A Brief History of the Private Life of Elizabeth II

by Michael Paterson

  People often do not really notice what she is wearing, especially since her costumes can look very similar. They certainly do not appreciate the amount of planning that goes into her appearance. There is no such thing as a randomly chosen garment or an accidental ensemble. Everything she wears is the result of meticulous preparation far in advance. Even if she is receiving for 20 minutes the commanding officer of an army unit, she will have on a brooch with the regimental crest – and may then replace it with something else for her next audience. For a typical visit – and in any year there are about 30 trips to various parts of Britain, quite apart from those she makes overseas – planning starts months ahead and every item is chosen, made or cleaned. For her Jubilee in 1977, deciding on the dresses she would wear for the tours and other celebrations began in 1975. Any new garments will be fitted at the Palace, where there is a room for that purpose filled with mirrors and wardrobes, and she has never been seen in clothes that did not fit perfectly. Nor, through the attentions of a careful dresser, does she have the kind of minor accidents that may plague other women. As one author has said: ‘It is a tribute to the care with which her clothes are planned that this most photographed woman in the world has never been seen to hitch up a shoulder strap, tug at a hem, pat her hair, fidget with her brooch, or fuss with her hat.’

  New clothes are being made for her all the time, but this does not mean she simply throws away the old ones. Quite apart from having a thrifty nature, she knows that such extravagance would be unacceptable to the public. Her dresses are worn often. One which she will, for instance, first have used on a state visit abroad will appear again for a regional tour in Britain, for an audience, and for an informal luncheon. The clothes she wears are, to her, largely props – accoutrements that are necessary for the performance of her official function. The wardrobe she chooses in private life is, by contrast, that of any genteel farmer’s wife – tweed and wool skirts, cotton day-dresses, headscarves, clothes for riding, walking in wind and rain, handling dogs. Her garments are invariably simpler, more practical, more comfortable, and surprisingly often are off-the-peg, though they would always be altered to fit her. She wears Daks skirts, and Burberry and Barbour coats. The public is accustomed to a somewhat old-fashioned look, and expects her to be rather out-of-date. Although she sometimes wears trousers when on holiday, the thought of Her Majesty in a trouser-suit is hard to visualise. When she was seen briefly in just such a garment – while boarding ship for her Scottish cruise in the summer of 2010 – many were genuinely astonished.

  As she passes through throngs of people in her car, she is given to waving in the posture that has long-since become famous, with her wrist elevated and her hand swivelling. It has frequently been joked that this is a mechanical arm attached to the car window. In fact, such a gesture (it was actually invented by her mother) makes perfect sense. It enables her to keep on waving for long periods without tiring her arm, which rests on the windowsill. There is no equivalent means of maintaining a smile, and only determination and practice can keep this in place. The Queen has complained that, no matter how long she smiles, someone will get a picture the instant she stops and assume that she is miserable. There are many pictures of her apparently looking glum. They are usually taken while she is in a passive situation, such as listening to a speech. Owing to the cast of her features, it so happens that when her face is in repose, the corners of her mouth turn down, suggesting bad temper when, in fact, her expression is simply neutral. If she is interested or amused, on the other hand, her smile is charming. It has to be seen, in real life and at close quarters, to be fully appreciated. There are other minor worries for someone so relentlessly in the public eye. The Queen always wears three strings of pearls. In an open vehicle in hot weather, the sun could burn her skin and leave the mark of these on her neck. She is obliged to sit holding the necklace away from her – a difficult thing when she is expected to wave as well.

  In between duties, she relaxes in the manner she prefers – the Daily Telegraph crossword, walking the dogs, assembling jigsaws (these are often laid out on a table and she will spend a few minutes on them as she passes) and watching television. She shared with her subjects a liking for Dad’s Army, for she, like her mother, enjoyed this nostalgic romp with its innocent humour and wartime camaraderie. She was also known to watch regularly Edward VII, one of the historical epics produced at that time, and which covered every stage of that monarch’s long life. Naturally she had a close interest in the subject, and was greatly disappointed when, owing to some official business or other, she missed an episode. This was, of course, before the availability of video-recorders, but within days the BBC had forwarded her the necessary reels so that she could catch up.

  The 1970s were years of high visibility for the Royals, whose family celebrations offered some of the decade’s few bright moments. The Queen and Prince Philip marked their silver wedding anniversary with a thanksgiving service in November 1972. Almost exactly a year later, in Westminster Abbey on 14 November 1973, Princess Anne became the first of their children to marry. Visits, both domestic and overseas, by the Queen and her relations reached a crescendo at the time of her Silver Jubilee in 1977, and in the same year she became a grandmother.

