Queen Elizabeth II is gone and has now become history. Reigning for more than 70 years at a time when the world was changing at an unprecedented rate, Elizabeth II sailed through it if not always smoothly, then at least with unmitigated dignity. Having been born in 1926, she barely missed World War I but then she lived through all of defining events of the 20th and 21st centuries. As a global leader, she saw and was impacted by changing concepts of government and social structure; she faced wars, economic depressions, the decline of monarchical principles, a diminishing Commonwealth.
On the personal front she coped with an increasingly unruly family who undermined the monarchy with their scandals and public embarrassments. She survived 1992, her ‘annus horribilis’ when not only did the battles with the media came to a head, but her beloved Windsor Castle burned down. Through all this she maintained her equanimity. Her fans admired her; anti-monarchists declared her to be cold, elitist and a bad mother. Whether one or the other, the obvious fact is that your perception of her as ruler, wife, mother and later, grandmother, was shaped by the media.
Before her father, “Bertie”– as he was known in the family–was thrust into the limelight when his brother King Edward VIII abdicated in order to wed the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth had every expectation of growing up as many others of her class, away from public scrutiny. But from the time that Bertie became King George VI, Elizabeth’s path in life took an inevitable turn.
The young woman who wanted nothing more than to be the wife of the handsome husband that she adored instead became burdened with the reign of a kingdom and a commonwealth of 54 members, representing some 2 billion people. Elizabeth well knew the rigors and sacrifices that her public role would entail. Indeed, all her life she blamed the weight of it for the premature death of her father.
But as a member of the royal family, although not anticipating becoming the ruler and so untrained for it until it became an unwelcome reality, she was also familiar with the ethos of service to country. Something that her fickle sister Margaret did not share and did not have to share as the ‘spare’. Temperamentally different from Margaret, Elizabeth always saw the role that history had thrust upon her as a sacred duty and when she took the oath to serve her people for life, she remained determined to do so no matter the difficulties or unforeseen circumstances. Over the years, despite the incessant gossip and speculation about abdication, whether in favor of Charles or William, it was never a consideration for her.
As a living symbol of her country and Commonwealth, Elizabeth was by necessity of the times, aloof. Yet of course people are naturally curious and questions regarding her private life inevitably cropped up. The contrast between the queen of an empire and a devoted wife who deferred to a dominant husband was tantalizing. What fascinates us in particular is the incongruity between the public person who is a powerful world leader and the private person dealing with the family matters and intimate fears and weaknesses.
What was Elizabeth II like as the wife of Philip the charming womanizing scamp? How did she cope with his escapades and not lose her dignity as a queen? As has been noted numerous times, Philip “wasn’t the sort of person who could take a back seat”—even to the Queen if she was his wife. It was Philip who sat at the head of the dinner table in their private moments and he talked back to his wife–the only person who was allowed to do so. This is a fact that reveals the chasm that existed between the monarch and the wife.
Her failings as a mother have been the subject of buckets of ink, and journalists and anti-monarchists are quick to criticize her, but few realize the all-encompassing commitment that being a queen involves and what a punishing schedule she has. Indeed even at the age 94, in 2021, she still carried out 300 engagements. So, how much time did she really have to devote to her children?
Thinking of a monarch as a living, breathing human being with a private life is, historically speaking, a relatively new concept. Royal historians trace it in fact, to a particular date and event, 1969, when the BBC made the first documentary of the royal family. They shadowed the family to get an inside view of their home life. It was meant to be “a fly-on-the wall film following the Queen and her family for a whole year with cameras going behind palace doors, up close and personal”. The result was “an intimate study which, for the first time ever dusted off the stardust, the pomp and ceremony, to present the royal family in private domestic situations talking not to an interviewer but to each other.” In short, it demystified royalty. As later became clear, that fly would remain stuck to the wall for the coming decades.
While it was received with awe and affection by the British who saw their royal family in a new light, unfortunately, it also opened the floodgates to the press, stimulating a never-ending curiosity for more and more intimate details about what had historically been not a human family, but distant symbols of a nation. The 1969 documentary forever changed the relationship between monarch and subject. Of course, had it not been that event it certainly would have been another, given the changing ideology that was in the making and the social media that eventually came to dominate public relations. The boundaries between private and public came to be virtually erased by the social media. Princess Diana had a lot to do with that as well, from the time that she was introduced to the media. Later, she became a relentless publicity hound who invited the media into her life for her own reasons. As experts have noted, “She was a one-woman media mogul, hogging attention, manipulating public opinion, musing openly about her ill-treatment, feeding stories to the press, flirting with editors, networking like a demon…”.
The embarrassments came to a head during Elizabeth’s ‘annus horribilis’: “Princess Diana’s tell-all memoir which exposed scandals within the family…reporting of the Duchess of York’s affair with her financial advisor….”, Charles’ shocking admissions in a bugged phone conversation with Camilla. In short, scandals with the principal members of the royal family that brought disrepute on all of them. Through all this Queen Elizabeth managed to hang on to her dignity and to the people’s affection. What had before been just a symbol was humanized. Even those who are not avid fans make allowances. As Victoria Murphy reports, many people that she interviewed for an extensive article stated, “I don’t necessarily have strong views about the monarchy, but I love the queen.”
Yet while wary of maintaining her privacy, she has also been called a “true revolutionary” when it comes to giving people greater accessibility to the monarch. She started the tradition of the “walkabouts,” which is essentially a meet-and-greet session before the scheduled event; initiated the broadcast of the Christmas message to the nation, and was the first to use Twitter to communicate on social media.
Indeed, in the latter years we were increasingly given moving glimpses into her mellowed personality. The Queen’s regard and affection for the crowds that turned out to cheer her; the Queen applying a fresh coat of lipstick while listening to a pop music concert; the Queen’s loneliness after Philip’s death.
The death of Philip on April 9, 2021, took a heavy toll on Her Majesty; he was not only her beloved husband, but also her chief adviser and moral support. The enduring picture of the Monarch became that of a frail yet resolute old woman, beloved by her people, utterly devoted to her duty, yet eating her dinner on a tray, in front of the television like so many middle-class people. “She likes it. It’s homely, it’s cosy, and it’s comfortable.” Thanks to the immediacy created by the media—she even has her own Facebook page–even if it’s only an illusion, the woman who wore the crown became the nation’s sweet granny.
