A Brief History of the Private Life of Elizabeth II (28 page)

Suddenly, unpredictably, the war between Charles and Diana was over. It ended on an August night while the Family was at Balmoral. It was as great a shock to them as it was to
the rest of the world, but this did not show and was not perceived. Balmoral is a holiday home and, while they are there, the Family are not often seen outside the walls of the estate. Had they
been in London, they would perhaps have made some public gesture. As it was, they remained out of sight. This did not mean they were not grieving, merely that they could not be seen to be doing
so.

Public opinion was as fickle as always. Throughout that summer there had been much adverse press comment on the Princess’s lifestyle as she was photographed romping in the Mediterranean,
and her flirtation with a man many considered unsuitable had lost her much credibility. A cartoon in the
Daily Telegraph
, in which an exhausted housewife sighs ‘I really need a break
– from reading about Diana’s holidays’, summed up an attitude that was widespread. When discussing her future as an ex-Royal, one commentator had suggested than within a decade
she would be ‘just another has-been celebrity living in California’, while another predicted her second marriage to ‘a Colorado ski-instructor’. When she died, such
criticism melted instantly away. Suddenly it seemed deeply churlish to have begrudged her the right to happiness. Such was the outpouring of grief that any negative attitude was seen as insensitive
and spiteful. Her death was so sudden that people were in shock for days afterwards. Tributes piled up in such numbers that florists could not keep up with demand.
They
carpeted the ground outside the palaces where she had lived and – absurdly – were put on war memorials throughout the country. In death, Diana had won the ‘War of the
Waleses’ – at least until public opinion settled down again – and the Royal Family were cast as villains. In this atmosphere of hysteria the truth did not matter, only
people’s perceptions. The Princess’s parents-in-law had cast her out. They had then compounded their cruelty by failing to mourn. The day after her death – a Sunday – was
one of the few times they could be seen at Balmoral, since they attended church at nearby Crathie. It was therefore noticed that they gave no sign of grief, made no comment and even that –
astonishingly – the sermon made no reference to the event.

The Queen’s attitude was that the death was first and foremost a family tragedy and that it should be dealt with in private. Her greatest concern was for her grandsons, who must be
protected, and that normality must be preserved as much as possible. To an extent that many people considered inappropriate, this involved business as usual – carrying on with the sporting
pursuits of the season apparently as if nothing had happened. It was days before a mounting tide of press outrage, demanding that Her Majesty ‘come back and lead the nation’s
mourning’ (‘Show us You Care’, said one headline), convinced her to return. She had never experienced a situation like this, and she had been completely wrong-footed. She was
roundly blamed for failing to have a national flag flown at half-mast from the palace, even though
no
flag other than the Royal Standard was ever seen there. One could not argue points of
protocol with a public that was out for blood, and she authorised the change that opinion demanded. It was also said that she had vetoed the idea of a state funeral because Diana was no longer a
member of the Family. The truth was that, since no funeral had taken place in these circumstances before, those planning it had no idea what to do. Again the monarchy’s usual standby –
precedent: the long-established,
long-practised rules for public ceremonies – was of no help. The procedure had to be made up more or less on the spot, and rehearsed with
frightening speed.

Having permitted the Union Flag to be hoisted in commemoration of Diana’s death, the Queen has allowed it to be flown over the Palace ever since when she is not in residence – a
direct and conspicuous sign of having bowed to public opinion. One can sympathise with her sense of hurt in this matter. The British people have always enjoyed the meticulous way in which their
monarchy observes the details of pomp and ritual. Its strict adherence to arcane rules makes public spectacle more splendid and creates a mystique that no other Royal House can boast. Her subjects
have been proud of this, yet now it became the very thing that caused them anger. No wonder she found the reaction bewildering.

