For the last 50 years, the Queen’s marriage to Prince Philillip has been like a golden thread woven into the fabric of her life as Princess Elizabeth and as Queen Elizabeth II. In the massive change which her kingdom has undergone during her reign, the Queen’s relationship with Prince Phillip has been a welcome constant and a source of reassurance to her subjects.
It all began officially with their engagement in June 1947. But they had already been in love for several years. One of the world’s most glamorous couples at the time, theirs truly was a romance of the century. In November 1947, amidst cheering crowds, they made their way to Westminster Abbey to be married in a magnificent ceremony.
Elizabeth’s wedding dress of white satin was embroidered with 10,000 seed pearls and crystals to form the illusion of a mass of flowers, including the rose of York. The train, over 18 ft long, proved almost too much to handle for her pages. Her cousins, Prince William of Gloucester and Michael of Kent.
When the royal couple appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, they were greeted by huge crowds. It was hard to believe that the king and the government had originally planned a family wedding at St. George’s Chapel for fear that a large ceremony would offend the British people still beset by rationing.
Most of the jewelry worn by the royal family had been in store since 1939. One of the most striking things about it was it was the first joyful royal event there had been since the war and Britain had been through very difficult times of poverty of people without homes after all the bombing of the cities.
Uh it was very very depressing time and Churchill described the wedding as a bright ray of color on the hard gray road we have to travel. Many of the landmarks of the Queen’s life with Prince Phillip, including Philip’s 70th birthday, have by necessity been official public occasions.
Consequently, to many of her subjects, the Queen’s relationship with her husband has sometimes seemed essentially formal. Even their departure for their honeymoon had to be supervised by countless officials. But as they left by train for Broadland, the country seat of Philip’s uncle, Lord Mambatan, it was quite clear that the future queen was looking forward to spending some time alone with her bridegroom.
It had been a long wait for both of them. The Queen was 13 when she first saw Prince Philillip, who was then young naval cadet at Dartmouth and very good-looking. You know, every sort of school girl’s idea of a dashing hero, blonde, life, very sort of athletic. They then um met um some years later and of course was so different then.
A courtship was conducted perhaps at a distance but uh the queen had met the man she she loved and uh I would think has never stopped loving. ; Perhaps their happiest time was between their marriage and her accession to the throne. Prince Philip rejoined the Navy and was stationed in Malta. Here for much of the time the princess had the freedom to enjoy the life of a naval officer’s wife.
For Princess Elizabeth, it was like um flying out of a cage. After all, she’d been brought up during the war at Windsor Castle, very much isolated. And there in Malta, she just lived the life of any naval wife, going to dances, going to parties, going to beach parties, um just living a totally normal life.
And it was perhaps the happiest period of her life. During this near idilic period, Prince Charles was born. Charles’s grandparents, George V 6th and Queen Elizabeth, his greatg grandmother, Queen Mary, and the entire nation were as excited at the birth of the second in line to the throne.
Sometimes Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philillip shared their enthusiasm as new parents with the news real makers of the day, anxious to show the progress of their son to his future subjects. two years later, Princess Anne was born. As parents, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philillip were delighted with the birth of their daughter.
So was the entire royal family. But as the future queen and consort, they were equally delighted that with the birth of their second child, they had already secured the succession of the monarchy. Sadly, as the king’s health deteriorated, Princess Elizabeth and her husband had to perform more and more of his official duties.
She was on an state visit going to visit Australia and New Zealand when she stopped off in Kenya and it was there that she heard that her father had died. A black cloud of grief descended on the entire nation when it learned of the loss of its king. At his death, no one was more devastated than the new queen, her mother, now the queen mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret.
But while the old king was being mourned, the new queen’s reign had begun. This was celebrated the following June by the coronation. Public support for the occasion ran so high that the Queen and Prince Philip insisted that their route to Westminster Abbey from Buckingham Palace be extended to accommodate the number of children that they expected to watch their progress.
The husband of a queen has no set role in a coronation. Unlike a queen consort, he is not crowned. But it was arranged that following the homage, the queen and her husband knelt side by side for the blessing and together took holy communion. Her appearance on the balcony after her coronation was greeted with tumultuous applause.
