Such was the sort of opposition confronting the Palace reformers in the late eighties. Peat’s accountants arrived to find incomprehensible accounting systems and baffling numbers of horses. ‘Miller slammed the gates in Michael Peat’s face,’ recalls a former Private Secretary who witnessed the power struggle. ‘And, dare one say it, he enjoyed the support of the Queen so it wasn’t easy.’ The issue was partially resolved when Miller retired in 1987, after more than quarter of a century at the Royal Mews, with the GCVO for his troubles.* Thereafter, the Royal Mews went into decline over several years. ‘It was an awful shambles,’ says one of those involved. ‘Morale was appalling, standards were down. It was like a really bad military unit and the chauffeurs were very much the second-class citizens. Cars are much more use than the horses but they are not as sexy.’ Finally, the discontent got so bad that the Queen had to act herself. In 1999, she decided that the Royal Mews really could not carry on being a royal department in its own right. Instead, it was placed in the care of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, the Palace’s ceremonial wing. Today, the men-only tradition is over. Female grooms – ‘liveried helpers’ as they are known – make up more than a quarter of the staff and that figure is rising. Some female recruits have fitted in extremely well, quite literally. Many of the uniforms for the big occasions – known as ‘state liveries’ – are 150 years old and can cost thousands of pounds to replace. Designed for the frame of a nineteenth-century groom, many are too small for a well-built twenty-first-century male but often suit a female outrider very well.
The Mews is thriving, as busy as it has been at any stage during the reign. One of its regular duties is to ferry new ambassadors and their senior staff to and from the Palace to present their credentials to the Queen. Some might argue that it’s a pantomime ritual in the age of modern diplomacy but it’s greatly appreciated by foreign envoys, even if they do have to dress up in evening dress at eleven in the morning. And they are more numerous than ever. In 1939, there were just two dozen embassies in London. Today, after the fragmentation of the old world order, there are now 157 (plus several embassy-sharing ambassadors from smaller countries). Every single ambassador will get the full Royal Mews treatment on arrival in London whether they have an embassy or not. ‘The challenge is putting horses to a carriage built two hundred years ago and putting them out on the streets of London,’ says Major Simon Robinson, Crown Equerry until 2011. He arrived via the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery and the occasional stint as an amateur jockey for the late Queen Mother. ‘People do what they’re told but horses have a habit of letting you down if you don’t train them properly.’
The Crown Equerry is in charge of the most spectacular aspect of every state visit – the carriage procession for the Queen and her guests. Just one or two badly behaved horses could scupper years of finely tuned diplomatic planning. And the Queen – who will have approved every detail of the procession in advance right down to which horses pull which carriage – spots absolutely everything. In 2007, there was a nasty moment as the Queen welcomed President Kufour of Ghana to Britain. Several thousand Ghanaians had lined the Mall with drums, trumpets and bright flags and launched into a riot of noise and dancing as the Queen’s carriage approached. A few of the younger horses on duty were spooked. ‘The crowd just went potty and there were horses rearing, leather twanging and bits of broken harness,’ recalls Robinson. At one point, he had to ride alongside the Queen’s carriage, grab the bit in the mouth of the lead horse and literally pull the animal past the crowds. Back at the Palace – ‘I was in a muck sweat when we got down there’ – he discussed what had happened with the Queen. ‘She knew exactly what was going on,’ he says.
Most of the time, of course, the Royal Family moves around by car. Four-wheeled operations fall to the Transport Manager, former policeman Alex Garty. The horse/car relationship is entirely amicable these days, although the chauffeurs are fond of reminding the coachmen that they drive the Queen 365 days a year rather than six. The horsey element like to point out, in turn, that they do all their own repairs and maintenance (the Royal Mews carriage restorers are among the finest in the world) whereas the chauffeurs are dependent on the AA or the RAC if they have a breakdown. The Royal Mews employs no car mechanics.
