Queen of the World: Elizabeth II: Sovereign and Stateswoman

by Robert Hardman

  Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (1979), 325, 328, 331, 332, 338

  Zulus, 115, 407, 413

  Different titles and rank may often apply to the same person at different times in the course of this book. Therefore, with the exception of hereditary and courtesy titles, the index lists individuals without honours, rank or honorifics.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In a matter of months, between the spring and autumn of 1994, the Queen had hosted the President of the United States and had become the first and only British monarch in history to visit Russia. She had completed a three-week, ocean-going tour of eight Commonwealth nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean. She had led a Yacht-load of world leaders across the Channel to reinvade France, where she was saluted on the Normandy beaches by thousands of old soldiers, in one of the most moving military parades of her life (and theirs). Just one month earlier, along with the French President, she had opened a project first dreamed up during the Napoleonic era – the Channel Tunnel.

  It was not merely a case of turning up. These were all state occasions that required that blend of diplomacy, gravitas and charm which, in a person of a certain age, is called statesmanship. Just two years short of her seventieth birthday, here was a stateswoman at the height of her powers. The world seemed impressed. And yet, in Britain, the Queen’s central role in all this was largely eclipsed by a series of marital and financial crises that, according to some, threatened the monarchy’s very existence.

  This was the state of play in the mid-Nineties. Covering all these events as a relatively new royal-cum-political correspondent, I was intrigued – and have been ever since. At home, modernity and ‘Cool Britannia’ were in the ascendant, whereas the monarchy was painted as out of date and out of touch, its useful functions taken for granted and its more decorative ones questioned and criticised. Royalty didn’t seem to matter. Overseas, however, it had lost none of its prestige. It really did matter. The monarchy might be something of a curiosity at times, but the Queen was seen as a unique and benign bulwark of stability.

  That view holds true today. Whatever the prevailing mood in Britain might be, the rest of the world has not really changed its mind about the monarchy at all. So how and why is it that the best-known head of state on Earth has made such a mark on it? Many people have helped me answer that question. I am grateful to them all.

  In the first instance, I would like to thank Her Majesty The Queen for access to the Royal Archives and for privileged access to events and people at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. I would like to thank HRH The Princess Royal and HRH The Countess of Wessex for their time. The idea for this project has evolved from many conversations in many countries, but it was the decision to hold the 2018 biennial summit of Commonwealth nations in Britain that brought things to a head. As a benchmark by which to assess the Queen’s global standing, this seemed as good as any. I am most grateful to Samantha Cohen, former Assistant Private Secretary to the Queen and now Private Secretary to TRH The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who was one of the main architects of that summit, for seeing merit in both a book and a documentary on the monarchy’s international role. This is not in any way an official or authorised project, but I would like to thank the many members of the Royal Household who have facilitated the process, including Lord Geidt, Her Majesty’s former Principal Private Secretary, and his successor, Edward Young; Captain Nick Wright, Private Secretary to the Princess Royal; Vice Admiral Anthony Johnstone-Burt, the Master of the Household; Alistair Harrison, the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps; Oliver Urquhart Irvine, the Royal Librarian; and others. I am equally grateful to many former members of the Private Office who have been so generous with their time and advice, including Sir William Heseltine, Lord Fellowes, Lord Janvrin, Simon Gimson and Charles Anson. No study of roving royalty would be complete without that honorary member of the Royal Family, HMY Britannia. My thanks go to Sir Jock Slater, Sir Robert Woodard, Commodore Anthony Morrow and others who have kindly shared their memories of royal life at sea.

  Particular thanks go to Sally Osman and Colette Saunders in the Royal Communications department at Buckingham Palace, together with their colleagues Steve Kingstone, Marnie Gaffney, Hannah Howard, Laura King, David Pogson, Louise Tait and Daisy Northway. For their help both at home and overseas, especially on the royal tour of Asia, I should like to thank the Household of TRH the Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, notably Clive Alderton, Julian Payne, Eva Williams, Amanda Foster, Natalie Forster, Constantine Innemee and Lucy Mathews. At Kensington Palace, I am grateful to Miguel Head, Jason Knauf, Katrina McKeever, Amy Pickerill, James Holt, Charlotte Pool, Ciara Berry and Naomi Smith. Within the Royal Collection, I should like to thank Frances Dunkels, Caroline de Guitaut, Sarah Davis and Sally Goodsir.