The queen was only 27, a young wife and a mother of two young children. During the ceremony, his grandmother and aunt had real difficulty in restraining Prince Charles’s bouts of over excitement, punctuated by extreme boredom, which he expressed by sinking his head in his hand. But he had inherited some of his grandmother’s way with an appreciative gallery, and he instinctively knew how to win their affection.
People were optimistic in the way that they thought, oh, this is going to be a new Britain with a young queen. And then on the day of the coronation came the news that Hillary and Tensing had conquered Everest. And this was another terrific morale booster. ; Queen Elizabeth was only 27 when she exceeded to the throne.
Having Prince Phillip some 5 years her senior at her side was to prove a great source of strength and comfort to her. [cheering] Within 5 months of the coronation, the Queen and Prince Philip made amends for the official tour they had abandoned on the death of her father by embarking on a six-month tour of the Commonwealth.
In all, they traveled some 43,000 miles. Traveling abroad, they seemed to go from one official engagement to another with hardly a pause in between. Some critics have argued that the queen was so preoccupied with her duties, it appeared both she and Prince Philillip were guilty of neglecting their duties as parents.
a queen from far away but as your queen ; and as a party ; I shall get to know you well and learn something of your achievements and your problems. ; Well, I think basically we have to remember that um Prince Charles and Princess Anne were born before she came to the throne and she was still just the heir to the throne and so she had more time she had a more private life.
As soon as she exceeded the throne, she had so much to do, so much to learn, huge Commonwealth tours to do, which in those days before jet planes had rarely caught on, took months. After long absences abroad, the Queen and Prince Phillip saw their children and grandmother as soon as they could. Occasionally, Prince Charles and Princess Anne would be flown out to meet their parents on their way home and sometimes enjoyed the company of some exotic playmates there.
; Sometimes the Queen and Prince Philip were able to relax with Charles and Anne in the tranquil setting of their royal homes at Sandringham or Balmoral. At Balmoral especially, the royal family were in some ways part of the local community which had known the queen since she was a little girl.
Consequently, the Queen and Prince Phillip could happily take their children to local events and therefore to a great extent enjoy the outing just like any other family. No doubt the queen would have welcomed many more occasions like these. But the business of being Elizabeth II and Prince Philillip goes on almost round the clock.
Between the trooping of the color in the 1950s to the state visit of the Amir of Kuwait 40 years later, she has barely had a break from her official duties. She must have accompanied state visitors on this route to Buckingham Palace more than a hundred times. 30 years before she received the Emier of Kuwait, she received King Fisel of Saudi Arabia.
Each visit by a foreign head of state requires a massive research to ensure its success. Not only must she be fully conversant with her visitors personality, likes and dislikes, but also the political situation in their country and its relationship with Britain. One of the climaxes of the Queen’s reign was the silver jubilee of 1977.
A million people packed the Mal to cheer the Queen and Prince Phillip as they rode in the Golden State Coach from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul’s Cathedral for a service of thanksgiving. Here she was accompanied by both Prince Phillip and Prince Charles. After the service, she went on a walkabout through the city of London.
Some of her subjects regarded the queen’s open enjoyment of mingling with the crowds as out of character. She comes from an era when it was not done for those people to be demonstrative in public. And sometimes she said after a day of meeting people, you know, I simply ache with smiling. But as confided, it’s a sad thing.
She doesn’t have a smiley face. But where she was actually very touched and very natural was the time of the silver jubilee going through the streets and the people came out once again and shook her warmly by hand and she was astonished by this. I think she’s gets a lot of a shinyness from Queen Mary the same sort of uh uprightness and inability and yet so caring.
; The queen gratefully acknowledged the part Philillip had played in her reign. We, and by that I mean both of us, are most grateful. Earlier, she reiterated the pledge she had made as a young princess in 1947. I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.
God help me to make good my vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it. The Queen made that declaration near the end of the royal tour of South Africa in 1947. One purpose of the tour was to thank South Africa for its effort in the Second World War. Another was to stop the rise of the Nationalist Party which planned to disenfranchise the black population.
The tour’s subsequent failure to achieve this aim was a great disappointment to the queen. And so years later, she took great pleasure in her visit to South Africa after the abolition of apartheid and its readmission to the Commonwealth and in receiving President Mandela as South Africa’s first black president.
