Game of Crowns 1 "THE QUEEN IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE KING!" We think we know what will happen--as earth-shaking events go, this is one of history''s most well rehearsed. But when the inevitable scenario is finally played out, it will still have the power to mesmerize, and even to shock. BUCKINGHAM PALACE These are the familiar sounds of life here--hurried footfalls on plush red carpeting, whispered conversations magnified as they echo through high-ceilinged hallways adorned with the world''s masterworks. It is not unusual for chamberlains and chambermaids, ushers and footmen and ministers of state alike to scurry when summoned to attend to their sovereign. Not Paul Whybrew--the man Her Majesty simply calls "Big Paul." In all his many years as Page of the Backstairs and Sergeant-at-Arms to the Queen, the preternaturally calm Whybrew--at six feet four inches he towers over his five-foot-three-inch boss--has never appeared rushed or flustered, even in times of crisis. No one appreciates Big Paul''s typically British stiff-upper-lip attitude more than Elizabeth II, who has made Whybrew one of her closest friends and confidants.

So comfortable is their personal relationship that Whybrew and the Queen often spend cozy evenings watching television together in Her Majesty''s sitting room. It isn''t difficult to see why the Queen might gravitate to someone like Big Paul. With his high forehead, close-set eyes, thinning hair, aquiline nose, and haughty aristocratic bearing, Whybrew could be Prince Philip''s younger brother. In the famous 2012 London Summer Olympics video, it is Big Paul who introduces James Bond actor Daniel Craig to the Queen before they are depicted parachuting into the opening ceremonies together. As he approaches the Queen''s bedroom on this particular morning, the only other person who can claim to be equally close to Her Majesty stands in the doorway, ashen-faced and trembling. Starting more than a quarter-century ago as Her Majesty''s personal dresser, Angela Kelly worked her way up to the vaunted station of "Personal Assistant, Advisor, and Curator to the Queen." In the process, the thrice-divorced Kelly, whose decidedly lowbrow Liverpool accent betrays her upbringing as a dock worker''s daughter, has so endeared herself to the monarch that she is consulted about everything from affairs of state to baby clothes. (Among other assignments, Kelly supervised the team of British and Italian seamstresses who made the baptismal gowns for the Queen''s great-grandchildren Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

) During long weekends at Windsor, where Whybrew and Kelly have been given "grace-and-favor" apartments of their own on castle grounds, the Queen invariably indulges her passion for backstairs gossip over tea with the woman she simply calls "Angela." Kelly, eyes welling with tears, shakes her head as Big Paul approaches. He takes his first tentative steps into the room. Fittingly, the plaintive wail of a bagpipe wafts up from the courtyard below. Each morning at nine the Queen''s Piper, David Rodgers of the Irish Guards, stands outside the palace in full Royal Stewart tartan regalia and plays from a list of the monarch''s favorite tunes. Wearing the two feathers in his cap that distinguish him from all other pipers in the realm, Rodgers is the fourteenth soldier (and first Irishman) to hold the post since Queen Victoria decreed that every monarch should start each day to the sound of Scottish bagpipes. Wherever she is in residence--be it at Windsor, Sandringham, Balmoral, or Buckingham Palace--this is how the Queen begins each day. But not this day.

The heavy red velvet curtains that surround the royal bed have been drawn back to reveal a small, still figure. The Queen''s personal physician rushes into the room, and within moments the shadowy figure of Sir Christopher Geidt materializes in the doorway. Burly, bald, suave, shrewd, and more than a little mysterious, Her Majesty''s private secretary usually conceals his emotions behind a fixed, deceptively benign smile. Sir Christopher never tips his hand--a skill honed during years spent with British intelligence before being tapped to serve as an aide to the Queen. At this moment, however, Geidt''s defenses are down. Like those around him, he is wide-eyed with shock and--despite the fact that this event had been anticipated and planned for decades--utter disbelief. The first call he must make is to Clive Alderton, his counterpart at Clarence House, official residence of the Prince of Wales. Blond, boyish-faced Alderton, private secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, cannot conceal the emotion in his voice when he is told the news.