Yet her presence at once began to turn the tide. Returning to London the day before the funeral, the sight of her car coming down Constitution Hill caused spontaneous applause from the large
crowd in front of the Palace. The ‘walkabout’ immediately undertaken by the Queen and her husband to examine the flowers and read inscriptions began to repair the damage. She made a
broadcast inside the building, through whose windows the crowd could be seen. It is said that the future of the monarchy hung in the balance during that week, but this is a huge exaggeration. Had
the Queen been genuinely unpopular, public opinion would not have forgiven her so swiftly. Once she was seen to be back doing her duty (though she would return to Balmoral the following week), once
she had addressed the people ‘as your queen and as a grandmother’, admitting that: ‘there are lessons to be drawn from her life and from the extraordinary reaction to her
death’, and once she could be seen mourning – the next day she bowed as Diana’s coffin passed her – her position was quickly restored. The Princess’s death was a
tragedy and will always be seen as such, but the Queen’s quiet dignity was not as inappropriate as some
believed. Once again, she represented timeless values against the
fashion of the moment.

Her Majesty was to change little about her public personality, and that was a good thing. The hysteria subsided after a time and left some of the greatest zealots feeling rather foolish. Plans
for a statue never came to fruition. The suggestion that Heathrow Airport be renamed in her honour was quietly ignored, as was the notion that August bank holiday be re-named ‘Diana
Day’. The monarch was seen to have learned the necessary lessons, and after all her style of behaviour, always admired, had perhaps been more appropriate than she was given credit for. The
Royal Household had established a committee called the Way Ahead Group to review their strategy of visits and functions so as to make them more responsive to public expectations. It was assumed
that this body suggested ways of seeming more informal and approachable, and it has certainly been noticeable that one sees far more pictures of the Queen enjoying herself than used to be the case.
Palace receptions can be less formal than they were – with the Queen and her family mingling, just as they do at garden parties. The Palace set up its own website and the Queen has
subsequently appeared on Facebook. She has since been seen visiting a McDonald’s as well as a pub, being shown round the set of
Eastenders
and attending rehearsals for a West End
production of
Oklahoma
.

Those who think this evidence that Her Majesty has ‘turned over a new leaf’ are mistaken. These are things she has always done. Although she may not be familiar with fast-food
outlets she has certainly been in pubs before, though admittedly of the rural, beams-and-fireplace sort found in the Home Counties. As for
Oklahoma
, she knew the show very well since she had
been taken to see it by Philip during her courting days, and had at that time had pleasure in playing on the piano one of the songs: ‘People Will Say We’re in Love’. What has
changed is that her travels and her work have been given more positive emphasis. We are reminded, for it is easy in the course of a long
reign to forget, how much she does and
how much she appears to enjoy it. We are also reminded that, though she may often look solemn and cheerless, her personal restraint is part of a discipline that has enabled her to rule extremely
well, and has given her the toughness to master crises that might well have overcome a lesser personality. If these qualities make her seem ‘out of date’ or ‘out of touch’,
so what? They have been what she and the country needed.

Since August 1997 she has also sought to remind her people that they are not a nuisance, and serving them is a privilege as well as an obligation. In the speech she made at her 50th wedding
anniversary she was at pains to stress this: ‘It is you who have seen us through and helped to make our duty fun. We are deeply grateful to you . . .’

One thing that helped heal the wounds of the recent past was that Diana’s death ended the bickering. Had she lived, the snubs and the sniping and the taking of sides would have gone on for
decades. No matter where she had lived or whom she had next married, her royal past would have followed her. The continuing bitterness was a source of anguish and embarrassment for the British
people and, whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, it was doing great damage to the monarchy and the country.

A grief of a different kind visited the Family with the decommissioning of
Britannia
– on grounds of expense, because the cost of modernisation was too great
– in 1997, after it had travelled more than a million miles. There was some criticism that the Family seemed to mourn the Yacht more than the late Princess. One author noticed that: ‘As
Her Majesty left the Royal Yacht for the last time, there were tears in her eyes, never seen before. The Queen had allowed her emotions for the old ship to betray her.’
Britannia
had
become closer to the
hearts of the Royal family than any piece of machinery could be expected to do. Linked with her father, because he had approved its design before his
death, and launched more or less as she became Queen, they had begun their official careers together. It was associated with numerous holidays and royal honeymoons as well as with official visits.
In port it served as a floating embassy, the venue for numerous banquets and receptions. More importantly, it was a sort of seagoing Balmoral – a home in which the Queen could entirely relax
because it offered such privacy. With miles of ocean all around her it was safe from the lenses of press photographers. Anyone could be expected to show sadness at leaving such a familiar
friend.

