The Royal Household is a highly efficient organization and runs with clockwork precision – it has to. The Queen disarmingly says of it all, ‘I understand the need for effectiveness, efficiency and so on, but we mustn’t be too corporate …’
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet the Obamas
The state visit of US President and Mrs Obama in May 2011 is a good example of the brilliantly choreographed, set-piece theatre, full of pomp and ceremony but run to a precise, rehearsed schedule, which characterizes a typical state visit and its climax, the state banquet. Arriving in Ireland, the President paid a quick visit by helicopter to the ancestral lands of the ‘O’Bamas’ to drink (and pay for) a symbolic pint of Guinness before the presidential armoured limousine managed to get stuck exiting the US Embassy in Dublin and had to be abandoned; not a perfect start to his visit. Leaving Ireland the night before his scheduled departure to avoid the ash cloud erupting from an Icelandic volcano, the President and his wife arrived at Stansted Airport from Dublin aboard the presidential plane Air Force One and were whisked by limousine to Winfield House in Regent’s Park, the American Ambassador’s residence, for their first, unscheduled, night.
The next morning they were welcomed to the UK by The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall on behalf of The Queen. All four climbed into the ‘Beast’, the President’s armoured car, more of a fortress than a limousine, and in a 19-car motorcade flanked by motorcycle outriders made the trip from Regent’s Park, down Constitution Hill, into the forecourt of Buckingham Palace and through the central arch of the east wing to the inner courtyard. An open carriage for the President of the United States was vetoed by his security staff with so many potential threats to guard against only three weeks after the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
A State Banquet in St George’s Hall, Windsor Castle, 2009
‘THE STATE VISIT IS A HIGH-STAKES GAME FOR BOTH SIDES.’
The Japan Times
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh were on hand to welcome them at the Grand Entrance to the palace. A brief meeting with The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, married barely a month before and just back from their honeymoon – and Kate’s first role as a member of the royal family – in the 1844 Room (named in honour of a state visit by Tsar Nicholas I in 1844) was followed by a ceremonial welcome on the West Terrace. Stepping out from the bowed front of the Music Room into the blustery sunshine, the President and The Queen stood two steps in front of The Duke of Edinburgh and Mrs Obama, who was holding her skirt down lest the gusts of wind should render her reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch (The Queen has her dressmaker sew tiny weights into her hems to discourage them lifting). As the Guards band played the American national anthem a 41-gun salute reverberated over the music from the guns of The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery lined up in Green Park nearby. Twenty-one guns is the standard salute for heads of state but an extra 20 are added when the salute is given from a royal park. The President and The Duke of Edinburgh, accompanied by the major commanding, inspected the ceremonial guard of honour of 1st Battalion Scots Guards before the massed ranks moved off to the sound of the pipes and drums.
A view of the ballroom at Buckingham Palace, prepared for a State Banquet in 2008
The Queen and The Duke then took the presidential couple on a tour of American-themed items from the Royal Collection, which had been assembled in the Picture Gallery, including a photograph of HMS Resolute, timbers from which were used to make the desk in the Oval Office in the White House. A trip to Westminster Abbey to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was followed by a visit to Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street and a game of table tennis against Southwark schoolboys, the Cameron–Obama axis being soundly beaten – which required a ‘high-five’ to cement the Special Alliance. A return to Buckingham Palace saw a courtesy call by the Leader of the Opposition and then it was time to get into white tie and tails ready for the state banquet, the President and the First Lady retiring to their suite in the Belgian State Apartments. This suite of interconnecting rooms was named after Victoria and Albert’s uncle, Leopold, King of the Belgians, on the ground floor of the west-facing garden wing at the foot of the Minister’s Staircase. These rooms also formed the suite used by Edward VIII during his brief tenure at Buckingham Palace before his abdication in 1936.
