ELIZABETH II

Copyright © Nicholas Davies, 2000

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

First published in Great Britain in 2000 by

MAINSTREAM PUBLISHING PROJECTS

Edinburgh

ISBN 1 84018 233 4

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All photographs in this book have been reproduced by kind permission of PA News

BIBLIOGRAPHY

All published in London unless otherwise stated.

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Boothroyd, Basil. Philip: An Informal Biography, 1971.

Bradford, Sarah. Elizabeth, 1996.

Cathcart, Helen. Her Majesty, 1962.

Colville, John. Footprints in Time, 1976.

Davies, Nicholas. Diana: A Princess and Her Troubled Marriage, New York, 1992.

Dempster, Nigel. HRH The Princess Margaret: A Life Unfulfilled, 1981.

Grigg, John. Title TK National and English Review, 1957.

Hall, Unity. The Private Lives of Britain’s Royal Women, Chicago, 1991.

Hall, Unity. Philip: The Man Behind the Monarchy, 1987.

Heald, Tim. The Duke: A Portrait of Prince Philip, 1991.

Higham, Charles, and Roy Moseley. Elizabeth and Philip: The Untold Story, 1991.

Hoey, Brian. HRH The Princess Anne, 1984.

Hoey, Brian. All the Queen’s Men, 1992.

Holden, Anthony. Charles, Prince of Wales, 1982.

Junor, Penny. Diana, Princess of Wales, 1982.

Lacey, Robert. Majesty: Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor, 1977.

Longford, Elizabeth. Elizabeth R, 1983.

Morrow, Ann. The Queen, 1983.

Morton, Andrew. Diana: Her True Story, 1992.

Nicolson, Harold. Monarchy, 1962.

Oaksey, John. ‘The Queen’s Horses’, The Queen, 1977.

Pearson, John. The Ultimate Family, 1986.

Philip, HRH Prince. Selected Speeches, 1957.

Pimlott, Ben. The Queen, 1996.

Player, Lesley. My Story: The Duchess of York, Her Father and Me, 1993.

Sampson, Anthony. The Changing Anatomy of Britain, 1982.

Thatcher, Margaret. The Downing Street Years, 1993.

Townsend, Peter. Time and Chance: An Autobiography, 1978.

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Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John. King George VI: His Life and Reign, 1968.

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Zeigler, Philip, Mountbatten, 1985.

1. WINDS OF CHANGE

Elizabeth walked into her drawing room at Buckingham Palace having just returned from one of her official engagements. She placed her handbag on the side table, took off her dark blue full-length coat and matching hat and passed them to her dresser who had walked into the room behind her. Then she sat on the sofa, a look of fatigue, almost resignation, on her face.

‘Would you like tea, Ma’am?’ a maid asked, knowing only too well that the queen would find a cup of refreshing tea most welcome.

‘Yes, thank you,’ came the automatic reply.

But there was no smile on Elizabeth’s face as there had been for most of that cold, wet February day in 1999 when she had been carrying out yet another of her official royal duties, opening yet another new building she knew not where, and cared little. Throughout this royal engagement, Elizabeth, who was fast approaching her seventy-third birthday, had felt tired and somewhat weary, and she was thankful to be back in the comfort of her surroundings, to rest alone with only a cup of tea for company.

This was no sudden change of heart. During the past few weeks and months Elizabeth had come to realise that she was feeling the pressure of her royal duties – not any physical exhaustion, for she knew she was still fit and well for a woman of her years; but more a dawning realisation that she might have to continue carrying out these same duties for another twenty years – and the thought gave her a feeling of hopelessness, almost despair.

She knew that within the hour her stalwart Principal Private Secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, would appear and ask yet another series of questions to which she knew she would have to supply an answer, though the last thing she needed at this moment was to talk through her schedule for the coming days and weeks. She would miss Sir Robert, the man who had steadfastly advised her for 20 years, for he was due to retire within a matter of days. From somewhere deep inside her heavy heart, however, Elizabeth knew she would somehow find the strength and patience to answer him as she had done on countless occasions.

Elizabeth confided these worries to Lady Susan Hussey, the woman who has become her close friend and confidante over the past two decades or more, but who officially holds the title of Lady-in-Waiting. Elizabeth also has a couple of other female confidantes outside Buckingham Palace whom she sees on a regular basis. During the past twelve months or so, some of these friends have noted that Elizabeth has become more introspective and looked more weary, on occasions even worn, by the never-ending job which, until recently, she was fully prepared and very happy to continue till her dying day. But now, for the first time since she ascended the throne in 1952, doubts are arising.

