Queen of the World: Elizabeth II: Sovereign and Stateswoman
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It did not go unnoticed at the Palace that, in their engagement interview, in which Prince Harry talked of ‘the stars being aligned’, the couple spoke enthusiastically about their hopes for the Commonwealth. The Prince was planning another major Commonwealth tour when wedding plans intervened. ‘You know, with lots of young people running around the Commonwealth, that’s where we’ll spend most of our time hopefully,’ Prince Harry told the BBC on the night of his engagement. A keen ambassador for the Queen’s Young Leaders programme from its early days, the Prince played a leading role at the Commonwealth Summit in the month before his wedding. Freshly appointed to the role of Queen’s Commonwealth Youth Ambassador, he made an opening speech in which he saluted her lifelong devotion to the cause and promised to do the same. ‘My commitment will be to work with you to build better platforms for your leadership,’ he told the summit’s youth forum. ‘I am also incredibly grateful that the woman I am about to marry, Meghan, will be joining me in this work.’ His bride made that abundantly clear when she arrived at St George’s Chapel, Windsor on the morning of 19th May 2018 wearing a Givenchy veil with the national flowers of every Commonwealth nation embroidered into the silk tulle. It was an inspired decision which not only touched many members of the Commonwealth – ‘We were with her on that journey up the aisle,’ says the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Baroness Scotland, proudly – but one which delighted the Queen. For her Coronation in 1953, the Queen’s Norman Hartnell gown had been embroidered with the floral emblems of all four ‘home’ nations (the Welsh leek, Scottish thistle, English rose and Irish shamrock) plus those of the seven other nations which comprised the Commonwealth at that time. Yet here was Meghan Markle honouring no less than fifty-three nations, a beautiful hand-stitched reminder of how far the Commonwealth has come. No wonder it was a long veil.
Lady Chalker believes that the new Duke of Sussex can do things his elder brother cannot: ‘I am sure that he will be a very worthy successor to the sort of action man role that Prince Philip had in his younger days. William will have too much of the governance and Harry can step into that role.’
With his easy manner, quick wit and natural rapport with young people, the Duke of Sussex has cast himself as the cheeky, irreverent, ultra-loyal ‘spare’ to the more serious ‘heir’. Nor would royal life be quite as much of a culture shock to the Duchess as some commentators suggested. Long before she met Prince Harry, in her days as a television actress, Meghan Markle had a hands-on role in the charity sector. Her involvement went well beyond mere celebrity endorsements. It occasionally overlapped with the work of the Prince, such as her support for United Service Organizations (USO), the American forces charity which works closely with Prince Harry’s Invictus Games. In 2014, Ms Markle joined a USO tour to entertain US troops all over the world, and ended up in Afghanistan. In other words, as they say in America, she has walked the walk.
The sight of the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex emerging on the steps of St George’s Chapel, Windsor on 19th May 2018 was a joyful moment for the monarchy as it would be for any family. For the Queen, though, it also marked the start of a new chapter. In the space of a month, she had seen her eldest son endorsed as the next Head of the Commonwealth and now the next generation settled and eagerly looking to a future with the Commonwealth at the heart of their agenda. ‘Team Windsor’ had seldom seemed in better shape.
As the Queen well knows, nothing threatens the monarchy quite like complacency. Yet, on a day like this, as a large part of the human race sat glued to the latest instalment of the most enduring fairytale on Earth, who could argue that the contented matriarch quietly presiding over it all was not, after all, the Queen of the World?
* Peter Parker would go on to be chairman of, among other things, British Rail, Mitsubishi Europe, the National Theatre, British Airways and the British Tourist Authority. Knighted twice, he remained a trustee of the Commonwealth Study Conferences until his death in 2002.
† Within eight years, tragedy would have befallen both the royal joyriders. Four years after the tragic death of the Princess in Paris’s Pont de l’Alma tunnel, the Crown Prince massacred most of his family in a suicide shooting. It led to the end of the 240-year-old Nepalese monarchy soon afterwards.
‡ It was King Letsie’s second reign. He first became King when his father, Moshoeshoe II, was forced in to exile by the military in 1990. Letsie loyally abdicated when the old King returned in 1995, only to die in a car crash the following year. Lacking a big enough church for his four-hour coronation, Letsie was crowned (with leopardskin and feathered headband) in the national football stadium.
