For over 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II has reigned as the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. She is the longest-serving monarch in British history. Her reign is almost unparalleled throughout the world. The Queen was first seen as one of the two princesses growing up in the shadow of the Second World War.
Then she was the young, radiant Queen of an empire that needed a change. In the 1990s, she was fondly seen as the stately grandmother of the princes William and Harry. Now, in her twilight years, we see Queen Elizabeth as a loyal, true servant to her people. In her 70-year reign, the Queen has overseen incredible social, political, and cultural changes that no other monarch will ever again witness.
Royalty is a mixture of myth and reality. It’s the fairytale romance of a princess coming together with living history. And when it comes in the shape of a queen, my goodness, you’ve got the full package there. This is a dream, and yet it’s true. >> >> When Princess Elizabeth was a little
girl, she didn’t expect to be queen one day. She was just a little princess. Special, yes, leading a rarefied life, an unusual life, but her father was the Duke of York and her mother was the Duchess of York >> >> and they lived in London in Piccadilly, quite an almost a normal, if very grand, life.
She was like Princess Beatrice or Eugenie nowadays. I mean, she was the daughter of the Duchess of York >> >> and the Duke of York, um, lesser members of the royal family. So, she grew up with a great reverence for the crown, understanding the importance of duty and the monarchy, but never got that sort of conceit or big-headedness that sometimes goes with actually being in the job.
And I believe this gave her a modesty that people respect. In those days, members of the royal family didn’t have to do nearly as much as they have to do now. So, the Duke and Duchess of York and their two children, Princess Elizabeth born 1926 and Princess Margaret in 1930, could pretty much disappear to Scotland from somewhere round about the middle of July till perhaps the middle of October and hardly would be seen at all.
Of King George VI’s two daughters, it was Elizabeth who was stoic and steadfast, whereas Margaret was mercurial and mischievous. Elizabeth was discreet, Margaret attention-seeking. Elizabeth was dutiful, Margaret disobedient. Uh Princess Elizabeth was very >> >> close to her father, and they were a a very tight family unit.
He used to call them the four of us. And although they obviously had uh tours and duties to do, they they were quite a sort of stay-at-home family. She wanted to join the Brownies, the Girl Guides. Uh yes, that was considered a good idea. So, they formed a Girl Guide troop inside Buckingham Palace, and a handful of nice, respectable girls formed the Girl Guide troop. So, she was a Girl Guide.
She was a Brownie, but in the safety of a palace. Princess Margaret Rose has feet which at the age of seven cannot keep still. However, that’s what you’d expect of a Brownie of the Leprechaun Six of the Buckingham Palace Pack. I’ve talked with one of Princess Elizabeth’s playmates, who knew her when she was a very little girl, and she said she was great fun to play with, but quite undaring.
She didn’t ever do anything dangerous. Right from the beginning, she was a well-brought-up, well-behaved, well-ordered little girl. She didn’t go to school or university in the traditional way. She was brought up as young aristocratic women of her generation would be. First of all, she was educated at home, and then later, a schoolmaster from Eton College gave her special lessons in constitutional history.
Princess Elizabeth, of course, was born in the 1920s, in the aftermath of the Great War and in the run-up to the Second World War. It was a time of austerity and through the 1930s it was a time of unemployment. For the 14th year out of 15, His Royal Highness the Duke of York spends a night at his camp. Where under the industrial welfare movement, 400 boys from the public schools and industrial centers are spending their holiday together.
In the comradeship of the open air. Her parents were a little bit more in touch with what was going on in the real world. And I think that was that was a good thing. So, the Queen would have been aware even as a youngster that things were not good on the outside, that many of her subjects were having a very very difficult time.
Previous generations of royals, that wouldn’t have applied. They would have been away in their palaces and wouldn’t have had anything to do with let’s say ordinary people. Not so in the case of Princess Elizabeth. Second prize we think goes to Princess Elizabeth. They were really eye-opening times for the Queen.
Uh particularly I think because of her relationship with her mother. The Queen Mother was always someone who wanted to be involved in society and community. Famously during the Blitz she said that she was glad that Buckingham Palace had been bombed because she wanted to look the East End in the face. Similarly, they were very much in tune with their times and the Queen particularly I think understood the notion of not being seen to be splashing cash at times when things were difficult for other people.
She was devoted to her father and he to her. He always used to say of the two daughters, “Lilibet >> >> is my pride and Margaret is my joy.” The younger sister he spoiled rotten. He couldn’t believe that he’d created such a glamorous creature. Her little sister Margaret Rose was the naughtiest, skittish one in the family.
Right from the beginning, Princess Elizabeth behaved almost as though she was a queen in waiting. You can find nothing on record at all of Princess Elizabeth ever doing anything that would really be considered naughty. Watches proved ready for inspection. At the time, it was quite an idyllic upbringing because the princesses saw a lot of their parents because they were around a lot more post-abdication.
All of that changed, and I think what was most difficult for the Queen when she was a girl was really the transition from what was quite a low-key existence to suddenly being thrust into the spotlight. The idyllic life of the Duke and Duchess of York and their two daughters would change suddenly when King Edward chose to abdicate the throne and marry his lover, the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson in 1936.
Nobody was expecting the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, to abdicate until really quite late on. And it was a terrible shock for the Duke of York to realize that this was the the King’s intention, and that he was then going to have to take over. And I would suggest that it was probably not much before the end of November 1936 that this really dawned on them.
>> The man who sought the quieter part in life was crowned ruler of the greatest empire in history. Her father, famously of course with his stutter, wasn’t made for public life, but really applied himself, as we saw in the film The King’s Speech, to the job of becoming a modern monarch. The Queen and I will always keep in our hearts of inspiration of this day.
And may we ever be worthy of the goodwill which I am proud as I think surrounds us at the outset of my reign. As well as the heavy responsibility of kingship being thrust on him, George VI also had to navigate the emerging rumble of war with Hitler’s Germany. As head of the UK’s armed forces, the King found himself at war again with Germany following their invasion of Poland on the 1st of September, 1939.
This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11:00 that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, had already declared war earlier that day. This was the first chance for the King, the kind of the father of the nation, to speak to his people. Uh and to speak to the empire. The speech which ends the film, um The King’s Speech, as it’s become known now, uh was obviously an extraordinary important important speech.
In this grave hour, perhaps the most fateful in our history, I stand with every household of my people both at home and overseas this message. We are at war. With God’s help we shall prevail. In a sense, one could say that the Second World War came to his rescue because he was there, he was played a very statesman-like role during the Second World War and by the end of it, he was uh absolutely entrenched as a beloved king.
But whether in France with his troops or at home with his bombed people, his courage and cheerfulness were an inspiration. This was total war and the king suffered with so many of his subjects, the bombing of his home. Princess Elizabeth saw in her father this devotion to duty. Duty really came before personal happiness and she also saw it in her mother.
And that is the way that she has structured her own reign. You know, she’s really sacrificed her family in a way. She loved her daddy. She was a daddy’s girl in many ways. But she looked at what her father did and respected what he did and tried to follow his example. Now, in the same way, he felt that respect for her.