Since the untimely death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the young woman who caused her such heartache and many sleepless nights, Elizabeth has found herself examining her own life, a life in which the pattern never varies, the job never changes and the routine has become monotonous. After nearly 50 years on the throne, Elizabeth has found her enthusiasm waning and she no longer finds much joy or satisfaction in her role as monarch. She finds herself contemplating the future with trepidation and not a little unease.

Elizabeth has come to recognise that during the past few years her approach to her lifelong task has changed; the role of monarch to which she had every intention of continuing to her last breath has undeniably been transformed through the decades and so, too, has Elizabeth’s attitude. She misses those faithful retainers in whom she had implicit faith; those men and women whose families before them had often been in royal service and who cherished working for the royal family. To Elizabeth in particular, senior figures like her Private Secretary Lord Adeane, the Keeper of the Privy Purse Lord Cowdray, Sir Philip Moore, a diplomat and confidant – all of whom are now deceased – and even Sir Robert Fellowes, had been companions and friends, not just civil servants. These people were all steeped in the traditions of royalty primarily because, in many cases, their parents or other close relatives had been employed in the upper echelons of the royal household.

Elizabeth now feels almost friendless in the palace. She feels as though she is surrounded and advised by career men and women who want to spend a few years working in the palace to enhance their curriculum vitae. She no longer feels she can totally trust these new recruits to the palace and she certainly has no wish to form close friendships with them or even sit down for an informal lunch or supper with them. In many ways the queen almost feels like a stranger in her own home and has not taken to the new streamlined regime which during the past twenty years has transformed the way in which Buckingham Palace operates. Many of the old traditions have disappeared and the relationships between the different levels of the royal household have become less distinct. Nearly everyone who works inside the palace now, for example, eats each day in a staff dining hall, so unlike yesteryear when there were three dining rooms signifying the rigid social strata within the palace.

Already, the queen has sounded out her close friends, mainly old family friends she has known most of her life, asking their opinion as to whether she should ever contemplate abdicating in favour of Charles. All of these conversations have taken place in private, in one-to-one conversations, overheard by no one and treated in the strictest confidence. Usually, the queen will ask the person with whom she wants to discuss the matter, to go with her for a drive. Then they leave the car and the chauffeur behind and walk on together to a secluded spot where no one can possibly overhear their conversation.

Throughout the past twelve months, Elizabeth has wondered now and then if she should carry on, and whether the day will eventually come when she awakes and discovers that she no longer has the will to continue. Usually, on such occasions, she has confessed to simply shaking off such dire feelings and manages to get on with the job in hand, despite the fact that such thoughts are now more frequent than ever. Nevertheless, Elizabeth has come to accept that she may not continue as sovereign until her death, although that day of abdication has not yet arrived for various reasons, principally those involving her own family and her dogged determination to see through the task her beloved father bequeathed her.

In November 1999 Philip raised speculation that the Queen might consider abdication in an interview he gave to Saga magazine. Reflecting that it is better to retire ‘while you’re still capable than wait till people say you’re so doddery’, Prince Philip did not rule out the same sentiment being applied to the monarch. In the interview he talked at length on the onset of old age and the need for people to retire.

When it was suggested that he was in a rather different position, Philip replied, ‘Why?’ The interviewer replied, ‘Well, the fact is that the Queen is not going to abdicate.’ To that, Philip retorted, ‘Who said that?’

The interviewer replied, ‘Well, it has always been my understanding that the Queen would never abdicate.’

Philip replied, ‘Well, you’ve said it.’

Philip’s comments and questions created great media interest and caused a considerable stir particularly in the upper echelons of power inside Buckingham Palace. The Queen’s officials have always been most emphatic that there is no question of the Queen abdicating. The very word is regarded as blasphemy in some quarters, and Prince Charles issued a furious personal denial in 1998 when it was suggested that he favoured the idea of abdication by the Queen.

Philip’s remarks, which some at Westminster believed could well have been his way of testing the political waters on such a sensitive issue, received scant attention from official sources at the Palace. A spokesman commented, ‘It would be to misconsture the Prince’s comments to say that he’s giving any indication of the likelihood of the Queen abdicating. The position is clear. The Queen will not abdicate.’ Nonetheless, it was the first time that someone so close to Elizabeth had ever publicly raised the issue.

Over the past few years the queen has undertaken more duties than ever before and this she agreed to do in an effort to restore the good name of the House of Windsor. No matter how popular Diana became and how much she dominated the headlines and television coverage, every single opinion poll showed that the queen was still popular and the British people praised her for doing a good job as monarch. Because of those polls, and because of the fact that many people turned their back on Prince Charles, blaming him for the collapse of his marriage, Elizabeth decided that it was her duty to step into the breach, and increased her already heavy workload.

