The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor

by Penny Junor

  ‘Almost everyone who has strong views about the monarchy has them for the wrong reasons,’ says Lord Garel-Jones.

  The traditional people on the Right like it for all the ceremony and toffery that goes on; the traditional Left hate it because they think it’s a symbol of privilege and all that sort of nonsense. We just all have to get it into our heads that the monarch is Head of State, and in this country she acts on advice, therefore within certain sensible limits will do what the government and Prime Minister advise her to do. Our Head of State is known all over the world; no one knows who the president of the Federal Republic of Germany is – the largest country in the European Union, the richest country, and no one knows his name.

  Robert Davies, CEO of International Business Leaders’ Forum, encounters every kind of system and says that very few of them have the dignity and sense of continuity that some of the monarchies have. Politicians rarely take a long-term view or commit themselves to prolonged support; and they come and go. He can’t think of anyone who has been in the same position for the last twenty years. The Prince of Wales has; he brings a sense of history – he knows where he has come from and where he is going and has the stamina for the long run. He’s not just in it for an election campaign or to publicize a movie; and he’s not an egomaniac. ‘He’s not an egomaniac at all; zero, compared with most politicians and many other leaders, yet at the same time he has got unshakeable views on the continuity of life.’

  Vernon Bogdanor believes that the position of the monarchy today has to be considered in the light of the very strong anti-political mood that is spreading in Britain and other democracies. Only 58 per cent of the population voted in the last general election and politicians no longer command the respect they once did. Prime Ministers like Churchill and Attlee were regarded as leaders of the nation and there was tremendous deference towards them. That has gone and the monarch’s role, therefore, as someone who can speak for the country as a whole, rather than one small section of it, has become more significant. On key occasions it is important to have someone well known who can represent the whole of the nation to itself – as the Queen did on the anniversary of VE Day when she appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. A politician could never have done that; neither could a retired politician acting as president. That’s what happened in Germany and Italy and most people have great difficulty in remembering their names. They don’t have the same resonance with the public as the sovereign.

  Elizabeth II has been a very remarkable sovereign. She has not put a foot wrong in more than fifty years and, while she may not be the most exciting of figures or the most inspirational of speakers, she is utterly genuine, totally dedicated and entirely professional and is as constant and predictable as the British weather. Privately she is much less predictable. ‘You suddenly find yourself having conversations with the Queen that you can’t believe you’re hearing,’ says a former minister. ‘She’s extraordinarily indiscreet and very funny – not all that often, but you realize there’s another person there who is fascinating and enchanting and girlish. Every now and again I have to pinch myself to believe what she’s saying and the questions she’s asking me.’ Her public persona is very different, very narrow and almost devoid of personality, which perhaps accounts for her universal appeal. She is loved and respected not just in Britain but in the countries she visits all over the world – even republicans tend to have a grudging admiration for her. There has never been a whiff of scandal surrounding her life – and attempts over the years to suggest that Prince Andrew was not Prince Philip’s child have never gained much currency. There was criticism over her intervention in the Burrell trial, but that was transitory.

  Prince Philip has attracted more controversy. Quite apart from his gaffes, for most of his married life there have been stories and rumours about extracurricular activities. I don’t know whether they are true or not, although I certainly know that a number of people who have worked inside Buckingham Palace believe they are true, as do some of the families who have played host to the Prince while he has been taking part in his carriage-driving competitions. It could all be malicious gossip. I don’t think it matters one way or the other – at least not to anyone outside the marriage. What matters is whether Philip has been a supportive consort and it is demonstrable that he has. Rude and bad-tempered though he may be, he has put duty before pleasure, worked tirelessly to advance his charities and organizations and made a major contribution to the success of the Queen’s reign.

  Having known him for years, one former Foreign Secretary believes Prince Philip is the least understood member of the family and that ‘his roughnesses’, as he calls them, come from the fact that the Prince leads an extremely boring life and every now and then feels compelled to stir the waters. He is a radical within a very traditional cast of mind, and he may not be politically correct, but he’s a very good consort. He always notices if the Queen has forgotten to talk to someone or if the conversation has been cut short or doesn’t go quite right and is always there to take care of it. And he’s right. I saw it myself. During their visit to the Surrey town of Dorking in March 2004, I watched him pick up a disconsolate child with a single daffodil clutched in her hand, who had been desperate to attract the Queen’s attention and failed. He went across to the barrier, lifted the little mite over it and told her to go and give the Queen her flower.

