All language subtitles for The.Majestic.Life.of.Queen.Elizabeth.II.2013.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG2_English

( ROYAL MUSIC PLAYING )

Royalty is a mixture
of myth and reality.

It's the fairy tale romance
of a princess...

coming together
with living history.

When it comes in the
shape of a queen...

my goodness, you've got
the full package there.

This is a dream,
and yet it's true.

( SOFT MUSIC PLAYING )

When Princess Elizabeth
was a little girl...

she didn't expect
to be queen one day.

She was just a little princess.

Special, yes, leading a rarified
life, an unusual life.

But her father was the Duke
of York and her mother
was the Duchess of York.

And they lived in London,
in Piccadilly.

Quite an almost normal,
if very grand life.

She was like Princess Beatrice
or usually nowadays.

I mean, she was the daughter
of the Duchess of York.

And the Duke of York.

Lesser members
of the royal family.

So she grew up with a great
reverence for the crown.

Understanding the importance
of duty in the monarchy.

But never got that sort
of conceit or bigheadedness...

that sometimes goes with
actually being in the job.

And I believe this gave her...

a modesty that people respect.

In those days, members of the
royal family didn't have to do
nearly as much as they do now.

So, the Duke and Duchess of York
and their two children...

Princess Elizabeth born in 1926
and Princess Margaret in 1930.

Could pretty much disappear to
Scotland from somewhere round
about the middle of July...

until perhaps the middle
of October and hardly would
be seen at all.

Well, Princess Elizabeth
was very close to her father.

And they were a very tight
family unit.

He used to call them
the four of us.

And although they obviously had
tours and duties to do...

they were quite sort
of stay-at-home family.

So incredibly spoiled in many
ways beyond anything any of us
can comprehend.

And yet completely deprived.

Deprived of any kind
of normalcy, really.

Therefore, desperately trying to
make normalcy within the little,
tiny world...

that she can make normalcy
within.

The princesses were very much
isolated from other children.

Hence they interacted with each
other and they paradoxically...

would have developed an intense
interest in everything ordinary.

What is it like
to ride on the Tube?

Or they would look at other
children playing at a distance.

And wish that they could talk
with them and make friends
with them.

She wanted to join the Brownies,
the Girl Guides.

Yes, that was considered a good
idea, so they formed a Girl
Guide troop...

inside Buckingham Palace.

And a handful of nice
respectable girls formed
the Girl Guide troop.

So she was a Girl Guide.
She was a Brownie. But in
the safety of a palace.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.):
...Princess Margaret Rose has
feet with at the age of
seven cannot keep still.

However, that's what you'd
expect of a Brownie of the
Leprechaun 6...

of the Buckingham Palace peck.

Well, I mean, they were
voraciously carefree children.

They led a totally normal life
as it was possible...

under the circumstances.

And were wonderfully
unsophisticated...

I mean, we enjoyed felicity,
outdoor games...

that kept us happy all day.

I've talked with one of Princess
Elizabeth's playmates...

who knew her when she
was a very little girl.

And she said she was great fun
to play with...

but quite undaring.

She'd never do anything
dangerous.

Right from the beginning,
she was a well-brought up...

well-behaved, well-ordered
little girl.

She didn't go to a school
or university in the
traditional way.

She was brought up as young,
aristocratic women of her
generation would be.

First of all, she was educated
at home, and then later a
schoolmaster...

from Eaton college gave her
special lessons in
constitutional history.

Their official source of
education was in many ways...

reliable, trustworthy, good,
basic...

but I have to say, inadequate.

Her education was essentially
that of her mother.

That's to say,
her mother's views...

on how an aristocratic little
girl should be brought up.

Namely to be a debutante...

to be interested
in country pursuits.

To be able to make polite dinner
party conversation of a
not-too-high-powered kind.

And emphatically
not to be a bluestocking.

Princess Elizabeth, of course,
was born in the 1920's...

in the aftermath
of the Great War...

and in the run-up
to the Second World War...

it was a time of austerity...

and through the 1930's,
it was a time of unemployment.

It was a stringent and hard,
tough time.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.):
For the 14th year out of 15,
His Royal Highness...

the Duke of York
spends a night at his camp.

Where under the Industrial
Welfare Movement...

400 boys from the public
schools and industrial
centers...

are spending their holiday
together in the comradeship
of the open air.

I think her parents were a
little bit more in touch...

with what was going on
in the real world.

And I think that
was a good thing.

So, the queen would have been
aware, even as a youngster...

that things were not good
on the outside.

That many of her subjects
were having a very,
very difficult time.

Previous generations of royals,
that wouldn't have applied.

They would have been away
in their palaces...

and wouldn't have had anything
to do with, let's say, ordinary
people.

Not so in the case
of Princess Elizabeth.

They were really eye-opening
times for the queen.

Particularly, I think,
because of her relationship
with her mother.

The Queen Mother was always
someone who wanted to...

be involved in society
and community.

Famously, during the Blitz, she
said that she was glad...

that Buckingham Palace had been
bombed, because she wanted to
look the East End in the face.

I think, similarly, they were
very much in tune with their
times.