King George said from a very early age Elizabeth seemed very regal and even as a child in the cot, >> >> she seemed to be very much in control of herself and her emotions. >> He said I look at her and I see Queen Victoria. I see the evidence of a great monarch in the making. We don’t need a boy to do the job. She’ll do it better.
There are several events early in her life which have shaped the attitude and I think the essential seriousness of the Queen. One, the recession, the depression years in which she grew up. Um, secondly, the abdication which was such a trauma in her own family. Um, with such upset to her very emotional father.
Um, through her uncle Edward the VIII not doing [snorts] his duty. Um, as the royal family saw it, indulging in his love for a woman and putting that above his duty to the crown. And thirdly, World War II. During the Second World War, she and her younger sisters lived at Windsor Castle really in sort of isolation. They lived in the castle, people came in to entertain them.
Dances were given, parties were given. They met young aristocratic soldiers, guardsmen of the day. It sounds a bit strange, but I think the war was actually rather um, an enjoyable time for the princesses and I think Princess Elizabeth actually said to her governess, you know, perhaps we’re smiling too much, we’re looking too happy because she knew what was going on obviously and she was really interested, but >> >> they were really had their war years at Windsor Castle and it was like a
great big playground. She wanted to join something called the ATS, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, effectively the women’s army. Although she drives it with a parent composure, she had no experience of driving before she commenced her training. And for a couple of months, she went to Aldershot everyday and studied how to be a car mechanic.
Um, how to change wheels, how to take off a cylinder block. And when it comes to checking the plugs, Princess Margaret has obviously become suitably impressed. And she’ll come home in the and bore the family rigid with the dynamics of cylinder blocks and that sort of thing. I mean, everything this woman does at any age is something she’s done seriously.
At the end of the Second World War, when victory in Europe was announced, and there was huge celebration in the streets of London, literally dancing in the streets, Princess Elizabeth asked her father if she might go down into the streets to see what was going on. And with a couple of accredited guardsmen, she went down into the streets of London and briefly mingled with the crowds.
And that really was as close as she got to the reality of war. My sister and I realized we couldn’t see what the crowds were enjoying. So, we asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. I remember we were terrified of being recognized. So, I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes. We cheered the King and Queen on the balcony and then walked miles through the streets.
I think [cheering] it was one of the most memorable nights of my life. It was the Emperor Napoleon who said, “If you want to understand a person, you should look at the way the world was in the year that person turned 21.” Well, the Queen became 21 in the 1940s. And she has the values of a woman of that generation.
She is decent, she is discreet, she does her duty. It was during the Second World War that Princess Elizabeth first met the dashing naval officer Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. There’s was a love affair that would last for seven decades. One of the extraordinary things about the Queen is that she fell in love and married just about the first man she met.
That of course is a slight exaggeration, but she met Prince Philip um of Greece as he then was in 1939 when he was a dashing naval cadet at Dartmouth Naval College. She’d met him before at family occasions, but this was the occasion when by her own account uh the the spark was struck. Very dashing and very handsome.
And I mean quite unusually she actually thought this man is wonderful, you know, as a 13-year-old could think, you know, a handsome prince. And never really um had any affection for any other man ever since. He was astonishingly good-looking, you know, flaxen, you know, there were a number of of women who swooned uh at the time and who swooned later and described him as having Viking looks and flaxen hair and all the rest of it.
He was an astonishing figure and and in uniform he looked ridiculously good. And he he’s always maintained a very fit profile and he looked what he was, a young Greek god. Prince Philip was very alpha male. Quite controlling, but and very positive. And I don’t think Princess Elizabeth ever met a man like that in her life.
She was used to going out with uh Lord this and Lord that and you know, people being very deferential to her. And suddenly there was someone that come along and tell her what to do and drives too fast and does all all of things. And he I think he was just so male. She was so incredibly in love with him. They were both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria.
And by the end of the 1930s, Prince Philip, though he had a family, his father was in the South of France, his mother was back in Greece, his sisters were in Germany, and he was in England. And he would go to homes, houses of people, and in the visitors’ book would write when his address as “No fixed abode.” And Princess Elizabeth and he became friendly as the war wore on, and by the end of the war, their friendship was deepening.
From time to time, he used to wind up at Windsor Castle. He saw the Queen in one of his pantomimes, and and uh and then at a certain point, she was writing to him, and indeed had a photograph of a bearded gentleman on her dressing table, um which uh is always quite fun to share in lectures, because that is indeed Prince Philip, um in the in the days when he had a beard.
And then of course, shortly after that, the uh romance developed. >> He was in the Royal Navy. He was a cousin. He was certainly eligible. He was hugely charming. And by 1946, they were in love and ready to get engaged. I don’t think that Prince Philip ever fell foul of King George VI particularly, but uh you know, she his bride-to-be was very young.
They were both quite young. Um and he wanted her to wait. And you know, it’s rather touching actually that um they went off the only time that they were together on a foreign trip, en famille, just the four of us, as as he always said, George VI was the 1947 trip to South Africa. Princess Elizabeth became 21 when she was in South Africa and made this extraordinary speech dedicating her life to the service of the Commonwealth, the Empire indeed I think she said in those days.
And it it it’s very very her that. I mean it fits in with this wish to serve first and I think that that’s what she’s always wanted to do. Will you the youth of the British family of nations let me speak on my birthday as your representative. Now that we are coming to manhood and womanhood it is surely a great joy to us all to think that we shall be able to take some of the burden off the shoulders of our elders who have fought and worked and suffered to protect our childhood.
Now she didn’t write it herself. It was written by one of her private secretaries and given to her to approve. But apparently the first time she read it she cried. And she said this is exactly what I feel. This is exactly what I want to say. It showed that her father’s faith in her was justified. That she had this overwhelming sense of duty not just to Britain but to the Commonwealth as a whole.
And that that was going to be the most important thing in her life. I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great Imperial family to which we all belong. But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me as I now invite you to do.
It was really her her last time as a daughter in the family. She knew that when it was over she was going to get engaged to Philip and then marry him. With news of growing preparations for the royal wedding, come these notable pictures of the royal family accompanied by Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. People at court weren’t sure who this man was.
Princess Elizabeth was a perfect princess. She was beautiful, she was well brought up, she knew how to behave. Nobody was quite sure about Prince Philip. Who was Where were his parents? His grandfather, the King of Greece had been assassinated. His own father, in the year of Prince Philip’s birth, was put on trial in a show trial and due to be possibly executed.
He escaped into exile. Uh this is Prince Philip’s father with his family and they settled in France. Prince Philip’s upbringing was in a sense difficult. I mean, he was born famously um on a kitchen table in Corfu and he was evacuated in an orange box on board a British destroyer and he led a life of comparative and I think it’s reasonable to say comparative penury in France.
Then at the end of the 1920s, his parents split up. His mother had a breakdown, ended up in an asylum in Switzerland. His father floated down to the South of France where he ended up with a girlfriend living in a boat uh off the French Riviera. He always said to me that he was essentially um Pan-European. I don’t know what he was.
