A Brief History of the Private Life of Elizabeth II

by Michael Paterson

  Many people felt that the young Queen was breathing fresh air into a moribund institution. There was a perception that she was surrounded by dinosaurs, who, because they actually ran her Household and filled her appointments book, ensured that she remained stuck in the past. Sixty years later, the perception of a visitor to the Palace would still be that the Queen’s staff are, in Altrincham’s phrase, ‘tweedy and plummy’. There is no denying this, but why should it matter? It is a close-knit working environment in which the shared backgrounds of officials and their families mean that they can work well together. Those – and they include most of the ceremonial posts at Court – who are, or were, senior officers in the Services have by definition qualifications that are highly suitable. Military training or background provides familiarity with ceremonial, orders and graded hierarchy, it implies proven loyalty to the Crown, an ability to organise large groups of people efficiently and to think fast if some emergency requires an improvised solution. They are unlikely ever to pose a security risk or to talk to the press.

  Whatever a few errant subjects thought of her at home, the Queen had proved her value abroad, where the New Elizabethan image had become unstuck. The invasion of Egypt by French, British and Israeli troops to seize control of the Suez Canal in 1956 had proved a major humiliation. The operation had been cynical and ill-conceived, and America refused to support it. It was called off and the soldiers evacuated.

  Towards America the British public had considerably bruised feelings. They had already had to accept that they were now a second-rank power, but they believed they were still capable of greatness and of international influence. They felt entitled to American respect, if not active support. The USA felt that Britain had brought catastrophe on herself by embarking on such a rash adventure in the first place. The following autumn, the Queen made a state visit to the USA – the 350th anniversary of the founding of Virginia made a handy excuse – to restore good relations.

  It is at these moments that Royalty comes into its own. Not officially connected with the government’s foreign policy, and therefore never to blame for mistakes, it can appeal instead entirely to the intangible but important areas of sentiment and culture. The visit was a greater success than anyone could have predicted. It was the Americans’ first chance to see the young Queen, and they were charmed – as others had been – by her combination of personal shyness and official gravity. She was given a ticker-tape parade in New York, and greeted by a huge turnout in Washington. No modern American president has yet declined to be seen with British Royalty, and Eisenhower was in any case an old wartime acquaintance. Delighted by this reception, she was willing to set aside a certain amount of formality. The press at home noticed that she had been at close quarters – almost mingling – with crowds and one paper, the Daily Herald, asked: ‘People here have been reading of the Queen going about freely among ordinary people, behaving like an ordinary person. Canada loved it. America was bowled over by it. Why is it not allowed to happen here?’

  Seeing the enthusiasm of crowds that greeted her, an American commentator observed: ‘There goes Britain’s ultimate diplomatic weapon.’ She had saved Anglo-American relations during a very sticky patch, refocusing attention on the two countries’ shared heritage instead of their divergent world-views. There is between the British monarchy and the American public a very warm relationship. It goes back not to 1957, or 1951 – her own first visit – nor even to 1939, when her parents went to the USA in an attempt to win sympathy in the coming war. It originated in the first such visit, by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) in 1860, which was a goodwill tour without ulterior motive. Since that time the British monarchy has considered the American public worth meeting and befriending. They also genuinely love the country, whose people – despite their republican past and present – have never shown them anything but the deepest kindness. Their visits have enabled those Americans who wish to do so to feel that they, too, are part of the magic.

  As well as being instrumental in sealing good relations with the West’s great superpower, the queen was also deployed in the Cold War against the Communist world. Her visit to Ghana soon after its independence in 1957 was both a personal and a symbolic triumph, helping to turn opinion among regional rulers away from Moscow. The Soviet Union saw Africa as an important ideological battleground, and was able to throw around a good deal of Marxist rhetoric that resonated with the peoples there. Ghana was unstable and ruled by a president, Kwame Nkrumah, whose autocratic style had made him unpopular. He was sufficiently unpopular, in fact, to be the likely target of assassination, and thus put at risk anyone in his company. He had become a tireless – even meddling – champion of anti-imperialism, and was loud in his condemnation of the colonial power that the Queen personified, so Her Majesty might well have expected an awkward meeting. Despite these factors she went ahead with the visit, and Nkrumah was delighted. Her appearance with him added to his standing with his people, increasing perception of him as an international statesman. Britain had just given independence to Ghana – hardly the act of an oppressor – and the fact that its ruler visited in person made a very positive impression on the people. They crowded to look at her at every opportunity and, when she discovered that they were disappointed not to see her wearing more jewellery, she obliged by putting on in public every stone she had available. One could not imagine Khrushchev being able to compete with that!

  MATURITY, 1960–1970

  ‘The English are getting bored with their monarchy.’