  Australia has been toying with republicanism for years and, with a sovereign thousands of miles away, there are very strong arguments for changing its constitutional make-up. No one was fooled by the results of the recent referendum and there are many who think that when the Queen dies there is no question that the country will become a republic. It is the affection and regard for the Queen as an individual that many believe has prolonged the status quo and made her such a powerful force within the Commonwealth. But that affection and regard does not extend to the Prince of Wales. ‘If Charles were to come to the throne either now or in twenty years’ time, the British political system would be quite worried,’ says a former diplomat, ‘whichever political party was in power because of his position vis-à-vis the fifteen or sixteen countries in which the Queen is Head of State, whether they would simply take over Prince Charles. I very much doubt they would given the past – the marriage, the adultery – and given public opinion in those countries. Also any suggestion that he would automatically take over the Commonwealth is very questionable. That is my judgement of public and political opinion in these countries.’

  John Major is convinced that the Queen has played a vital role in those countries.

  I do not believe the British Commonwealth would be a single entity if we did not have a monarch as the focus for it. Unity is better than disunity and you have some of the richest nations of the world, like ourselves, to some of the very poorest, facing terrible problems and the Commonwealth Conference brings them all together. It is in the nature of life that often there are squabbles, but there is a sense of real comradeship and from time to time these diverse countries act in a spirit of unity which is quite remarkable. When Ken Saro-Wiwa [the writer and political dissident] was murdered by the then Nigerian government during a meeting of Commonwealth Conference, I proposed action against Nigeria and received immediate support not only from Australia and New Zealand but from Nelson Mandela and, surprisingly, Robert Mugabe. Action was taken, because Nigeria’s behaviour was outside the principles agreed in the Harare Declaration. Immediately after the Gulf War [of 1993] the Kurds were being murdered in very large quantities. I went to a European summit and proposed pretty much off the top of my head a policy we called Safe Havens for the Kurds; we needed to get it approved by the American government, crucially, and the United Nations. I proposed it at the European Union Heads of Government meeting, got the support of Mitterrand and Kohl and then got in touch with the whole of the Commonwealth. With them and the European Union, I had huge support at the UN, there was a great weight of opinion behind it and the Americans rode in. Whether they
would have done without all that support I don’t know, but the united Commonwealth meant the UN were immediately on our side and the overwhelming amount of world opinion was behind the concept that we had to do something to help the Kurds. As a result, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives were saved.

  I do not believe our relationship with the Commonwealth would be so powerful if we didn’t have the focus of the Queen. She is often the point of unity when the Commonwealth is divided. If ever there is a big row about something it is put aside while the Queen is there. There’s a genuine and universal affection for her.

  The Queen attaches great importance to her role in the Commonwealth and is held in great affection by its member states. But those who have worked with Prince Charles feel that he has never shown quite the same interest. The historic link with Britain will not end with the Queen, but will inevitably loosen a bit. In Britain there is every confidence Charles will succeed his mother and be a very good king – provided he doesn’t turn people off by being controversial on political issues. His decision to marry Camilla will never please everyone but the majority of people in Britain are supportive and the announcement has been welcomed by the Commonwealth. In many of those countries Prince Charles is popular and well-accepted, but at the end of the Queen’s reign I think the Commonwealth might well think, ‘We’re an organization in our own right, Britain holds a pivotal position, it was right for the Queen to be head, but is it right in the twenty-first century that it’s automatic? It’s a group of fifty-three independent nations; it shouldn’t automatically be the British sovereign who heads it.’ There is bound to be an internal debate about this in the Commonwealth in due course.

  The Queen has been exceptional but there is no reason to suppose Charles will not match up. ‘Monarchy is better in wartime,’ says my senior civil servant, ‘having someone to die for.’ Would they be prepared to die for the Prince of Wales? ‘Yes,’ he insists. ‘He will change overnight when he becomes king, both himself and people’s perception of him. People in this country are very short term in their recollections. Previous controversies will fade overnight. Dignify it with the word “pragmatic” or else “short-term memory” but it’s one of the great strengths of this country; but you do need the institutions there as vessels in which you can put these thoughts. Democracy needs institutions; it can’t rest on the media.’

  The media is probably the biggest question mark hanging over the future of the monarchy. Photographs of the Queen and the Prince of Wales may not be so compelling any more but there is always a market for scandal and will always be one for sex – and with the Royal Family there is usually a means of linking the two. And with a character like Prince Harry on the loose there is potential for disaster. HRH is a very heady title and opens all sorts of doors; and there is no one, with the possible exception of his grandparents, who can say no to him. He is a nice boy but he has no sense of responsibility and no self-discipline – and since his mother died he has had no real discipline from outside either. Loving though the Prince of Wales is as a father, he has never put in the necessary time with his sons and by the time he woke up to the fact that Harry was keeping bad company and running wild it was too late to do anything about it.

