Queen of Great Britain Elizabeth II - Queen of the World

Also by Robert Hardman

Her Majesty: Queen Elizabeth II and her Court
Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work

Q UEEN OF THE W ORLD

Pegasus Books, Ltd.

148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor

New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2019 by Robert Hardman

First Pegasus Books hardcover edition January 2019

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.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

ISBN: 978-1-64313-002-6

ISBN: 978-1-64313-093-4 (ebk.)

Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

To Matilda, Phoebe and Hal

I n a matter of months, between the spring and autumn of 1994, the Queen had hosted the President of the United States and had become the first and only British monarch in history to visit Russia. She had completed a three-week, ocean-going tour of eight Commonwealth nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean. She had led a Yacht-load of world leaders across the Channel to reinvade France, where she was saluted on the Normandy beaches by thousands of old soldiers, in one of the most moving military parades of her life (and theirs). Just one month earlier, along with the French President, she had opened a project first dreamed up during the Napoleonic era the Channel Tunnel.

It was not merely a case of turning up. These were all state occasions that required that blend of diplomacy, gravitas and charm which, in a person of a certain age, is called statesmanship. Just two years short of her seventieth birthday, here was a stateswoman at the height of her powers. The world seemed impressed. And yet, in Britain, the Queens central role in all this was largely eclipsed by a series of marital and financial crises that, according to some, threatened the monarchys very existence.

This was the state of play in the mid-Nineties. Covering all these events as a relatively new royal-cum-political correspondent, I was intrigued and have been ever since. At home, modernity and Cool Britannia were in the ascendant, whereas the monarchy was painted as out of date and out of touch, its useful functions taken for granted and its more decorative ones questioned and criticised. Royalty didnt seem to matter. Overseas, however, it had lost none of its prestige. It really did matter. The monarchy might be something of a curiosity at times, but the Queen was seen as a unique and benign bulwark of stability.

That view holds true today. Whatever the prevailing mood in Britain might be, the rest of the world has not really changed its mind about the monarchy at all. So how and why is it that the best-known head of state on Earth has made such a mark on it? Many people have helped me answer that question. I am grateful to them all.

In the first instance, I would like to thank Her Majesty The Queen for access to the Royal Archives and for privileged access to events and people at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. I would like to thank HRH The Princess Royal and HRH The Countess of Wessex for their time. The idea for this project has evolved from many conversations in many countries, but it was the decision to hold the 2018 biennial summit of Commonwealth nations in Britain that brought things to a head. As a benchmark by which to assess the Queens global standing, this seemed as good as any. I am most grateful to Samantha Cohen, former Assistant Private Secretary to the Queen and now Private Secretary to TRH The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who was one of the main architects of that summit, for seeing merit in both a book and a documentary on the monarchys international role. This is not in any way an official or authorised project, but I would like to thank the many members of the Royal Household who have facilitated the process, including Lord Geidt, Her Majestys former Principal Private Secretary, and his successor, Edward Young; Captain Nick Wright, Private Secretary to the Princess Royal; Vice Admiral Anthony Johnstone-Burt, the Master of the Household; Alistair Harrison, the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps; Oliver Urquhart Irvine, the Royal Librarian; and others. I am equally grateful to many former members of the Private Office who have been so generous with their time and advice, including Sir William Heseltine, Lord Fellowes, Lord Janvrin, Simon Gimson and Charles Anson. No study of roving royalty would be complete without that honorary member of the Royal Family, HMY Britannia . My thanks go to Sir Jock Slater, Sir Robert Woodard, Commodore Anthony Morrow and others who have kindly shared their memories of royal life at sea.

Particular thanks go to Sally Osman and Colette Saunders in the Royal Communications department at Buckingham Palace, together with their colleagues Steve Kingstone, Marnie Gaffney, Hannah Howard, Laura King, David Pogson, Louise Tait and Daisy Northway. For their help both at home and overseas, especially on the royal tour of Asia, I should like to thank the Household of TRH the Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, notably Clive Alderton, Julian Payne, Eva Williams, Amanda Foster, Natalie Forster, Constantine Innemee and Lucy Mathews. At Kensington Palace, I am grateful to Miguel Head, Jason Knauf, Katrina McKeever, Amy Pickerill, James Holt, Charlotte Pool, Ciara Berry and Naomi Smith. Within the Royal Collection, I should like to thank Frances Dunkels, Caroline de Guitaut, Sarah Davis and Sally Goodsir.

Many members of the British government, past and present, have been kind enough to talk to me about the monarchys global role. Of the Queens British Prime Ministers, I should like to thank Theresa May, David Cameron and Sir John Major; among her Foreign Secretaries, I should like to thank Boris Johnson, Lord Hague, Dame Margaret Beckett, Jack Straw, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Lord Owen. I am most grateful to Lord Howell, former Cabinet minister, ex-Commonwealth Minister and now President of the Royal Commonwealth Society; to Baroness Chalker, the former Minister of State for Overseas Development; and to Lord Judd, the former Minister of State at the Foreign Office. I am grateful, too, for the thoughts of Sir Simon Fraser, the former Head of the Diplomatic Service, and to Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former Cabinet Secretary.

Britain is just one of sixteen of the Queens realms and one of fifty-three Commonwealth nations. Among those I would like to thank from these countries are Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada; Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand; Sir John Key, former Prime Minister of New Zealand; Sir Jerry Mateparae, former Governor-General of New Zealand and High Commissioner to London; Alexander Downer, former Foreign Affairs Minister of Australia, former High Commissioner to London and now Chairman of Policy Exchange. In her capacity as Head of the Commonwealth, the Queen has been served by six Secretaries-General at Marlborough House, of whom the surviving five have all been kind enough to share their thoughts with me: Sir Sonny Ramphal, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Sir Don McKinnon, Kamalesh Sharma and Baroness Scotland. Within the secretariat, David Banks has been an invaluable guide to all things Commonwealth, as have Marlborough House alumni including Sir Peter Marshall, Patsy Robertson and Stuart Mole. I am also grateful to Neil Ford and Barney Choudhury; to Sir Tim Hitchens, chief executive of the Commonwealth Summit, and his Cabinet Office team; to Lord Marland, the chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council; and to Peter Francis and Tim Brearley at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for their help.