  By the beginning of the 1960s the Queen had, as she had put it, ‘matured into’ her office. Her apprenticeship was long over, with her family growing up and her two children starting on their own life’s-journeys. Her habits were well established, the year divided between London, Windsor, Norfolk, Edinburgh and Aberdeenshire. She would be less newsworthy, for the press had had a decade in which to chronicle her tastes and her movements and was surely running out of subject matter. She and Philip were on the verge of middle life and, as he put it: ‘I would have thought that we’re entering the least interesting period of our kind of glamorous existence.’ The Royal Family, in other words, expected to be given more privacy because neither they nor their functions were any longer remarkable. Public opinion seemed to agree, and viewing-figures for the Christmas broadcast were declining. ‘The English,’ the now-infamous Malcolm Muggeridge told an American television interviewer, ‘are getting bored with their monarchy.’

  Far from fading into obscurity, the Queen aroused widespread interest by having two more children, Andrew (1960) and Edward (1964). The media did not, however, have the field-day over these new arrivals that might have been expected. Her Majesty decided that this second pair of Royal children should have greater privacy than their older siblings – or she herself – had enjoyed. Access to them was deliberately not allowed to journalists and photographers during the earliest part of their lives. In the case of Prince Andrew, he was not seen by the public until a month after he was born, and this fuelled rumours that he was in some way abnormal.

  The iconoclasm of the 1950s continued into the new decade. The Establishment – any institution that exercised power or owed its prestige to the past – was fair game for satirists. The most wounding blows to the established order were, however, self-inflicted. The discovery that two young upper-class diplomats, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, had been spying for the Soviet Union was made when both of them defected. A third man, Anthony Blunt, was Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, although his connection to the others would not be revealed until many years later. The Profumo scandal occurred in 1963. A government minister was caught in a sexual liaison that compromised national security, and then lied about his involvement in the House of Commons. Both of these incidents suggested the same thing – that the class which had traditionally assumed the leadership of the country, and justified its position on grounds of birth and education, was no longer to be trusted. As a setback to national confidence these things were wo
rse even than Suez, for here the rot was shown to be within. It was even rumoured that the birth of the Queen’s youngest son, Prince Edward, was deliberately planned to counter this collective despair.

  The monarchy, with its ostentatious public ceremonies, was the most highly visible aspect of the Establishment, and as the social upheavals of the decade gathered pace it was perceived as increasingly irrelevant and outdated. Not only had the governing class failed the country, they were being rendered irrelevant by the arrival of a thrusting new meritocratic culture. The capital was dubbed ‘Swinging London’ (a phrase coined by Time magazine) and Guardsmens’ tunics began to be seen, worn unbuttoned, on long-haired civilians. The appeal of ancient ceremony – at least to the young, who dominated virtually all culture – was much diminished. The Labour Government under Harold Wilson that came to power in 1964 reflected this trend, and the following year did away with hereditary peerages, while conferring honours on the footballer Stanley Matthews and on The Beatles. In these uncharted cultural waters the Royals lost their status as reference-point for taste, dress, manners (they would not regain influence in matters of style until the advent of Diana 20 years later). The ‘role models’ to whom millions looked were no longer the tight-lipped, dutiful members of the Royal Family but a galaxy of brash and publicity-seeking musicians, photographers and comedians.

  Interestingly, at precisely the time that this new Establishment was succeeding the old one, the Royals made a connection with it. Princess Margaret had found happiness with a photographer, Antony Armstrong-Jones, and married him at Westminster Abbey in February 1960. Her flamboyant, theatrical personality fitted well with his circle of creative friends. With her long-standing curiosity about life outside the palace railings, she was delighted to experience evenings cooking and dining, tête-à-tête, in the shabby rooms in Rotherhithe where he lived. Her friendship and subsequent marriage to ‘Tony’ – who had taken portraits of the Royals – was initially very happy and brought the monarchy into the same social orbit as the likes of Peter Sellers and Mick Jagger. This connection was not universally welcome. Prince Philip (the Queen had by now made him a British Prince) and his new brother-in-law were entirely incompatible personalities, and Courtiers regarded him – despite his Eton and Cambridge background – as a tradesman. Nevertheless, his presence within the Family for most of two decades was to give the pinnacle of the Establishment a stake in the new era. The Daily Mirror was to report gleefully in 1965 that Sellers and Spike Milligan, stalwarts of the extremely zany Goon Show, had attended the queen’s birthday party.

  The advent of a new cultural mindset was not the only thing that caused Royalty to lose some of its distance from the public, however. The tabloid media had by now got into its stride, and the behaviour of the Family was examined more closely. With their frequent travels, the children’s schooling and the parties attended by Princess Margaret, there was plenty to write about, and newspaper readers became increasingly judgemental about the Royals. The sense of humour – or offhand rudeness, according to one’s perspective – of the Queen’s husband became so well-known that a book of his sayings – The Wit of Prince Philip – was published. It seemed, after all, that public interest was not going to evaporate anytime soon.

