Although these are leisure interests, her grasp of social and political matters is just as detailed. The politician Tony Benn, no admirer of monarchy, said of her: ‘She is not very clever but is remarkably intelligent.’ She is not clever in the sense of being widely read, but is extremely well-versed in matters that relate to her role. With her powerful memory, she can also quickly ‘mug up’ on a matter in order to discuss it. And there are subjects she has studied in detail over long years. For someone who cannot vote, for example, she has an intense knowledge of the British electoral system, the state of the parties, and the personalities in the Commons. She studies all the documents she is given by advisors, and retains a surprising amount of what she reads. She can grasp essentials, reel off statistics, recall past conversations. This is a matter of memory. Although there is an agenda for discussion during her weekly meetings with the Premier, no one has seen the Queen taking notes, and by custom no written record is ever kept of these. She need not pay such close attention, for after all she cannot alter anything that Parliament has decided, but she considers all this information useful. She has an instinct borne of long practice for knowing how the British people will react to things – reading their mood, taking the temperature – and she can use this to give advice.
Dealing, over decades, with the leaders of other countries and the prime ministers of her own has given her a wealth of experience that aids her judgement. Not only that, but she has personal associations with a huge array of world statesmen, and can counsel politicians to whom these people are only names. It is a long-established cliché that she can catch out government ministers by knowing more than they do about a specific subject, or embarrass them with questions they cannot answer. This is something of a game. She has been quietly scoring points in the same way ever since her audiences were with Winston Churchill, and her father did it too. It is somewhat unfair, for she is now vastly more experienced than any of her politicians and has discussed similar, or the same, issues with their predecessors-in-office, literally for generations. It must also be borne in mind that she has far greater opportunities to see the wider picture than her ministers do. ‘She has sources of information that no one else has,’ as one observer put it. Much that goes on in Whitehall is seen on a ‘need to know’ basis, but the Queen can see everything. Even without her special access, she learns much simply by doing her homework. She is always, in a phrase used about barristers, ‘on top of her brief’, and this is not easy considering the fact that all areas of national and commonwealth life come within the scope of her job.
From formal meetings and stilted small talk she can extract a surprising amount of useful knowledge. President Bill Clinton noticed this, recalling that: ‘I was taken with the clever manner in which she discussed public issues, probing me for information without venturing too far into expressing her own political views.’ He added: ‘She impressed me as someone who might have become a successful politician or diplomat. As it was she had to be both, without seeming to be either.’ This is a very eloquent summing-up of her role.
At conferences of Commonwealth heads of government she will have a private audience with each of them. In the space of a few minutes she can discuss the issues facing Australia, both listening and advising, and then go on to do the same for Tuvalu or Mozambique. Her dispatch boxes, after all, contain papers relating not only to the governance of Britain. They also include reams of confidential information about the countries of the Commonwealth. From the Dominions, she also receives reports from the Governors-General that even the prime ministers do not see. And she is extremely observant. Schooled by a long lifetime of protocol and formality, she knows exactly how things should be done and will quickly notice any mistakes, whether it be a diplomat wearing an order incorrectly, cutlery laid in the wrong manner at a banquet, or a soldier fumbling a drill-movement. Moreover she will notice, and remember, individual faces in a crowd – on the first tour of Canada after her accession she recognised, from her previous visit three years earlier, one of the mounties guarding her, and greeted him warmly. Although she can be critical when she feels dignity has been undermined, she is usually sympathetic – and even heartily amused – if some much-rehearsed event goes awry, for it adds excitement to duties that are otherwise predictable. When igniting the first of the chain of bonfires on a rainy evening at Windsor to celebrate her Silver Jubilee, the torch failed to stay alight and then the beacon erupted into flame before she could reach it. ‘Oh good, what fun!’ was her comment.
Whenever she is the hostess at an event, she will make a point of inspecting the arrangements, probably several times, in advance. Before guests arrive at Windsor she will go through their rooms, checking that everything they need is correctly laid out. When she is to meet people even superficially, such as during one of the 13 investiture ceremonies held each year, she will read notes about them in advance so that she knows what to expect, and has some conversational starting point – even though there will be a 150 of them. Many countries’ governments employ a chief of protocol for the organising of official events. In Britain the Head of State herself knows all that is necessary.
The third element is routine. The Queen has repeatedly carried out all the functions of state: opening Parliament, hosting – or making – official visits, so often that she knows every detail about what happens, when and how. When she celebrates her official birthday in June with the military parade called Trooping the Colour – to cite but one example – it is worth remembering that not only has she presided at this dozens of times (it has only once in her reign been cancelled, owing to a rail strike), but that she will also, each year, have met the principal people involved, listened to and approved all the music that will be played, and received reports on how rehearsals for the event are going. She is not only Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and Colonel-in-Chief of the Household Division, she is also known to be an expert on army uniforms and to have an extremely practised eye for the details of drill, so she knows precisely how the complex manoeuvring of men and mounts should be carried out. Of the regiments taking part, her husband, her eldest son, her daughter and her cousin and one of her grandsons are colonels of five, while two of her grandsons are serving officers in one. No change in dress or movement, no matter how trivial, could be made without her approval. As she watches the troops she will know the names of many officers and NCOs, and even of some of the horses. But then she has participated in more of these occasions than anyone else present, including her husband. Although today she travels to the parade ground by carriage she was meticulous, in the years when she attended on horseback, in practising for it just as her soldiers did.