A State Banquet in St George’s Hall, Windsor Castle, 1855
As the presidential couple got ready there would have been a purposeful bustle below stairs and in the ballroom where the table had been laid (preparation for the dinner had begun some three weeks before). Since 1914, all state banquets held at Buckingham Palace have been held in the ballroom, a vast room 36.6 metres long, 18 metres wide and 13.5 metres high (120 x 59 x 44 feet). When it was first built between 1853 and 1855 it was the largest room in London. The first event staged in the ballroom was a ball to commemorate the end of the Crimean War. In the centre of the room a huge horseshoe table had been constructed, a giant jigsaw puzzle of interlocking bases and tops, all adjustable to fit the numbers required – 172 on this particular night. For a state banquet the top of the horseshoe, where the guests of honour sit, is usually 8.5 metres (28 feet) across. It can seat 15, and is dressed with damask festoons, a tradition dating back to George IV’s coronation banquet in 1821. The table is covered with seven fine damask linen tablecloths with the royal cipher of George IV woven at intervals, all sewn together to ensure they lie flat, and together extending over 60 metres (200 feet). At Windsor Castle a magnificent single 50-metre (175-foot) long mahogany table stretching the length of St George’s Hall, dating from 1846, with 68 separate leaves and seating 160 people, is used for state banquets. It is left without tablecloths and polished to a high shine by staff standing on it using what appear to be padded croquet mallets.
A member of staff prepares the banquet table for use, 2009
At Buckingham Palace, with the tablecloths laid the table settings can begin. The setting out of the table usually begins two full days before the banquet. The first to be set out are the table napkins embroidered with The Queen’s monogram, folded into a Dutch-bonnet style by the Yeoman of the China and Glass Pantries. Candelabra holding over 100 ivory candles a foot high are placed at intervals, each candle topped with a miniature shade. They rest on mirrored stands, which reflect the candlelight and the gleam of gilt plate from the table settings. The very grandest, richly chased silver-gilt candelabra, depicting sculpted figures enacting stories from mythology, stand over 1.2 metres (4 feet) tall and hold 12 candles each. They are, like so many of the treasures on display, part of George IV’s Grand Service of banqueting plate and cost nearly £3400 each in the early nineteenth century (approx. £240,000 today), a staggering sum. They are placed on either side of the ‘top’ table, just as it intersects with the two arms extending down the room. Over 30 flower arrangements take the royal florist and a team of arrangers the best part of 36 hours to create and are displayed on the tables and around the rooms. The flowers used for the Obama visit were predominantly roses, then in season, and the heady scent of their perfume permeated the air throughout the banquet.
The table setting and menu for the state banquet celebrating the French state visit in 1996
The individual place settings measure 45 cm (18 inches) across and are laid according to the dishes to be served. For the Obama banquet over 2000 pieces of cutlery had to be individually polished and laid with perfect precision (according to the Butlers’ Guild it should take about 15 minutes per place setting to get it absolutely right). Two knives and two forks were provided for the fish course (sole with crayfish and watercress with a béchamel sauce) and the meat course (new season’s lamb from The Queen’s Windsor farm with roast potatoes, roast radish, courgettes and green beans), a dessert spoon and fork for the pudding (vanilla charlotte with morello cherries eaten from Minton plates) and a butter knife. Fresh fruit is always displayed on the table (typically grapes, pineapples, plums and nectarines), each fruit or l
eaf polished to perfection, and a silver-gilt knife, fork and spoon also provided. The fruit is eaten from Tournai fruit plates, cut with a knife and eaten with a fork. Until recently a soup spoon had also been included but the soup course was abolished as the banquets were dragging on too long and the soup had taken at least 20 minutes to serve, consume and clear away. Four guests share a salt dispenser, a pepper caster and a mustard pot between them.
Six glasses are always set before each guest, one each for the white wine, red wine, water and port; there are two champagne glasses, one for the toast and one for the pudding course. The more than a thousand glasses on the table come from a set made at Stourbridge for The Queen’s coronation in 1953 and are engraved with the EIIR cipher. All were cleaned, rinsed and polished immediately before laying to maintain their sparkle. The Yeoman of the Royal Cellars will have warmed and decanted the port (Royal Vintage, 1963), and checked the red and white wines and champagne (Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Vintage) are at the right temperature. With rising temperatures as a consequence of global warming the alcohol content of British wines has now reached drinkable levels and that night a Fitzrovia Cuvée Merret rosé 2004 from the British winemaker Ridgeview was served. For the state banquet for the Irish President in April 2014 a Ridgeview Grosvenor Blanc de Blanc 2009 was chosen: ‘Alluring and zesty, a sort of rustic Bollinger’, according to wine expert Jancis Robinson. Some 5000 bottles a year are bought for the royal cellars for the more than 300 events held at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. The more expensive wines served on state occasions are stored in the government cellars under Lancaster House.