The two flagships of the car fleet are the State Bentleys, made for the 2002 Golden Jubilee using the pooled wisdom of the Association of British Car Manufacturers. Each weighs four tons, has no number plate (no need), no tax disc (no need) and no rear-view mirror (for privacy). Nor does it have leather seating throughout. Instead, it is designed like a stagecoach – leather seating for the driver (who would have been open to the elements) but cloth-covered seating for the passengers within. There is no satellite navigation system on display. The chauffeur will have learned the route already. But there will be an Ordnance Survey map of the relevant area which is always provided for the Duke of Edinburgh. The lack of gadgets was at the Queen’s request. The makers offered her every conceivable sort of luxury accessory but all she asked for was a radio and a CD player.
The State Bentley can accommodate passengers of every dimension. Sadly, the same does not go for the driver. The designers built the front end of the car around the Queen’s head chauffeur, Joe Last, including the bulkhead which divides the front and rear of the car. It means that the driver’s seat cannot slide back any further. Last will retire after the Diamond Jubilee to spend more time with his Ford Focus. But his successor will need to be the same size. ‘We’ll be looking for a five-foot-eight replacement,’ jokes Alex Garty. Most of the seven chauffeurs are ex-Forces, like Last, or ex-police, like Garty, and they are a loyal bunch. ‘I’ve been here three years and we’ve never had a staff move,’ says Garty. Sometimes, his team will find themselves in the back (the Princess Royal, for example, often likes to drive herself). They also test drive potential additions to the royal fleet. Every car manufacturer craves a royal endorsement. The criteria, though, can be unpredictable. A vehicle may have great acceleration, for example, but what’s the hat room like in the back? All chauffeurs have been through regular anti-terrorist courses with both the Metropolitan Police and Devon and Cornwall Police who run whiteknuckle high-speed evasion courses over Dartmoor. When a London mob attacked the Rolls-Royce Phantom VI carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in 2010, no amount of driving skill could make up for the fact that the car was blocked in by protestors. Much loved by the late Queen Mother, it is not nearly as robust as the State Bentley and sustained a broken window. Since that evening, the use of the older vehicles in the Mews has been under review.
In addition to the two State Bentleys, the Queen keeps three other official ‘state cars’ in the main garage at Buckingham Palace – a trio of Rolls-Royces from 1988,1977 and 1949 (the last, a Phantom IV, is known as the ‘Old Beast’). All are in the claret state livery with the Queen’s arms painted on the side. Next door, in a side garage, are three twenty-year-old Daimler limousines, often used for larger royal motorcades. They are also used for what are known as ‘Red Crown Jobs’. When the Queen sends a representative somewhere on her behalf, the car carries a red crown instead of a royal standard. In among these eight official cars is what happens to be the Sovereign’s own choice of unofficial vehicle – an entirely anonymous green Daimler Sovereign. Nearly seventy years after learning to drive at the wheel of an army truck, the former ATS mechanic still likes to drive herself. She is no slowcoach either.
Wherever she goes, however, the Queen will be followed by bodyguards. Indeed, there can be few heads of state who have accumulated quite so many different bodyguards over the centuries. Compared to, say, the Pope, who survives with the Swiss Guard to defend him, the Queen is positively overrun with loyal defenders. Quite apart from the Foot Guards and the Household Cavalry, the Queen is protected by the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms. All retired officers, they are a Henry VIII creation who turn up at state occasions in red coats and white-feathered helmets to guard the Queen with battle
axes. They have a friendly rivalry with the Yeomen of the Guard who like to point out that they are the oldest of the lot, having been formed by Henry VII. All retired NCOs and warrant officers, the Yeomen wear scarlet doublets and each protects the Queen with a seven-foot halberd known as a ‘partisan’. North of the border, she is guarded by the Queen’s Body Guard for Scotland, the Royal Company of Archers, well-connected gentlemen of a certain age (in a green uniform) who protect her with bow and arrows, and also by the High Constables of Holyroodhouse (who wear a blue uniform and carry truncheons). While their loyalty is unsurpassable, their security value is less certain. Hence, there is a further strand of protection.