During their visit to South Africa in 1947, the royal family was given a rapturous reception wherever they went. To accompany their children on the tour, King George V 6th and Queen Elizabeth had taken their favorite Equiry, group Captain Peter Townsend with them. Fatefully, as the tour progressed, his friendship with Princess Margaret deepened.
Her wish to marry group Captain Townsend after his divorce from his first wife became one of Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip’s most difficult problems. I have to say that they didn’t cope that well. Um firstly they tried to pretend that the problem didn’t really exist and that it would go away and that probably um Town Center and Margaret their romance wouldn’t last.
What was interesting about it at the time was it was the first time that the public rarely felt that the royal family’s private life was part of their life and that they had the right to comment on it. And when Princess Margaret went to the East End with a friend of mine to visit settlements there, um all the women in the street would say, you know, go for it, Meg.
You know, you do what you want. Now, this is the first time that the royal family had experienced that kind of personal interest in their private affairs. ; For allowing her sister’s love match to be vetoed, some critics have accused the queen of cruelty. I think the queen behaved beautifully and very humanely to her sister.
I think perhaps very early on them steps might have been taken to part the couple before it got too serious and nobody did anything. It was a very difficult time for Princess Margaret. After all, her adored father had died and she still felt his loss and she found in town’s end a very sympathetic shoulder to cry on and he was very popular with the royal family particularly with the queen mother and he and the queen mother and Princess Margaret very much part of the same circle at Clarence House.
; Unlike previous Daaja queens, the queen mother did not bow out a public life on the death of her husband. On the contrary, she issued a declaration that she wanted to continue with the good works that she’d been carrying out whilst queen. And ever since, she has remained a pillar of the monarchy and a source of strength to her daughter.
; An impressive trio in public. Even Prince Philip is said to be wary of the strong bond that exists between the Queen, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret. Those three are so close and they talk to each other every single day. And uh the queen and princess Margaret will sometimes pretend to be exasperated with mommy as they call the queen mother when she buys yet another outfit you know incredibly extravagant and appears you know suathed and chiffon and flowers and they say oh mommy what you’ve been spending money again but of course they totally adore her and they love this frivolous extravagant side her in fact the queen pays for the queen mother’s racing and for her horses I mean they totally indulge the queen And the queen and princess Margaret have a very close bond. And in in times of difficulty, Princess Margaret will be very supportive and the queen of her. When she was a child, she was taught to
keep the wrapping paper from her presents and the ribbon and it all had to be flattened out and put away and the ribbons rolled up. And I think these are habits that stick with you. You will still find the queen in Buckingham Palace perhaps with a small electric fire. I I think it may run to three bars, but uh quite and very often she’ll put on two, but uh she likes she likes to be thrifty and this is very sort of aristocratic in a way.
But as I say, it’s curious because the Queen Mother is not thrifty at all. And if you eat at Clarence’s house, the food is lavish and whipped cream and wonderful salmon, wonderful beef, wonderful wine. Um but the queen is perhaps a little different. In February 1960, the Queen gave birth to Prince Andrew, her third child, almost 10 years after Princess Anne was born.
The Queen had been thrilled to find herself pregnant again and described the future Duke of York as a welcome surprise. She and Prince Philillip completed their family with the birth of Prince Edward 4 years later. Some commentators have claimed that the Queen and Prince Philip had an easier time with their two younger children.
As growing children, both Andrew and Edward seemed more at ease than their elder brother. Perhaps this was because their parents took a more direct approach in their upbringing. So why did they leave a gap of nearly 10 years between their second and third child? ; She was just too busy. I think the Duke of Edinburgh thought that um two children were probably enough.
They had after all a boy and a girl that was enough to ensure the succession. But then I think as the queen like many of us at a certain age becomes a little broody and thinks how nice to have a baby and and that’s what happened. Once you have one baby you ought to have another to keep her company. All of Prince Philillip’s sons followed him to Gordon where he had been one of Kurt Han’s first pupils.
; He is very much a boss in the home. Um he was the man who he was the one who decided that the boys should go to Gordon, you know, whereas the queen herself might have preferred Eaton. We know that this has not been an immense success and the poor Prince Charles was deeply unhappy there.
But I think the queen felt particularly um that in her marriage it should be a traditional marriage of her time which in which the husband called the shots and the woman ran the house. And also I feel that she had to compensate felt that she had to compensate for the fact that she was in essence the boss and this dominant um male mate man that Duke of Edinburgh had to take second place in public.
