It is now a ritual before every State Opening of Parliament that Palace staff are allowed a glimpse of the royal regalia which will be used. Some of the old-timers are as captivated as a tourist entering the Tower of London’s Jewel House for the first time to see the Crown Jewels. The Jewel House has a few gaps today. All the items now sitting here at the Palace have been replaced by signs saying ‘In Use’. It may be disappointing for today’s tourists at the Tower but it is a reminder that these treasures are not museum pieces. They are central fixtures in the great constitutional/theatrical production that is about to unfold.
‘You’re looking at over three thousand natural gems – diamonds, sapphires emeralds and historically some of the biggest in the world,’ says the Crown Jeweller, Harry Collins, opening up a deceptively dull box to reveal the Imperial State Crown. In an hour or so, it will be on the Queen’s head in the Palace of Westminster.
The post of Crown Jeweller – the highest accolade in the trade – is a part-time one and comes with a modest ‘E II R’ tie pin plus custody of some of the greatest treasures in the world. Collins was an interesting choice when he was appointed in 2007. He was not running a grand boutique in London’s Bond Street but the family jewellery shop in Royal Tunbridge Wells. His passion for these pieces comes through loud and clear. ‘The sapphire at the top has a lovely story,’ he tells his hushed audience, pointing to the top of the crown. ‘Edward the Confessor wore that sapphire in a ring all his life and he wanted to be buried with it. His wish was granted in 1066, so that stone was buried for a hundred years. It sends a shiver up my spine every time I think of it. And then a hundred years later, when they were moving his body, they exhumed him and it was decided to make his sapphire a Crown Jewel.’
Collins has similar stories about all the main jewels in this particular crown – the Black Prince’s Ruby, Elizabeth I’s pearls, the 317-carat Cullinan II diamond (itself cut from the largest diamond ever known).
There are so many people in so many different costumes that the Billiard Room could be the backstage area of an opera house or a film set. Two of the longest serving members of staff – chief clerk Paul Almond and stud groom Brian Stanley – will be Serjeants at Arms for the day. Dressed in the Victorian uniform of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, they will carry the two maces, symbols of royal authority, in the Royal Procession.
Several footmen have come out of retirement for the day to serve as State Porters. Dressed in thick scarlet overcoats, they will act as doorkeepers during all the comings and goings.
Four nervous-looking schoolboys are wearing knee-length scarlet coats, white breeches and white stockings. They are the Pages of Honour who will carry the Queen’s velvet robe, eighteen feet long and trimmed with ermine. They are usually the children of royal friends or officials but today’s quartet includes a member of the Royal Family. Eleven-year-old Arthur Chatto is the younger son of Princess Margaret’s daughter, Lady Sarah Chatto. The Queen is his great-aunt and, for now, he is eighteenth in the line of succession.
Conservative MP Mark Francois, the current occupant of the office of Vice-Chamberlain, is here in a morning coat with his black wand of office. He will spend the morning here as the Queen’s hostage until she has safely returned from Parliament. It will be a pleasant captivity. Refreshments and a television have been laid on in the Regency Room. ‘We don’t do manacles any more,’ explains a Palace official.
Suddenly, the atmosphere suddenly switches from coffee-morning banter to action stations. The Sovereign is on her way down from her apartments. No one in history has performed this ritual more often than the Queen. She has only missed it twice (through pregnancy), an attendance record to shame Queen Victoria who managed just seven State Openings in the last forty years of her life. Many of the Palace participants are veterans of this event. Even so, no one is blasé about the constitutional significance of the day and no one wants to make a mistake on live television, least of all the Monarch herself. Dressed in a Stewart Parvin state dress of apricot duchess satin embroidered with Paris beads and gold thread, her solemnity is infectious.
There are two carriage processions, the first one for the crown and the second for the Monarch. Royal Mews staff have been busy all morning hosing down the gravel to minimise the dust cloud from the two hundred horses passing through the Palace Quadrangle this morning (they include First Love, a spirited ex-racehorse of the late Queen Mother which gave her the last win of her life and which is carrying the Crown Equerry today).
All eyes are on the Monarch as she departs in the Irish State Coach with the George IV diadem twinkling on her head. It is a super-tiara, a substantial piece in its own right, though little more than a hairband in comparison with the Imperial State Crown which has gone on ahead.
All the Royal Mews staff are in their state liveries, of course. Coaching Instructor, John Nelson, in wig and tricorn hat, steers the Irish State Coach up the Mall, past Horse Guards and up to the Sovereign’s Entrance at the House of Lords where the Royal Standard is hoisted (or, in royal parlance, ‘broken’) on high.
The Queen disappears into the Robing Room to put on her robe and the crown. A fanfare heralds her reappearance in the Royal Procession – which is missing one notable figure. For the first time since 1620, the Lord President of the Privy Council will not be taking part. The new incumbent, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, is also the new Deputy Prime Minister and wants to be seen at the head of the brandnew coalition, not processing self-consciously behind fifteen heralds and pursuivants dressed as playing cards, as well as someone holding the Cap of Maintenance on a stick.
