Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: 1926–2022: A celebration of her life and reign

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According to his press secretary, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair found his weekly meeting with the Queen “the one regular thing that he does that he really looks forward to”, though he admitted that he had no idea of what happened during their encounters. This did not prevent speculation, expanded in 2006 to the length of a feature film for which Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her portrayal of the Queen. It focused on the relationship between the Palace and Downing Street during the days immediately after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, at the beginning of Blair’s time in office. Though many of the details in the film were wrong, and some of the actors miscast, it showed the Queen coming to terms with the death of the Princess of Wales, and the strange change in the mood of the country that had occurred following Blair’s rise to power. If it was meant to suggest that Blair understood the public mood more successfully than the Queen, it did not succeed.

But the statement sounded defensive and the government’s expression of gratitude lukewarm. A deplorable failure of public relations led even monarchists to accept that the Queen’s financial sacrifice was a gesture of appeasement to the press. Nor did the Conservative government adequately thank the Queen when she ensured that Windsor Castle be restored to its former glory at no additional cost to the taxpayer.

1981 - The Queen's eldest son, Charles, Prince ofWales marries Lady Diana Spencer

It did not escape notice that Churchill had championed King Edward VIII’s marriage to Mrs Simpson in 1936 or that Eden himself had divorced and remarried, as had other members of both Cabinets. The Queen was unable (and perhaps unwilling) to shield her sister from constitutional pressures. Such was the custom of the day. Nearly 40 years later, her only daughter was to divorce and remarry, leaving scarcely a ripple – and more marital splits would follow. The Duke’s death at 99 was not entirely unexpected. Owing to the continued rules dictated by the pandemic, the Queen accepted the 30 mourners rule for his revised funeral at St George’s Chapel and witnessed his descent into the Royal Vault – as she had seen her father, and Queen Mary, laid to rest in 1952 and 1953. She was generally considered to be a lonely figure seated by herself in the quire of the chapel. So her vigil was prolonged. The war ended and with her sister she was swept off on a three-month tour of South Africa with the King and Queen in the hard winter of 1947. She spent her 21st birthday in Cape Town and broadcast her moving message of dedication to the Imperial Commonwealth. “There she goes,” the King said to Field Marshal Smuts, “alone as usual, an extraordinary girl.” Abroad, the Queen was welcomed with something approaching ecstasy, particularly in countries that had dispensed with their own monarchies. During one state visit to France, she happened to mention to her hosts in the Louvre that she had never seen the Mona Lisa. Within minutes, two attendants staggered in with the picture, which they exhibited on bended knees. Rarely did she meet with discourtesy. The King of Morocco kept her waiting for an hour in a torrid desert while he lounged in his air-conditioned caravan; and even India forgot good manners in retaliation for inept remarks on Kashmir by a British foreign secretary who accompanied Her Majesty. The Queen, professional that she was, took it in her stride.

At the beginning of 2022, however, when Prince Andrew looked likely to be called upon to justify himself in the American courts, the Queen removed his regiments and patronages, and instructed that he no longer use his “HRH”. Shortly afterwards he settled the civil law suit against him. Before the marriage, Philip renounced his Greek and Danish titles, officially converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and adopted the style Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, taking the surname of his mother's British family. [48] Shortly before the wedding, he was created Duke of Edinburgh and granted the style His Royal Highness. [49] Elizabeth and Philip were married on 20November 1947 at Westminster Abbey. They received 2,500 wedding gifts from around the world. [50] Elizabeth required ration coupons to buy the material for her gown (which was designed by Norman Hartnell) because Britain had not yet completely recovered from the devastation of the war. [51] In post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for Philip's German relations, including his three surviving sisters, to be invited to the wedding. [52] Neither was an invitation extended to the Duke of Windsor, formerly King EdwardVIII. [53] Some of the worst weather on record did not deter the Queen, nor did the alternative attraction of the Olympic Torch Relay make any impact on the huge crowds which turned out to greet her, as she criss-crossed the country in a royal progress which began in Leicester in March and came to a triumphant conclusion in the New Forest in July, connecting the monarch in a bond of warmth and affection with her nation – and continuing a tradition observed by her medieval forebears. People stood, often nine or 10 deep, to sing, wave Union flags, cheer and catch a glimpse of that characteristic, sometimes guarded smile, which seemed to suggest that the Queen could not quite believe that such an outpouring of affection and respect was really for her. For she never assumed that public support was hers by right. No subject ever curtsied more deeply to her sovereign or was more assiduous in showing respect. At one public ceremony Mrs Thatcher was embarrassed because her outfit closely resembled that of the Queen. Afterwards No 10 discreetly inquired of the Palace whether there was any way in which the prime minister could be advised of the Queen’s choice of clothes. The reply was both reassuring and dismissive: “Do not worry. The Queen does not notice what other people are wearing.” Unable to curb the trade unions on whom he had depended for his political muscle or to mitigate the “winter of discontent” they imposed on the nation, Callaghan was defeated at the general election of 1979 by Margaret Thatcher, who four years earlier had succeeded Edward Heath as leader of the Conservative Party.

