by Edna Healey
Each Prime Minister in turn has been impressed by The Queen’s steadiness in time of crisis and her knowledge not only of domestic but of world problems. Prime Ministers have come with different worries and found her an intelligent and understanding listener. She has also shown a shrewd judgement in dealing with a succession of very different characters. The Queen’s first Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was old enough to be her grandfather; her latest, Tony Blair, is young enough to be her son. Today she holds in her exceptional memory a wide knowledge of world affairs.
In the early years she was somewhat in awe of Churchill. When his secretary, John Colville, had brought the news of King George VI’s death to him, Churchill, stricken, had exclaimed, ‘But she is just a child,’ and he tended to treat the new Queen as such. Though an ailing man of seventy-seven, he was determined to stay in office to see her crowned. Few people knew that in July 1953 he suffered a near fatal stroke, just at the time when his deputy, Anthony Eden, was undergoing a serious operation.
However, Churchill recovered to enjoy more Tuesday chats until April 1955. ‘What do you talk about?’ his secretary once asked. ‘Oh, racing,’ he replied cheerfully. At the farewell dinner he gave for The Queen at Number 10 Downing Street, he drank her health from the same glass ‘from which he had drunk as a cavalry subaltern to her great-great-grandmother’.12 The Queen was touched.
This had been a difficult time for the young Queen; had Churchill died in office she would have had to exercise her prerogative to choose his successor. There was no difficulty in choosing his successor. Anthony Eden had been Prime Minister in waiting for a very long time. His decision to plunge the country into war with Egypt over Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal was deeply controversial; even The Queen’s closest advisers were divided. Eden’s health finally failed and he retired in 1957, to be the succeeded by the shrewd and urbane Macmillan. In his period of office, his government was rocked by the Profumo scandal, and ended with constitutional problems for The Queen. Macmillan underwent an operation and resigned while in hospital. The Queen had the constitutional duty to choose his successor. For once, The Queen’s meeting with her Prime Minister took place not in Buckingham Palace but at Macmillan’s bedside in hospital. He made it clear to The Queen that Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who was regarded on all sides with genuine affection, would be able to form a government.
Self-deprecating as always, Douglas-Home once said that the Tuesday audiences were like visits to the headmaster’s study: he always had to be sure he had done his homework. However, his period of office was short. In the election of 1964 Harold Wilson led the Labour Party to victory. He too quickly learned that The Queen always masters her briefs. At his first audience he was confounded when she asked him about the Milton Keynes New Town project, which he had not yet had time to study. She also showed an unexpected interest in and knowledge about back-to-back housing in Leeds, where she had opened a new housing estate. Wilson, who had once been a university don, enjoyed explaining the political situation and The Queen enjoyed learning. There were times, however, when the position was reversed and the mature student became the teacher. Wilson became The Queen’s most devoted admirer. He was to be Prime Minister from 1964–1970 and again from 1974 to 1976, after Edward Heath’s brief period of office.
Changes of government meant changes of ministerial faces at receptions at Buckingham Palace. Like her father, The Queen always behaves impeccably. She is careful to remain impartial, above the party fray, and all her dealings with Commonwealth and Parliament show her to be tolerant, compassionate and pragmatic. Like her grandmother, Queen Mary, she accepts change yet has a deep sense of the value of tradition.
Harold Wilson made one untraditional appointment. In 1974, for the first time, the Captain of Her Majesty’s Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms was a woman, Baroness Llewelyn-Davies, who was Government Chief Whip in the Lords. The Captain has always been chosen by the government from the House of Lords and is usually the Chief Whip. So Baroness Llewelyn-Davies received the gold stick of office from The Queen, and the right of direct access to The Queen on any matter dealing with the Corps. The Queen decided that she should not be expected to wear a uniform, but a special brooch was designed as her badge of office.
