Queen Elizabeth II is seen everywhere in the news, on postage stamps, front pages and many other outlets. The 87-year-old queen, despite her age, has a harrowing schedule including grand ceremonial occasions, trade-missions overseas, and visits to small towns and hospitals where she meets soldiers, and peoples from all walks of life. But how much do we really know about her?
The queen gives little away and has always remained mysterious. This well researched biography was published in 2012, marking the queen’s diamond jubilee, hence its title, “The Diamond Queen”.
Andrew Marr takes a close look at what the queen does, how she does it and how under her reign, despite all the scandals and problems, the British monarchy has emerged stronger.
The queen’s life follows a pattern of rituals and traditions. Every morning, she listens to BBC radio, looks at the Racing Post and the Daily Telegraph while sipping Earl Grey tea. Soon after, she is given a diary sheet of engagements followed by boxes of official papers containing anything from minor appointments to secret service reports. Very often, the queen will visit Angela Kelly, her personal assistant and senior dresser, one of the people closest to the monarch apart from her family. She creates and chooses the clothes along with the hats, bags and shoes worn by the queen during her domestic visits or trips abroad.
Part of the queen’s job is also to host guests at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor castle. She checks the rooms to make sure everything is welcoming from the flowers to the choice of books left on the bedside table. She also overlooks the choice of food, the flowers and place settings at the grand dinners.
The queen, incidentally, has an elaborate technique to avoid anything that might embarrass her government. When a visiting head of state talks about his country’s politics she inevitably replies “I’m sure the foreign secretary would very much like to discuss that with you.” Others mention how she uses polite silence to deflect trouble:
“And it is very noticeable that when you ask people about their conversations with the queen they bubble about her wit and insight, and then tell you exactly and (only) what they said to her. Clever,” wrote Andrew Marr.
The queen is a naturally shy and a quiet person. She has never enjoyed speaking in public even when it is a small event. She shares that feeling with her father, George VI who loathed public speaking because of a terrible stammer. She saw her father fight his speech impediment with the help of Lionel Logue. The story was the subject of a successful film with the actor Colin Firth playing the role of her father.
Apart from her husband, the single biggest influence on the queen was her father, King George VI. After the abdication crisis of 1936 when her uncle
King Edward VIII chose to marry the woman he loved rather than serve his country, her father who was never trained to become a king inherited the throne. He became a war leader respected for his determination and persistence. The queen inherited this unfaltering sense of duty from her father and her illustrious predecessors.
“She has done nothing against the grain of what was expected. She has uttered not a single shocking phrase in public. There are no reliable recorded incidents of her losing her temper, using bad language or refusing to carry out a duty expected of her. People close to her mention her wry wit, her talent for mimicry and her very shrewd intelligence, helped by an extraordinary memory for people and events. However, outside a tiny circle, none of this is seen. Her most often used and most effective tactic is silence,” explained Marr.
Another interesting fact about the queen is that she doesn’t hide her emotions easily. When she is deeply moved and tries to control her feelings, she looks very angry. Sir Godfrey Agnew witnessed this first hand during a meeting when four ministers had been kneeling on the wrong side of the room. As they crawled around they knocked a book off a table, which the queen picked up, looking “blackly furious”. When Sir Edward Bridges, the cabinet secretary who had coached the ministers, apologized to the queen she told him “You know, I nearly laughed.”
Anyone wondering about the queen’s personal taste should follow the author’s suggestion and visit the Royal Yacht, “Britannia”, now moored at Leigh docks in Edinburgh and open to the public. She and her husband chose a Scandinavian style of decoration focusing on simplicity and comfort. There are no dark colors, no gilding but instead a soothing combination of cream and pale grey and light wood.
It has been said that the queen’s speech on the eve of Diana’s funeral was influenced by Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell, especially when the queen spoke of being a grandmother, but Tony Blair made it clear that, “Those words and that speech were her own”. Furthermore, the queen’s unexpected decision to bow her head in respect as Diana’s coffin passed is seen as one of the most important acts of her later reign.
In September 2015, if she is still alive, the queen will outlast Queen Victoria’s record. But unlike her glorious ancestor who isolated herself for so long, the present queen has consistently been present in the public eye. She, unlike her children, was blessed with a long and happy marriage, which is part of the secret of her success. She has benefitted from the constant support of her husband who has helped her fulfill her vocation of being a queen.
“In private, she can be spontaneously warm, but she never forgets her destiny and when she needs it, she has a terrifyingly expressionless stare that could halt a tank at twenty paces,” wrote Marr.
The queen has steered the monarchy through difficult times and it has emerged stronger and as the author remarks, democracy and monarchy are no longer in opposition, “they support one another”.
As we reach the final pages of the biography, we cannot fail to be impressed by the queen’s dedication to duty. During her reign much of British life has been transformed beyond recognition. Yet the one constant in six decades of dramatic and turbulent changes has been the queen herself. And one of her greatest achievements is the fact that the monarchy is as popular today as it was during the fifties.
Upon her accession to the throne, Winston Churchill said that, “Famous have been the reigns of our queens. Some of the greatest periods in our history have unfolded under their scepter”. And indeed, Queen Elizabeth II is considered by many to be amongst the greatest monarchs of British history.
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