When Queen Salote of Tonga attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London in 1953, she was greeted as the tallest queen of the smallest kingdom and gained universal admiration by her natural dignity and the warmth of her personality. This event reinforced Queen Salote’s reputation as a universally beloved monarch.Vulnerable at the beginning of her reign, Queen Salote succeeded to her titles under threat of annexation and with the enmity of a powerful clique of chiefs who perpetuated dynastic quarrels and resisted centralized government. Queen Salote soon won the confidence and loyalty of significant people, not least the representatives of the British government in the Western Pacific, and profoundly influenced the opinion and behaviour of her subjects by personal example. This account of Queen Salote’s life and times is more than a biography, for it also describes the politics and social structure of a small kingdom that was a world in microcosm.

Queen Salote of Tonga: The Story of an Era 1900-1965 PDF

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