  Princess Anne married a cavalry officer, Mark Phillips. They were united by a passion for horses and, since this was strong enough to leave room for little else in their lives, the relationship was a success for a number of years. Neither the Queen nor anyone else beyond the couple themselves was involved in the choice. The days, it seemed, were over in which members of Royal Houses were paired off with their equivalents. Elizabeth’s father had married a member of the British aristocracy and the match had not been an arranged one. She herself had similarly married for love, and might well have chosen Philip even if he had not been a prince but a mere naval lieutenant. That marriage was heavily encouraged, but outside interference was limited to putting the young people together and waiting to see if they liked each other. Her sister had provided the real break with tradition in marrying a professional photographer. There had been another significant change when, in 1967, the first member of the Queen’s family circle was divorced and remarried. This was her cousin, the Earl of Harewood, who wished to marry the mother of his son, and she at once gave permission. As Queen and head of the House of Windsor, whose agreement (according to a law of 1775) all its members needed in order that they marry, Elizabeth set no conditions. From Princess Anne to her grandson William, she has approved their choice of spouse, accepting the partners they have found through the same sort of random circumstance that many of her subjects experience.

  In March 1974 there was an attempt to kidnap Princess Anne as she was driven along the Mall. She was with her husband, a lady-in-waiting, a police protection officer and a chauffeur, and they were returning to the Palace late one afternoon from a routine engagement. As their car passed the corner of Marlborough Road, the right-hand turning for St James’s Palace, another vehicle suddenly screeched out of this side-road and blocked their way. As their car stopped, an armed man leapt out and ran toward them. Jim Beaton, their protection officer, got out too and put himself in front of the Princess. He was shot three times. The gunman, Ian Ball, was overpowered by several passers-by, one of whom was of that species so disliked by the Family – a journalist. Ball had carried out this act alone, so there was no need for a police hunt for accomplices. He was an unbalanced personality who had become obsessed with mounting this operation. It transpired that he had planned, with considerable sophistication over a period of three years, to kidnap the Princess and hold her to ransom for three million pounds. Beaton, who fortunately recovered – received the George Cross. This had been an anxious moment for all concerned, and naturally led to an extensive review of security arrangements, but by the standards of 1970s terrorism it could have been a great deal worse.

  Despite the public spectacle their activities provided, and in spite of the schedule of duties they performed, the Family c
ame in for an increasing amount of criticism on the grounds that they were too expensive. Prince Philip’s remarks in America a few years earlier had caused horror and embarrassment at home, for he had effectively been saying that the state did not provide his family with enough to live on, and it is a strict convention that no one in an official position should criticise the government while abroad. His words also caused irritation among the British public. The 1970s were to bring serious financial hardship to many, and it seemed both insensitive and insulting that a family with such wealth and possessions should cast itself as somehow deprived.

  Of course these things are relative, and by the standards of their lives and commitments the Royals were short of money. The public did not understand – until these things were subsequently explained – the distinction between their own houses (Sandringham and Balmoral) and the properties that belonged to the state (Buckingham and St James’s Palaces, Windsor Castle, Holyrood). There was similarly little appreciation that the immense collections of art and antiques were not the Queen’s property but were ‘held in trust for the nation’. The people had not realised that 70 per cent of the Queen’s Civil List income was spent paying the salaries of staff, and nor had they realised that her own domestic economies were sometimes draconian. In the 1930s her parents had had to put off the renovation of Royal Lodge because of the Depression. Now she ordered the demolition of an entire wing at Sandringham in an attempt to make the house more economical to run.

  Royal finances were a subject that had not, at least in recent history, been discussed openly. Paradoxically, the British people have alternately or simultaneously-complained about the cost of the institution and expected it to be magnificent. Parliament voted to fund the monarch, as it had for centuries. The Queen and her family received annual payments through the Civil List. These payments had been fixed at the start of the reign and not increased since, and like anything else in a time of relentless inflation the sums were increasingly inadequate. The Family had other sources of income, including property, assets and investments (they have excellent financial advice!) the details of which were not vouchsafed. Although the extent of the Queen’s personal wealth was not – and never has been – made public, she was frequently referred to as ‘the richest woman in the world’, and wild estimates of her fortune were bruited about in the press as if they were fact. The result was a Parliamentary Enquiry into the subject, or rather two enquiries, in 1971 and 1975. The first took place under Edward Heath’s Conservative Government, the second under a Labour administration led by Harold Wilson. Neither man, and therefore neither party, had any desire to embarrass the monarch, but the fact remained that the Civil List income had to be brought into the light of day and investigated. One emotional issue was that of income tax, which the Queen did not pay. This situation was not a matter of course. Although George V and VI had not paid it, Edward VII and Victoria had. The Queen’s exemption seemed an insult to her cash-strapped people, but both Heath and Wilson decided to continue this status, and were able to curb any more punitive inclinations among their respective back-benchers. There was no political will to change matters, and it was Parliament’s decision that she remain untaxed. Parliament also concluded both enquiries by voting a substantial increase in the Civil List. Prince Philip’s forthrightness had won the day.