He certainly he he is categorized as being a fiddle for Greek um but he he doesn’t have any Greek blood in him at all. They were the the Greek royal family of which he was a were parachuted in. They were rent-a-royals insofar as he comes from anywhere. I guess he comes from Germany, probably.
And you know, he himself said, “You know, why should I like the Greeks? They would treated my family appallingly.” Which they did on my hill. So, the idea that he’s Greek is very far from the truth. So, people didn’t know who this prince was. He hadn’t been to a proper English public school. He hadn’t been in the Brigade of Guards. He’d been to the school called Gordonstoun, founded by a German prince Prince Max of Baden.
You know, he founded Salem. He joined the Royal Navy. Well, mentioned dispatches, that isn’t bad. But who was he? And so, when the engagement happened, there were lots of people around the Queen and the King at the time who had their reservations. After announcing his rights to the Greek and Danish thrones, Philip took his mother’s surname Mountbatten.
On his wedding to Princess Elizabeth, he was granted the title Duke of Edinburgh. Home agent rejoicing side by side with blowing pageantry marked Britain’s greatest royal occasion since the coronation. The royal wedding was seen as a sort of new Elizabethan age. The country was >> >> in a terrible state.
It was very austere right after the war. And suddenly that this beautiful bride, because the because you know, Princess Elizabeth was incredibly beautiful and this handsome naval officer were going to carry the country out of the doldrums of war and present them with a golden future. But the feeling was very much of their wedding.
It was like a fairy tale. Before long, the calls of the people were answered as onto the famous balcony came the bride and bridegroom. The British public on the whole regarded the marriage of of Prince Philip and to the future queen as a welcome blessed relief you know from a time of considerable austerity and awfulness and there was more rationing paradoxically after the war ended than there had been during the war itself.
And one of the charming things is that I think of the 1,700 or so wedding presents that were officially listed several hundred were nylon stockings, which um ladies loyal ladies in the country decided to send to uh the princess. They knew in those hard times what every girl wanted. May the present happiness of our princess and her sailor husband grow ever deeper with the years to come.
Following her marriage to Prince Philip, Princess Elizabeth gave birth to Prince Charles in 1948 followed by Princess Anne in 1950. After her marriage to Philip, they’d had their first two children pretty rapidly. She wanted more. She had to delay her family. That’s why her children come in two tranches as it were, one before her coronation, one once she’d played herself in and settled.
And she had had this wonderful experience for just about a year with Philip of being a naval officer’s wife. Philip had insisted after the marriage that he should pursue his naval career. She wanted him very much to do this. Um the royal family agreed and so he actually went off to Malta where the British Navy had still a large contingent in those days.
He was given his own ship. She went out there not as a princess but as the captain’s wife. And for the first and only time in her life, she drove her own car, she went to hairdressing salons, she met friends in cafes for coffee. She had something resembling an ordinary life. And it had been her wish and hope that that could could continue for several years.
It was obvious that she meant to enjoy herself. She had no restrictions. She could move about on her own in Malta. It was a a presumably novel for her, you know. I think officially she was the boss. But in private life, I think Philip ran the show. That’s my impression. Yes. He seemed to boss her around most of the time, you know.
And I shouldn’t say this, perhaps. I’ve I’ve heard him swear to her. The thing about Queen and Prince Philip is that they both, as it were, they’re very, very well matched. I mean, she took on somebody her own size. And it’s been a very, very interesting uh relationship which has lasted years. I think the Queen herself will be the first to admit that Prince Philip wasn’t somebody who minces his words.
He did wear the trousers behind palace doors, and he’s the head of the family, and he’s made a lot of changes at Buckingham Palace, uh which have been for the better. He didn’t want to be called a consort, and he wanted to be an individual in his own right. I think that perhaps some of the Queen’s character that she has today, cuz she’s very funny and can be incredibly waspish.
I think a lot of that came from being around someone as sort of strong as Prince Philip. And it’s a it’s an enduring love she has for him. In many happy marriages, that is the key. It’s the differences between people that make it work. And I think that was that’s I think what has been the glue that held that marriage together so well.
All too often I fear Prince Philip has had to listen to me speaking. He is someone who doesn’t take easily to compliments. But he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years. I remember a few years ago I went to the theater with them one evening and sat in the royal box with them and the interval came and I came out and during the interval I walked with the Queen and I walked past obviously with the Duke of Edinburgh.
The Queen went first and she was introduced to all sorts of celebrities during the interval and I stood at the side of the room with the Duke of Edinburgh and he looked across the crowded room towards the Queen. She was quite a small woman and she was surrounded by people meeting her and bowing and shaking her hand and he leaned against the wall and he was holding a drink and he caught her eye and across the crowded room as she smiled at him he merely lifted his glass and toasted her.
And I thought yes, of course. There is some special relationship between these two people. Although Princess Elizabeth was gloriously happy as the wife of Philip and the mother of two young children concerns were growing over her father’s health. George VI had already battled lung cancer and underwent surgery to have a lung removed.
On the morning of the 6th of February 1952, George VI died from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 56. The nation mourned the death of their king, a man they had taken to their heart after he had stayed with his family and fellow Londoners during the dark days of the London Blitz. The King’s unexpected death changed everything not only for Elizabeth but for Philip, too.
Their first tour, so to speak, was brought to an abrupt halt when they heard news of the King’s death. >> >> Were in Kenya, of course, it was the Duke of Edinburgh that broke the news to Princess Elizabeth, and understandably, she was devastated. You get this extraordinary vision of the Queen coming down the steps to meet all these ancient ministers like Winston Churchill, born in 1874, who’d served in Queen Victoria’s army, junior minister under Edward the VII, who was then Prime Minister, Attlee and Eden and
Mountbatten and the Duke of Gloucester and all these other figures that were standing there and the old cars that came to meet her. And and she arrives back into her country to to take over the reins of being sovereign. >> From that moment when she stepped onto the runway back in Britain, people were bowing to her and she was the new Queen.
And it was the a mortal blow to Prince Philip because he realized that family life, as he knew it, was over. I mean, he realized it in a way before she did. The enormity of the situation hit him. Suddenly, she’s Queen and she can’t be the wife anymore, the mother. She can’t be the mother anymore.
I mean, there was just she really had very little time to be with her children. So, Prince Philip, in a way, sort of became the house husband. From 1952, as soon as she became Queen, she was off on lots of royal tours, and in the early days, they were very lengthy. They often went by ship. So, I think there was a a distance between her and her children that hadn’t applied in her own case.
Basically, Prince Philip, in a way, lost his wife. Lost his wife to the role of duty. What would have struck journalists at the time is her relative age and innocence in the scheme of things. Um she was certainly um a a very well-read and well-schooled woman of her tender years in those days.
That said, she had no experience really at all of even married life, let alone being queen. If you lose a parent, any age is difficult. Uh if you’re going to be the next monarch, if you know that your father dies and you’re going to step into the job, one can’t begin to imagine the sort of weight of responsibility, the weight of apprehension and suspension that that would give you.
