Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch

by Sally Bedell Smith

  That morning the Queen had given them the titles of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. But even more significantly, they overrode protocol by announcing that they could be known by their own names as well. “It is absolutely natural that the public might want to call them Prince William and Princess Catherine,” said Paddy Harverson, press secretary to Prince Charles (technically, “princess” is used only for someone born a princess), “and no one is going to have any argument with that.”

  At the heart of the celebration was the infectious joy of a young man and woman who both loved and understood each other. They showed a sense of restraint and respect for the monarchy’s one-thousand-year-old traditions, along with what Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, called a “deeply unpretentious” style. Standing at the altar in the dashing scarlet and gold-braided uniform of the Irish Guards, his regiment as an honorary colonel, William turned to Catherine when she reached his side. “You are beautiful,” he said, taking in her simple yet exquisitely detailed dress with bodice and sleeves of handmade lace, her gossamer veil, and the delicate diamond “Halo” tiara lent to her by the Queen. As they left the Abbey in the horse-drawn 1902 State Landau, Catherine said, “Well, are you happy?” “Yes,” replied William. “It was amazing. I’m so proud you’re my wife.”

  The Queen also pronounced the service “amazing.” A vibrant figure in a buttercup yellow coat and matching hat, she had watched approvingly while keeping her emotions in check, seated in the front row below the high altar with Prince Philip in their wooden and gilded chairs with crimson silk cushions. The bride and groom radiated strength and stability under the scrutiny of forty television cameras transmitting their every expression and word to an estimated two to three billion viewers in 180 countries around the world. They were also being followed by 400 million people on the Internet, with 237 tweets per second.

  The wedding service was unabashedly British and Anglican, and it dramatically displayed the royal family’s role as a repository of unself-conscious patriotic pride, providing a chance “for the nation to come together without partisan disagreement, without excuse for political discord,” wrote The Times. At a time of economic distress and low morale, “there was sunshine and laughter and happiness that everyone could join in.”

  The year 2002 had been a turning point for the Queen, but 2011 was a turning point for the monarchy—the arrival of what David Cameron called “the team of the future” for an institution “that’s helped bind the country together” and “has produced incredible people.” Nobody made a direct reference to Diana in the Abbey, but her presence was inescapable, not only through the inclusion of a hymn from her funeral in the same setting, but the memory of William’s stoical sadness that day. Fourteen years later, he had found happiness as well as redemption, closing the book on a painful past.

  The Queen was beaming during the six-minute appearance on the Buckingham Palace balcony when the newlyweds kissed not once but twice for the jubilant multitude around the Victoria Memorial. Elizabeth II modestly kept to one side, but when it was time to go, she took charge and led the Windsors and the Middletons back inside. As in the Abbey, the atmosphere was surprisingly intimate in the vast state rooms, where the springtime floral decorations included cow parsley and daffodils from Scotland. “The venue was palatial,” said the author Simon Sebag Montefiore, “but really it felt as cozy, informal and effervescent as a traditional British family wedding.”

  Few would have noticed that the Queen was recovering from a cold that had been bothering her earlier in the week. One who knew was John Key, prime minister of New Zealand. During a visit with her at Windsor Castle two days earlier, he had given her a jar of his country’s manuka honey, which is known for its infection-fighting properties—a thoughtful gesture that she mentioned to a number of guests at the reception. In New Zealand the popularity of William and Catherine had sparked an impressive surge of support for the monarchy. More than half of the country’s adults watched the royal wedding, and a new poll indicated that only 33 percent expected New Zealand to vote out the monarchy, compared to 58 percent in 2005.

  The Queen made no public remarks at the reception, but both future kings spoke from a dais in the Picture Gallery. Charles said he was “thrilled to have a daughter” who was his son’s “soulmate,” teased the groom about his hereditary bald spot, and said he hoped William would care for him in his old age, although he worried his eldest son might “push his wheelchair off a cliff.” William introduced “Mrs. Wales” as “a wonderful girl” with whom he was “in love.” He thanked his grandparents not only for “allowing us to invade your house,” but the Queen in particular “for putting up with numerous telephone calls and silly questions” in the weeks before the wedding.

  At 3:30 on the dot, after all the guests had assembled in the garden, Catherine, still in her bridal gown, and William, now in a dark blue Irish Guards frock coat, climbed into Charles’s 1970 Aston Martin convertible, decorated with shiny balloons, ribbons, and a license plate saying “JUST WED.” They drove through the Palace gates onto the Mall for the short ride to Clarence House, as one of William’s Sea King helicopters hovered above, trailing a Union flag. The crowds exuberantly cheered as they passed. “William and Catherine were coming down to earth,” said Margaret Rhodes. “They were like an ordinary couple driving out in their little open car.”

  By every measure, the wedding was the biggest media sensation of the twenty-first century, with nonstop coverage by six thousand accredited journalists and as many as four thousand unaccredited—numbers that astonished Palace officials, and the Queen as well. A million spectators hailed the royal couple on the streets of London and another 24 million in Britain watched on television, nearly 40 percent of the population of 62 million. In a YouGov poll taken for The Sunday Times, 73 percent of respondents said Catherine would help revivify the royal family.