Elizabeth knows that she cannot contemplate stepping down while her mother, the Queen Mother – who will celebrate her hundredth birthday in August 2000 – is still alive. To do so would seem almost a betrayal of the heritage her father, King George VI, passed on to his beloved Lilibet. And not for one moment would Elizabeth want her mother to believe that she would even consider the possibility of abdicating, especially being in such good rude health. Elizabeth knows full well that there is every possibility, perhaps even likelihood, that she too could live to be a hundred and look forward to another twenty-eight years or so on the throne. It would also mean, of course, that Charles would be an old age pensioner, aged nearly eighty, if and when he finally ascended to the throne. On the other hand, Elizabeth may be tempted to celebrate her golden jubilee in 2002, and then abdicate in favour of Prince Charles.

At present, however, Charles is one of those reasons why she cannot contemplate stepping down just yet. Throughout her life Elizabeth has always held firm to the dedication she made to her father, that she would strive to ensure that the House of Windsor continued and flourished throughout her reign. She fears that while the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales is still firmly held in the nation’s psyche, the esteem in which the House of Windsor is held might be seriously jeopardised. She would never contemplate such a risk.

She also fears that Prince Charles, whom she believes has discovered in Camilla Parker Bowles the woman with whom he wants to share his life, may not yet be welcomed by the British public as their king. Elizabeth believes more time is needed until politicians, the Church of England and the general public come to accept Camilla as Prince Charles’s confidante, close friend and partner, if not his wife. Elizabeth believes that the day Camilla is accepted by the great majority of the nation, is the day she will consider abdicating.

Together Charles and Camilla now act as many a fond, middle-aged married couple enjoying quiet dinners at home together, listening to classical music and reading. During the week Camilla will usually drive over from her house nearby and they will dine together, sometimes enjoying an apéritif, at other times sharing a bottle of wine. She will stay the night, they’ll breakfast together and she will leave at 10.15 sharp, when Charles starts his working day. She then drives back to Ray Mill House near Chippenham, a fifteen-minute drive from Highgrove, to a typical country house with an Aga, dogs, horsey clothes and genial muddle.

In company, both Camilla and Charles call each other ‘darling’ and there is little or no formality at dinner as there is at Balmoral. To Charles, Camilla has been, and still is, the most important person in his life. In the same way that she came to his rescue following the assassination of Mountbatten, so during years of battling with Diana and her tantrums, Camilla was in the background giving constant support and only giving advice when Charles invited it. During those years of emotional tension and constant guilt, Charles would turn to Camilla when all seemed lost. Now, at last, he is relaxed, no longer terrified that Diana will launch some devastating pre-emptive strike against him.

Camilla has become the mother Charles never had; the support he always craved but never found. She is, above all, understanding of Charles, his situation, his destiny, his probable future and his prodigious responsibilities, something which Diana never seemed to accept.

Charles adores Camilla because in many respects she is the opposite of his own mother. Camilla hates formality and protocol; cares little about clothes and fashion; smokes and swears like a trooper and, like Charles, roars with laughter at lavatorial jokes. But she is a country woman to her riding boots, which Charles loves.

There is another important point. Camilla has no desire whatsoever to be queen. Indeed, Camilla wants nothing less. ‘Perish the thought’ is the phrase she uses whenever anyone has the temerity to raise the matter. She is very happy in the role she has chosen, and so is Charles. He, in fact, finds the whole set-up as near perfect as possible but he knows that one day there may come a time when he has to make a decision. But not necessarily so.

Despite reports that Elizabeth totally disapproves of Camilla, that is not the queen’s personal opinion. Camilla was always accepted as part of the royal ‘in’ crowd, one of the few people Elizabeth would automatically kiss whenever they met at a function or dinner party. But Elizabeth strongly disapproves of Camilla’s involvement with Charles simply because he is the heir to the throne and should, indeed must, set an example whatever his own personal feelings. Elizabeth now makes sure that she never comes into contact with Camilla, fearing the message it might give to the nation, that she approves of the relationship. The reality is that Camilla lives the life Elizabeth would have loved with horses and dogs, little responsibility and time to enjoy the country life. The problem as Elizabeth sees it is that, unlike Diana, Camilla would prove an unpopular queen, constantly being compared unfavourably to Diana, and that would be bad news for the House of Windsor.

Since the trauma of Diana’s death, Elizabeth has noted that Charles has become a more confident, out-going man. He felt genuine sorrow but no guilt for Diana’s death – in vain had he pleaded with her to keep her Scotland Yard bodyguards. And now, during the past two years, Charles has won back the respect of the nation, though not yet the affection. His intelligence has at last been rewarded. Gone are the days when Charles was considered a crank because he talked to the flowers and vegetables. Now he has the support of most of the population in his war against GM – genetically modified – foods and his firm belief in organic farming.