Uh so I think that when her her father died, it was a a cataclysm both personally and then she had to face the fact that she was going to be the monarch of the United Kingdom. There was anxiety to start with um when George the VI died so young, a father figure, how could this young girl cope? And then it was actually Winston Churchill who in his uh speech of mourning and farewell to George the VI and welcome to the new queen pointed out that here she was uh modern Elizabeth coming to the throne at the same age as the first Queen
Elizabeth in Tudor times. Um and here perhaps Britain and the whole Commonwealth had the chance of a modern Elizabethan age. >> >> As with her father, Princess Elizabeth became the reigning monarch when it was least expected. 4 months after King George the VI death, the coronation of Elizabeth the II was set to take place on the 2nd of June, 1952.
Television was just taking off. Lo and behold, we had the coronation in 1953. So many people acquired their television sets for that. My family did. We sat in the house. My dad bought a television. The neighbors came round as in so many other cases. And really, that set television going as well. I think there was very much the notion that this should be a world event, and that everybody in the Commonwealth should be able to enjoy what was an occasion where they would be seeing their queen crowned. She was very
worried that she might make mistakes that would be recorded live on television. I solemnly promise so to do. There’s also several very emotional private moments in the service, like when she took communion. Another moment when she has to bare most of um the upper part of her breast and have the coronation oil anointed there.
She didn’t want that to be shown on television. The people wanted to see royalty. They wanted to not just be able to watch them physically in London, but I think they really needed to see this happening. And the BBC um really pushed for the coronation to be televised. Um and it wasn’t the queen that said no, or indeed the queen that said yes.
It was actually her advisers were very sniffy about it and said, “No, no, no, it can’t possibly be the case because they’ll be men with cloth caps in pubs, you know, they won’t be deferring.” There was a national outcry. You know, they said people said, “Look, you know, it it says the queen should be crowned in the sight of all the people.
And these days, the people are watching their tellies. It was televised, as we know, and of course, it was a huge, huge success, and a sort of bringing together of the Commonwealth and the whole world, in fact. I think for the Queen, it was a very momentous occasion in her life. Not just because of the world while following, but because she’s a deeply religious woman, and making her vow before God in such austere circumstances to serve her country was really a defining moment for her in her life.
>> She’d always had a strong sense of duty, but that became even stronger. And, you know, her coronation was a religious service as much as anything else, and she was very much at the center of a religious ceremony presided over by the Archbishop by her Archbishop. What really changed her life totally after the coronation in 1953 was the sense that she was on her own.
She was chosen by God, if you like. Now that she was no longer ever likely to be the Queen, Princess Margaret believed she was sufficiently out of the royal spotlight to live a freer life. No longer as restricted by royal convention, she felt free to pursue her love for Group Captain Peter Townsend. Very soon after the coronation, the euphoria of that great event was overshadowed by the Margaret Townsend affair.
The Queen was in conflict there because as head of the Church of England, she could not really permit her sister to marry a divorced man. But as the sister of Princess Margaret, she obviously was very keen that Princess Margaret should be happy. And it wasn’t easy. What happened in that particular situation was that they separated the couple.
They sent Peter Townsend Townsend off to Brussels as an air attaché. And by the time he returned in 1955 when the general public were getting tremendously excited at the thought that Princess Margaret was now 25 and could to some extent do what she wished. In fact, I think you know, the path of love had as it were run through. And by the time Princess Margaret realized there was a possibility of her um civil list allowance ceasing and possibly losing her royal titles and things, it was over.
Princess Margaret’s personal message issued from Clarence House, “I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I am deeply grateful for the concern of all those who have constantly prayed for my happiness.” Because of their closeness, the Queen during the whole Group Captain Townsend period was very supportive of Margaret because it was really their mother who they didn’t want to let in on the notion of the relationship.
And I think Elizabeth and Philip counseled Margaret as much as they could through that. And >> >> uh it’s sometimes been misreported that it was the Queen that said that this relationship couldn’t be allowed. Actually, she was devastated that when push came to shove, it was the government who said, “Actually, we can’t allow you to marry this man.
” >> >> And I think she had a lot of sympathy for Margaret because after all, the Queen knew what true love was. She had married the man of her dreams. Problem the Queen has I think often had is as it were the role of the Queen as Queen and the role of the Queen as a person.
I mean, to some extent they’re two different two different people. The Queen has been known sometimes to turn to a private secretary, um who produces something for her to look at, and to ask her the question, you know, what should the Queen do? At the beginning of the Queen’s reign, the massive tour of the Commonwealth that she undertook, the best part of a year in the newly built yacht, the Britannia, was obviously partly a celebration of her accession, but it was mainly a thank you to the British Commonwealth, to Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, South Africa, India, um the African countries that had contributed so many men and lives to the war effort against Germany and and Japan. When the Queen came to the throne, we still had the British Empire. It was very much part of all of our lives. I remember, I was young, but I can remember, it’s hard to think of it now, but we we had influence all over the globe, real influence.
And the Queen was Queen of all those countries as well. It became the Commonwealth, a much looser association of mostly friendly countries. The Queen has always taken that extremely seriously. Of all the jobs that she does, that I think possibly she would say herself, the two that really matter to her are being head of the church, because she takes her religion extremely seriously, and being head of the Commonwealth.
I’d say that the Queen has adopted the Commonwealth almost as one of her sort of prime causes. I mean, rather like a a prime minister with a new government identifies an area that he wishes to be identified with. It’s true to say that that’s what the Queen has considered to be very important.
And she never miss misses these Commonwealth heads of government meetings. You know, she has prime ministers all over the world and she has said that sometimes when she goes to these meetings, she sees she feels a bit like a doctor. She sees four prime ministers in the morning and four in the afternoon and they all tell her their different problems.
And who better to talk to than her because she’s not going to tell us what they say. And equally, of course, she’s known all their predecessors way back into the 1940s before a great deal of them were born. Today, we live in a celebrity-driven world where fame appears important for fame’s sake. But despite being the most photographed woman in history, the Queen has no interest in celebrity.
Princess Elizabeth as princess and queen has always been guided by a a great sense of duty. When she became crowned queen, um one of the symbols of authority that she took was what’s called the wedding ring of England. She considered herself and she considers herself married to England, Britain, Australia, um the British Commonwealth, all the countries that acknowledge her.
And that for her is the most important thing. I don’t think she has yet seen the film called The Queen because she’s not interested in herself. She doesn’t read about herself. She is not preoccupied with herself. She doesn’t belong to the me, me, me generation. She isn’t touchy-feely as a human being. There are no photographs in existence of the Queen and Prince Philip walking along holding hands.
They reflect their generation. That’s not what they want you to see. You may want it. It may reflect what you are looking for in royalty. That’s not what they’re going to give you. I think there are two big influences on the Queen’s approach to her job. Uh one was the example of what happened with her uncle, Edward the VIII, king for such a short time, never even crowned.
Uh I think uh that would have instilled in her the idea that you do not walk away from what is your duty. What her father had done, she carried on. And I think succeeded even more, if you like. She was even more taken to people’s hearts than her father had been. to see you. It’s wonderful. She’s on monarch. And um for her to take her time to speak to you is wonderful.