Anyway, ; previous mark ; throughout his marriage, Prince Philip has pursued many public interests of his own. The most famous of these has been the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme which he launched in 1956. Since then, over two million people have met personal challenges and enjoyed many forms of recreation which they would never have undertaken but for the scheme’s existence.
; Where are the rest? [laughter] ; Like his brothers, Prince Edward successfully participated in the scheme to his father’s great delight and took the scheme over after his father retired. 1973 saw the marriage of Princess Anne. It was celebrated with a royal wedding in Westminster Abbey as befitted the only daughter of the Queen and Prince Phillip.
In the spirit of the times, Anne married the untitled Captain Mark Phillips. There was a substantial gulf between their social backgrounds, but they were united in their passion for horses. Mark Phillips was a member of the British Olympic team when he met Anne in 1968. The Queen and Prince Phillip were apparently happy about the match and so were the British public who turned out in vast numbers.
The Queen Mother once ironically observed that had Anne and Mark’s details been fed into a dating agency computer, it would have certainly made them a perfect match. Princess Anne’s marriage was to end in divorce, but not before it had produced the Queen’s first two grandchildren, Peter and Zara Phillips.
Anne would often bring her young family to join her unmarried brothers and her parents at Balmoral where altogether they would enjoy a well- earned rest. Amidst the tranquility of the countryside, it’s hard to imagine the Queen and Prince Phillip having their differences. But when the Queen is cross, how does she show it? The queen will call Prince Philip darling, but if she’s in public or she’s cross with him, she’ll call him Phillip.
And one knows then that things are not are a little glacial. And the queen is not the sort of person to lose her temper. Um I think if there’s a a blistering row about something, she will probably go out and ride her horses or go and feed the dogs or um groom the corgis and he may stomp about a bit.
But the queen her voice is not raised loudly but everyone is aware if she is displeased and not amused. It was at Balmoral whilst on holiday with the royal family more than 50 years ago that Prince Philip unofficially asked the queen to marry him and she unofficially agreed to it. Since then, it’s been the scene of countless private celebrations, often with just the royal corgis for company.
The Queen, an excellent horsewoman, has always had a passion for racing and has been a significant owner since she inherited a string of horses on the death of her father. An early victory was in the year of her accession at Glorious Goodwood. It was announced during the meeting that the queen had leased the cult gay time from the national stud.
So it was a fitting climax when on the last day of the meeting, Gordon Richards, riding for the first time in the Queen’s colors, rode gay time to victory in the Gordon Stakes. Since then, the Queen has gone on to win all the English classics except the derby. But whatever the result, horse racing has always given the Queen enormous pleasure.
She has tremendous knowledge of horses and horse and breeding, but um it’s gone way back. And there’s a little story which I think is just so lovely about her and about racing. She’s very fond of her trainers. And years and years ago, there was a trainer called Captain Charles Moore, very old man who was very, very ill.
And she went to um see him with Queen Mother. And uh she said, “Well, how are you, Captain Moore?” “Well, mom,” he said, “Tell the truth.” He said, “I feel like a rabbit that’s just been bolted by a ferret.” She said, and turned to the Queen Mother. She said, “Well, I’ve been called many things behind my back before, but I’ve never been called a feric to my face before.
” ; A race meeting is one place the queen makes no effort to hide her emotions. [cheering] ; You can see the sort of absolute girish glee with which she treats them when she’ll run down, you know, to get a better view. And uh you know her face lights up as you never see it light up on public occasions.
This is when you see the queen really excited, absolutely natural excited. You see her nudging the queen mother whoever is beside her with binoculars up. Um it’s marvelous to see because this is this is the queen at play. Sometimes the queen is quite content to spend her time keeping her corgis happy while Prince Phillip enjoys his favorite equestrian sport.
Since a wrist injury put paid to his polo playing career, this has been carriage driving. This is a more sedate sport than horse racing, but is still fiercely competitive. No doubt drawing on the Queen’s legendary knowledge of bloodstock and horsemanship, the Prince became one of the world’s leading competitive drivers, winning at meetings at home and abroad.