In the summer of 1999 Charles went so far as to challenge the Labour Government and respected scientists about the safety, ethics and efficacy of genetically modified crops, asking ten key questions. His intervention delivered a body blow to the Government’s attempts to reassure people that GM crops are safe. He even suggested that the assertion that GM technology will be important to feed the world when its population doubles in the next century sounded ‘suspiciously like emotional blackmail’. For making the challenge and joining the argument so forcefully he won both praise and gratitude.

The nation’s growing acceptance and respect for Prince Charles are matters Elizabeth now turns to more frequently as she ponders her destiny and a future with a routine she already finds tedious. Whenever Elizabeth indulges in such thoughts and talks about it with one of her close friends, she invariably brings up a subject of extraordinary importance to her – duty. Throughout her life Elizabeth has put duty above all else, including her husband, her children and her grandchildren. Today, those duties of reading and signing government papers, making speeches, handing out honours, travelling the country, meeting dignitaries, entertaining Heads of State, touring other countries, opening hospitals and schools and waving and smiling to multitudes of crowds, are no longer a fulfilling pleasure and have become nothing but that, a duty. Nevertheless she carries on because of her overwhelming belief that duty comes above all else and that she should show by her example that duty is still a vital and important part of public life. She recognises that such an axiom may be passé in today’s world but she still clings to the principle.

In public, Elizabeth smiles more often than ever before, especially for the cameras, yet now there is a tinge of sadness about her. As Ben Pimlott, Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at Birkbeck College, University of London, wrote in his biography The Queen in 1996, ‘In her reserve … she remained self-sufficient, and did not lose her grip … The stilted addresses, gracious handshakes, dutiful pleasantries, acknowledging waves belonged to her nature.’

Still, ‘abdication’ is a word Elizabeth grew up to hold in great disrepute, the very act of abdication being anathema to her as it is to the Queen Mother. Every member of the extended royal family is left in no doubt that the abdication of the throne by King Edward VIII in 1936 had brought severe discredit to the monarchy and should never, but never, be contemplated. It may be difficult for today’s generation to understand the profound shock, disbelief and consternation that the abdication wrought throughout the nation when Edward abdicated in order to marry a divorced American, Mrs Wallis Simpson. And it is even more difficult for people to comprehend the deep sense of shame and guilt the royal family felt at that time when many believed that the abdication would herald the end of the monarchy. The Queen Mother never forgave her brother-in-law for the action she considered to be nothing short of treachery, and she instilled in her elder daughter Elizabeth the belief that abdication should never be considered, whatever the reason.

Despite all that the royal family experienced way back in 1936, abdication has undoubtedly entered the queen’s vocabulary. But when the time comes, as Elizabeth believes it will, her abdication will not be seen as traumatic or sensational but simply a passing on of the duties of the monarch to her son as should be the case in every hereditary monarchy. She simply wants to ensure that when she finally comes to make that decision there will be no national trauma, no soul-searching and no examination of the worth of either Prince Charles or Britain’s constitutional monarchy.

Elizabeth has confessed to some intimates that abdication could become more alluring to her as the years roll by. During the past two decades in particular she has suffered a number of rebuffs, criticisms and reforms which she did not warrant, as well as displays of envy and ingratitude from government ministers, some quarters of the press and even members of the general public. Some have suggested that only her exceptional sense of duty and her promise to her father have deterred her from throwing in the towel and retiring to end her days surrounded by a few faithful retainers and her dogs in solitary splendour in her favourite home, Balmoral.

Elizabeth’s long reign has been marked by the erosion of most of the royal prerogatives, though the monarchy does still retain the three rights enunciated by Walter Bagehot: to be consulted, to encourage and to warn. Although they remain, however, their effectiveness depends on the willingness of the queen’s Prime Ministers to cooperate and there have been very few occasions, if any, during the queen’s reign when she has deterred a government from their preferred course of action.

It seems to Elizabeth that the survival of Britain’s constitutional monarchy no longer lies in the sovereign’s political skills but rather in their relinquishment. No longer does even the Conservative Party invite the queen to nominate the next Prime Minister, as it did in 1963 when a sick Harold Macmillan persuaded Elizabeth to nominate Lord Home rather than ‘Rab’ Butler to succeed him. The Tories have followed Labour’s lead and now elect their own leader whose name is then submitted to Her Majesty for formal endorsement. As a consequence, of course, the monarch’s judgement can never again be disputed when formally inviting a new Prime Minister to form a government.