  Many members of the British government, past and present, have been kind enough to talk to me about the monarchy’s global role. Of the Queen’s British Prime Ministers, I should like to thank Theresa May, David Cameron and Sir John Major; among her Foreign Secretaries, I should like to thank Boris Johnson, Lord Hague, Dame Margaret Beckett, Jack Straw, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Lord Owen. I am most grateful to Lord Howell, former Cabinet minister, ex-Commonwealth Minister and now President of the Royal Commonwealth Society; to Baroness Chalker, the former Minister of State for Overseas Development; and to Lord Judd, the former Minister of State at the Foreign Office. I am grateful, too, for the thoughts of Sir Simon Fraser, the former Head of the Diplomatic Service, and to Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former Cabinet Secretary.

  Britain is just one of sixteen of the Queen’s realms and one of fifty-three Commonwealth nations. Among those I would like to thank from these countries are Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada; Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand; Sir John Key, former Prime Minister of New Zealand; Sir Jerry Mateparae, former Governor-General of New Zealand and High Commissioner to London; Alexander Downer, former Foreign Affairs Minister of Australia, former High Commissioner to London and now Chairman of Policy Exchange. In her capacity as Head of the Commonwealth, the Queen has been served by six Secretaries-General at Marlborough House, of whom the surviving five have all been kind enough to share their thoughts with me: Sir Sonny Ramphal, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Sir Don McKinnon, Kamalesh Sharma and Baroness Scotland. Within the secretariat, David Banks has been an invaluable guide to all things Commonwealth, as have Marlborough House alumni including Sir Peter Marshall, Patsy Robertson and Stuart Mole. I am also grateful to Neil Ford and Barney Choudhury; to Sir Tim Hitchens, chief executive of the Commonwealth Summit, and his Cabinet Office team; to Lord Marland, the chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council; and to Peter Francis and Tim Brearley at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for their help.

  Every state visit and royal tour is both the culmination and distillation of many months of planning by an ambassador, high commissioner or governor-general and a team who have discussed little else for months. Many distinguished former members of the British Diplomatic Service have been good enough to discuss their experiences, among them Sir David Manning, now senior adviser to TRH the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Sir Brian and Lady [Delmar] Fall, Sir Antony Acland, Sir Roger du Boulay, Sir Francis Richards, Sir Julian King and Tom Fletcher, as well as others who cannot be named but to whom I am equally grateful. Thanks, too, to Matthew Barzun, the former United States Ambassador to the Court of St James, whose observation that the Queen was also a symbol ‘for the rest of us’ was one of the catalysts for this project.

  This has been a broad canvas. I have not attempted to cover every state visit or royal tour, since that would require many volumes. Rather, I have selected some of the most interesting and significant moments of modern royal diplomacy, assisted by the personal recollections of many people with a seat in the front row. They include the Most Reverend Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York; Sir Nicholas Soames, MP; Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles; Robin, Countess of Onslow; Alastair Bruce of Cri
onaich; and Reginald Davis.

  Queen of the World has also evolved, in parallel, as an ITV documentary series. It has been a great pleasure working with Oxford Films once again as writer/producer. I am especially grateful to Nicholas Kent, Faye Hamilton, Matt Hill, Floury Crum and Marisa Erftemeijer, who have all been friends and allies from the outset. I should also like to thank Peter Wilkinson, the Queen’s Cameraman, and Jo Clinton-Davis at ITV.

  For their company, their humour and their resourcefulness on so many tours over the years, I should like to salute all my brothers and sisters in the royal press corps. Ditto all those Foreign Office staff deployed to work with us and help us make it from A to B, while occasionally rescuing us from C along the way. It may have seemed a thankless task at the time, but I thank them now. Thanks, too, as ever, to Paul Dacre, Leaf Kalfayan and the Daily Mail Features team.