The real bodyguards are the men and women of the Metropolitan Police’s Royalty Protection team, or SO14 as it is known (each Special Operations unit has its own ‘SO’ designation). With a staff of around five hundred, Royalty Protection is divided between static protection (guarding buildings) and personal protection officers (what most people would think of as bodyguards). These days, SO14 forms part of a structure called Protection Command along with SOI (Specialist Protection) which protects politicians and VIPs and also S06 (Diplomatic Protection).
In the late nineties, there was talk of streamlining the operation and merging the royal and political protection officers into a single unit. The idea was quietly squashed after senior Downing Street figures decided that they would rather retain their own police elite, thanks very much. It would certainly have been deeply unpopular in the ranks. Healthy rivalries exist between SO 14 and SO 1 over everything from exams and overtime to haircuts (which tend to be more extreme in Specialist Protection than Royalty Protection). But both pride themselves on doing the job without the combative, self-conscious machismo of some of their overseas colleagues. When it comes to genuine bodyguards, the less conspicuous the better.
It is the Master of the Household’s Department and the Royal Mews which are the most visible aspects of the modern Court. They provide spectacle, pageantry and service. But a state visit would be pointless without a context. Every part of the Royal Household will be involved when a head of state like President Zuma comes to stay. The Queen’s Private Secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt, will have sat on the Foreign Office Committee which agreed to issue the invitation in the first place. The Queen is always consulted on whom she has to stay even though, ultimately, it is not her choice. And she has had to put up with some pretty objectionable guests over the years. She was clearly uncomfortable with the government’s decision to invite the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu for a full state visit in 1978, so much so that she took drastic steps to avoid meeting him any more than necessary. While out walking her dogs in the Palace gardens, she spotted Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, heading down a path in her direction. As the Queen told a lunch guest some years later, she decided that the best course of action was to hide behind a bush rather than conduct polite conversation. No guests have annoyed her more than the famously corrupt and unhinged President Mobutu of Zaire and his wife – the aptly named Marie-Antoinette – who paid a state visit in 1973. Mobutu’s penchant for barmy titles and executing his opponents in front of large crowds must have made the small talk challenging. But what made the Queen angrier than some had ever seen her was learning that Mrs Mobutu had smuggled a small dog through customs. Worse still, the President’s wife was ordering it steak from the Palace kitchens. ‘The Queen was very, very angry,’ says Ron Allison, the Queen’s former Press Secretary. The trusted Deputy Master of the Household, Lord Plunket, was summoned by an incandescent Sovereign and told: ‘Get that dog out of my house!’ ‘I don’t know how he did it,’ says Allison, ‘but it was taken off to the kennels at Heathrow.’ The late Martin Charteris, Private Secretary to the Queen at the time, recalled: ‘She really was shaking with anger.’
However horrible the government’s friends, it is the Queen’s duty to be nice to them. As Sir Malcolm Rifkind explains: ‘She is a servant of the state, as we all are, and she has no illusions to the contrary.’
At any given time, there is always a queue of world leaders wanting to meet the longest serving head of state in the Western world. ‘Quite often, you get a message from a British ambassador that some head of government would like to visit the UK and expects to see the Queen,’ says Rifkind. ‘There is a recognised procedure for explaining, politely, that it is not possible at this moment in time.’
The Private Secretary will be the conduit for all these delicate decisions. He will also help draft the Queen’s speech at the state banquet and, on overseas tours, be in attendance at all times. But the royal department which plans every minute of the itinerary and pulls the whole visit together is the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. Despite its name, it is not actually run by the Lord Chamberlain but by a man called the Comptroller. Whether it’s royal weddings and funerals, medieval ceremonies, arcane titles, ancient uniforms, fiddly protocol or the use of the Queen’s cypher on a commemorative mug, then it all goes through the surprisingly young and pragmatic team that runs the LCO. As well as the Royal Mews, it oversees investitures, the Yeomen of the Guard, all the Queen’s doctors, all the Queen’s clergy and the annual River Thames ritual of Swan Upping. The department handles the two hundred or so honorary royal office holders – from chaplains to homeopathic pharmacists – who appear on the Palace horizon from time to time. If anyone needs an answer to some imponderable issue of etiquette – how should one wear the regalia of the CMG with a dinner jacket? – then someone in the Comptroller’s domain will know.