Apart from the natural stimulation of the sport, it also offers Philillip a good chance to unwind from his public duties. When technical problems arise, the Queen shares Prince Phillip’s concern. But she makes certain that he doesn’t become so preoccupied with them that he forgets to give his horses all the encouragement they need and deserve.
; Team, the show is running 20 minutes early in the main ring. So this is a 20-minute call now for you. Please note that we are running 20 minutes early. A favorite competition of Prince Phillips has been the Harrods International Driving Grand Prix, which is held on home territory for him, Windsor Great Park.
Prince Philip is narrow averse to winning, but more important to him is the chance to compete and the challenge each course presents. [cheering] ; [cheering] ; The 34th year of the Queen’s marriage saw the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. The tragic death of Diana, the Princess of Wales, makes it impossible to recall this event without extreme sadness.
But no account of the Queen’s marriage could be complete without the marriage of her eldest son and heir apparent. Overshadowed though it is now by subsequent events, Charles and Diana’s wedding was one of the most magnificent royal occasions of the century. It would be impossible to pass over the nation’s massive enthusiasm for this occasion.
Huge crowds flocked to London and an enormous audience watched the ceremony on television. There has never been better evidence for the deep affection the British people had and continues to have for its monarchy. One of the many national rituals the queen performs is the state opening of parliament.
In the queen’s speech, she outlines the forthcoming program of legislation. There are numerous other rituals more intimately connected to the throne which the queen dutifully performs every year. Among these are the investigages of the several orders of chivalry over which he presides. The most senior of these is the order of the garter.
Those who’ve been appointed to the order include several foreign royalties as well as senior members of the British royal family, senior members of the nobility and the most distinguished former politicians and servicemen. As the knight of the garter, Prince Charles used to attend these ceremonials with Princess Diana. As head of the Commonwealth, the Queen fervently believes in this unique international club, the curious grouping of countries which encompass a quarter of the earth.
In many ways, she is the Commonwealth, and she sees it as a central part of her role to ensure that the Commonwealth is preserved and strengthened. Since she came to the throne, virtually every nation in the Commonwealth has achieved independence, and most of them have opted to be republics so that the queen is no longer their head of state.
Many people believed that because of this, the Commonwealth would disintegrate, but the reverse has proved true. Prince Philip has shared the Queen’s commitment to this family of nations by accompanying her on all her Commonwealth tours. He has also undertaken several tours on his own to some of the more remote regions.
Despite all the Commonwealth conferences that have taken place during the Queen’s reign, it can still prove extremely difficult to get its leaders organized for the official photo. This can irritate the Queen, who is always keen to get the formalities over with so that she can renew old friendships.
You only have to go to a Commonwealth day reception to see the tremendous joy there is on her face and in the face of the people around her. The Commonwealth love her. They think that she’s the person who cares about them, that the government of the day in Britain usually doesn’t.
And also she’s been around so long that all these she’s such friends with all these leaders. She knows their problems. She knows their families. She knows intimate details about them. You know whether their brothers just died or something. So they really feel that she genuinely cares and she does. Breaking with all tradition, Queen Elizabeth II was the first English monarch to meet the Pope since the establishment of the Church of England by Henry VIII.
Although the Queen is an hereditary monarch, she’s often seen as the guardian of democracy. This was one reason why she was invited to visit the United States to celebrate the bicentinery of American independence. There is a symbolism in the events of such a visit that defies analysis, but which has a way of reaching the hearts of people far and wide.
When the queen visited the Czech Republic, her presence was generally regarded as a sign that the new nation had been reintegrated into the mainstream of European culture and politics after years of isolation under Soviet domination. President Harville saw his meeting with the Queen as an endorsement of its democratic constitution.
In order to cement Britain’s friendship with the new democratic state of Russia, the Queen and Prince Philip paid a state visit there. They were received by the Russian president in the magnificent setting of St. George’s Hall in the heart of the Kremlin. Later they traveled to Leningrad. Here they made a spectacular boat trip across the river from the Winter Palace to the Chapel of St. Peter and St.
pool where the Russian Zars are laid to rest. They also attended a commemoration of the 600,000 Russians who died of starvation in the 900day siege of the city in the Second World War. This was a rare British acknowledgement of Russia’s crucial role in the Allies defeat of Nazi Germany. One evening, the Queen and Prince Philip furthered cultural relations between Russia and Great Britain by attending the Bolshoy Ballet.