  These increases, naturally, added fuel to the flames for those who thought the monarchy an expensive luxury. The high cost of maintaining the Windsors was the theme of a book by the Scottish Communist MP Willie Hamilton, My Queen and I, which appeared in 1975. Hamilton, a man of extreme views, set out his arguments in moderate language (his book began with an open letter to the Queen signed ‘Your wayward subject’). He was careful to make cost the basis of his attack – the issue on which he might expect most ready public agreement – and to stress that Britain could still keep its colourful military, legal and ecclesiastical ceremonial without needing a sovereign. The book sold well because of advance notoriety, but no serious politician wanted to be associated with such views – quite the reverse – and it provoked a furious reaction among monarchists. Within a short time the book was mostly forgotten, as if having a moan about the subject had cleared the air. Left-wing politicians did not want to get into a fight over the matter, with their own colleagues or the wider public, and in any case some of them even sympathised with the Family’s need of a pay rise. One Labour veteran, Manny Shinwell, was quoted as saying: ‘We can’t have them going about in rags.’

  One aspect of the decade’s financial troubles was a rising tide of criticism over the visible privileges of royalty. When Princess Anne and Mark Phillips used Britannia on their honeymoon there was a somewhat withering reaction from press and public, although the same voices were not raised when the Queen Mother used the Royal Yacht for holiday cruises, or when the Queen herself sailed it around the Scottish coast. The public, naturally knowing little about the vessel and its use on foreign visits, thought of it as an expensive toy – a rich person’s plaything that was underwritten by the taxpayer.

  The public also turned its ire on the ‘hangers on’ in the family. Princess Margaret, who loved parties and took holidays in the Caribbean, was a sitting target. The only one of the family who lived like an international millionaire, she attracted particular resentment. Her marriage had been in difficulties for some time. She and her husband lived separate lives, and their relations were characterised by an antipathy that was deep and mutual. In 1976 she developed a close friendship with a landscape gardener, Roddy Llewellyn, who was 17 years her junior, and a doctored photograph that apparently showed them intimate and alone on a West Indian beach was published in the tabloid press. She was genuinely fond of this attentive young man, who treated her with more respect than anyone else, but this was not behaviour that public opinion could ignore when the person involved was a married woman, a mother and the recipient of public money from the Civil List. Margaret somewhat fell from grace – she had created disquiet for some time, and opinion in any case gave her some leeway because she had suffered over Townsend – but she seemed to have used up all the goodwill to which she was entitled. The public had come to see her as irresponsible and selfish. Her smoking and drinking, and the infrequency with which she smiled – as well as the perception that she did not pull her weight with official duties – added to the scandal of her private life to produce a negative image that she would never escape. She was to live the remaining quarter-century of her life somewhat in the shadows. At the height of her infamy one Labour MP called her a ‘parasite’. The Queen, whose customary patience with Margaret had its limits, lamented what she called ‘my sister’s guttersnipe life’.

  The Queen became embroiled in a constitutional crisis on the other side of the world when, in 1975, the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam – the head of the elected Labour Government – was dismissed by the country’s Governor-General. The latter functions on Her Majesty’s behalf as a ceremonial Head of State, her on-the-spot representative, who in theory acts as a sort of referee – just as the monarch does in Britain. In a crisis of confidence in the Government, the Governor-General has the constitutional right to remove a failing Prime Minister, and this is what happened. Had Australia been a republic with a ceremonial president, that person would almost certainly have done the same thing. The matter did not involve the Queen, but she got a good deal of blame from those opposed to this move, simply because she presided over the system and the hierarchy that made it possible, and republicanism in Australia suddenly became conspicuous and vocal. It became a commonplace for journalists and pundits to predict that the monarchy would disappear, perhaps even by the Jubilee year of 1977. Although feeling ran high, and Her Majesty received sackloads of letters venting strong opinions, the furore eventually subsided. The matter was not forgotten – it remains vivid in the national consciousness to this day – but the Queen’s standing survived intact. This was, however, the first time in her reign that there was a strong likelihood she would l
ose one of her thrones. She had not previously experienced such widespread hostility to the position she held. Her attitude was, and remains, that it is for the people of the Dominion to decide whether or not they wish her to remain. She does not canvas support – or attempt to put the case for monarchy – and more than 35 years later, despite persistent predictions that an Australian republic is imminent, she is still the country’s Head of State.

  As a symbol of a different kind – that of cultural link – she visited the USA in July 1976 for the country’s bicentennial celebrations. She danced at a White House ball and toured Bloomingdale’s store in New York, but more significantly she went to Boston, the ‘Cradle of the Revolution’. In melting summer heat, she stood in front of the Old State House to make a speech in which she praised the vision and ability of America’s founding fathers, and raised laughter by saying how surprised they would be to know that a descendant of George III was standing on that spot. It was indeed a significant place – the site of the infamous 1770 ‘Boston Massacre’, in which a mob deliberately taunted British soldiers so that they could then be outraged by the retaliation. Perhaps it occurred to her that this was precisely the situation that often faced her own soldiers in Northern Ireland at that time, but her speech was conciliatory, light-hearted and well received. She was an ideal guest for the nation’s 200th birthday party – a familiar and respected figure who could be relied upon to behave with dignity, to say and do the right things and to heighten the sense of occasion.