A booklet was provided for every guest, bound with a red, white and blue ribbon, the colours of the American flag. Inside the timetable for the evening, the wine list, the menu (it is always in French, the language of gastronomy), the music played (selections from South Pacific) and a list of every guest attending was printed. At the back a seating plan folded out neatly with a coloured dot denoting the guest’s seat, so anyone in doubt knew exactly where he or she should be seated.
Around the room tables covered in red fabric fringed with gold interspersed with tall buffets displayed the treasures from the Royal Collections, plate and china that is in many instances priceless. The gleaming plate, jugs, wall sconces, platters, dishes, tureens, basins and tankards in silver, silver-gilt and gold on display date largely from the time of George IV, who created the most lavish, theatrical backdrops of any monarch to the business of royal entertaining. At Carlton House in 1811, as Prince of Wales, he created one of his most spectacular coups de théâtre: a miniature waterfall fed a stream, lined with mossy banks, alive with swimming goldfish and studded with aquatic flowers, which ran down the centre of the dining table. The buffet at the Obama state banquet displayed a porcelain dessert service made for William IV between 1830 and 1837, at the Rockingham factory in Yorkshire, celebrating Britain’s overseas territories and William’s own naval background. The service, originally consisting of 56 large pieces and 12 dozen plates, may well be the most ambitious commission ever produced by an English factory.
The Queen holds a banquet for the Royal Hospital Chelsea, 1965
With the table dressed and the chairs measured by rod to be at the correct distance, The Queen will have begun her pre-dinner check. Like any concerned hostess, she checks that all is well and her eagle eye can spot anything – a chair not in line, a candle not ramrod straight – a fraction awry. Below stairs (the kitchens were relocated directly beneath the ballroom when it was built) 20 chefs under Royal Chef Mark Flanagan had been hard at work preparing and cooking.
At the appointed time the Yeomen of the Guard, in their Tudor uniforms and carrying halberds, processed into the ballroom and took up their positions guarding the entrances, two standing directly behind where The Queen would sit. More discreetly the American presidential protection officers had stationed themselves around the building, earpieces connected to a command and control centre. The Queen with the President and The Duke of Edinburgh with the First Lady led the procession behind the sword-bearer, everyone governed by strict rules of precedence, into the ballroom. With all the guests seated the speeches began. That night there was a rare glitch. The band of the Scots Guards high on the balcony started to play the national anthem before the President had finished speaking. He gamely laboured on with his toast as the music played: ‘To Her Majesty, The Queen, to the vitality of the special relationship between our peoples, and, in the words of Shakespeare, to this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.’
With the toasts finished, the food service began. A hundred footmen under the direction of the Palace Steward are controlled by a system of traffic lights. When they turn from blue to green they pour in from all four corners of the room to serve the next course. When a zapper controlled from directly behind The Queen signals that she has finished they appear once more to clear the plates. Whether a guest has finished or not, that course is over. Queen Victoria was notorious for bolting her food and her older and slower courtiers managed to eat very little of their meal before it was removed. Petit fours, handmade chocolates and coffee are handed round before the end of the banquet is signalled by the arrival of the 12 pipers processing around the table, led by The Queen’s Piper, Pipe-Major Derek Potter. The thirteenth Queen’s Piper since Queen Victoria began the tradition after falling in love with the bagpipes in Scotland, his job, for four years until his retirement, was to play under The Queen’s window at 9 o’ clock each morning she was in residence. The tradition continues.
President Obama and The Queen
The day after the state banquet the visiting head of state will begin the serious business of advancing the agreed political and/or economic agenda. It may just be that the stunning display of hospitality that they have experienced, the finest food and wines served immaculately in a setting with an overwhelming history, might colour his or her attitude to the matters in hand. It most certainly cannot do any harm.