APPENDIX
COMMONWEALTH TOURS BY THE QUEEN SINCE 1952
February 1952: Kenya (Nairobi, Treetops and Sagana Lodge, Kiganjo, where the Queen learned of her accession)
November 1953: Bermuda, Jamaica
December 1953: Fiji, Tonga
December 1953–January 1954: New Zealand
February–April 1954: Australia (New South Wales (NSW), Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia)
April 1954: Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Aden, Uganda
May 1954: Malta, Gibraltar
January–February 1956: Nigeria
October 1957: Canada (Ontario)
June–August 1959: Canada (opening of St. Lawrence Seaway, including one day in Chicago, Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia)
January 1961: India*
February 1961: Pakistan*, India
March 1961: India
November 1961: Ghana*, Sierra Leone
December 1961: Gambia (departing via non-Commonwealth Senegal)
January 1963: Canada (overnight stay in Vancouver)
February–March 1963: Fiji, New Zealand, Australia (ACT, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, NSW, Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia)
October 1964: Canada (Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ottawa)
February 1966: Barbados, British Guiana (now Guyana), Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent, Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua, St. Kitts-Nevis, British Virgin Islands (Tortola, Beef Island, Virgin Gorda) and Turks and Caicos Islands (Grand Turk, South Caicos), The Bahamas (Nassau)
March 1966: Jamaica
June–July 1967: Canada (centennial celebrations and EXPO at Montreal)
November 1967: Malta
March 1970: Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia (NSW, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland)
July 1970: Canada (Northwest Territories and Manitoba)
May 1971: Canada (British Columbia)
February 1972: Singapore*, Malaysia*, Brunei*
March 1972: Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya* (Nairobi)
June–July 1973: Canada (Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Regina, Calgary)
July–August 1973: Canada (Ottawa Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, known as CHOGM)
October 1973: Fiji, Australia (ACT and Sydney for the opening of the opera house)
January 1974: Cook Islands (opening of Rarotonga International Airport), New Zealand (visit to Commonwealth Games)
February 1974: Norfolk Island, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands (San Cristobal, Honiara, Giza), Papua New Guinea, Australia (ACT – the Queen returned to the UK on 28 February for a General Election. The Duke of Edinburgh completed the tour)
February 1975: Bermuda, Barbados, Bahamas
April 1975: Jamaica (Kingston CHOGM)
May 1975: Hong Kong
July 1976: Canada (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Montreal for Olympic Games)
February 1977: Western Samoa (Apia, Tiafau), Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand
March 1977: Australia (ACT, NSW, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia), Papua New Guinea
October 1977: Canada (Ontario), Bahamas, British Virgin Islands (Tortola, V
irgin Gorda), Barbados, Antigua
July–August 1978: Canada (Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, Alberta for Commonwealth Games, Edmonton, accompanied by Prince Andrew and Prince Edward)
July 1979: Tanzania* (Arusha, Dares Salaam, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro), Malawi* (Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba Plateau), Botswana* (Gaborone), Zambia* (Lusaka CHOGM, Kitwe, Ndola)
May 1980: Australia (Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne)
September–October 1981: Australia (Melbourne CHOGM, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia)
October 1981: New Zealand, Sri Lanka (Colombo, Anuradhapura, Kandy, Victoria Dam)
April 1982: Canada (Ottawa for Patriation of the Constitution)
October 1982: Australia (NWT, Queensland for Commonwealth Games, Brisbane, ACT, NSW), Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Fiji
February 1983: Bermuda, Jamaica, Cayman Islands
March 1983: Canada (British Columbia)
November 1983: Cyprus (overnight stop), Kenya*, Bangladesh*, India* (New Delhi CHOGM)
March 1984: Cyprus (overnight stop)
September–October 1984: Canada (New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba)
October 1985: Belize, Bahamas (Nassau CHOGM), Little Inagua Island, St. Kitts-Nevis, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Grenada
November 1985: Trinidad and Tobago
February–March 1986: New Zealand
March 1986: Australia (ACT, NSW, Victoria, South Australia)
October 1986: Hong Kong
October 1987: Canada (Vancouver CHOGM, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Quebec)
April–May 1988: Australia (Western Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, NSW and ACT)
March 1989: Barbados (350th anniversary of Barbados Parliament)
October 1989: Singapore*, Malaysia* (Kuala Lumpur CHOGM)
February 1990: New Zealand (Commonwealth Games, Auckland, 150th anniversary of Treaty of Waitangi, Wellington, Christchurch)
June–July 1990: Canada (Alberta, Ontario, Quebec)
October 1991: Kenya (overnight stop), Namibia*, Zimbabwe* (Harare CHOGM)
February 1992: Australia (150th anniversary of founding of city of Sydney, ACT and Southern Australia)
May 1992: Malta*
June–July 1992: Canada (celebration of 125th anniversary of Confederation)
October 1993: Cyprus (Limassol CHOGM)
February 1994: Anguilla, Dominica, Guyana*, Belize, Cayman Islands
March 1994: Jamaica, Bahamas, Bermuda
August 1994: Canada (Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Northwest Territories)
March 1995: South Africa*
October–November 1995: New Zealand (Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Auckland CHOGM)
June–July 1997: Canada (Newfoundland, Ontario, National Capital Region)
October 1997: Pakistan*, India*
September 1998: Brunei*, Malaysia*
November 1999: Ghana*, South Africa* (Durban CHOGM), Mozambique*
March 2000: Australia (ACT, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, Northern Territory (Alice Springs), Western Australia
February 2002: Jamaica (Kingston and Montego Bay), New Zealand (Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland), Australia (South Australia and Queensland, including Coolum CHOGM)
October 2002: Canada (Nunavut, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and the National Capital Region)
December 2003: Nigeria* (Abuja CHOGM)
May 2005: Canada (Saskatchewan and Alberta)
November 2005: Malta* (Valletta CHOGM)
March 2006: Australia (Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Sydney), Singapore*
November 2007: Malta, Uganda* (Kampala CHOGM)
November 2009: Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago* (Port of Spain CHOGM)
June 2010: Canada (Ontario, Manitoba)
October 2011: Australia (Canberra, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth CHOGM)
November 2015: Malta* (Valletta CHOGM)
* Includes a state visit
Compiled from Royal Household lists and other sources.
