The formal announcement of Prince George’s birth was placed, by custom, on an easel outside Buckingham Palace. But the next day Prince William, having taken paternity leave from his job as an RAF search and rescue pilot, was seen strapping his son into a baby seat – just like any other father – before driving his new family down to Kate’s parents in Bucklebury and privacy.
When, on 9 September 2015, Elizabeth II became the longest-reigning monarch in British history, it seemed a kind of national victory. Her reign had been, Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons, a ‘golden thread running through three post-war generations’.
By the time the Queen celebrated her 90th birthday in 2016, the family party on the balcony of Buckingham Palace included Prince George, now third in line to the throne, and baby Princess Charlotte.
On 23 September 1896, Queen Victoria had been able to note in her diary that ‘This is the day on which I have reigned longer, by a day, than any English sovereign.’ It will be many years before we see the diaries this Queen has kept religiously at the end of each day. But her tone will probably be more pragmatic than that of her predecessor.
On 9 September she – with her husband and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon – were in the Scottish Borders to open a new railway. Her speech was a blend of grace and bluntness as she acknowledged the many messages she had received. ‘Inevitably, a long life can pass by many milestones. My own is no exception. But I thank you all . . . So now to the business in hand.’
A little more than six months later came the Queen’s ninetieth birthday (to be followed, in February 2017, by another milestone: her Sapphire Jubilee). It was, again, a time of huge public celebration. But 2016 ended with widespread concern at the Queen’s non-appearance at Christmas festivities – though she eventually recovered from her cold – and with the announcement that the younger members of the family would be taking on more of her responsibilities.
Discreetly, the Palace let it be known that the Queen might be spending less time in Buckingham Palace and more at her other residences, where the quieter pace of life is more suitable for a nonagenarian. There was a sense that this marked some kind of a punctuation mark in the long history of the Queen’s reign.
At 90, Elizabeth II is not only the oldest, but the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Time and again, her nation has cause to celebrate another milestone passed, be it jubilee, birthday or anniversary . . .
For many years, the question has been asked of whether she would ever consider an abdication. After all, ‘Never Say Never’ might be the motto of the monarchy throughout Elizabeth II’s reign. But courtiers have always insisted ‘the A-word’ cannot even be mentioned in the Queen’s presence – that it is something the Queen would consider a dereliction of duty.
When an Archbishop of Canterbury informed her of his retirement, she remarked that, of course, retirement from her job was not an option. She would never break that vow she made for her twenty-first birthday. And she has always been deeply aware of the monarchical role as a sacred, almost a priestly, duty.
There have been dozens of fictional glimpses of the Queen, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Countless biopics about the Royal Family’s story, impressions and comedy shows.
One actress quite literally made a career out of impersonating the Queen. Lookalike Jeannette Charles lent a touch of royal ridicule to everything from a National Lampoon movie to a Naked Gun and an Austin Powers. When she appeared as the Queen in an episode of Big Brother, at least one contestant thought it was for real. Jennifer Saunders, Eddie Izzard and Vanessa Redgrave have all voiced animated versions of her and Saturday Night Live has seen several incarnations of the Queen over the years, created by performers including Joan Cusack and Fred Armisen. Almost a quarter of a century after the BBC’s satirical show of the early 1960s That Was the Week that Was, Spitting Image took up the mocking theme with even less deference. But other dramas have attempted to portray the Queen more seriously, at various stages of her life.
In The King’s Speech she was seen as a child just old enough to be aware of the consequences of her uncle’s abdication. In A Royal Night Out, Sarah Gadon played the young Princess escaping the Palace to join the crowds to celebrate VE Day. In Channel 4’s 2009 mini series The Queen five different actresses – Emilia Fox, Samantha Bond, Susan Jameson, Barbara Flynn and Diana Quick – were seen on five consecutive nights, catching her at five different moments of her reign.
Rosemary Leach has played the Queen three times over the years in different TV plays, notably in Tea with Betty, which imagines her visiting a single mum on a council estate. Penelope Wilton played her in the children’s film The BFG in 2016. Even Emma Thompson has played her, in Walking the Dogs, a 2012 TV film dramatizing the episode when, in 1982, Michael Fagan broke into her bedroom at Buckingham Palace.
On stage, in 1988, Prunella Scales portrayed the Queen in Alan Bennett’s one-act play A Question of Attribution, about the exposure of her art expert Anthony Blunt as a Communist spy. Scales reprised the role for the 1991 TV adaptation of the play (and she would also make an uncredited screen appearance as the Queen in the 2003 spy spoof Johnny English, besides voicing an animated version in Freddie as F.R.O.7.)
More recently, Kristin Scott Thomas appeared on stage as the Queen in a 2015 revival of The Audience, Peter Morgan’s imagining of the Queen’s audiences with her various Prime Ministers. Scott Thomas succeeded Helen Mirren who – seven years after she first walked in Queen Elizabeth II’s shoes – took the role in the West End and on Broadway, and added a Tony to the Oscar she had already won for her portrayal. For Helen Mirren is of course familiar to most of us from the 2006 film The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears from Peter Morgan’s screenplay.