Inside the House of Lords, the peers chat quietly in their scarlet robes as they wait for the Monarch to take her seat on the throne. The MPs are in boisterous form next door in the House of Commons as they wait to be summoned through to the Lords for the Queen’s Speech. They affect a noisy nonchalance in their lounge suits and day dresses, cheering loudly as the door is slammed in the face of Black Rod, the Queen’s messenger from the Lords. It is all part of the ritual. The MPs always like to make it clear who is boss round here.
Having finally opened the door to Black Rod, they listen to his royal summons and stroll with little urgency through to the Lords. There’s limited space at the back of the Chamber where it’s standing room only, even for the Prime Minister. If this was a theatre, this would be the cheapest part of the house (in fact, under modern safety regulations, the MPs might even be thrown out for blocking the exits). Yet it is these latecomers in the ordinary workaday clothes, crammed in at the back with no seats and a lousy view, who have written every word of the script presented to the Sovereign with the three thousand jewels on her head. And for all its infernal complexities – there is still no definitive explanation, say, for the Cap of Maintenance after a thousand years of monarchy – this is an occasion with a very simple, fundamental message. And if it is unclear whether the Queen enjoys it very much, there is not an atom of doubt that she regards it as sacrosanct.
It goes without saying that the Queen is above politics. That’s the whole point of the monarchy. But she is also human. She must have opinions and a set of values by which to judge issues, just like anyone else. So what are they? Politicians and political commentators sometimes presume to suggest what the Queen’s private views might be on a particular issue, usually by second-guessing the opinion of a wealthy, small-c conservative member of the wartime generation with a deep affinity for the countryside. So, for those who live and breathe politics, it can be quite a surprise when they do encounter authentic, deep-rooted neutrality. Much as it may offend some politicians, it would seem that the Queen really does regard them as a single breed. Sir Godfrey Agnew, the revered Clerk of the Privy Council for more than twenty years, summed it up: ‘The Queen doesn’t make fine distinctions between politicians of different parties. They all roughly belong to the same social category in her view.’ Sir Malcolm Rifkind – whose three Cabinet positions all involved working with the monarchy at close
quarters – was struck by a remark the Queen made during one conversation at Holyroodhouse: ‘The Queen said to me: “The Shah of Iran asked me if I had more years with Labour or Conservative prime ministers. And I said to him that I hadn’t the faintest idea because I’d never thought about it.” And I don’t suppose she does. Because the party is the least important consideration. In all the times I was with the Queen as Scottish Secretary, Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary, she never expressed a controversial political view of any sort whatsoever.’
The Queen’s sixty years on the throne break down into 34 Conservative, 24 Labour and, latterly, a spell of Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. And if there are any observations to be drawn about her political outlook, then it seems fair to say that she enjoys the occasional outbreak of consensus. ‘I think this Coalition is going to be rather good for the country,’ she told a guest seated next to her at a lunch just weeks after the 2010 election. ‘Since we live in a time of unprecedented change, let’s try to make the most of it.’ After more than half a century of pendulum politics between the two major parties, it was hardly surprising that the Queen should enjoy the novelty value of her first British coalition (with sixteen governments around the world, she’s had one or two elsewhere). What’s more, the uncertainty surrounding the 2010 general election served to remind the public about the monarchy’s role as the guarantor of stability and fair play.
‘The Royal Family absolutely love things that are different,’ says Mary Francis. ‘They love it when a chair falls over or the curtain doesn’t open. It’s a talking point. In the same way, a coalition is different – and it has quite clearly involved the Queen. It’s put a lot of focus on the importance or potential importance of her role and what she might have to do. And that’s quite reassuring.’
In the end, the Queen was not forced to decide between two rivals in the 2010 election. With neither the Conservatives nor Labour enjoying an outright majority, a stalemate might ultimately have required a particularly unwelcome decision by the Sovereign – another election. But the politicians sorted it out themselves. Once the Liberal Democrats were clearly going to share power with the Tories, then the Monarch was off the hook. But it could have been a difficult constitutional position if, after Brown’s resignation, talks between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats then collapsed.
Before the election, senior civil servants and constitutional experts had started drafting a Cabinet Office manual. It would set out, in purely factual terms, the laws and conventions governing the relationships between Parliament, the government, the monarchy and so on. Surprisingly, perhaps, no such document existed before. With an election looming, the experts’ priority was to prepare a draft chapter offering guidelines in the event of a hung Parliament. They looked at the situation in other Westminster-style parliaments, notably in New Zealand where a manual had evolved over the previous twenty years.
The new manual had no legal standing then and has none today either. It was not a rulebook but a guidebook (and a draft one at that). But it addressed the role of the Queen in a general election. It emphasised very clearly that it was down to the politicians to find a solution and that everything should be done to spare the Queen from picking a premier. ‘The manual makes it clear that the Queen does not become a kingmaker,’ explained one of its authors, Professor Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford University. ‘It is not for her to bring the parties together, but, rather, to accept the outcome of negotiations.’