The fourth element is advice. The Queen is exhaustively briefed on the places she goes and the people she meets. She has expert counsel whenever she needs it (the Foreign Secretary, for instance, may accompany her on a state visit), and she studies the reports or other materials submitted to her. If she visits a British city she will have on hand the Lord Lieutenant, the mayor and, probably, the entire local council executive to tell her about it. In all the types of situation mentioned above, she receives as well as dispenses wisdom. No matter where she is, she has access to a constant flow of documents and press digests that ensure she is supremely well informed. Her Private Secretaries have, without exception, been men of high calibre and ability, and they are with her everywhere, smoothing the way. Nothing is ever left to chance, nothing is ever improvised at the last moment, and it shows.
The Queen is very happy with such arrangements. She could not possibly meet the demands on her time if a great many people were not constantly helping her. Everything she needs must be immediately at her elbow, whether this means a breakfast tray in the morning, a car at the door, or – until relatively recently – the Royal Yacht moored opposite some foreign port when she arrived for a state visit. She has an extensive, well-trained and efficient staff to manage all the complexities of her very active life. Her lady-in-waiting not only has to ensure that s
pare gloves and shoes, barley sugar and handkerchiefs are to hand, she must also ascertain in advance of an official visit where the ‘facilities’ are, since it would be unthinkable for Her Majesty to have to ask her hosts. The Queen appreciates such effort, knows the names of even her minor servants and rewards them with presents every Christmas. Like all members of the Royal Family, she values the loyalty of those who work for her and does not like the faces around her to change.
As the royal biographers Graham and Heather Fisher have said: ‘The Queen’s life has almost the same built-in monotony as a car-worker on a production-line, and some people would find it just as boring.’ This is perhaps a poor comparison, since Her Majesty has a constant change of scenery and a great deal of what she sees is colourful, impressive, informative and amusing. Nevertheless boredom is certainly likely. It is a commonplace that many of her subjects would wish to take her place . . . for a day, to see what being Queen is like. The thought of weeks, let alone months or years, of an often stultifying routine would be deeply off-putting to anyone with creativity, independence, imagination or an impatience with social pleasantries. The thing about it that they might find most onerous is the absence of any complete holiday or the prospect of never retiring. And the Queen’s is not a life that allows for spontaneity. There can be no question of taking in a film on impulse, going shopping to cheer herself up or dropping in unannounced on old friends. And there is no question of being pleasantly surprised to find what is for lunch since every meal she has will have been chosen, probably days in advance, from a menu (in French). Even the books read by the Royal Family are selected for them each year by a committee, which strikes a balance between light and serious subject matter and forwards the chosen titles to the Palace. Everything the Queen does is planned to the smallest detail, usually months ahead. But then this has been true since, as a girl of 10, she became heir to the throne. It is what she knows and expects and is comfortable with. As for boredom, she has acknowledged that ‘some occasions are less interesting than others’, but usually there is diversion to be found somewhere if one keeps a sharp eye out and an open mind.
It is also a life that allows for very few friendships. The Queen has some, of course – women she knew as a child, racing enthusiasts and old families whose members have been friends of the Royals for generations. It is simply not possible, however, to have more than a very small circle of trusted intimates. For the rest, the Queen is gracious but distant. As one of her prime ministers, James Callaghan, put it: ‘What one gets from the Queen is friendliness, but not friendship.’
Elizabeth II is by far the most widely travelled monarch in British – and indeed in world – history. In many places she goes, to be a monarch is unusual, and carries distinction. To be Europe’s longest-serving, high-profile example of the breed brings even greater prestige. There are few people in any region of the world that can be reached by television or the printed word who have not at least seen a picture of the Queen. She is thus already familiar to most of those who line processional routes to watch her pass. At home her subjects, shivering through a British winter, may feel a pang of envy at the sight of her on a Pacific island, but they would probably not relish the crowded and unforgiving official schedule she has to follow. It is difficult to appreciate what a chore these overseas visits must be. When, in 1976, she visited Bloomingdale’s store in New York, she had less than 15 minutes to look around. When in the National Gallery in Washington, she had no more than 20 minutes to take in the wealth of pictures. Although she was accompanied by the gallery’s director, who would have shown her the highlights, she would be unlikely to take away more than a blurred impression of them. She has, because of her own collection, considerable interest in paintings, and would undoubtedly have wanted to spend a longer time there.