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The illusion of a Second Elizabethan Age seemed short-lived. Scots subjects resented that their Queen should be proclaimed Elizabeth II in a kingdom where no Elizabeth I had ever reigned, and blew up pillar-boxes bearing the unhistoric cipher. Even the loyal Scottish establishment gathered in St Giles’ Cathedral in all their finery to present her with the Honours of Scotland – Crown, Sceptre and Sword – were dismayed that she appeared in day clothes, a rare error of judgment by her English private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles.

Never throughout the reign was there the faintest whisper that the Queen had neglected this duty. Whatever her public engagements or private recreation, she spent some hours each day on memoranda from ministers, minutes of Cabinet meetings, Hansard reports of debates in both Houses of Parliament, Foreign Office telegrams to and from ambassadors overseas, reports of the governors-general of Commonwealth countries (for she was also Queen of Canada, Australia and more than a dozen other independent states, the number varying throughout her reign), and reading newspapers and letters. And whenever she went on tour, her red boxes followed her.Only three lives, it is true, stood between the infant princess and the throne: those of her grandfather King George V and of his two eldest sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. However, there was no reason to suppose that the Prince of Wales, at 31 a much-pursued bachelor, would not marry and have children, the first of whom would instantly displace Princess Elizabeth in line of succession. So too would any son born to the Duchess of York; she was no more than 25 and, in spite of having had her daughter delivered by caesarean section, in robust health. During her grandfather's reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the British throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, as Edward was still young and likely to marry and have children of his own, who would precede Elizabeth in the line of succession. [17] When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as EdwardVIII, she became second in line to the throne, after her father. Later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. [18] Consequently, Elizabeth's father became king, taking the regnal name GeorgeVI. Since Elizabeth had no brothers, she became heir presumptive. If her parents had subsequently had a son, he would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession, which was determined by the male-preference primogeniture in effect at the time. [19]

It produced an overwhelming majority in favour of Macmillan; Butler secured at best three votes, perhaps only one. Churchill and one or two other Tory grandees who were consulted also endorsed Macmillan.

In reaffirming that the name of the Royal family remained Windsor, it departed controversially from the ancient English practice by which children bear the name of their father. Prince Philip found to his dismay that he was fathering a brood not of Mountbattens but of Windsors (though he would have preferred the family name to be Edinburgh rather than Windsor or Mountbatten). The Prince harboured earlier resentments. A kind, gentle and polite child, he was deeply bruised by the bullying he had endured at Gordonstoun. In reply to his pleas for help, his father had simply told him to grin and bear it – the habitual reply to generations of small boys at public schools. Neither parent perhaps had responded with the creative sympathy required to intervene discreetly on his behalf while preserving the schoolboy code of honour. That the Queen’s marriage to Prince Philip radiated content for more than 73 years owed much to the restraint and insight of each: more perhaps to the Queen than to her sometimes impatient and irascible husband. He must have realised when he married the daughter of an ailing Sovereign that his own career in the Royal Navy could not continue for long. He was nevertheless resentful when obliged to retire in 1951, and not at all mollified by the rank of Admiral of the Fleet bestowed on him after his wife’s accession. Nor at first did he take well to the role of royal consort that excluded him from all but ceremonial duties, though being pragmatic, he resolved always to help the Queen.