Until a change in the law in 1968, it was also the Comptroller’s job to license all plays and theatres on behalf of the Lord Chamberlain, laying down specific rules on nudity, swearing and the depiction of royalty (God was not allowed on stage until 1966 and nudes had to be motionless, expressionless and ‘dimly lit’). In the febrile atmosphere of the late sixties, it appeared increasingly absurd that censorship of the West End stage should be left to a retired army officer at the Palace. The Comptroller of the day, Sir Johnnie Johnston MC, was of much the same opinion himself and there was widespread relief across the Household when the government was finally persuaded to abolish this royal role. Two decades later, during his shake up of the old Palace order, the Lord Chamberlain of the day, Lord Airlie, sought further change. He thought it would simplify things if the Lord Chamberlain’s Office had a different name since it had very little to do with the Lord Chamberlain himself. His idea was to rename it the ‘Ceremonial Department’ for the sake of clarity and common sense. The LCO was having none of it. It gives some indication of the independence and clout of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office that it can rebuff the Lord Chamberlain. ‘The title of “Comptroller” is a complete misnomer,’ says Sir Malcolm Ross, who had the title for fifteen years. ‘I think the last person who actually understood it was Queen Victoria. But it is so ingrained at the Palace that it would have caused even more confusion to change it.’
Like everything else at the Palace, the pattern of the state visit has changed a great deal in the last few years. World leaders are busier these days so their visits are shorter. They want to cram in as much as possible. President Zuma is not only a dawn riser but wants to hold a business summit in the Palace Bow Room over breakfast. His wish is the LCO’s command. ‘We’ve got a concentrated bunch of big hitters,’ says Jonathan Spencer of the LCO, ‘and they’d much rather do it at the start of the day. Forget lunch.’
Unusual requests must be accommodated without so much as a raised eyebrow. Visiting US presidents now require a sound-proof communications hub so a blast-proof glass box is duly erected in the Regency Room whenever the Americans come to stay. When President Obama arrived in May 2011, the traditional state welcome had to be completely rewritten. His security advisers would not permit the usual greeting on Horse Guards Parade. Nor did they want their man travelling down the Mall in a horse-drawn coach with the Queen. Instead, he was driven into the Palace in his rocket-proof eight-ton presidential limousine and the welcome ceremony w
as staged on the Palace lawn.
The Obamas, like every state visitor, stayed in the Belgian Suite, Buckingham Palace’s grandest. It also happens to be where Prince William and his bride spent their wedding night. The suite – it’s actually a substantial two-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-stateroom garden apartment with a direct door to the Palace pool – was built to Edwardian standards. It has colossal baths and a splendid mahogany thunderbox adjacent to the main bedroom. But for one recent state visitor, however, it was inadequate. This particular head of state regarded baths as unclean and his substantial stature demanded rather more space than that afforded by the Belgian Suite’s shower cubicle. A spacious but temporary power shower room was installed (at the visitor’s expense).
Some of the most complicated issues are to do with protocol. Much as its critics portray the Palace as a minefield of superfluous rules and social booby traps, the monarchy is positively laid back compared to most heads of state. ‘That’s one of the great misconceptions. We have no rulebook, just guidance. We’re less protocol-orientated here than a lot of people,’ says Jonathan Spencer, pointing out that he has never come across any head of state who does not employ a ‘head of protocol’ whereas no such position exists in the Royal Household. ‘If you want to see serious protocol, unbelievable minutiae, you need to look elsewhere.’ He is too diplomatic to name names but old Foreign Office hands speak fondly of the Chinese, the Japanese and the French as Olympic-class protocol sticklers.
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