But what has upset, indeed infuriated, the queen during the past few years has been the steady erosion of many of the privileges of the sovereign, the Head of State, a situation which she believes has been designed to deliberately reduce the status of the monarchy. Today, Elizabeth believes the Head of State is little more than another citizen of the realm. Elizabeth felt bitterly hurt when she realised that the British people, to whom she had dedicated her life, had no wish to contribute towards the cost of restoring Windsor Castle, the most historic building in Britain, after the great fire of 1992. Some believe that realisation became a watershed in the queen’s relationship with her people. The love and trust Elizabeth believed existed between the sovereign and her people had been nothing but a figment of the imagination, a falsehood, simply lip-homage and cant, a deceit now rudely and brutally exposed.

This affront was followed by other decisions taken by successive British governments which, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, was done so that the Prime Minister could be seen by the nation to be a people’s First Minister, siding with the mass of the population rather than courting the approval of the reigning monarch. She was not unduly upset when the government decided to do away with the Queen’s Flight, the collection of aircraft used by the sovereign, but in fact used far more frequently by senior government ministers. She simply believed this was yet another example forced on her to take away her privileges as Head of State. When the Queen’s Flight was in operation she knew the pilots and the cabin crew and they knew her. They knew her likes and dislikes and they felt privileged to be part of the Queen’s Flight. No more. Now the squadron which flies the queen and other senior members of the royal family, has no dedicated crew at all. The queen might fly half a dozen times without seeing the same crew twice. She dislikes that. Now that she has reached the ripe age of seventy-two she wants friendly faces around her, people with whom she has a rapport, not total strangers who have no idea of her predilections.

But the decision to scrap the Royal Yacht Britannia and not replace it, a decision which she believed portrayed all the elements of spite, was a source of pain and upset for Elizabeth. She knew there were no good commercial or social reasons to scrap the Royal Yacht and refuse to replace it with another, similar, floating advertisement for Great Britain. She knew that replacing Britannia would have cost less than £100 million, a pittance in terms of Treasury expenditure, but a magnificent backdrop for Britain’s exporters, tourist industry, national pride and prestige. But she believes there were those in Government who believed Britannia smacked too much of royal privilege at a time when the nation was not in favour of such privileges.

And the cutbacks continued with the Royal Train, which the queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles found so useful when travelling to different parts of the country on official visits. It was considered too costly to keep solely for use by the royal family. So now the Royal Train can be hired by any company that wishes to do so – at a price – and, as a result, the queen, Philip, Charles and other members permitted to use the train are served and cared for by strangers, which saddens the queen and, on occasion, enrages her.

For years Elizabeth grudgingly accepted the battle over the Privy Purse though she was embarrassed by the constant sniping by some MPs and sections of the press. She disliked the constant public scrutiny of the Privy Purse, when newspapers would delve into every minute piece of expenditure to highlight what they believed were unnecessary privileges and inconsistencies to be gloated over and exposed. Some of the tabloid press would portray the queen and the royal family as hugely wealthy people living in the lap of luxury and demanding even more while the poor and impoverished struggled to survive in squalor and degradation. To end this huge and unfair embarrassment it was finally decided that the Civil List should be debated only once every eleven years to remove the unseemly wrangle over the royal finances. In 2000 the Civil List will be renegotiated once again and it is likely that the allowance increase will be kept to the rate of inflation minus eight per cent. As a result, Britain’s monarchy will cost the taxpayer below the amount received by the Swedish Court and only £1 million or £2 million more than other royal families despite the fact that Britain’s economy is far bigger.

One of Elizabeth’s most cherished responsibilities is her position as Head of the Commonwealth which she has coveted and held in high esteem since 1947 when, as Princess Elizabeth, she said in a speech, ‘My whole life, whether it be long or short, will be devoted to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.’ That promise, frequently updated in Christmas broadcasts and Commonwealth Day speeches, has remained as stubbornly binding today as when she made that speech. As queen, Elizabeth has visited every Commonwealth capital, known every Commonwealth leader and remained adamant that no matter what the views of British prime ministers throughout her reign, no British government has the right to impose its views of the Commonwealth upon her. Throughout her reign, Elizabeth believes, and rightly so, that she has been an active force in the Commonwealth more than any single person. As a result, Elizabeth feels entitled to the belief that while she inherited the title of Queen of England, her Headship of the Commonwealth is something she has striven for, and, indeed, earned.

In April 1999, however, New Labour produced a report Making the Commonwealth Matter which acknowledged that the queen should remain its honorary leader for the time being but suggested that a non-British political figure should be appointed alongside her to speak for the international stage. ‘The queen is popular in the Commonwealth, but her role as Head of State is an appointed not hereditary position and, when her reign ends, Commonwealth countries should think carefully about how to replace her,’ said the report. They further proposed that the administrative headquarters of the Commonwealth should be moved out of London, locating the secretariat in New Delhi or Cape Town perhaps, to underline that the organisation is prepared to break with the imperial heritage from which it emerged.