I can’t believe it. I made it. >> [laughter] >> One of the most interesting things I ever heard about the Queen said to me by one of her private secretaries. And it was this, that the Queen sees it as her duty to walk at the pace of the slowest person in the land, so that nobody in the country feels left behind.
And so the Queen has actually been hugely inclusive in the way that she has run things. Many British Prime Ministers and governments have been elected, served, and defeated since 1952. But the Queen has remained. From Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher, the Queen has now advised 14 Prime Ministers with her knowledge and insight on world affairs.
There is no doubt at all that she had a special feeling for Winston Churchill. None whatsoever. Because she’d known him since she was literally a little girl. She sat on Winston Churchill’s knee. He was a friend of her parents. Her father went through the Second World War with Winston Churchill. She was a young girl in her mid-20s when she became Queen.
And Winston Churchill, the grand old man of European politics, was her first Prime Minister. He was the special Prime Minister. Since then, I think she’s seen them come and go and being very skillful at not letting them become too intimate with her. >> [laughter] >> James Callaghan, a British Prime Minister, said to me once, “You know, royalty, they offer you friendliness, not friendship.
There is a difference.” The idea has always been that at least once a week, on a Tuesday, the Prime Minister makes time, clears his diary, and goes over to Buckingham Palace to talk to the Queen. The Prime Minister just sits and talks in total confidence, totally openly, with the Queen about what’s going on.
She She listens. She does much more listening than anything else. A few years ago, I found myself at a private party in a corner making conversation with the Queen. And I found myself talking about the Prime Minister of the day, John Major. And I found myself saying to the Queen, “Oh, you had an audience with him today.
” There was a There was a recession at the time. And I said, “You know, it’s very bad, the recession.” She said, “Yes, very bad.” And she said, “You know, I’ve been Queen since 1952.” I said, “I do know that, Your Majesty.” She said, “You know, I’ve had 13 Prime Ministers.” I said, “Oh, yes, I know that, too, Your Majesty.
” And you know, “We have one of these recessions every few years, and I’m not sure any of my Prime Ministers knew what to do about it. She’s very dry, the Queen. She’s got a very good sense of humor. I would say that if you succeeded in making the Queen laugh, you can be genuinely 100% certain that you have amused her. >> She is a very amusing person.
People always think the Queen is looking rather serious. And this is simply because she’s a bit older now, and she’s got one of those faces that look solemn when it’s in repose. But when she smiles, her face is absolutely transformed and she looks wonderful, radiant. But she’s also very amusing and does impressions.
Some impressions of individuals, but she does accents. She can go to a place and come away and do you impressions of people. >> When I just first joined Majesty in 1983, the Queen and Prince Philip did a tour of Jordan. And I remember going on it. The Queen said to me, “What do you find to write about in your magazine?” And I said, “Oh, your family, ma’am.
” And she said, “Well, I use it as a diary to know what they’re all doing.” Once a story I rather like about the Queen was that she always wanted to see a supermarket and once in Norfolk she was put on her sort of husky and her head scarf and she had claimed that she hadn’t been to a supermarket other than when she’d been opening one.
So she wanted to go along and so she was walking up and down the aisles and a little old lady spotted her there, went up to her and said, “My dear, I I must tell you, you look awfully like the Queen.” To which the Queen replied, “Thank you. That’s very reassuring.” That’s very much the Queen. The Queen is impartial, a guardian of Britain’s history, democracy, and cultural heritage.
She is independent of Parliament, giving service and dignity to the British monarchy and its people. They are above politics. They’re not there because we’ve elected them. They’re there. Maybe they don’t even want to be there, but they’re there and they’ve devoted their lives to duty, which is really important that we see that, which is why the behavior of some of the young royals in the ’80s was so damaging to the monarchy.
But I think because they’re above politics and because we know people like Prince Charles really care, he does really care about this country and its people. Um we want to look up to them. It’s really no secret that she has her differences with Prince Charles. I mean, she loves him, obviously, as her um eldest son, but she feels that his espousing of quite controversial causes is dangerous for the monarchy.
Now, Prince Charles, in his own defense, would say, “Well, this is only while he’s Prince of Wales, that when he becomes monarch in due course, um all of that would end, and he totally understands the impartiality that a modern constitutional monarch has to have.” When you look at Charles and Andrew, you can probably make comparisons with William and Harry in that Andrew’s the spare to the heir as Harry is, and they can both get a bit away with a bit more, and they might be labeled party princes or playboy princes because they haven’t got
the burden of responsibility on their shoulders. They aren’t going to be the future king. He also had a very gung-ho image in that he was out in the Falklands and flying helicopters and generally being quite macho, and it fitted in with that whole Top Gun image. >> The Queen’s relationship with Prince Andrew has remained constant in spite of the controversy surrounding Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Following the subsequent allegations from Virginia Giuffre, the Queen has shown the same loyalty to her second son that she gives to her country. These are her um >> >> indulged younger sons. Um and uh she’s she’s fond of them, and perhaps she’s less critical of them than she is of of of Charles.
Yeah, what did you think of it? >> [laughter] >> Thanks. >> I thought it was great. Well, Prince Edward didn’t have a great press in those days cuz I think he was very much in his elder brother’s shadow as the youngest child. He didn’t do very well in the Royal Marines, and so was labeled uh soft, if not gay in some quarters, which uh was later denied by his wife in the ill-fated interview she gave to the fake sheikh, not knowing that he was undercover at the time, headlined “My Anne and My Edwards Not Gay.
” Um and I think really he suffered a bad press because he tried to have his own endeavors and he ran Ardent, his production company. It didn’t do very well. I think the nail in the coffin coffin was when he went and filmed Prince William um at Eton um when he had been expressly told not to and uh that really ended his career and the Queen didn’t want the bad publicity.
On this particular occasion we are celebrating something which is really an accident of birth over which I have no control. And for which I seriously owe one very important thank you, which is to my mother and father. I think people will say that Princess Anne is her biggest support and that is both personally as her only daughter, but also in a professional sense in that she’s an absolute tireless workhorse for the royal family.
She carries out multiple engagements most days of the week and in that respect she is the firm’s number one performer and the Queen really admires that in her daughter. I think probably Princess Anne actually is more like Prince Philip than her mother in some other respects. Um she’s also very straight-talking and no nonsense.
Um but I think the Queen’s close with all of her children. It’s really her grandchildren on whom the Queen focuses. She is a great matriarch, the Queen. She loves having all the family around her and that’s why her time at Sandringham at Christmas and Balmoral in the summer uh very precious to her because those are the times when she can be um a matriarch for a few weeks at least.
>> >> The royal family has reflected family life in general because behind palace gates they are a normal family with normal problems and normal emotions. In fact, they’re under more pressure really than the rest of us because their moves are all scrutinized and if there’s problems in the relationship, the cameras are there to pick it up and that very much happened of course with Prince Charles and Diana.