In 1970 the Labour government was defeated and Wilson was succeeded by Ted Heath. He is not an easy conversationalist, so their early talks at the Palace may have been somewhat reminiscent of those between George VI and Clement Attlee. They were certainly businesslike. Heath came with his fixed agenda and they followed it. He too, however, was eventually melted by The Queen’s charm. She discovered that he responded to teasing, and he tells, with a shaking of the shoulders, how firmly she rejected a suggestion from The Queen of Spain that she should attend a concert Heath was conducting in Spain. The Queen did not pretend to share his passion for music. ‘Are you still at it?’ she would ask him, waving an imaginary baton.
Then there was the moment, captured on television, when at a Buckingham Palace party he rebuked an American diplomat because America had not sent a personal envoy to Saddam Hussein of Iraq. He himself went, he said, and hostages were released. ‘Ah,’ The Queen interjected, ‘but you are expendable.’ Mr Heath is delighted to repeat the story.
In 1974 Heath’s Conservative government was defeated after the miners’ strike and Wilson returned to office. This time, concerned about his health, he did not intend to stay the course.
In 1976 Wilson resigned, to the surprise of the public, although he had confided in The Queen and some others before. There was no constitutional problem this time. It was a smooth transition to James Callaghan. Like Wilson, during his term of office he developed a deep respect and affection for The Queen, admiring her pragmatism and good judgement. He remembers the lighter moments. One warm evening, The Queen suggested they should continue the audience in the Palace garden. As they walked and talked, The Queen picked a rosebud and handed it to him for his buttonhole.
The Queen and Prime Minister usually bring to the Tuesday audiences the agenda for their discussions recommended by their respective Private Secretaries. Callaghan’s method was relaxed and their agendas were often forgotten while they chatted about other matters: farming and family, for example.
When Margaret Thatcher with her Conservative government succeeded Callaghan, she brought a new challenge to the Tuesday audiences. It is widely believed that Queen and Prime Minister did not always see eye-to-eye, particularly on the question of the Commonwealth and sanctions on South Africa. But The Queen keeps her counsel and no one really knows. However, their relations were cordial and courteous and Mrs Thatcher won praise at Buckingham Palace for her punctuality at the Tuesday audiences and for her crisp competence. She arrived with her agenda clearly set out and they followed it.
John Major, successor to Margaret Thatcher as Conservative Prime Minister, and the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, who replaced him in May 1997, were both less experienced in world affairs than The Queen was herself. The Queen is more than ever before fully qualified for her classic role: to encourage, to warn and to be consulted.
Besides the Prime Minister, there are other political links between Palace and Parliament: members of the royal Household who are appointed on government advice, who change with changing governments, and who also have political duties in Parliament. These are the Treasurer of the Household, the Comptroller of the Household and the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household who are all members of the government Whips’ Office in the House of Commons. The Vice-Chamberlain is also responsible for sending a daily report to The Queen on the events in Parliament. There are also officers chosen from among the government and whips in the House of Lords, who represent The Queen at funeral or memorial services, and who meet and greet important visitors to the United Kingdom.
One cabinet minister has a special audience with The Queen: the Chancellor of the Exchequer always sees her on the day before he presents his budget, to tell her of its contents.<
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The Privy Council
Meetings of the Privy Council are usually held at Buckingham Palace, although when The Queen is in residence at Windsor or Balmoral, the Privy Councillors travel there. When The Queen is absent abroad two or more Councillors of State are appointed to take her place.
The Privy Council has its origin in early medieval times; it is part of the machinery of government. At these meetings The Queen, on the advice of the Council, gives her approval of a vast number of royal proclamations and orders in Council.
Since the reign of Queen Victoria, Privy Councillors have been appointed for life. They now number nearly 400. A Privy Councillor is titled ‘the Right Honourable’, and may use the initials PC after his name. Privy Councillors are mostly chosen from members of Parliament; all members of Cabinet must be Privy Councillors, as are the leadersof opposition parties in both Houses of Parliament. Some judges, archbishops and members of the royal Household may also be appointed. Privy Councillors take the oath of allegiance to The Queen at a traditional ceremony at Buckingham Palace; at the end they retreat backwards from the Royal presence in what Fanny Burney called ‘the retrograde action’.