The idea infuriated Elizabeth. Once again, she feared a new governmental onslaught on her status and position, this time on the one, highly responsible task in her life that she held most dear. Elizabeth had held firmly to the belief that her unique position, as lifelong head of the Commonwealth, has enabled her to be a force for good in the institution, standing above the chicanery and perfidious ambition of politicians. She believes New Labour’s plans for such a shake-up would overturn the achievements of the last fifty years, and for what? Within that time span a club of white dominions was transformed into a dynamic multi-racial association with a commitment to human rights as shown by action against South Africa in 1961 and Nigeria in 1995. Above all, the modern Commonwealth is today, more than ever, an association of peoples headed by someone above politics. By constitutional conjuring, the declaration replaced the institution of the Crown with the respected person of the monarch, ‘the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations’. According to conversations the queen has held on this matter, she believes the suggestion of a non-British political figure being appointed alongside her for the remainder of her reign is simply another method of eroding the monarch’s power and responsibilities.

It is for all these reasons that Elizabeth has become emotionally tired of late, that she genuinely believes that one day she will tell Prince Charles and the Prime Minister of her decision to step down in favour of her son. That day has not yet arrived but unless Elizabeth acquires a new zest for the job, there is every probability that one day she will make that all-important decision and retire gracefully to live out her days in the secluded peace and quiet of Balmoral.

2. LILIBET

Elizabeth’s arrival into the world on a cold, rainy April night in 1926 turned out to be complicated, for her’s was a breech birth. Her mother, the Duchess of York, had been in labour for more than twenty-four hours because the doctors had persisted in trying to bring about a normal birth. But, in the early hours of the morning, they performed a Caesarean operation and Princess Elizabeth was born.

Apart from the doctors and nurses, a secretary from the Home Office also witnessed the delivery to ensure that the baby really did exist. This rather quaint English royal custom grew out of the so-called ‘warming-pan’ plot, when it was alleged in 1688 that a substitute baby had been placed in the bed of James II’s wife. Though untrue, a senior government official has attended every royal birth since that date to make sure the baby is really ‘of royal birth’.

More than a matter of pride and joy to her parents, baby Elizabeth was particularly special because her mother, the Duchess of York, had previously suffered a miscarriage and they had feared she might not be able to have children. Later that day Elizabeth’s father, the Duke of York, known as ‘Bertie’, the future King George VI, wrote to his parents: ‘You don’t know what a tremendous joy it is to Elizabeth and me to have our little girl. We always wanted a child to make our happiness complete, and now that it has at last happened, it seems so wonderful and strange …’

Elizabeth was in fact only third in line to the throne because the reigning monarch, King George V, who had reigned since 1910, was her grandfather. King George’s eldest son, Edward, whom the family always called David, was then Prince of Wales and heir apparent. There was no reason to believe at that time in 1936 that baby Elizabeth would one day become Queen of England.

Many people believe Queen Victoria introduced the traditions and ideals of today’s royal family and, to a certain extent, that is the case. However, Mary of Teck, King George V’s wife, was primarily responsible for transforming the British monarchy from the dull, dowdy image of Victoria to the values of duty, morality and family life so beloved of the emerging middle-class at that time. Not an English woman but a German princess, Mary of Teck also made sure the nation understood that as monarch, King George embodied extra-human qualities of king – priest, father of his people and the sacred and anointed heir of the British nation and the far-flung British Empire.

Queen Victoria recognised that Mary of Teck was remarkable for her intelligence, her ambition and, above all, her passion for the monarchy. Queen Victoria badgered her eldest grandson, the weak, dissolute, idle Duke of Clarence, second in line to the throne, to marry Mary. They became engaged but shortly afterwards Clarence died of a mysterious illness. Victoria had become so intent on Mary of Teck joining the family that she urged and pushed her second grandson George, the next in line, to court and marry her. Not wishing to disappoint or displease his mother, George did so a year later.

Following Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, her son became King Edward VII, and George and Mary, the Prince and Princess of Wales. It wasn’t only Queen Victoria who was enamoured of Princess Mary. So was Edward VII. He ordered that Mary, his daughter-in-law, should be sent all the official red boxes containing the government papers so that she would thoroughly understand the workings of government when she became queen. It was, of course, a remarkable, even revolutionary idea to involve his daughter-in-law, and a German, so closely in the secret affairs of the monarchy and the government in an era when women were considered second-class citizens.