But the interesting thing about Diana Spencer, who became Princess Diana, was that she rather came out of nowhere. No one No one really spotted her. Um although she had some royal connections in her family, she wasn’t the usual type of girlfriend that uh I remember uh Prince Charles uh accompanying to places.
A lot of his girlfriends had a past. And we, the press, knew that the that Prince Charles had to find at that time, definitely find someone who had no past. And then Lady Diana Spencer appeared and you know, it was a it was a gift to all of us. She was a young girl and quite naive at the time as we know, but I think actually Prince Charles’s parents were relieved that he had decided to marry someone.
He had quite a long period of bachelorhood where he couldn’t seem to settle down and it was actually attracting the wrong kind of headlines. Um was he a playboy prince? Was he not able to make decisions? Was he not able to commit? And suddenly this beautiful young girl came into his life and it really improved his PR enormously because not only had he managed to settle down, but with such a gorgeous and glamorous figure.
I was always very much actually a Diana Spencer fan and I thought of course it was terribly interesting to watch how she emerged from that chrysalis, that early chrysalis, into the girl that she became. And she was very, very good at those royal duties. And of course they were for a time really completely a dream team.
They could have gone anywhere and done anything. Everybody wanted to see them. Problem for Diana Spencer and what she really fell victim to was a was a time warp. By the 1970s, when Diana Spencer appeared on the scene, most people couldn’t care less whether the bride walking up the aisle was a virgin or not in ordinary life.
But when it came to the royal family, we still expected this old-fashioned view. Uh it meant she was much younger than Prince Charles. And Prince Charles, of course, as we since discovered, was already committed emotionally to another woman, and that was Camilla. But poor Camilla’s problem um was sort of catch-22.
Um when she met Prince Charles, she fell in love, they went to bed together, but that sort of automatically ruled her out as a future queen. It sounds ridiculous. It sounds primitive. And it was. Um and of course in two or three years, Prince Andrew fell in love with Fergie. She didn’t pretend she was a virgin.
She’d had boyfriends in the past. Everybody had moved on by that time. But Diana was caught in this particular trap. And it’s the basis for really the tragedy that became um her life and Prince Charles’s life and >> >> an enormous challenge to the monarchy and to the reputation of Elizabeth II. Rarely does the Queen interfere in her children’s private lives and never in public.
This was especially so when Prince Charles and Princess Diana had their marriage problems shown publicly around the world’s media. Well, we didn’t cover her unhappiness until probably about 1987 when it became so obvious that she was unhappy. The Queen was immensely distressed by what was happening in the marriage of Charles and Diana for a number of reasons.
Obviously, the the threat that it carried to the reputation of the royal family, but particularly to the happiness of the couple and particularly their ability to be parents to William and Harry whom she loved dearly as a grandmother, but also who represented the future of the royal family. So, there was a whole complex of emotions going on in here.
The Queen actually tried to bring Diana under her wing, >> >> but Diana was very reluctant. She thought, you know, she didn’t want to have supper with the Queen. That was too boring. And also, she found it a bit daunting. I mean, the Queen would invite her to come and have lunch with her or have supper with her, and Diana really didn’t want to do that. And so, she’d find excuses.
And so, they never really formed a very close relationship at a time when it might have really helped Diana to do so. When the marriage really started to to break down, Diana used to go and see the Queen. Now, nobody sees the Queen without an appointment, but Diana used to wait in the pages’ vestibule until the Queen’s last visitor, if you like, um had left.
And then, she’d dash in before the next one, and she’d just cry. And say, “Everybody hates me. I hate my mother. I hate my sister. I hate my husband.” And the Queen, not used to this kind of moral confrontation, just didn’t know how to handle Diana. >> >> It really threw her. And um as a result, she sat on the fence with Diana.
It would be a great mistake to think that she blamed Diana for what went wrong. If anything, I believe that she and her husband, Prince Philip, put more of the blame on Prince Charles than on Diana. Because after all, he was the one who had this extra girlfriend, who was by then not a secret to the royal family.
He was the royal who’d spent all his life getting ready for this. I just think from everything I know about the Queen and everything everyone’s told me, she tries not to interfere with with her children’s lives. She probably should have done. I think that could be the great mistake of her reign is that that she didn’t interfere between Charles and Diana.
I asked Prince Philip about it once, and he said to me simply, “We’re a family. We are a family. These things happen in families, and they cope with it as a family would.” And their reaction to it was that of parents of their particular generation. One of the things that disturbed, distressed the Queen and Prince Philip about Diana, Princess of Wales, and about Sarah Ferguson, who married the young Duke of York, was that the attention they got they may have thought that it was for them as individuals.
And the Duke of Edinburgh said to me once, “You know, when the Queen first became Queen and went on tours in the early 1950s, millions millions of people came out in the streets and cheered. And if the Queen had taken that attention for herself, it would have been corrosive. She never did. She knew the attention, the adulation, was not for her.
It was for the position of being Queen.” One of the things that makes them feel a bit distressed about the way they are presented, and I’ve discussed this with the Duke of Edinburgh, is that people now regard them as part of the celebrity culture. They’re not. They think of themselves as part of history. There is blood in their veins that has been coursing through royal veins since before 1066.
The Queen’s mantra when it comes to her family is always been never complain and never explain. And in that respect, she’s always remained resolutely silent on issues such as love, marriage, divorce. Probably the most demonstrative she ever was was when she talked about her annus horribilis. Well, 1992 was the worst year, so the Queen says, of her life.
She called it her annus horribilis. Now, there was the divorce of Andrew and Fergie. Before that, there was the fire at Windsor Castle when the Queen sort of almost saw her It was on her wedding anniversary. And I think she almost felt her life was going up in flames. And then of course, the separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which really was something the Queen had tried incredibly hard to help them avoid.
She said, “You know, just try a bit longer. Just try a bit longer.” And then she realized that you know, it wasn’t going to work. So, that was a really rotten year for her. Shortly after the Windsor fire, the Queen was scheduled to make a speech. And she didn’t duck the issue. She didn’t avoid it. She was ill herself. She had a terrible sore throat from the from the smoke and from a cold that she was suffering from.
And all of this added up to this poignant image of this middle-aged elderly woman who’d seen her home burnt down, who’d seen her children divorce. It has turned out to be an annus horribilis. If it hadn’t been Latin, she wouldn’t have been able to say it, but suddenly it provided her with a format for broaching this dreadful subject.
Uh and she did and of course people loved her the more for it and and and rallied round and and gave her um the emotional support that the monarchy had so often offered to them. With continuing controversy surrounding her children’s personal lives being highlighted around the world, the Queen took solace in rebuilding Windsor Castle after its catastrophic fire.
Little could she know that the greatest tragedy which would raise doubts about her reign was about to unfold. On the 31st of August, 1997, in Paris. I was asleep in bed when the phone rang >> >> and one of my bosses said, “Nick, there’s been a car crash in Paris. Dodi Fayed is dead and we think the princess is dead, too.
” So, I obviously got up, got dressed, went straight to the studio in the middle of the night and then was really on television, I have to say, for the next week, really. We have a flash here from the Press Association newswire saying that Diana, Princess of Wales, has died in a car crash in Paris.