The scale of a State Banquet reflects its history and significance
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh relax in One of their private rooms at Balmoral, 1976
BALMORAL CASTLE IS The Queen’s private Scottish residence and is, she has been overheard to remark, the only one of her houses in which she can spend two consecutive months sleeping in the same bed. It must come as a tremendous relief.
This is very much a home, rather than a palace – the entrance hall has a stone floor and fishing rods, waterproofs, wellingtons, and dog bowls are very much in evidence. The rooms have a ‘Scottish country house’ feel. It is, in short, a retreat, albeit a retreat where there is no escape from the continuous flow of red dispatch boxes and, in the middle of it all, a weekend stay for the prime minister of the day.
The sepia road signs in and around Ballater in Aberdeenshire proudly proclaim to travellers that they have entered ‘Royal Deeside’, but in spite of an influx of tourists in summer, this is a relatively quiet and secluded spot, the only bustle in evidence out of season being that of the River Dee, which snakes its way through the rugged landscape of an estate that includes one-sixth of all Scotland’s remaining Caledonian pine forest.
Balmoral and the land surrounding it in the early nineteenth century
Early history of the castle
Imposing in its grey granite livery, with towers and turrets a-plenty, Balmoral Castle has been owned by the royal family since 1851. Six hundred years before Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought the estate, the founder of the Stuart royal dynasty, Robert II (an ancestor of the present royal family), owned a hunting lodge in the area. By the eighteenth century Balmoral was, appropriately, owned by the Farquharson family who lost the estate after fighting for the Jacobites, the followers of King James II, in the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. James Farquharson, known as ‘Balmoral the Brave’, was wounded at the Battle of Falkirk Muir in January 1746, a rare Jacobite victory, which took place during a violent storm.
A century later Victoria wa
s to declare herself a Jacobite, too, as she embraced a highly romantic view of Scotland and its history, despite having ‘Butcher’ Cumberland, the victor of the Battle of Culloden (when the Jacobites were defeated), as a great-great uncle. After that battle, in April 1746, one of the Jacobite officers, Captain James Stuart, stayed at Balmoral on his way home.
The original castle, a square keep of the early sixteenth century with the addition of seventeenth-century turrets and a courtyard surrounded by a high wall, was partly demolished and extended in the mid-eighteenth century by the addition of a long, steep-gabled house with narrow windows set high in the walls. This was further extended in the nineteenth century and it was this patchwork building, set in a wild, picturesque landscape close to the ancient pine forest of Ballochbuie between the River Dee and the Cairngorm mountains, with which Victoria and Albert fell in love.
Balmoral in the late nineteenth century
Their first visit to Scotland occurred purely by chance. In 1842, originally destined for a holiday in Brussels, Victoria fell ill and was advised by her doctor to go to Scotland as a less strenuous alternative.
Subsequent visits in 1844 and 1847 whetted their appetites. For Albert, the hills and forests reminded him of the landscape around his childhood home, Schloss Rosenau near Coburg. He wrote to his stepmother: ‘We are all very well and live a somewhat primitive yet romantic mountain life, that acts as a tonic to the nerves and gladdens the heart …’ Victoria was equally enchanted and later wrote in her diary, ‘All seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make me forget the world and its sad turmoils.’
In 1847 The Queen and The Prince rented a house on Loch Laggan in Inverness-shire but the mist descended, it rained continually and they were beset by midges. Undeterred they returned the next year and, advised by The Queen’s physician Sir James Clark, a graduate of Aberdeen University and an expert on climate and disease, they chose Deeside and took up a lease on Balmoral, its furnishings and staff, from Lord Aberdeen. Deeside had reputedly the lowest rainfall in Scotland and ‘bracing air’. In September 1848 they made their first visit and were immediately at home. Sarah Lyttelton of the household observed that leaving the Highlands produced ‘actual red eyes’ in Victoria. In later years she would dread going back to London and, like a child before being sent back to school, wrote in her diary, ‘I wish we might be snowed up and unable to move.’
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