Clive Irving - The Last Queen: Elizabeth IIs Seventy Year Battle to Save the House of Windsor

THE LAST QUEEN

Pegasus Books, Ltd.

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New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2021 by Clive Irving

First Pegasus Books cloth edition January 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

Jacket design by Faceout Studio, Spencer Fuller

Cover image by Alamy

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-64313-614-1

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64313-615-8

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

www.pegasusbooks.com

To Mimi Irving, my wife and collaborator throughout most of the period covered in this book, whose research and perceptive guidance were indispensable

Q ueen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch in British history and will likely be the last Queen of England. No British monarch has faced such an extended and turbulent period of change. The Queen adapted as best she could, but often seemed out of touch. The advisers who served her did not help. Throughout her reign, egregious family secrets threatened to break cover. Behind the throne, two sides of the royal bloodline competed for influence. And the lives of her heir and second son have become the stuff of scandal. It sometimes seemed that the monarchy would not survive, but somehow it did.

My personal perspective on the Queen is shaped by the coincidence that my career as a journalist has run parallel with the years of her reign. During that time, fawning and obsequious coverage and automatic public deference gave way to aggressive and intrusive worldwide scrutiny. Royal journalism became the most profitable stream of celebrity journalism, and the royal family assumed the role of a compulsively viewable soap opera. Consequently, it became difficult to see the Queens life clearly and fairly because of the way it was conveyed in the terms and language of the tabloid circus that now always follows the family. This book is partly the story told from the inside of that conflict, of its toll on the monarchy, and of the real stories that lie hidden behind the noise.

T he wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is as glorious as any in the long line of British royal pageants. The gushing TV commentators from every corner of the world all agree that nobody does it better than the British royal family. Even the weather cooperates, with peerless blue skies, and Windsor Castle provides a spectacular backdrop, part Game of Thrones, part Camelot. It certainly has the qualities of a fairy tale a narrative layered with legend, fantasy, tragedy, intrigue and resilience.

However, the real star here is not taking the vows but instead sits in a pew, brightly dressed and wonderfully behatted. The Queen has outlived even the venerable Victoria in her duration on the throne and is now a monarch who seems to be above reproach.

I have covered the royal family as a reporter and critic for decades. Now I am reporting on the wedding for the Daily Beast, based in New York, and I marvel:

St. Georges Chapel Windsor became, for the first time in its long history, host to a new kind of rainbow coalition, ranging from doddery old dukes to the exuberance of a gospel choir rocking the place with Stand By Me. And all of this was pure Diana Metaphorically, Diana burned down the penitential structure that had attempted to restrain her. Harry and Meghan will now enjoy and represent the spirit of that brave rebellion.

It is a thought that seems to strike many onlookers: Princess Diana, the bewitching beauty who died as the Peoples Princess, seems to be the absent but spiritual architect of this apparent transformation in the appearance of the House of Windsor and this joyous display of love and ancient ritual. But Prince Harry knew the underlying reality: some time before, he said that being king or queen is a job that nobody in their right mind would want. His brother William, however, had no choice; his turn would come, while Harry and his new bride would have to try to find their own place in the system. Of course, neither was there any choice available to Queen Elizabeth II, and it would be pointless to ask her if she ever regretted it. But at that moment in St Georges Chapel, she could reflect that she had carried the monarchy through many rough patches and that it was still intact. She must also have known that she was probably the last queen her country would ever see.

The Queens accession to the throne was accidental. It came about because her father was obliged to replace Edward VIII when he abdicated, and Princess Elizabeth, as the elder of George VIs two daughters, automatically had the same fate as her father thrust upon her. However, the origins of this disruption to the intended line of succession lie much deeper in Windsor family history than the abdication itself. They are embedded in the peculiar character of that family and they influenced the life of the young Elizabeth both before and well into her reign.

It is important to realise that the reality of royal family life in the first decades of the twentieth century was never permitted to be seen by the public. Indeed, it was never admissible as a concept. It would be too glib to talk of a cover-up in the sense of how we understand that term today, as a conspiracy to control information and conceal a scandal. The belief was that the monarchy could be sustained as an institution only if it appeared at all times to be above reproach: in order for it to exist, it had to be a fantasy.

Edward VIIIs abdication began the undermining of that fantasy. Much has been written about the abdication. It is always portrayed more as a constitutional and political crisis than as a serious moral failure within the royal family, but that is fundamentally what it was. And that failure, in the first place, was the inevitable result of a wretched atmosphere created in Buckingham Palace by George V, while he was head of the family, and by the weaknesses of his wife, Queen Mary. As a result, the character and behaviour of the Kings four sons played out in such a way that the abdication ended up as a choice between two of them. One was unfit to be the King, one had the Crown thrust upon him.

Edward, the Prince of Wales, was born in 1894; Albert, the Duke of York (later George VI), in 1895; Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, in 1900; and George, the Duke of Kent, in 1902. (A fifth son, John, died at the age of thirteen in 1919.) The King and Queen were disastrous parents. George V was a bluff and dull man who frequently seemed to feel trapped in a role that he was plainly ill equipped to carry out. He rose quickly to anger and his sons were in fear of his rages. Sometimes at meals he was so rude to the Queen that she would leave the table, followed by the children. The Queen had no maternal instincts and, according to one courtier, was one of the most selfish human beings I have ever known.