  After following more than eighty royal tours of more than sixty countries, I should like to thank my old friend and colleague Ian Jones, the award-winning photographer, with whom I covered most of them. I should like to toast the memories of James Whitaker and Alan Hamilton, two much-missed travelling companions and masters of the art of royal reporting in extremis. Equally important has been the perspective from the other side of the street. I am most grateful to Marc Roche, doyen of the French media in the UK and the biographer of the Queen in French; and to Thomas Kielinger, primus inter pares among German correspondents, and the biographer of the Queen in German.

  Many people have been generous with their time, their suggestions and their hospitality. I would like to thank Wesley Kerr, Zaki Cooper, John Armah, Tara Douglas-Home, Susan Gilchrist, Judith Slater, Claire Popplewell, Elizabeth Addy, Duncan Jeffery, Tim and Penny Harvey-Samuel, Lizzie Pitman, Dean Godson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Ian Cowley, Barbara Stevens, Dinesh Patnaik, the Earl of Onslow, Sir Alan Parker, Tom Burns, Commander Tim Jones, Johnny Hewitson, Andy Goodsir, Robbie Lyle, Lady [Annie] Slater, Dr Christopher McCreery, James Bethell, Simone Finn, John Bridcut, Chris and Natasha Owen, Mark Roberts, Anthony and Susannah Frieze, Jennifer Williams and others.

  I have been particularly fortunate to draw on the expertise and sage advice of many distinguished historians, biographers and academics, notably Andrew Roberts, Simon Sebag Montefiore, William Shawcross, Charles Moore, Dr Amanda Foreman, Professor Joseph Nye and Richard Fitzgerald.

  This book would be thinner and duller without the custodians on whom our trade depends. I am most grateful to Oliver Urquhart Irvine’s team at Windsor Castle, to Bill Stockting, the Archives Manager of the Royal Archives, and to his colleagues.

  Andrew Riley and his team at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge – home of so many important collections – have been most thoughtful and wise. I am grateful to the family of Sir Alan Lascelles for permission to quote from his papers, which reside at Churchill, and to Emma Soames for permitting access to the papers of her father, Lord Soames. Hilary McEwan, the archivist and librarian at the Commonwealth Secretariat, has provided invaluable help with my research at Marlborough House. I am always impressed by the speed and friendliness of the staff of the National Archives at Kew. They run an excellent operation. I would also like to thank the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Historical Freedom of Information Team inside the ‘Knowledge Management Department’ at Hanslope Park. I have never met them, but they have always been courteous and professional in their dealings with my numerous FOI requests, many of which have been successful. Thank you, whoever you are.

  At Penguin Random House, particular thanks go to my publisher, Selina Walker, for her enthusiasm and shrewd advice from the very start of this project, and to Tom Monson for bringing Queen of the World together. Thanks to my excellent copy editor, Mandy Greenfield, my indexer, Alex Bell, along with Grace Long, Joanna Taylor, Rachel Kennedy, Natalia Cacciatore and Linda Hodgson. As ever, nothing has been too much trouble for my agent, Charles Walker, and his assistant, Florence Hyde.

  Friends and family have been pivotal, as this endeavour has increasingly consumed weekends, holidays and all available spare time. I am greatly indebted to Richard and Dinah Hardman, Marion Cowley, Hugo and Victoria Hardman and Justin and Victoria Zawoda. I am, furthermore, especially grateful to my sister, Harriet Hewitson, for devoting so much of her time to transcription and proofreading and, likewise, to Melanie Johnson for the expert eye she has cast over the entire manuscript. These have been tall orders. Finally, it is my wife, Diana, who deserves the greatest thanks, forever taking up the slack as another book has usurped precious family life once more. Queen of the World is dedicated to our children.

  Also by Robert Hardman

  Her Majesty: Queen Elizabeth II and her Court

  Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work

  QUEEN OF THE WORLD

  Pegasus Books, Ltd.

  148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Robert Hardman

  First Pegasus Books hardcover edition January 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

  ISBN: 978-1-64313-002-6

  ISBN: 978-1-64313-093-4 (ebk.)

  Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.