Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch

strain, calling the royal couple “The Glums.”

Shortly after their return to England, Diana pushed Charles to the breaking point when she informed him at the last minute that she and their sons would not be attending his annual shooting party at Sandringham. At that moment, Charles decided that “he had no choice but to ask his wife for a legal separation.” The day after his mother’s “annus horribilis” speech, he met with Diana at Kensington Palace and told her of his decision.

On Wednesday, December 9, John Major stood before the House of Commons to announce that the heir to the throne and his wife would be separating. He hastened to add that they had “no plans to divorce and their constitutional positions are unaffected.… The succession to the Throne is unaffected by it … there is no reason why the Princess of Wales should not be crowned Queen in due course.” Major’s case was less than persuasive, since the notion of a bitterly estranged but still married royal couple going through a coronation together took the monarchy into hazardous territory. “With hindsight it was a mistake to have said that,” said cabinet secretary Robin Butler. “It was seen as softening the blow, showing that she was not being thrown into outer darkness.”

Some relief from the turmoil came the following Saturday when Princess Anne married Commander Timothy Laurence in Crathie Church at Balmoral on an overcast and frigid day. Anne wanted a religious wedding, but as a divorcee she could not be married in the Church of England, so she chose the more forgiving Church of Scotland. The arrangements were so hastily made that the Queen Mother had to leave her weekend house party at Royal Lodge in the morning and fly back to London to rejoin her guests for dinner.

The forty-two-year-old bride and her thirty-seven-year-old groom exchanged vows in a private half hour ceremony before a congregation of thirty guests that included her two children, three brothers, and her aunt as well as her parents and grandmother. Laurence wore his Royal Navy uniform, and Anne was dressed in a knee-length white suit. Instead of wearing a veil, she tucked a small bunch of white flowers in her hair. Her only attendant was her eleven-year-old daughter, Zara. Since Balmoral Castle was shuttered for the winter, the group repaired to Craigowan Lodge for a short reception after the ceremony. It was a far cry from the pageantry of Anne’s first wedding two decades earlier.

In her Christmas message, the Queen revisited her time of troubles, mainly to express her gratitude for the “prayers, understanding and sympathy” that had given her and her family “great support and encouragement.” Never one for self-pity, she sought to give her “sombre year” context by emphasizing those who put service to others above their difficult circumstances. She singled out Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, a former RAF pilot who had become an advocate for the disabled. His heroism and “supreme contempt for danger” during World War II had earned him the Victoria Cross, and the Queen had further honored him in 1981 with the Order of Merit.

She had seen him earlier in the year at an Order of Merit gathering not long before he died from a “long drawn-out terminal illness.” The encounter “did as much as anything in 1992 to help me put my own worries into perspective,” she said. “He made no reference to his own illness, but only to his hopes and plans to make life better for others.” He had “put Christ’s teaching to practical effect,” and his “shining example” could “inspire in the rest of us a belief in our own capacity to help others.” Drawing from Cheshire’s inspiration, she pledged—yet again—her “commitment to your service in the coming years.” With her characteristic resilience, she put the year behind her, turning to meet the “new challenges” of 1993 “with fresh hope” in her heart.

Uncertain how the people would

react, the Queen betrayed a trace

of anxiety in her expression.

As she and Philip walked toward

the floral display, the crowd

began clapping.

The Queen and Prince Philip surprise the crowds outside Buckingham Palace by walking among the thousands of floral tributes to Diana, Princess of Wales, September 1997. Camera Press London

SEVENTEEN

Tragedy and Tradition

ANOTHER WAVE OF TABLOID HEADLINES IN MID-JANUARY ABRUPTLY dashed the Queen’s hopes for a dignified new year. Both the Daily Mirror and The Sun published compromising transcripts of a telephone conversation between Charles and Camilla that had been secretly recorded in mysterious circumstances during December 1989, the same month as Diana’s now infamous “Squidgy” tape. In much of the conversation, Camilla tried to boost Charles’s spirits (“You’re a clever old thing, an awfully good brain lurking there, isn’t there?”). But attention focused on their inane sexual banter, especially Charles’s juvenile wish to be reincarnated as a tampon so he could “live inside your trousers.” The Palace declined comment, but the tapes were undeniably authentic and confirmed Diana’s allegations about her husband’s affair. In a poll published by the tabloid Today, 68 percent of the respondents thought Charles had tarnished his reputation, and 42 percent thought ten-year-old Prince William should be the next king.

The Queen briefly managed to shift attention from the scandal when David Airlie held a press conference in February “to explain to the media exactly why the Queen had decided to pay tax and the way in which it was going to be done.” The Queen’s senior advisers did not speak for the record, on the principle that “courtiers should be neither seen nor heard.” But the Queen wanted her Lord Chamberlain to show her willingness not only to move with the times, but to answer all questions openly on her behalf.

Airlie intentionally held the briefing in the historic Queen Anne Room at St. James’s Palace under the huge portraits of kings—a not so subtle reminder that he was representing centuries of tradition. He spelled out the details of taxes to be paid on Elizabeth II’s private income as well as capital gains, after various deductions, including stipends paid to Prince Philip and the Queen Mother for their official expenses. The press pounced on the most important exclusion, asking why inheritance tax would not be paid on assets such as Sandringham, Balmoral, and the Duchy of Lancaster that were passed on to her successor.

“Is she not like us?” asked one reporter. “She isn’t like you!” Airlie bantered, explaining that the sovereign must have private resources that shouldn’t be dissipated through inheritance. Airlie’s presentation helped mollify complaints about royal finances, although questions remained about the magnitude of the Queen’s wealth and the level of expenses for luxuries such as Britannia.

Later that year, while the Queen was at Balmoral, Bobo MacDonald, her beloved former nursemaid and longtime dresser, died in her suite at Buckingham Palace at age eighty-nine. She had been semiretired from her duties for a number of years, but remained close to Elizabeth II, who had hired two nurses to provide round-the- clock care after Bobo’s health began to fail. The Queen came down to London from Scotland to attend the funeral, which she arranged at the Chapel Royal in St. James’s Palace. Joining her were other family members and staff, including Bobo’s sister Ruby, also a longtime employee in the royal household. Bobo had served her “little lady” for sixty-seven years, and the Queen marked her passing with typical restraint.

None of the Queen’s children stirred up further problems in 1993, although Diana proved to be a continuing distraction. On the one hand, she devoted herself to a range of charitable causes such as drug and alcohol abuse,