A few months before the end of the 1990s – on 19 June 1999 – the Queen’s youngest son was married. This was an event in stark contrast to the extravagant
occasions of the previous decade. Now that every one of his siblings was divorced, it seemed perhaps inappropriate to draw too much attention to Prince Edward’s wedding. It took place at St
George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. The groom, now created Earl of Wessex, arrived on foot with his two brothers from their home in the Upper Ward a few yards away. He wore no uniform, merely
a tailcoat. The bride, Sophie Rhys-Jones, a 34-year-old who worked in public relations, likewise had no train, and arrived in a simple but sleek white suit-dress. The guests were brought in by
minibus. Apart from the grandness of the building itself, this could have been the wedding of any young middle-class couple of prosperous parentage. One of the guests, the actor Anthony Andrews
(who reported that the Queen did the twist at the celebrations afterwards), commented that: ‘You felt that you were part of a family occasion, rather than a state one.’ A reminder that,
whatever their problems, the Royal Family are just like us. They get over their difficulties and carry on.

Although the century should not have begun until 1 January 2001, the Government had decided to start the ‘third millennium’ 12 months early, with celebrations
beginning on New Year’s Eve, 1999. The Millennium Dome in Greenwich, a colossal indoor space that was to be filled with quasi-educational sideshows, would be the setting for the launch of the
new era. Its construction rushed through and its paintwork barely dry when the day arrived, the building was to symbolise the new beginning in national life that Tony Blair’s Labour
Government had promised. It proved an apt metaphor for the country’s rulers – disdainful of tradition, dismissive of the past, obsessed with novelty, gimmickry and – in the name
of ‘inclusiveness’ – intent on reducing culture to the lowest common denominator. Like so much that was to follow, it would prove tawdry and vapid, and would disappoint millions.
On the night, the arena was crowded – though a number of those invited could not get there owing to complications with the rail service. The Queen and Prince Philip, who would not normally
have been
in London, had agreed to attend. They sat next to the Blairs and, at midnight, were obliged to stand up, join hands and take part in singing ‘Auld Lang
Syne’. They are not given to demonstrative public behaviour, and pictures of them at that moment reveal a stiff awkwardness. Blair himself recorded in his memoirs that: ‘I don’t
know what Prince Philip thought of it all, but I shouldn’t imagine it’s printable. I suspect Her Majesty would have used different language but with the same sentiment.’ Shortly
afterwards they escaped to Sandringham.

Perhaps they felt they owed something to Blair. In the days that followed Diana’s death it was conjectured that the public mood would have been hostile enough to have banished the
monarchy, had the Prime Minister not been supportive of it. This is nonsense. You cannot undo an entire constitutional system overnight, and no sizeable or influential body of opinion had wanted
to. Nevertheless his refusal to endorse the anti-royalist views of some in his government had gone some way to defusing the hysteria of the moment.

A more successful celebration, in August 2000, was that of the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday. The biggest event, in a series of commemorations, was held on Horse Guards Parade. Organised
by Major Michael Parker, a military impresario responsible for innumerable tattoos, it involved the charities of which she was patron, the regiments with which she was connected and a wealth of
other groups, organisations, representatives – and animals. There were chickens and cattle in the procession that passed in front of Her Majesty, for every aspect of her life was to be
reflected. On the day itself – 4 August – there was some amusement when she received from her daughter the customary message of congratulations sent to every centenarian: ‘The
Queen is much interested to hear that you are celebrating your one hundredth birthday, and sends you warm congratulations and good wishes.’