STATE VISITS MADE BY THE QUEEN SINCE 1952
November 1953: Panama* – Colonel Jose Remon
May 1954: Libya* – King Idris
June 1955: Norway – King Haakon VII
June 1956: Sweden – King Gustaf VI Adolf
February 1957: Portugal – President Craveiro Lopes
February 1957: France – President René Coty
May 1957: Denmark – King Frederick IX
October 1957: USA – President Eisenhower
March 1958: Netherlands – Queen Juliana
February 1961: Nepal – King Mahendra
March 1961: Iran – Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
May 1961: Italy – President Gronchi
May 1961: The Vatican – Pope John XXIII
November 1961: Liberia – President Tubman
February 1965: Ethiopia – Emperor Haile Selassie
February 1965: Sudan – Dr. El Tigani
May 1965: West Germany – President Lübke
May 1966: Belgium – King Badouin and Queen Fabiola
November 1968: Brazil – President da Costa e Silva
November 1968: Chile – President Frei Montalva
May 1969: Austria – President Jonas
October 1971: Turkey – President Sunay
February 1972: Thailand – King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit
March 1972: Maldives – President Nasir
May 1972: France – President Pompidou
October 1972: Yugoslavia – President Tito
March 1974: Indonesia – President Suharto
February 1975: Mexico – President Echeverría
May 1975: Japan – Emperor Hirihito
May 1976: Finland – President Kekkonen
July 1976: USA – President Ford
November 1976: Luxembourg – Grand Duke Jean and Grand Duchess Joséphine
May 1978: West Germany – President Scheel
February 1979: Kuwait* – Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Sabah
February 1979: Bahrain* – Emir Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa
February 1979: Saudi Arabia* – King Khalid
February 1979: Qatar* – Emir Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani
February 1979: United Arab Emirates* – Emir Sheikh Zayed
February/March 1979: Oman* – Sultan Qaboos
May 1979: Denmark – Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik
April 1980: Switzerland – President Chevallaz
October 1980: Italy – President Pertini
October 1980: The Vatican – Pope John Paul II
October 1980: Tunisia – President Bourguiba
October 1980: Algeria – President Bendjedid
October 1980: Morocco – King Hassan II
May 1981: Norway – King Olav V
February 1983: Mexico* – President de la Madrid
February/March 1983: USA* – President Reagan
May 1983: Sweden – King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia
March 1984: Jordan – King Hussein and Queen Noor
March 1985: Portugal – President and Senhora Eanes
February 1986: Nepal – King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya
October 1986: China – President Li Xiannian
July 1988: Holland* – Queen Beatrix
October 1988: Spain – King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia
June 1990: Iceland – President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir
November 1990: Germany* – President von Weizsäcker
May 1991: USA – President George H. Bush
June 1992: France – President Mitterrand
October 1992: Germany – President von Weizsäcker
May 1993: Hungary – President Göncz
May 1994: France* – President Mitterrand
June 1994: France* – President Mitterrand
October 1994: Russia – President Yeltsin
March 1996: Poland – President Walesa
March 1996:
Czech Republic – President Havel
October 1996: Thailand – King Bhumibol
April 1999: South Korea – President Kim Dae-jung
October 2000: Italy – President Ciampi
October 2000: The Vatican* – Pope John Paul II
May 2001: Norway – King Harald V and Queen Sonja
April 2004: France – President Jacques Chirac
November 2004: Germany – President Horst Köhler
October 2006: Lithuania – President Adamkus
October 2006: Latvia – President Vike-Freiberga
October 2006: Estonia – President Ilves