The Queen also entertained the Russian president and his wife, Mrs. Yelpin, aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia with a banquet in true royal style. The Queen and Prince Philip’s second son, Prince Andrew, married Sarah Ferguson in July 1985. There was unrestrained excitement during the celebrations led by the Princess of Wales.
On that heady summer’s day, it seemed that the new Duchess of York could only benefit the monarchy with her boisterous informality. It was unprecedented that the queen stood amidst her subjects. Princess Diana carried the second in line to the throne amongst the throng to see his uncle and his new aunt head off for their honeymoon.
The queen was initially very fond of both her daughters-in-law. But the problem was she didn’t fully appreciate the gulf which existed between her and them. ; Their backgrounds are so very different from hers. After all, she’d grown up with it. She’d been used to Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle as a as a child.
she’d been trained for her job for forever. And so I don’t think she fully understood the difficulties that these girls experienced. And I think when it came to um the Duchess of York, particularly so because for the Queen, her own naval days as a naval wife had been absolute joy to her.
And the fact that Sarah Ferguson didn’t or the Duchess of York didn’t seem to enjoy that aspect of her husband’s life, she found very difficult to understand. ; Although differences were to develop later on, the queen obviously thought she’d done her best to protect Princess Diana.
If we look back, remember it was the queen who called the editors to the palace in the early days uh when the princess of Wales uh felt she was being pressurized by the press and the media and uh the queen said uh you know my daughter-in-law’s peace must be protected and she at that time moved to protect the princess.
Princess Wales to her was like an adorable skittish niece. I mean she just knew Diana from childhood. Um and so she was indulgent, caring and a little bit bewildered at sometimes. I mean in the early days when the princess was married and they were at Bal Moral and it was stuffy occasion, princess would jump up from the table and run around the table and sit on Prince Charles’s lap and give him a kiss.
I mean something like that had never been seen before amongst the royal family. The queen would just shake her head and give a little smile. Whatever her problems with her daughters-in-law, the queen, like her mother, has always enjoyed a close relationship with her grandchildren. If they’re going away for a long time, the queen likes to stay with them until the last possible moment.
Whether at Windsor, Balmoral or Sandringham, time off with the family is undoubtedly precious to the Queen and Prince Phillip. The more private royal surroundings offer their grandchildren the chance to relax and spend time with their cousins and to keep up with each other’s parents. Informal occasions are ideal opportunities for passing on ideas and enthusiasms.
Over the years, it has been known that four generations of the Windsor have attended church together, particularly at Christmas time, something not many families can boast. The Queen takes an active interest in all her grandchildren, but in particular from his earliest days, she has played an important part in preparing Prince William for all of the responsibilities he will undertake when in due course he becomes king.
Not only is she an important figure to her grandchildren, but she has been a great support to Princess Margaret’s children, the Lynls. During the Queen’s reign alone, Windsor Castle has been the setting for hundreds of state occasions. Lewentha, the shipyard worker who rose to become the Polish president, came to Windsor Castle to pay a state visit to the queen in 1992.
Because of Poland’s recent emergence from the communist block, it attracted considerable public interest. Whatever their previous background, every world leader is given the same ceremonial hospitality and afforded all courtes by the Queen and Prince Phillip. ; [bell] ; The statesman that he is, Mr.
Valencia took great care not to break any royal conventions by sitting down before the queen mother. As the occasion progressed, no one had any inkling that this was going to be the last royal banquet in St. George’s Hall for many years to come. A few months later, Windsor Kaza was severely damaged by fire.
Where the finest carpets once lay that were now only charred remains. Massive timbers centuries old had become nothing more than smoldering ashes. The Queen’s grief at the fire and other events of that year were graphically alluded to in her speech at her traditional December banquet at the Guild Hall. ; 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.
In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annis horis. I suspect that I’m not alone in thinking it so. ; It couldn’t have been worse, could it? All the children’s marriages going wrong one after another. the tremendous scandals in the papers and the constant attention to the the royal family’s private lives and then the outspoken criticism of her which she wasn’t used to.
She’d been used to nothing but kindness all her life and when the public turned on her at the time of the um wounds of fire and said no we won’t pay I think she was deeply hurt and surprised by this. Still, the queen could not escape the neverending treadmill of public engagement. No doubt she had to struggle to keep up appearances when she welcomed the president of Malaysia to an official banquet at the Dorchester Hotel.