Some historians go so far as to attribute the survival of the British monarchy to Queen Mary who was a most resolute woman. She was determined that the monarchy in Britain would not only survive but thrive, unlike the monarchies of the rest of Europe which in the early part of this century were either swept away or changed to modern Scandanavian-style affairs. On his death bed in 1910, Edward VII feared his son George would be the last King of England, but Mary had other ideas.

Queen Mary, Elizabeth’s grandmother, ruled the royal family and in particular her husband, George V, with firmness and determination. King George would much rather have stayed at Sandringham, his country home in Norfolk, living the life of a country squire rather than carry out the duties of monarchy. George V had some fine qualities but he was an uneducated, ignorant, boorish man uninterested in things of the mind. He had enjoyed his life in the Royal Navy – one reason he was called the ‘Sailor King’ – and was also a first-class shot, a good yachtsman and, somewhat surprisingly, a keen stamp collector. It seems that George was at his happiest during the hours he spent cleaning and polishing his guns and poring over his stamp collection. He also had a reputation as a martinet with a fierce temper and a sadistic tongue. And yet he also seemed to have a deep love and respect for his wife.

Queen Mary seemed to have an uncanny understanding of the British people and she embodied the formidable ideals of middle-class British womanhood of that era: thrift, service, self-control and unshakable devotion to the home. Queen Mary persuaded the mass of the people that the royal family was ‘just like us’ but, at the same time, made her husband something of a paragon with whom the people could identify.

Her view of the monarch contrasted sharply with the court of her husband’s predecessor, Edward VII, who led a life of self-indulgence surrounded by party-goers, gamblers, womanisers and drunks. He also had a string of lovers, paramours and even loose women. Mary changed all that. She and her husband George would dine frugally together in Buckingham Palace each night, usually alone, and would be in bed promptly by 11.15 p.m. with lights out. They hardly ever entertained privately. Yet despite this frugal lifestyle, she insisted that every evening they dress formally for dinner even when dining alone: she would appear resplendent in a majestic full-length ball gown with a tiara, and the king would be dressed in white tie and tails and wearing the Order of the Garter!

Queen Mary took it upon herself to maintain the prestige and influence of the monarchy by example and service to the nation. And to illustrate the crown’s new attitude to the nation’s morals she began at the pinnacle of Britain’s society, the palace itself. As if to cast out the adulterers and womanisers who surrounded the previous king, Queen Mary decreed that all divorcees, whether the wronged party or not, should never be permitted to appear at court; on no occasion would they be introduced to the king or herself, nor would they be permitted to join royal shooting or hunting parties and must never be granted entrance to the royal enclosure at Royal Ascot! Queen Mary’s values and principles would be religiously followed by Queen Elizabeth and, in the early days of her reign, by her daughter Elizabeth.

Poor, hen-pecked George, never very bright, also had to toe the new royal line of duty and dedication. It was fortunate for him that during his years in the Royal Navy he had come to understand the meaning of the word ‘duty’. Mary advised, cajoled and persuaded her husband to follow her advice and he did so willingly despite the fact that he could be the most irritable of men.

Mary was also determined to show the power and the glory of the British monarchy, which in those early days of her reign was the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world: the Royal Navy had command of the seas across the world, the British Army was apparently invincible and the British Empire at its peak. Mary wanted the whole world to realise it and pay homage. One of her more extraordinary ideas turned into the most magnificent show of kingship ever organised by the British crown outside the country. The demonstration of obsequious obedience to the British crown was organised in India and King George, along with Queen Mary, stood on a dais, dressed in their full, heavy, coronation robes and crowns as well as bearing their imperial regalia. The Indian princes, in full view of their massed armies of immaculate Indian troops, paid homage to them while be-jewelled elephants knelt before their Emperor. It was a bizarre but brilliant illustration of Britain’s power.

Back home, Mary insisted the monarchy should also be seen as splendid, wealthy and powerful. When the king and queen went to Balmoral for their August holiday, seventeen locomotives were placed along the royal route just in case the royal engine should break down. At royal picnics, liveried footmen would serve the food and wine and Buckingham Palace was staffed by 100 upper and 400 lower servants. (The palace provided the upper servants with a four-course meal with wine and liqueurs every day.)

But it was World War I which secured the survival of the monarchy in Britain while finishing off the monarchies of Germany, Austria and Russia. Much of the credit for the survival of the English royals must be given to Queen Mary; it was her finest hour.