Helen Mirren’s would, until just recently, have had to be called the single most important portrayal of the Queen. Mirren studied photos and videos, the Queen’s patterns of speech and the way she holds her head. Peter Morgan reported that as the shoot went on, crew members began to behave around the actress almost as though she were the real monarch. The half-Russian Mirren herself was brought up an anti-monarchist, but says her parents might have taken a more benign view today – as does she.
Helen Mirren’s sympathetic portrayal of Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears’ film The Queen won her an Academy Award.
‘People have woken up to the truth that was always there,’ Mirren said when The Queen came out. ‘I think the Windsors have served us, if that’s what you want, fantastically – she particularly. I think the Queen has served us incredibly well.’ Mirren may not consider herself to be a monarchist, but she is a ‘queenist’ – and it sounds as if the other actress to inhabit the role as thoroughly as Dame Helen may feel much the same way.
Claire Foy, in the first two seasons of The Crown, is the latest in a very long line of actresses to take on the sovereign’s role.
Claire Foy, who plays the Queen at the start of her reign in the first, ten-episode, series of Netflix’s The Crown, says that she had always taken the Royal Family for granted – but no longer. ‘They work their socks off, and Elizabeth’s been working since she was twenty-five every single day of her life. It’s a never-ending job, and I think she’s done it really well . . . She’s a check and a balance on the government. [The Royal Family has] done an extraordinary job.’
The Crown – the third royal outing for Peter Morgan, the man who wrote The Queen and The Audience – was touted as the most expensive TV drama ever, costing a rumoured £100 million, and has been hailed not only for its lavish production values but for historical accuracy. It won Golden Globes not only for Best Television Series but for Claire Foy in the leading role. Another five series are now planned, taking the story up towards the present day, with two other actresses expected to play the Queen at later stages of her life.
Throughout his two-and-a-half years of research, Morgan avoided any contact with a Palace keen always to ensure that the monarchy is shown in a flattering
light. But they need not have worried. Morgan sees his Queen as a good, a very good, person ‘who has given her life for her country’.
‘She’s good at the job because she takes it seriously and in doing so gives it meaning,’ Morgan says. ‘If you got a team of scientists together, you couldn’t create a better queen.’ Winston Churchill said very much the same, in the year she acceded to the throne: ‘All the film people in the world, if they had scoured the globe, could not have found anyone so suited to the part.’
Claire Foy and Matt Smith portray the Queen and Prince Philip in the Netflix series, The Crown.
Epilogue: Legacy
The last third of the Queen’s long life has seen dramatic changes for the House of Windsor. The monarchy’s spectacular fall in popularity and prestige has been followed by a phoenix-like resurgence. As Elizabeth II moved into her tenth decade, she could rest assured that she would leave behind a formidable legacy.
The Queen’s ninetieth birthday came at a strange and significant time in her country’s history. A moment when Britain’s proposed exit from the European Union could arguably restore to the monarch a greater sovereignty. But a moment, too, when dissatisfaction over the decision to leave could threaten the union of the kingdoms.
There are questions as to what might happen in the years ahead – not least to the Commonwealth, of which Prince Charles will not automatically become head. Membership of the Commonwealth has grown from eight member states when Elizabeth came to the throne, to a present tally of fifty-two.
The Queen herself always has shown a steely determination to preserve the integrity of her Commonwealth ‘family’, even when to do so set her at odds with her ministers, or when it meant her acknowledging some otherwise unacceptable regimes. But when her talismanic figure, living reminder of a shared past, is gone the future may be less certain – just as some of the dozen or more territories happy to recognize her as head of state may then decide to choose a head of their own nationality.
Elizabeth and her fellow ‘Diamond Queen’, Victoria, faced the same challenges – as woman, wife, mother and monarch – and there can be no doubt that the modern monarch has faced them with far greater constancy. Much credit for the recent rebirth of the House of Windsor has surely to be given to the Queen herself. Whatever mistakes may have been made in the past, Elizabeth II has emerged as a figure distinct from them, powerful in her very immutability.
Her act will be a hard one to follow – hard for a series of male heirs, particularly. The English, it is said, like queens – Elizabeth I, Victoria, Elizabeth II – and it may be truer than ever today. The role of the modern constitutional monarch may even be one a woman can occupy more easily. Mother of the nation, effectively . . . The authoritarian image of a king as father figure may not play as readily. Yet Elizabeth II may well reflect that the great achievement of her last years has been to leave the throne secure to the heirs of her body.
Flanked by her eldest son and heir Prince Charles, her eldest grandson Prince William and his son, George, the Queen can reflect with pride that between them they have steered the monarchy back into safe waters and have a long line of successors to come.
Prince William spoke recently and warmly of his grandmother’s personality. He mentioned the Queen’s ‘kindness and sense of humour, her innate sense of calm and perspective and her love of family and home’. He hinted, too, at the hope that she held out for the future of the monarchy. In regular meetings, while he was still at school, she trained and encouraged him as George V and Queen Mary did her.