  Following the newlyweds’ ten-day honeymoon in the Seychelles, Catherine readied herself for a gradual adoption of royal duties with a limited number of charity patronages and official engagements. The couple agreed to make their first overseas tour together to Canada, the Queen’s largest realm, for nine days in July 2011, followed by three days in the United States, choosing California rather than Washington, D.C., or New York for their stay—another sign of their fresh approach. William and Catherine made clear their intention to live their own way as well as the royal way, in a Welsh farmhouse near his RAF base for at least two years without the customary domestic staff of valets and maids, and emerging periodically on the public stage. They deliberately chose a path that would allow them to enjoy the normal rhythms of married life while preserving the mystery necessary for the monarchy’s image.

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  TWO WEEKS AFTER the wedding, the Queen made a historic state visit to the Republic of Ireland—the first since her grandfather, King George V, toured Dublin a century earlier when the country was still part of the United Kingdom. Thirteen years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, Elizabeth II’s four days in Ireland were laden with symbolism. In her most resonant gesture, she silently bowed her head at Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance after laying a wreath, honoring those who had fought against Britain for Irish independence. She also paid homage to the nearly fifty thousand Irishmen who had died while serving with their British comrades in World War I and some seventy thousand who had volunteered in World War II despite Ireland’s official position of neutrality.

  Elizabeth II moved with quiet dignity from one carefully chosen location to another amid massive security provided by ten thousand police and soldiers. She unflinchingly confronted her nation’s bloody past by visiting Croke Park, the stadium where British troops had fired into the crowd of five thousand at a football game in 1920, killing fourteen spectators in reprisal for the assassination of fourteen British undercover agents by an IRA hit squad. She toured historical sites, business enterprises, education and research institutions, and even three legendary stud farms in County Kildare.
The Queen wore emerald green, the British flag flew, and Irish bands played “God Save the Queen” for the first time as leaders of both countries emphasized the value of reconciliation and the potential from strengthening Anglo-Irish ties.

  Speaking at a state banquet in Dublin Castle, for centuries the headquarters for British colonial rule, the Queen began with an unscripted greeting in perfect Gaelic—the language once banned by the British—prompting Irish president Mary McAleese to mouth, “Wow, wow, wow,” and for the assembled luminaries to applaud. The relationship between the two neighboring countries had “not always been straightforward,” said the Queen, “nor has the record over the centuries been entirely benign.” She stressed “the importance of forbearance and conciliation,” and, in an echo of her earlier gesture, “of being able to bow to the past, but not be bound by it.”

  She directly addressed the “painful legacy” of “heartache, turbulence and loss,” including events that touched “many of us personally”—a clear allusion to the assassination of her Mountbatten cousin. “To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy,” she said. “With the benefit of historical hindsight we all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.”

  Her restrained and subtle language was inherently powerful, and her manner was heartfelt. But the impact came mainly from the moral authority that the Queen has earned over her long reign. She didn’t need to issue an abject apology; with her words and her actions, Elizabeth II offered the Irish—and the British—a gentle catharsis. She “helped to release … sorrow for the sufferings of the past, relief that they are over, hope for a decent future,” wrote The Irish Times. Even Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political arm, praised the Queen’s “sincere expression of sympathy.”

  Her trip to Ireland was hailed as one of the most significant of her reign. “I don’t think anybody could have achieved what she has,” said Elaine Byrne, a lecturer in politics at Trinity College Dublin. “It just seemed more personal and real.” The Irish people enveloped her with warmth and enthusiasm, marveling at her stamina for an octogenarian—her prolonged standing and her walking across distances and up steps with surprising agility—and pleased that she seemed to be having such a good time. At a concert in her honor, the audience gave her a five-minute standing ovation as she stood on the stage and smiled appreciatively. During her final rounds in the city of Cork, known for its history as a bastion of republican rebels, she took an unscheduled walkabout and greeted cheering onlookers, some even waving union flags. The Queen’s visit, said Byrne, “left us feeling a bit better about ourselves for the first time in a long time.”

  Scarcely pausing to catch her breath, Elizabeth II entertained Barack and Michelle Obama at Buckingham Palace during a state visit the following week—the 101st of her reign. Obama had forged a warmer relationship with David Cameron than with his predecessor, and the British prime minister was eager to honor the American president as a sign of what the two leaders were now calling the “essential” rather than the “special” relationship. It was, as Obama himself acknowledged, a singular moment “for the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British army.”

  Security concerns caused the Queen to move the official arrival ceremony from the public setting of Horse Guards Parade to the privacy of the Buckingham Palace gardens. There was no white pavilion bedecked with flags and national insignia, nor even the usual entourage of dignitaries in ceremonial uniforms. Only the Queen, Prince Philip, Charles, and Camilla stood with the Obamas on the West Terrace overlooking the lawn. The band of the Scots Guards played “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a forty-one-gun salute boomed out in nearby Green Park, and the president inspected the guard of honor with Prince Philip.