But the Queen and Prince Philip treated the Malaysian leader and his wife with all their usual charm. If the rift between the Princess of Wales and their son, Prince Charles, was troubling them, they made certain they did not spoil the occasion for their guests by betraying any sign of it. But there were one or two heads of state whom the queen might have felt she knew so well that she could have unbburdened her family’s problems to them.
These included President Mandela and other Commonwealth leaders whom she had met regularly at Commonwealth conferences over the years. tremendous bond between herself and people like President Mandela and uh I think she feels that she’s seen these countries through lots of turbulence she’s seen in her own family and that it’s it’s coming good in the end.
The 50th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy in the Second World War was marked by several eye-catching ceremonies both on sea and on land. By this time, much of the British public were preoccupied with the marriage difficulties of the Queen’s sons. Her response was to put them to one side and make the most of the celebrations.
The Queen, when she was Princess Elizabeth, had joined the ATS and learned how to drive heavy vehicles and how to service heavy vehicles and she’s always been very proud of what she learned then and regards herself as extremely good driver as a result. and it also conjured up memories of their father who was the leader during the war.
They all stood on the balcony, the family being cheered by the crowds at the end of the war in Europe. So there must have been many memories of that day. And I think what was particularly nice for them was the huge crowd that gathered in in the Mal. I can’t remember how many there were, 50,000 or so. and the great feelings of emotion from that crowd, which is something that you can’t choreograph, you can’t organize.
And one young man said, although he hadn’t been born at the time the war ended, this is what the royal family is all about. ; No doubt, amidst the splendor and excitement of the occasion, memories of the Queen’s own wartime experiences came flooding back. But the problems of her sons and their wives could never have been far from her mind.
; I know that when these divorces came one after another, um she did say to close friend, well, what have we done wrong? But she said we, she didn’t I, what have we done wrong? Where have we gone wrong? I think partly it’s a question of circumstances. is it is very difficult to be the queen and a mother.
I think every important executive woman finds this and the queen aspect adds even more difficulty. We were speaking earlier about the aura that the queen has. Um I think that the winds temperament which has been handed down from George V and Queen Mary has also been a factor. um the stiff upper lip, the um sweeping problems under the carpet and the lack of communication.
And this also comes from living in enormous houses like Buckingham Palace where they live quite separate lives each with their own suite and their own servants. And so it isn’t that you have a jolly get together in front of the television. It’s a different life. Prince Philip may have sometimes seemed a forbidding, even distant figure whilst bringing up his own sons, but he clearly enjoys a sympathetic relationship with his grandsons.
His closeness to Prince William has already become evident in the wake of Princess Diana’s tragic death. Prince William asked his grandfather to walk in the funeral procession. It was Prince Prince William’s request and I think that Prince William is probably the sort of son Prince Philip would like to have had.
I think he’s very proud of him and he likes Prince Harry’s robustness and uh I I think he’s um very devoted to them in his in his way. ; The Queen’s premature return from her holiday at Balmoral to witness the full extent of public grief before Diana’s funeral was unprecedented. The death of Diana will have a lasting impact.
I think it probably will be looked at in the history books as the time when the monarchy radically changed its attitude to its past and its future and really took aboard the necessity for modernization for closer relationship with the public and also one has to say a better public relations attitude than they have shown hitherto.
But amidst the cause for changes in the monarchy, we should not forget the extraordinary relationship which has existed between the people and its sovereign over the last 50 years and before. Who can deny that when they look back over the great events of this nation’s recent history, the images of the queen inevitably come to mind.
In good times and in bad, the queen has continued to represent her nation’s independence, even identity. Prince Philip once claimed that the monarchy exists not in the interest of the monarch, but in the interest of the people. This has certainly been true throughout the Queen’s reign. For all its problems, her own family with its succeeding generations is the guarantee of the monarchy’s continuity.
Like most families, the Windsor have not been unscathed by the vast social changes that have occurred over the last half century. But whatever challenge life has brought them, the Queen and Prince Philip have faced them together. Thank goodness that while her subjects look forward to their monarchy changing with the times, there is so much the Queen and Prince Philip can look back on with pride, not least that royal romance which began over 50 years ago.
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