The Prince’s theme was one of change tempered by continuity – both for the Crown and for the country. ‘All of us who will inherit the legacy of my grandmother’s reign and generation need to do all we can to celebrate and learn from her story.’
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Picture Credits
Alamy Stock Photo/Keystone Pictures USA 6a; Classic Image 21, 24; SWNS 38; Everett Collection Inc. 55; Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix 91; Keystone Pictures USA 95; Rebecca Naden/Reuters 96; Toby Melville/Reuters 140a; AF Archive 151. Camera Press/Baron 4; Jason Bell 155. Getty Images/Bettmann front cover above; Printer Collector front cover below left; Bentley Archive/Popperfoto front cover below right; Paul Popper/Popperfoto back cover above; Hulton Archive/Stringer back cover below; © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images 6bl; Stringer/AFP 6br; Popperfoto 8; Oli Scarff 12; Central Press 13; Fox Photos 15; Popperfoto 16, 18al; Paul Popper/Popperfoto 18ar; Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images 18b; Lisa Sheridan/Studio Lisa 20; George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images 23; Paul Popper/Popperfoto 25; Marcus Adams/Paul Popper/Popperfoto 26; The Print Collector/Print Collector 27; Popperfoto 29; © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images 31; Lisa Sheridan/Studio Lisa 33; Popperfoto 35; Keystone/Hulton Archive 36; © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images 37; © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images 40-41; Popperfoto 40b; Paul Popper/Popperfoto 47; Popperfoto 48; Hulton Archive 56; Popperfoto 59; Paul Popper/Popperfoto 60; Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection 61l; Fox Photos 61r; Picture Post/IPC Magazines/Hulton Archive 65; Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images 67; Keystone 72a; Tim Graham 72bl, 72br; ullstein bild via Getty Images 75; Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images 76; Quadrillion/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images 77; Tim Graham 78; George Freston/Fox Photos 80; Keystone 81; Hulton Archive 82a; Tim Graham 82b; Keystone 83; Paul Popper/Popperfoto 84; Hulton Archive/Keystone 85; Rolls Press/Popperfoto 87; Bettmann 88; Rolls Press/Popperfoto 89; Hulton Archive/Central Press 90; Hulton Archive 93; Bentley Archive/Popperfoto 94; Anwar Hussein 97, 98, 99, 100; Popperfoto 101a, 101b, 102; Fox Photos/Hulton Archive 103; Lichfield 106; Tim Graham 107; Lichfield 109; Central Press 110; Serge Lemoine 111; Lefteris Pitarakis/AFP 112; Popperfoto 113; Tim Graham 114; Adrian Dennis/AFP 116ar; Max Mumby/Indigo 116b; © Pool Photograph/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images 121; Tim Graham 122, 124; Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images 127; © Pool Photograph/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images 131; Tim Graham 133; Adrian Dennis/AFP 137; Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images 138; Anwar Hussein 139; MJ Kim 140b; Pool/Anwar Hussein Collection 141; Murray Sanders - WPA Pool 145; Max Mumby/Indigo 147; Chris Jackson 148; Arthur Edwards - WPA Pool 149; © Pool Photograph/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images 151. Mary Evans/Hardy Amies London 11; © Illustrated London News Ltd. 39, 71. REX/Shutterstock/Tim Rooke 116al; David Hartley 120; 129; Netflix 152. Shutterstock/Kilroy79 1. Victoria and Albert Museum, London/© Cecil Beaton 17, 54.
Index
Albert,
Prince 84, 91, 118
Amies, Hardy 69, 70
Andrew, Prince 90, 104, 108, 115
childhood 83, 85
and Sarah Ferguson 107, 119, 120, 125, 133
Anne, Princess 92, 94, 118
early life 14, 18, 60, 66, 67, 69, 81, 82, 83, 89, 90, 93
and Mark Phillips 96–7, 119
and Timothy Laurence 119, 123, 139
Annigoni, Pietro 68, 71, 91
Armstrong-Jones, Tony (Lord Snowdon) 69, 86, 90, 92, 103
Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) 40–1, 42, 69
Bagehot, Walter 50, 89
Baldwin, Stanley 28, 30
Balmoral Castle 109–10, 115, 128–9
Bashir, Martin 125
Beaton, Cecil 16, 17, 54, 59, 68–9
Beatrice, Princess 119
Blair, Tony 115, 128, 131–2, 134
Bown, Jane 69
Britannia 69, 74, 80, 98, 99, 110–11, 132, 133
Buckingham Palace 108, 118, 122, 129, 130, 148
Callaghan, James 98, 104
Cameron, David 147
Chamberlain, Neville 35
Charles, Jeannette 170
Charles, Prince 116, 145, 154, 155
and Camilla Parker Bowles 107, 116, 123, 124, 125, 138–40
childhood 18, 58–9, 66, 69, 81, 82, 83–4, 85
death of Diana 129
Elizabeth- the Queen and the Crown Page 12