Mary insisted that the royal family share the burdens of the Great War with their subjects. She declared that the court would abandon alcohol ‘for the duration of hostilities’ and when this became known the people understood and appreciated that the royal family was not living in luxury while the common folk did without. Though little more than a gesture, it touched a nerve and drew the people and the monarchy closer together. To show her dedication, Queen Mary spent the war touring hospitals, tending the wounded soldiers herself, even helping out in the wards. And she seemed indefatigable. Mary persuaded other female members of the royal family to follow her example. One of them finally took the courage to complain to her, saying, ‘I’m exhausted and I hate hospitals.’ Queen Mary snapped back, ‘You are a member of the British royal family. We are never tired and we all love hospitals.’

Queen Mary made sure her sons were at the war front, sharing the appalling conditions like every other mother’s son. Her eldest son, the dashing Prince of Wales, was in the muddy, water-logged trenches; her second son, Prince Albert, commanded a gun-turret at Jutland; and King George himself made frequent visits to his troops in the trenches. During one visit he was thrown from his horse and badly injured. All these patriotic acts won great respect for the royal family and closed the gap between them and the nation.

And yet, despite such signal success in rebuilding and remodelling the monarchy, forging close links with all sections of society, Queen Mary left behind a disaster – the effects of which have continued to plague the royal family to the present day. The relations with her own children, her five sons and daughter, proved an unmitigated failure.

It was, in effect, the relationship between Edward, Prince of Wales, and his parents that led to his rejecting everything his parents stood for, and finally rejecting the throne itself, bringing about the greatest crisis the House of Windsor had ever faced. Edward’s abdication in 1936 has haunted the royal family ever since and even today Elizabeth judges the success or failure of the monarchy by that yardstick. As the failures and disasters of three of her children’s marriages have cast deepening shadows over the crown, Elizabeth has clung to one, single consolation – that the crisis confronting the House of Windsor in the 1990s is nothing compared to those dark days of the abdication. Some at the time even believed that the abdication heralded the end of the monarchy in Britain.

It is extraordinary that so many senior members of the House of Windsor should have proved to be such pathetic, if not deplorable, parents, incapable of bringing up their own children, even after they themselves had experienced such hardships at the hands of their own mothers and fathers.

Unfortunately for the House of Windsor, Queen Mary’s understanding of the British people did not extend to that of her offspring whom she treated as though she was their hard-hearted teacher rather than their mother. And King George V, brought up in the harsh discipline of the Royal Navy, believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. He treated the slightest childish misdemeanour as rebellion to be dealt with sternly and severely.

In such circumstances it is usual for the mother to come to the defence of her offspring, but not Queen Mary. She took her husband’s side because he was the king and could do no wrong. Unfortunately for her children, Queen Mary was no natural mother and some contemporaries remarked that she didn’t have a maternal instinct in her body despite having borne six children. Shortly after birth, each child was handed over to the royal nanny – Mary wanted as little to do with them as possible.

All became casualties in one way or another. Albert, called ‘Bertie’ by the family, who became the Duke of York and later George VI, was a stammering, nervous wreck of a young man; George, Duke of Kent, was addicted to cocaine and a practising homosexual; Henry, Duke of Gloucester, became a drunkard and an alcoholic; and the eldest, David, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, rejected everything his parents held most dear, including the monarchy. (King George decided to use that name when he succeeded to the throne following the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. His first name was actually Albert, named after Queen Victoria’s husband, but he didn’t wish to be called King Albert.)

Poor Bertie had been a miserable, sickly child. Queen Mary could not seem to care less about him, going away for days on end and only seeing him once or twice a week. She did not even notice that his nanny, neurotic and unfit for her job, was failing to feed him properly. He spent his early years screaming for food. Shy, retiring and nervous, Bertie suffered from an appalling stammer which was put down to constant bullying by his father. Queen Mary considered his legs were too bandy so she ordered that braces be put on both of them for two years to straighten them. They caused Bertie enormous discomfort and pain. Because of his appalling diet, and lack of food, Bertie also suffered from indigestion which made him nauseous. It was only after many years that doctors diagnosed a duodenal ulcer. Nevertheless, Bertie displayed remarkable courage. He served in both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force and despite being knock-kneed, he won the RAF Tennis Doubles at Wimbledon in 1920.

Queen Mary and King George’s treatment of their youngest son, Prince John, was a sad and disgraceful blot on the royal family. Poor John developed epilepsy when he was about seven, due, according to some biographers, to the treatment meted out to him by his strict parents. As a result, he was removed from the family, locked away in a small house on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk and cared for by a single nurse.

One night at dinner Queen Mary simply announced to the family, ‘John is unwell and has gone away to be cared for. It is very unlikely that we will ever see him again.’

He was, in fact, never seen again by his brothers or sister, nor, to their everlasting shame, by his parents. He died in 1919 unloved, unnoticed and unmourned. He was only fourteen.