  Young, energetic, attractive and photogenic, the Royal Family had become a staple of the illustrated papers, much as – in America – the Kennedys were at the same time. The coverage given to the Queen and her children significantly furthered the notion of the Royals as an average family. In previous reigns, pictures of the Family when off duty had tended to show them shooting, a decidedly upper-class activity, pursued amid the cheerless winter landscapes of Norfolk or the Highlands, and which they followed – judging by their humourless expressions – without much pleasure. Their tailored tweeds and Purdey shotguns were well beyond the financial reach of most of their subjects. Now the sovereign, her husband and children were pictured having picnics on Scottish beaches without a servant in sight, dressed in clothes that were old, comfortable and just like other peoples’. A woman enthused that: ‘It’s lovely to see them on holiday. They wear the sort of things I wear – an old skirt and coat, when they are in Scotland.’

  At this time national prosperity was increasing, disposable income was greater and the result was a more noticeable social levelling. The visible differences between classes blurred – especially with a tendency of the upper echelons to dress down – and the public expected those in positions of privilege to be less remote and nearer to themselves. A poll found that three out of five people ‘wanted the Royal Family to live more like ordinary people’.

  Although they lived in the Palace during the week, the place in which they relaxed at weekends was Windsor. They had had one part of the Castle – the Edward III Tower – renovated and made into a simple and modern dwelling. Hugh Casson designed the interiors, which were hung with paintings by artists such as Edward Seago and Sidney Nolan. The notion was that these premises would be self-catering, though in fact there were always staff in attendance. Nevertheless they achieved a sense of informality and simple comfort that could never be found amid the ponderous, grand, inherited furnishings of other rooms in the Castle. Although the press would love to have photographed it, this was and remained an entirely private domain, a sort of holiday hideaway which happened to be in the midst of a very busy castle that was thronging with tourists.

  The Queen had always seen Windsor as her home, Buckingham Palace as her office and the other residences as seasonal retreats. No other place evokes the same affection as Windsor – the biggest inhabited castle in the world, and by far the oldest Royal residence. She not only enjoyed spending weekends there but decided, in 1964, that Christmas would in future be celebrated there instead of at Sandringham. This practice was to last until 1988, when the Family once again made Norfolk their home during the festive season.

  Christmas among the Royals is a major event. It begins with the taping of the Queen’s broadcast. Until 1957 this was made on radio. It was then given live on television until 1960, at which time it became possible to pre-record. This not only avoided ruining Her Majesty’s Christmas Day but meant that the film could be sent to Commonwealth countries in time for 25 December. The broadcasts, always played at three p.m. on the day, are watched in the Royal household too. The programmes take the form of a survey of the previous 12 months, and enable the Queen to give personal reactions to events. Although she is in a domestic setting – the fact that she is speaking from her home suggests intimacy – and though the thoughts are her own, her delivery is still formal for she is reciting prepared remarks (when once asked to be more spontaneous, she retorted: ‘I’m not an actress!’).

  She gives a Christmas tree to several institutions, such as St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Hospital. She also gives a present, and a Christmas pudding, to every member of her staff. A ball is held for them, taking place in alternate years at the Palace or at Windsor.

  The entire family gathers for Christmas, including all the cousins – the Kents and Gloucesters and Ogilvys. The opening of gifts is actually held on the night of Christmas Eve, a reflection of the Family’s Germanic past, for it was Prince Albert who introduced many of their particular customs. Long tables have been set up, divided so that each person has their own pile of presents. The tree comes from the Sandringham Estate and the decorations, as in many families, are heirlooms.

  On the day itself the morning is devoted to church. All the Royals are present, not only because it is considered a duty but because the media will be there in force, the occasion will be extensively photographed and the image of them, united in worship, is important. A lengthy lunch follows, but must be finished before three o’clock, when the Family watches the queen’s address in respectful silence. The evening is spent in somewhat riotous party games, the most popular of which is charades. It is well known that the Queen excels at this. Despite her outburst that ‘I am not an actress!’ she apparently does have considerable talent for mi
micry and for doing impressions of prime ministers, world leaders and other notables with whom she has come in contact. One hopes this is true.

  The Queen had, apparently, always wanted four children. The first two had been born before she came to the throne, and after she had become a reigning monarch there was simply not time for others (though this had not stopped Queen Victoria, who had nine!). The fact that she was able to resume motherhood in the 1960s was another sign that she had settled into her role. The experience of the younger pair was to be different to that of their siblings. Neither was to be treated with the same rigour that Charles experienced; indeed, both would be relatively indulged.

  Relative indulgence, however, did not mean either mountains of toys or licence to misbehave. All four children were brought up in the care of strict nursery staff and under the equally stern eye of their parents. All of them would quickly have learned that their behaviour mattered because they were so much in the public eye. Their father taught them to be punctiliously polite, not least to servants, and they would be sent to apologise to any whom they were heard to address rudely. With his financially austere youth and Gordonstoun background, Philip was also unlikely to indulge the wants of his offspring, though he could be a very affectionate parent. The Queen had also had a comparatively simple childhood, but was in any case known to be possessed of a thrifty streak that would not have sat comfortably with the notion of extravagance.