As the British people opened their hearts in a national outpouring of grief for Diana, the Queen struggled to balance the perseverance and duty of monarchy with the appearance of being aloof and cold. What happened was, of course, that the week after Diana died was a long week from a media point of view. So, on the Sunday, you had the shock.
Uh the next day, it was discovered a turned on the paparazzi or perhaps even on the same day that had pursued the car. Then after that, it was discovered that the chauffeur had um more alcohol in his blood than he should have done. So, he was the next one to be blamed. And then, once they’d finished with that, they turned on the queen.
And the press uh played it up like anything. They played up the fake thing of the flag, there being no Union Jack flying at half-mast on Buckingham Palace. Uh I tried to tell ITN time and time again, “Why don’t you film Windsor Castle, which has its flag at half-mast?” Surely, that makes a certain point.
Didn’t quite fit what they were interested in. They wanted the stark flag pole, the monarch who did not care, and so forth. >> We didn’t whip up hysteria. I’m I always get a bit cross when people accuse us of that. The British people felt very deeply, most of them, about Diana. They felt her loss personally. And we were very aware that we shouldn’t inflame people.
We shouldn’t say, “Oh, the queen’s being terrible. She hasn’t come down to London to meet the crowds.” We tried to be very careful about what we were doing. But the story just swept along. No one could have imagined what would would have happened to Diana and what would happen in the days that followed. With Diana’s death, the queen did what she’s always done.
Remember, she likes continuity. And she did what her father would have done and what her grandfather would have done. So, they buttoned down the hatches, stay at Balmoral, on the outward, act as if nothing so terrible has happened. But she completely misread the mood of the country because you’re in the ivory tower of Balmoral.
You You don’t know what’s going down in London. The queen, somebody who had been through the war, and her generation respond to things like car crashes in which ex-daughters-in-law are killed in a different way to the um more touchy-feely way that the younger generation responded to that. Her job was to look after these boys at this traumatic, terrible moment in their lives.
That became her priority. And that was very much the reason why she did not want cameras paraded around. She did not want to make public statements. She certainly wanted to keep William and Harry away from um attention. And she thought let’s go down at the last moment. Uh there was the practical matter of not disturbing people at the palace, but more important, it just means the boys can focus on this one thing um uh paying tribute to their mother at the funeral and then come home.
Well, of course, that was not how people in London or indeed through the media people around the world saw it. Well, the Queen, when she came back to Buckingham Palace from Scotland, I think she was actually extremely nervous because she could feel the hostility of the crowd. So, she did a walkabout.
And actually she she heard them say, “Oh, it’s about time you’ve come. You know, you it They can hear an awful lot of things that the crowd say.” And then I think a woman actually gave her um a bunch of flowers and said, “Oh, would you like me to place it for you?” And the woman said, “No, ma’am, it’s for you.” And that sort of broke the ice.
It was that moment. And I think suddenly people saw her instead of feeling all prickly and angry, they suddenly thought, “My goodness, this is this is a grandmother and she’s got to deal with all this. I suppose it was a sort of natural feeling in sympathy in many ways for the Queen, plus the fact, and I remember this terribly well, the Queen went on television live from Buckingham Palace to address the nation in the middle of all of that.
And it was a very masterful speech. >> What I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart. She used the famous words, as your Queen and a grandmother. That was a very important thing to say, to remind people that she isn’t just some remote figure, but she has a family, children, grandchildren, and all the sorrows and pleasures that that brings to everybody.
For a woman who’s thought of as conservative and a bit stick-in-the-mud, she’s always shown throughout her reign in moments of crisis the ability to think on her feet and switch and change. There was a time when Prince William wasn’t terribly keen to walk in the procession because he thought the whole thing had turned into a terrible ghastly media shenanigans, but the night before Prince Philip said to him, “I think when you’re older, you would regret it if you didn’t walk in your mother’s procession, and I will
walk with you.” And that’s an immensely supportive grandfather. I think he got it absolutely right. And there’s a moment, if you look at the footage of that, that they’re passing under Whitehall, and they think the cameras aren’t on them, and Prince Philip sort of leans over and says, “How’s it going?” That’s what you need from a grandfather on an occasion of that kind, I think.
In the aftermath of Princess Diana’s sudden death, the Queen and Prince Philip continued to support the two young princes, William and Harry, helping them cope with the demands of royal life without their mother’s guidance. In 2002, the Queen was to suffer a tragic double loss within two months. Princess Margaret, her playful sister princess, died in February.
The loss of her confident and much loved sister affected the Queen immensely. At Princess Margaret’s funeral, the Queen could not hide her sorrow, shedding a tear in public for the first time in her reign. This is a terribly sad day for all my family. Particularly, of course, for the Queen, my mother.
My darling aunt had such a dreadful time in the last few years with her awful illness, but she loved life and lived it to the full. We shall all miss her dreadfully, and on behalf of the whole of my family, in particular, my grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, thank all those wonderful people who already uh have sent in their condolences and their marvelous letters of sympathy.
They are so greatly appreciated. One month later, Queen Elizabeth sat at her mother’s bedside as the Queen Mother died on the 30th of March 2002, aged 101 years old. First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the Queen, particularly after loss so recently of Princess Margaret, and of course with all the royal family, for whom the Queen Mother meant so much.
She was someone we were immensely proud of. She was a dominant, unifying figure in our country’s history for the best part of a a century. Never more so than in the Blitz, when she insisted on staying in London, and she represented not just her own spirit, but the spirit of the British people in those dark times.
Despite her personal grief that year, the Queen celebrated her Golden Jubilee with gusto, marking the 50th anniversary of her accession to the throne. >> [cheering and applause] >> Following on from recent deaths in the House of Windsor, the Queen was delighted to celebrate the wedding of her grandson, Prince William, to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey in 2011.
As second in the line of succession to the British throne, Prince William and Kate’s marriage rekindled the magic and hope of the monarchy amongst the younger generation. When Prince William was getting married, of course, there’s always excitement about a good-looking prince getting married. A year after the wedding of Prince William and Kate, the Queen celebrated another milestone when her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 saw even greater crowds turning out to celebrate than 10 years before.
She’s incredibly modest as far as these things concerned. And this sort of rather lovely sort of expression and and and of surprise that everybody’s, you know, really getting into it and enjoying it and longing to wave flags and have big lunches. Then all my foreign clients also wanted to give parties and jump around with bunting and things like that.
And I think she was even more surprised. Um but she is incredibly modest in that way. The next generation of the House of Windsor announced their arrival with the birth of Prince George of Cambridge on July the 22nd, 2013 at St. Mary’s Hospital, London. Birth will be very public, not because William and Kate want it to be, but by very dint of who they are and what’s happening.
It’s going to be completely global. We welcome with humble DUTY A FUTURE KING. Put an easel in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace as they did with Prince William on which is a sort of a formal announcement. Princess Charlotte of Cambridge was born as a sister to Prince George on May the 2nd, 2015. Three years later, Prince Louis completed the future king’s family.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE PROUDLY ANNOUNCE THE BIRTH of a newborn royal prince on this St. George’s Day 18 2018. Queen Elizabeth II has witnessed history throughout her reign. But in September 2015, she created it by celebrating another milestone by becoming the longest-reigning monarch in 1,200 years of British royalty.