  It is not his fault that his Zimbabwean girlfriend Chelsy Davy had a chatty uncle only too ready to tell the world that his niece and the Prince had discussed marriage. But if Harry had been more controlled we might not have had to know that he and the buxom blonde enjoyed their first romp in a lavatory cubicle in a nightclub. ‘What an awful job,’ says Sir Richard Needham, who almost wrote to the Prince of Wales once to say, ‘If I were you I’d tell your sons to give it all in; the Brits don’t deserve a monarchy.’ ‘What a monstrous life those two boys have to live. It’s all very well saying, “Well, they’ve got all this money”, but that’s irrelevant. Why can’t they live their own lives? It’s really, really awful. They are the only people in this country born into something from which they have absolutely no escape and in which they are hounded, absolutely hounded. The press will get Harry sooner or later – even as an ex-royal he’d be hounded. But the Prince of Wales has got such an incredible sense of public duty he wouldn’t understand what I was talking about.’

  FORTY-THREE

  The Way Ahead

  Shortly before 8.30 on the morning of 10 February 2005 I was driving to London when my mobile phone rang – the first of about 58 calls from the media that day. It was the Sun newspaper with the news that Charles and Camilla were about to announce their engagement. Could I write something for Friday’s paper? A moment later it was GMTV, the programme was just about to end, could I comment before they went off air? Radio 5 Live had an outraged Anglican with whom I suddenly found myself in a heated exchange, and so it went on – Radio Gloucester, Cornwall, Wales etc. – all the way down the M4. The announcement had taken everyone by surprise – even Clarence House – which to Sir Michael Peat’s irritation had been bounced into making it public earlier than planned after the news leaked to the London Evening Standard (shortly after Tony Blair’s weekly Audience with the Queen).

  The Prince had first cleared it with the Queen, his sons and the rest of his family at Sandringham over Christmas. He had then popped the question when he and Camilla were at Birkhall over New Year. As soon as she had said ‘Yes’, Sir Michael Peat set all the formal wheels in motion.

  Within less than an hour of the news breaking on that Thursday morning, the world’s media had descended on the Mall, and Canada Gate had turned into a mass of satellite dishes, television trucks and radio cars; and freezing presenters picked their way carefully over a snake-pit of communication cables to stand with their backs to Buckingham Palace and fill-in their viewers on when, where and how the couple would be married and the implications for the future. And on hand were royal watchers, historians, politicians, experts and commentators of every kind to give their reactions.

  Most people seemed to be very pleased for the couple, and felt about time too, but my angry Anglican was not alone in his disgust. Talking to ITN outside Clarence House a little later I met a woman who was so appalled by the news she had come all the way across London to express it. ‘If Charles is going to marry that woman,’ she said spitting out the words, her face twisted, ‘he should never be king.’ Phone-in programmes called it an insult to Diana’s memory, and on BBC Breakfast the next morning there were emails from viewers that were so terrible they couldn’t be read out. ‘The adulterer should not be allowed to marry his whore’ was one of the more extreme I happened to see.

  But the anger passed and by the weekend there were other matters on the front pages of the newspapers and opinion polls were beginning to suggest that the country was not going to be split so violently down the middle as at first seemed likely. The romantic element was creeping in. Camilla had revealed that Charles went down on bended knee to her, her diamond engagement ring was a family heirloom that the Queen had given them, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was pleased they had decided to ‘take this important step’, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were ‘very happy’ and had given the couple their ‘warmest wishes’, William and Harry were ‘100 per cent’ behind their father, and ‘very happy for him’, and Tony Blair sent congratulations on behalf of the whole government. And photographs of the Prince and Camilla – both utterly radiant – at Windsor Castle on the night of the announcement were enough to thaw even the coldest heart.

  A not insignificant part of the reason why they had waited until 2005 to announce their engagement was a sensitivity towards the boys. They didn’t want to foist a step-mother on William and Harry before they had fully grown up. Accepting Camilla as a fixture in their father’s life has been difficult for them and although they have been genuinely pleased to see him so happy, and genuinely like Camilla – and her children – the issue is complicated. The notion that their mother was a sacrificial extra in a long-standing love story between Charles and Camilla – a line most of the newspapers ra
n after their engagement – is hurtful. They loved their mother and are fiercely loyal to her memory – and know that Camilla was the cause of her terrifying unhappiness.

  Harry has been particularly affected. Whether or not any of this is related to his behaviour is a matter for the psychoanalysts. In the meantime, it is important that a solution be found, before he, like his mother, self-destructs. The answer perhaps is to cut Harry free from the Family Firm. The concept of a Royal Family, of an idealized, closely knit unit that sets a shining example to the country, has had its day. We don’t expect our prime ministers’ families to be on parade. We certainly don’t expect them to play any part in national life, work in government – heaven forbid – or to press the flesh on away days on his or her behalf; and if we elected a president as head of state we wouldn’t expect it of his or her family either. If, as Tristan Garel-Jones would have us do, we think of the Queen as Head of State, then a consort and an heir are as many as should be expected to put up with the demands we make of them. The Lord-Lieutenants would be enormously disappointed – they would like more rather than fewer royals – and the charities would miss out. Celebrities and politicians don’t have the same impact – even as minor royals – and they seldom have the commitment or the staying power. But there are thousands of charities that don’t have royal patronages and they manage perfectly well.