Today’s party leaders are barely old enough to remember the desperate haggling after the general election of February 1974 (which resulted in a hung Parliament and the removal of Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath), but the Queen remembers it only too well. And the last thing she wanted, in the event of a hung Parliament, was a frenzied media demanding some sort of magic solution from her. A dry but authoritative manual would be just the thing to calm everyone down and ensure sensible analysis of the situation. The Queen clearly approved of the document. She made that clear a few weeks after the election when it was suddenly announced – with almost no notice – that she would be visiting the Cabinet Office in person, at her own request, for the first time. As constitutional referees, sovereigns are used to dealing with electoral winners and losers. They don’t usually come to pay tribute to the ground staff.
The Whitehall civil servants are buzzing as the Queen is shown around the administrative nerve centre of the nation. ‘I don’t think people realise how exciting it is until it happens,’ says Sinead Keller, twenty-nine. She works as a press officer in the Honours Secretariat, the bit of the Cabinet Office which handles the thousands of MBEs, OBEs and knighthoods dished out each year. She has been to investitures and has seen the impact that royal recognition has on other people. Today, though, she herself receives a handshake from the Queen. She is surprised by her own reaction. ‘When the moment comes, it really does hit home. I’m not a great flag-waver but it’s easy to underestimate how much affection there is for the Queen.’
There is also another subtext to today’s visit by the Monarch. In recent days, the new government has been issuing stark warnings about the need for Civil Service cuts. Here is a gesture of royal solidarity with those who, like her, are constitutionally obliged to remain neutral.
Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, has ensured a complete cross section of staff for the Queen. Lil Kibblewhite on the reception desk has been here twenty-two years and has a daughter and granddaughter working in the same building. ‘I only got told this morning that I was going to meet her,’ she says, clearly thrilled. Personal assistant Regina Adu heard a whisper yesterday and spent last night practising her curtsey.
Having introduced the Queen to some of the ‘Transition team’ behind his constitutional manual, O’Donnell takes her upstairs to sit in on his weekly meeting with the thirty-two permanent secretaries from across all the government departments. Today’s agenda includes electoral reform and the imminent visit of the Pope. The meeting takes place in a dreary glass-fronted room with no view and decorated with a few prints from a staff photography competition. It may lack the grandeur of the Cabinet Room in Downing Street, yet these people are the most powerful mandarins in the land, supervising millions of civil servants. Some would say that these are the people who really run the country. And they are rather pleased by this sudden pat on the back from on high. At the end, O’Donnell takes the Queen down to the atrium and makes a short speech congratulating staff on the way they have ‘responded to the challenges of transition’ – but also paying tribute to the Queen’s staff. As Whitehall officials cram every landing and peer down from the balconies and gantries, O’Donnell also has one more bit of good news. In this climate, he is in no position to proclaim a day’s holiday or even a round of drinks, but he announces that the Queen has agreed to let him stage this year’s Civil Service Awards – the public sector Oscars – at Buckingham Palace. She receives a rousing send-off. It’s been a long few weeks for everyone.
Since Britain has no written constitution, some MPs have described this manual as the nearest we have to the real thing. It has affirmed the principle that, in the event of a hung Parliament, the existing government should cling on in a caretaker role until a new government can be formed and that everything should be done to spare the Monarch from having to choose it herself. Have we witnessed another subtle but significant shift in the balance of authority? Has the Queen quietly presided over a transfer of power at her own expense? David Cameron thinks not and believes that we should not get carried away. ‘Gus O’Donnell and the civil servants have got very excited by the idea of a hung Parliament. They love it. And they’re now trying to codify it by writing down what they think ought to have happened.’
Cameron believes that it is one of the great strengths of Britain’s unwritten constitution that it can adapt to the unexpected, as it did when Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister while the other parties had still not decided whether they could work together. ‘The British constitu
tion, with its incredible flexibility and dignity, managed to morph around the problem. There might have been a major debate in other countries but we went ahead without anyone making a fuss.’ The reason there was no fuss? There was an honest broker waiting at the Palace.
None the less, the position has changed during the Queen’s reign. When she took the throne, she was expected to choose her prime ministers, however disagreeable the task. Now, the situation is different. Not only is she not expected to choose her prime ministers but it seems that she should only do so as a very last resort. She seems happy with the situation. David Cameron acknowledges that her role as ‘kingmaker’ has changed since the days when she had to choose Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Conservative prime ministers but he sees that as part of a gradual historical process. ‘Her role has been diluted because the Conservative Party now has a way of electing its own leader. If you take a three-hundred-year view, then those sort of powers have become more and more constrained. And that’s even more the case now.’
The rest of us regard this sort of regal inertia as normal because it accords with our view of a non-interfering monarchy. But here is another hallmark of this reign. We think that the Queen does not interfere because monarchs are not supposed to interfere. In fact, previous monarchs were quite happy to quarrel with the government of the day and there are signs that a future one might, too. In taking a rigorously non-confrontational stance, the Queen is not the rule. She is the exception.
Edward VII complained to Downing Street when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman talked about ‘the will of the people’ on the grounds that his words had a ‘republican’ flavour. George V saw communist plots everywhere and would pick fights with his governments over the tiniest details, even reprimanding the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Birkenhead, for wearing a soft hat. George VI was more than happy to voice his criticisms of the Welfare State in front of its creators.
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