Nowadays not more than four Privy Councillors are called to a meeting. There are now only two occasions when the whole Council is summoned – on the accession of a new sovereign, when the Council meets in St James’s Palace, and when an unmarried sovereign announces his or her proposed marriage. This, it will be remembered, was the occasion which Queen Victoria found so unnerving.
Palace and Commonwealth
The Queen is not only Head of State for Britain, she is also the Head of the Commonwealth and its sixteen member countries. Her Private Secretary is the link between her and the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. From the beginning of her reign The Queen has made it clear that the Commonwealth, as a family of nations, is of major importance to her.
As Head of the Commonwealth she plays no official part in the machinery of its constitutional governments, but she is now a wise and experienced human link between many different peoples, and because of her obvious dedication to the ideal of a family of nations, so sincerely expressed at her coming of age in South Africa, she is greatly respected.
The organization of the Commonwealth, which had been worked out by King George VI, Mountbatten and Attlee, was finally made legal by the Royal Titles Act of 1953. The Indian government had set the pattern: now it is possible for member states to accept The Queen as the symbolic head of their free association, and yet, if they wish, to become republics.
When Heads of Commonwealth countries come to Britain TheQueen does not host their meetings in Buckingham Palace, but she does receive them individually there, and she is available to be consulted. She receives them at banquets at Buckingham Palace and offers them hospitality.
She does not attend their meetings in London: these are now organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat, a body set up in 1965 by the Heads of Governments, to co-ordinate the work of the various departments within the Commonwealth. The Heads of Government meet biannually in different countries in turn.
The Queen preserves the distinction between being Queen of Great Britain, with her headquarters in Buckingham Palace, and Head of the Commonwealth, which has its offices and holds its meetings in Marlborough House – Queen Mary’s old home. To mark her separate roles, The Queen flies a different personal standard when acting as Head of the Commonwealth – the initial E within a chaplet of roses.
In the year after her Coronation she began regular visits with Prince Philip to Commonwealth countries, particularly to Africa, India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which have continued throughout her reign. In the winter of 1953–4 they spent five months in Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. In 1962, when she opened the new Commonwealth Institute in Holland Park, London, she could justly claim, ‘I suppose that between us my husband and I have seen more of the Commonwealth than almost any people alive.’13
Throughout the following years The Queen was to develop an exceptional understanding of Commonwealth leaders because she saw them at work in their own countries. In spite of his efforts, her father, King George VI, could never achieve this, because he usually met them in the formal and unreal setting of Buckingham Palace. So when Commonwealth Prime Ministers come to England The Queen can receive them at the Palace as old friends. That friendship has survived growing republicanism in Australia and Canada. Changes in the constitutions of both countries have been made amicably mainly because of The Queen’s skill at defusing tension.
She takes great pains to be well briefed. She has known many of the leaders for many years. Sonny Ramphal, who was Secretary General of the Commonwealth Heads of Government, has the greatest respect for her knowledge and understanding of Commonwealth leaders.
As Sonny Ramphal explained, ‘She grew up with them, understood them and related to them … Even at the times when the British Government was at odds with many of these leaders, she was able to understand their point of view without taking sides, and managed to convey to them that she did.’14
It was with the greatest pleasure that The Queen welcomed President Nelson Mandela of South Africa on a state visit in July 1996. She had visited South Africa the previous year and had been much moved by the warmth of her welcome. It had been in Africa that she had made her speech of dedication on her twenty-first birthday. In welcoming South Africa back into the Commonwealth she was lighting a beacon of hope in a changing world.