Alderton must now maintain his composure as he prepares to make the single most important phone call of his life. "What is it, Charles?" Camilla pulls back the draperies that encircle her husband''s massive, ornately carved Georgian canopy bed. Like her mother-in-law, the Duchess of Cornwall has always preferred to sleep in a velvet and damask cocoon, closed off from the outside world. Unlike the Queen, who hadn''t shared a bedroom with her late husband, Prince Philip, for more than a half-century--in part because of Philip''s habit of sleeping with the windows wide open no matter the weather--Camilla and Charles make it uncomfortably clear to members of their inner circle that they still enjoy an active, even adventurous, sex life. "It''s Mummy ." He does not have to go on. Camilla recognizes the look immediately. She has seen the dazed expression cross Charles''s face only three times in all the years she has known him.

The first time was in 1979, when the small fishing boat belonging to Charles''s great uncle and surrogate father, Louis Mountbatten, was blown up by IRA assassins, killing Mountbatten and three others. Camilla saw that expression of boundless grief again when, in 2002, the Queen Mother died in her sleep at age 101. Charles had been on a ski holiday with William and Harry at Klosters in Switzerland when it happened, but when he flew back to London Camilla would recall that "the look of great sadness was still there." And then there was August 31, 1997--the day Princess Diana was killed in a Paris car crash. Charles was vacationing with the rest of the Royal Family at Balmoral Castle at the time, and Camilla was the first person he called with the terrible news. She could hear the anguish in the Prince''s voice as he, along with everyone else on the planet, tried to process what had happened. Yet this moment--as fraught with historical importance as it is with deep shock, confusion, and grief--transcends all the others. It is the moment Charles has been both dreading and eagerly anticipating all his life--the moment when he loses the most important person in his life and, at the same time, at long last steps out of the shadows and into the part he was born to play.

At Anmer Hall in Norfolk, the Duchess of Cambridge is walking the family''s black English cocker spaniel Lupo when the housekeeper, Sadie Rice, strides briskly toward her with a cellphone in her hand. "It''s Prince William," the housekeeper tells Kate, handing the phone to the Princess with one hand as she takes Lupo''s leash with the other. The Duke of Cambridge is still in the middle of his shift piloting an Airbus H145 search-and-rescue helicopter for the East Anglian Air Ambulance, and Kate knows instantly that something must be terribly wrong; William has never interrupted his work to call her before. Moments earlier, the Prince was in the skies over Bedfordshire, transporting the victim of a motorcycle accident to Addenbrooke''s Hospital when his private secretary, Miguel Head, was patched through to the cockpit. Once Head told William his beloved "Granny" had passed away in her sleep, he continued piloting his helicopter to the hospital without saying a word to his fellow crew members. Now William is flying back to his air ambulance home base at Cambridge Airport, and sharing the terrible news with Kate. There is silence on the other end--all Kate can hear is the pulse of helicopter blades as William struggles to compose himself. "It''s Granny," he manages to say.

"She''s gone." At Buckingham Palace, Geidt and the other "Men in Gray," as Diana called them--the shadowy, behind-the-scenes figures who have always actually run the monarchy--have been carefully preparing for this inevitable event for decades. Only a handful of palace officials, along with their government counterparts at Whitehall, have been given access to details of the secret succession plan code-named "London Bridge." More frequently referred to in palace corridors as simply "The Bridge," this ostensibly referred to the funeral itself--but also to the momentous yet precarious transition from one monarch to another. Once a year every year since the late 1970s, practice funeral processions for senior members of the Royal Family, such as Prince Philip, Prince Charles, and the Queen, have taken place in the streets of London under cover of darkness. Prince Philip, whose funeral plans were code-named "Forth Bridge" after the span over the Firth of Forth in Scotland, wanted only a private, military-style service at St. George''s Chapel in Windsor Castle. Had Prince Charles predeceased his mother, his funeral plan, code-named "Menai Bridge" after the bridge that connects the island of Anglesey to the Welsh mainland, would have had all the pageantry of a royal funeral.

But it.