These occasions are not, of course, holidays, and there are no grounds for envying her the chance to see so many parts of the world. Although her timetable may well include a day or more set aside for rest and privacy on some remote country estate, she seldom has opportunities for the pleasures others take for granted when abroad: leisurely browsing in local markets, dawdling in museums, spending mornings at a café table writing postcards. Most women, when on a trip overseas, would not want to have to dress all the time in a hat and gloves and coat. The Queen is, of course, required to dress formally, meet endless people on a superficial basis, make speeches, and catch only tantalising glimpses of things that cannot – owing to the pressures of time and protocol – be enjoyed in detail. She sees not what she would like to but what her hosts want her to. When she is abroad and travelling by car or train, she often cannot even enjoy the passing scenery, for she will be having to work at her dispatch boxes, prepare herself for a speech she will be giving at the next stop, or read through reams of briefing notes about people and places she will be encountering in the hours, or days, ahead. It is worth remembering that most of the work she does is out of sight and behind the scenes. As with an accomplished actress the public see only the finished performance, not the rehearsals, the costume-fittings or the lengthy production meetings.
Like many people for whom routine travel on business has made holidays abroad less interesting, the Queen prefers to spend her leisure time in homely and familiar surroundings – weekends at Windsor, Christmas at Sandringham, summers cruising off the Highlands, autumns at Balmoral. Being fair-skinned she does not like strong sun, and thus has no desire to spend her leisure time on a Mediterranean beach. Understandably what she relishes most is privacy and the space to indulge in her favourite outdoor activities. She has great affection for familiar scenes, and the Scottish landscape in particular offers a lifetime of pleasant memory. Some people might wonder that she prefers the damp and midges of Scotland, but she has said that her ideal relaxation is ‘a couple of weeks in the rain at Balmoral’. She makes only occasional unofficial – and very little known – private forays abroad, in pursuit of equine interests, to France or Kentucky. Although with five homes she can always have a change of scene, it is worth remembering that she is never free from the duties of her position. She receives red dispatch boxes from the Government each day, filled with documents that must be read and often signed. She works on these no matter where she is.
At every stage of her life she has been described in a flood of words. There are numerous biographies of her in print, and jumble sales yield an invariable harvest of pictorial souvenir albums that commemorate the milestones in her life: marriage, coronation, children, jubilees, wedding anniversaries and state visits.
And these are only the books. Since the advent of the modern media and its more active Royal Correspondents there has been an unceasing tide of copy devoted to her. Some of this has been intrusive, some critical, but most has been respectful, obsequious, even cloying. Penelope Mortimer, when researching a biography of the Queen Mother, memorably described the experience of reading about her as ‘like swimming through treacle’. The respectful tone of much that is written rightly puts off some of the reading public, yet it is hardly the Queen’s fault that she is described in such terms. It is a matter of fact, rather than fawning hyperbole, that she fulfils her role extremely well, as did her mother.
The Queen is acutely aware of her place in history. She is the seventh English monarch to be queen in her own right, and she has had important ‘role models’ in the shape of her two great predecessors, Elizabeth I and Victoria. She is proud of following them on the throne. She is proud of the things her era has added to the national experience and of the bridges, hospitals, universities and other monuments – some of them bearing her name – that will last for centuries as a memorial to her reign.
One strand of opinion has it that the monarchy somehow holds back the progress of Britain – that this feudal way of doing things is an insult to an intelligent people and that it means the country is known for archaic flummery rather than innovation in science and the arts. An intelligent observer would find little evidence of this – the Rolls-Royc
e engine is known throughout the world regardless of who is Head of State – but would discover a great deal of proof that the country is respected abroad because of the Queen. The age of Elizabeth II is likely to be compared with that of Elizabeth I in one important respect – the flowering of culture. This has gone on unhindered by of the presence of monarchy, and often with its support. There is no likelihood that the era over which Queen Elizabeth has presided will in retrospect be seen as reactionary or backward-looking as was, say, the rule of Franco in Spain. Her realm is not, in any important sense, a museum. It has given the world The Beatles, and punk rock, and the theatre of John Osborne. It produces world-class engineers, architects, authors, fashion designers, rock musicians. Her subjects win Oscars and Nobel Prizes and Olympic medals, unhampered by the supposed obsolescence of their country’s constitutional arrangements. Indeed for a large proportion of these people, meeting the Queen and receiving from her some accolade is just as great a personal triumph.
It is difficult to write of Queen Elizabeth II in terms other than warm admiration, for she does not merit any other treatment. There are no critical biographies of the Queen, and it is unlikely there will be. She simply provides no target for criticism. She has never abused her position, her privileges or her influence. She has never stood in the way of change. She has never put her own comfort, wishes or interests above her duty. She has never become involved in controversy, financial irregularity or political favouritism. The only time her subjects have been able to find fault with her – and that only for a matter of days – was when she gave no public sign of grief after the death of Princess Diana. It was a strange period in which the attacks on the Queen hurt and baffled her, for she has never had to become used to grumbling from the inhabitants of middle Britain, and it is very difficult to imagine that such an experience will occur again. Otherwise, her public and private lives have been blameless. If this makes her dull, the world could do with a lot more dullness.
A Brief History of the Private Life of Elizabeth II Page 3