town, where she often danced. By her own later accounts, those Malta years gave her a freedom she would rarely know again.
She returned to The Phoenicia Malta in November 2005 as sovereign and head of the Commonwealth, this time to host a state reception in that same ballroom.
“Few hotels carry a connection to Queen Elizabeth II quite like ours,” Robyn Pratt, general manager of The Phoenicia Malta, said.
“When she passed away, many locals visited just to ‘sit with the queen’, as here is where people in Malta feel closest to her. To host the Malta launch of her centenary biography in the very hotel where so much of her own story unfolded has been a privilege we will not forget.”