The Palace: Host to the World
Once a year The Queen holds a grand evening reception at Buckingham Palace, to which 1,000 members of the diplomatic corps from 130 countries are invited, together with 350 British guests and the Prime Minister, members of the Cabinet and other public figures. The guests are courteously, but firmly, marshalled through the State Rooms by elegant gentlemen ushers; on the left stand the diplomats and their wives, and on the right, the British contingent. At last comes the resplendent royal party, jewels and decorations glittering under the chandeliers. The Queen stops to talk to foreign diplomats and their wives as she progresses slowly through the rooms. Members of the royal family follow behind and divide their attentions between the ambassadors and diplomats, and political figures. When the royal progress reaches the last State Room, the guests proceed to the supper rooms; there is dancing in the ballroom until the band plays ‘God Save The Queen’.
Unlike Queen Victoria’s balls, which sometimes went on till four in the morning, this party usually ends at midnight. Seasoned guests wear comfortable shoes to these occasions, for there are prolonged periods when they ‘only stand and wait’. The Queen herself is tireless, having long ago mastered the royal art of standing, feet apart, the body’s weight evenly distributed. The present writer remembers one distinguished lady standing in blissful ease: she had forgotten to change her shoes and was wearing her bedroom slippers under her elegant gown.
Although foreign diplomats are still officially accredited to the Court of St James, it is to Buckingham Palace that a new ambassador is invited to present his credentials to The Queen, as soon as possible after his arrival. Then the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, who is usually a retired officer, is driven in a state landau, drawn by a pair of bay horses, to collect the new ambassador from his residence. Driven by a coachman in full state livery and followed by his suite in other state landaus, the ambassador’s coach clatters through the courtyard of Buckingham Palace to halt at the red-carpeted stairs to the Grand Hall, where he is greeted by the Vice-Marshal and the Permanent Under-Secretary of State from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Lady-in-Waiting if the ambassador’s wife is present. The party is led up the steps to the Bow Room overlooking the gardens. The Queen receives the ambassador in the 1844 Room next door; he is ushered in by the Marshal and an equerry, who then withdraw. The ambassador presents his credentials and then introduces his suite as they enter one by one. His wife is presented by the Marshal afterwards. At the end of the audience the ambassador signs
The Queen’s visitors’ book and withdraws.
All such ceremonies are conducted with military precision. The procedure is explained to the ambassador in exact detail by the equerry and nothing is left to chance.
Similarly members of the public who are honoured at investitures are instructed exactly so that the ceremony runs like clockwork. There are twenty investitures a year, of which the Prince of Wales undertakes six. The Queen holds six in February, two in July, and six between October and December.
The recipients, who may bring three guests, are received in the Grand Hall and guided to the Ballroom by four gentlemen ushers. The guests are seated and those who are to be honoured are taken separately to be instructed. Meanwhile a selection of light music is played by an orchestra from the Household Division. Occasionally the music is selected with particular reference to the recipient.
At this ceremony members of a Gurkha regiment are on duty – two escort The Queen as she enters the Ballroom and two stand behind her with five Yeomen of the Guard. The Lord Chamberlain, standing to the right of The Queen, announces the name and achievements of the recipient. The Queen takes the medal from a cushion held by the Master of the Household or his representative. Those receiving knighthoods kneel on a stool and are dubbed with the investiture sword.
The apparent ease with which these traditional ceremonies are conducted never fails to impress and delight even the most cynical. Much of the credit for this goes to the Comptroller, the Lord Chamberlain’s office.
Even grander than the diplomatic receptions are the state banquets, held in the Palace Ballroom on the first evening of the visit of a head of state.
The long tables, arranged in a horseshoe, are set out with the gold plate, glass and porcelain from the Royal Collection. The distinguished guests – Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers, diplomats, politicians, archbishops and others – take their places. Then the royal family, led by The Queen and the head of state, Prince Philip and the consort, progress to the top of the horseshoe. Before them the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Steward walk backwards, according to the old tradition.