We’ve never had a monarch who’s been on the throne so long. Inevitably, a long life can pass by many milestones. My own is no exception. But I thank you all and the many others at home and overseas for your touching messages of great kindness. For her to have now reigned longer than any other British monarch in the thousand-odd year history of the British monarchy is is a moment for us all to sit back and and take stock of.
And I think in the Commonwealth and throughout the world, it’s it’s a huge achievement. You know, she’s given her life to the service of of Britain and and this is another another element of that of that extraordinary record of service. In 2017, having walked behind his wife for nearly 65 years, the Duke of Edinburgh announced his retirement from royal duties at the age of 96.
Or as he mischievously quipped, to retire from being the world’s most experienced plaque unveiler. You are seeing the world’s most experienced plaque unveiler. >> [laughter] >> I’ve been very proud to play Prince Philip. He’s such an intriguing, rich, conflicted character, especially in his early years.
And um we’re very proud of the royal family, or at least I am in England. But you know, he’s 96. Most most people will have retired 20 years before that, or even 30 years. Or even 40 years in some cases. So, I think he’s had, you know, he he’s done a great service and um you know, he’s kept his sense of humor amongst all that, which is incredible really.
I’m sorry to hear he’s standing down. I can’t stand up much now. With her husband now taking it easier, and the new generation of royals learning their royal responsibilities from their father, Prince Charles, the Queen began reducing her official engagements. The wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle in 2018, and the birth of their son, Archie, in 2019, were major events in the royal calendar.
And thank you everybody for all the well wishes and the kindness. It’s really just meant so much. In January 2020, their royal highness status was stripped after they stepped down as senior royals. Prince Harry lost his royal and military titles, as well as his charitable patronages. Shortly afterwards, the couple moved to America and began to build their life outside the royal family, before the COVID pandemic struck.
With the world shutting down and royal visits no longer possible, the Queen moved to her residence in Windsor Castle for most of the pandemic. As the world faced the uncertainty of COVID, the health of Prince Philip gradually deteriorated with frequent stays in hospital and surgical procedures, the Duke of Edinburgh began to appear his age for the first time.
On April the 9th, 2021, the Duke of Edinburgh and husband to the Queen died peacefully just weeks short of his 100TH BIRTHDAY. >> [screaming] >> THE golden days of British monarchy are very slowly coming to a close, and I think that, you know, the loss of the Duke of Edinburgh, he and the Queen were married, as we know, >> >> for 73 years.
When a figure like Prince Philip is removed from the scene, of course, it leaves a great void. Prince Philip’s funeral service took place in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Because of COVID restrictions, it was not the grand affair first planned to acknowledge the years of service that the Duke of Edinburgh had given to his Queen and country.
Duty seems to be a word that lots of people don’t know the meaning of these days, and Prince Philip and the Queen were were raised with it. I don’t think this is um a year that she will look back on as she did uh once before as an annus horribilis. I don’t think she’d think of it in in terms of it being horrible.
I mean, it’s it’s losing her husband goes beyond that. This really is a sad point for us as a navy. It’s a point of reflection, and we’re paying tribute really by remembering the exemplary service that Prince Philip provided. You look at his life, and it was this life of service to the nation and to help people, and that is something very, very special.
And I think that’s his legacy. His legacy is one of reverence and respect and example for all of us to follow. As the royal family grieved the loss of a father and grandfather, the Queen mourned her husband and partner of nearly 80 years. When the Queen was photographed sitting alone in her sorrow due to COVID restrictions, she earned the respect and admiration of her people.
Although her Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was later discovered to have broken his own government’s lockdown laws, the Queen would never have broken laws made in her name whilst the rest of her people abided by them. As the Queen entered her 70th anniversary year of being crowned, she announced that her beloved Windsor Castle was to become her permanent home.
The Queen symbolizes stability and sovereignty. People like me who are sort of monarchists, we like the royal family and the Queen not only for political reasons cuz we think it’s a good system, but also for historical reasons. I would say for emotional, even aesthetical reasons. It’s a much more wider thing.
There is a great affection for the Queen and the royal family. The Queen has never given a public interview. The majesty of the Queen is that she will never reveal from personal feelings to great affairs of state, what the Queen hears from world leaders remains with the Queen. Being the sort of character that she is, she has always accepted her role in life, and she is very, very dutiful.
I’ve been writing articles and books about the royal family for just about 40 years since the early 70s. And I have to say that although I think I know the Queen and the monarchy pretty well, the essence of the Queen remains an enigma to me. That I think is her strength and that is I think how it should be.
I think she’s absolutely fascinating for the fact that she has been on the throne all these years actually while we can make a historic record of every second of her reign, what we don’t know much about is the Queen herself and as a woman and how she’s been as a mother and what she’s felt as she’s seen these momentous historical events take place.
Her emotions have always been kept under lock and key and that’s why she is one of the most elusive figures of our time. Maybe no one ever will get to the root of her. People find her endlessly fascinating for what is going on behind the facade. She has been consummate at preserving her own privacy, >> >> her own values, um her own ideas, her own sense of self.
And mystery and enigma is a very important element of the magic. Her strength always has been steadfastness. That she takes the good and the bad in her stride, that she has a takes a very long view of everything. People admire her longevity. They also admire her consistency. There she is. She keeps on going.
70 years on the throne, outdistancing anything in British history, actually in world royal history. I think she’s got a few years to go and she’ll beat Louis the 14th of France to become the longest monarch ever in history. The Queen is one person who can get a crowd together. She is one of those public figures that people will turn out and see.
Successful British royals are the modest ones. Or the relatively modest and humble ones who understand that they are part of an institution that’s bigger than them and stands for things that are more important than any individual. And that’s what she’s done and that’s what she continues to do and that is what people will be celebrating during the Jubilee.
The fact she’s survived it all. This year focuses on her as a person. Let us for the moment celebrate this lady, all she’s done for us in Britain, all she’s done to bring joy to the world. One thing that we do know about the Queen is that she’s a very stoic individual. She faces reality. You know, she’s a realist and Prince Philip isn’t there, but as we’ve seen since his death over a year ago, that she’s carried on.
In her Platinum Jubilee year, Queen Elizabeth’s devotion to duty is incomparable. And her honor is incorruptible. She is a matriarch, a woman who has striven to hold both her family and the British monarchy together for over 70 years. Queen Elizabeth II is the rock of continuity in an ever-changing world. A unique embodiment of what is historical, but always relevant.
The Queen is constantly surprised of the great feeling of goodwill she gets from her people and I find that strange after all these years. That it still surprises and rather charming that it still surprises her. I mean, it’s extraordinary. She is still there. She was there in 1952. She’s still there.
The same queen, the same smile. She goes to the same things year in, year out. It’s what a poet once described as the security of known relationships. We know where we are with the queen. She doesn’t let you down. She’s always there. >>
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