  In every other respect, the Obamas—with whom the royal couple had evident rapport—were treated to all the pomp of the traditional state visit: luncheon with the royal family, a display of historical documents in the Picture Gallery, an exchange of gifts, a state banquet in the ballroom, and two nights in the Belgian Suite among paintings by Canaletto and Gainsborough. (The Queen herself gave them a tour of their quarters.) The one unusual twist came just before the ceremonial welcome when the Obamas were escorted to the 1844 Drawing Room for a private twenty-minute meeting with William and Catherine, their first official appearance since the wedding. The encounter made headlines and reinforced the special status of the newlyweds—although they did not stay for either the luncheon or the banquet, where their presence could have overshadowed the guests of honor.

  In June Elizabeth II celebrated the ninetieth birthday of Prince Philip—still largely defined in the press by his acerbic humor and outspokenness, although increasingly admired for the breadth of his interests and the extent of his contributions to a range of British institutions as well as to causes around the world. William and Catherine reappeared to attend the Queen’s private party for her husband at Windsor Castle. They also took center stage at Trooping the Colour, where William participated in the ceremonial parade on horseback for the first time.

  While the Diamond Jubilee was not set to get under way for another year, the royal wedding of 2011 was a fitting prelude. It brightened the outlook for the House of Windsor, seventy-five years after destiny touched a ten-year-old princess and placed the burden of leadership on her small shoulders. Elizabeth II fulfilled her duty with steadfast determination and clarity of purpose, exerting influence without grasping for power, retaining her personal humility despite her public celebrity—and above all, in good times and bad, spreading a carpet of happiness.

  “Cherish Lilibet? I wonder if that word is enough to express what is in me.”

  Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in Buckingham Palace on their wedding day, November 20, 1947. ©TopFoto/The Image Works

  Elizabeth II could literally feel the weight of duty—between her vestments, crown, and scepters, more than forty-five pounds’ worth—on her petite frame.

  The Queen wearing the five-pound St. Edward’s Crown and her golden coronation robes after her crowning by the Archbishop of Canterbury, June 2, 1953. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

  After a seven-mile progress through London in the pouring rain, the Queen had a chilled nose and hands from the drafty carriage.

  Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip traveling to Buckingham Palace after the coronation in the twenty-four-foot-long Gold State Coach, built in the eighteenth century, June 2, 1953. Reginald Davis MBE (London)

  Charles portrayed his mother as a remote figure during his unhappy childhood, and described his father as overbearing and insensitive.

  Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in the Buckingham Palace Gardens watching their children Prince Charles and Princess Anne, 1957. Photograph by Snowdon, Camera Press London

  In the evening before the ceremony, the Queen often works at her desk, wearing the purple velvet crown glittering with 3,000 diamonds as she gets accustomed to having nearly three pounds sitting on her head.

  The Queen reading her speech at the state opening of Parliament, with Prince Philip seated to her left, and her ladies-in-waiting to her right, October 1958. EMPICS Archive/Press Association Images

  Although still not inclined toward hugging and kissing, the Queen showed more of her playful streak with her two youngest children, Andrew and Edward.

  The Queen holding her three-month-old son, Prince Edward, as she greets the crowds with Prince Philip and four-year-old Prince Andrew on the Buckingham Palace balcony after Trooping the Colour, June 13, 1964. Fox Photos/Getty Images

  “It’s nice to hibernate for a bit when one leads such a very moveable life.”

  Elizabeth II riding into the hills above Balmoral Castle in Scotland with her corgis in tow, 1965. Photograph by Godfrey Argent, Camera Press London

  Parents and children were bound by an appreciation of country traditions and rituals, including being smeared with blood on their cheeks after killing
their first stag.

  The Queen and Prince Philip with (from left) Princess Anne, Prince Charles, Prince Edward, and Prince Andrew during the family’s annual holiday at Balmoral, August 22, 1972. Lichfield/Getty Images

  “Whoever invented these robes wasn’t very practical, even in the days when somebody wore clothes like these.”

  Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in the procession to St. George’s Chapel at Windsor for the annual Service of Thanksgiving honoring the knights of the Order of the Garter, the Queen’s most prestigious Order of Chivalry, June 1975. Reginald Davis MBE (London)

  “As a human being one always has hope, and one always has perhaps the gambling instinct, that one’s horse is going to be better than the next man’s horse, and that’s why one goes on doing it.”

  The Queen and Prince Philip in a landau for the traditional Royal Ascot procession on the grassy straight mile at the racecourse, June 1980. Reginald Davis MBE (London)

  It was the first time the public had witnessed so vividly the unflinching physical courage and equilibrium that friends and courtiers had seen privately.

  Elizabeth II riding sidesaddle with Prince Philip at Trooping the Colour shortly after a gunman had fired six blanks at her from the crowd, June 13, 1981. Reginald Davis MBE (London)