And the queen particularly,
I think, understood the notion
of not-being-seen...

to be splashing cash at times
when things were difficult
for other people.

She was devoted to her father,
and he to her.

He always used to say of the
two daughters, Lilibeth
is my pride...

and Margaret is my joy.

The younger sister,
he spoiled rotten.

He couldn't believe that
he had created such a glamorous
creature.

Now little sister Margaret Rose
was the naughty, skittish one
in the family.

Right from the beginning,
Princess Elizabeth behaved...

almost as though she was
queen-in-waiting.

You can find nothing on record
at all of Princess Elizabeth...

ever doing anything that would
really be considered naughty.

At the time, it was quite an
idyllic upbringing...

because the princesses saw
a lot of their parents...

because they were around
a lot more, post-abdication.

All of that changed and I think
what was most difficult for the
queen when she was a girl...

was really the transition from
what was quite a low-key
existence...

to suddenly being thrust
into the spotlight.

Nobody was expecting the
Prince of Wales, who's later
Edward the 8th...

to abdicate until
really quite late on.

And it was a terrible shock for
the Duke of York to realize that
this was the king's intention.

And that he was then going
to have to take over.

And I would suggest that it was
probably not much before the end
of November, 1936...

that this really dawned on them.

God save the King!

ANNOUNCER (V.O):
The man who had sought
a quieter part in life...

was crowned ruler of the
greatest empire in history.

Her father, famously,
of course, with his stutter...

wasn't made for public life.

But really applied himself,
as we saw in the film
The King's Speech...

to the job of becoming
a modern monarch.

He had not performed terribly
well at a speech he'd made
at Wembley...

which is the speech
which opens the film.

And as a result of that,
there was a feeling that he
needed to get treated.

Had it had been a century
earlier, probably people
wouldn't have even noticed...

that he had a stammer.

Before that,
all the king had to do...

was to stand up
or to not fall off his horse...

which is one of the great lines
in the film.

That changed, of course,
in the 1930's with the invention
of radio.

KING EDWARD (V.O.):
The queen and I...

will always keep in our
hearts...

of inspiration of this day.

And may we ever be worthy
of the good will...

which I am proud to think
surrounds us...

at the outset of my reign.

His marriage to Elizabeth Bowen
Lyons, the future Queen
Mother...

had an extraordinary influence
on his life.

She was really the one that
encouraged him to seek
treatment...

because she just really wanted
him to be cured.

When the duke first consulted
Logue, they had an extraordinary
number of meetings.

It was very, very intensive
indeed.

It worked out in the first
14 months or so...

that they met 80 times.

Sometimes meeting as often
as once a week at the very
beginning...

or often more frequently
than that...

and he then continued to consult
Logue, not on such a frequent
basis...

in the late 1920's and 1930's.

But after the abdication of his
brother at the end of 1936...

then their relationship really
moved up a gear.

KING EDWARD (V.O):
This morning...

the British Ambassador in
Berlin handed the German...

government a final note,
stating that unless we heard...

from them by 11:00, that they
were prepared at once...

to withdraw their troops from
Poland...

a state of war would exist
between us.

I have to tell you now,
that no such undertaking
has been received.

And that consequently, this
country is at war with Germany.

Neville Chamberlain, the Prime
Minister, had already declared
war earlier that day.

This was the first chance
for the King to become the
father of the nation.

To speak to his people,
and to speak to the empire.

The speech which ends the film,
The King's Speech...

as it's become known now...

was obviously an extraordinary
important speech.

And Logue was clearly
orchestrating the speech.

I'm sure was encouraging him,
was egging him on...

in the same way as he appears
to be doing in the film.

KING EDWARD (V.O.):
In this grave hour...

perhaps the most faithful
in our history...

I send to every household
of my people...

both at home and overseas...

this message.

We are at war.

With God's help,
we shall prevail.

In a sense, one could say
that the Second World War
came to his rescue...

because he was there, he played
a very statesman-like role...
during the Second World War.

And by the end of it, he was
absolutely entrenched as a
beloved king.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Whether in
France with his troops or at
home with his bond people...

his courage and cheerfulness
were an inspiration.

This was total war...

and the king suffered
with so many of his subjects
the bombing of his home.

Princess Elizabeth saw in her
father this devotion to duty.

Duty really what came
before personal happiness.

And she also saw it
in her mother.

And that is the way that she
has structured her own reign.

You know, she's really
sacrificed her family in a way.

She loved her daddy. She was
a daddy's girl in many ways.

But she looked at what her
father did...

and respected what he did
and tried to follow his example.

Now, in the same way,
he felt that respect for her.

King George said from a very
early age, Elizabeth
seemed very regal...

and even as a child
in the cot...

she seemed to be very much
in control of herself
and her emotions.

He said, "I look at her
and I see Queen Victoria.

"I see the evidence of a great
monarch in the making."

We don't need a boy to do
the job, she'll do it better.

The were several events early
in her life which have shaped
the attitude...

and I think the essential
seriousness of the queen.

One, the recession,
the depression years
in which she grew up.

Secondly, the abdication,
which was such a trauma
in her own family.

With such upset to her very
emotional father...

through her uncle Edward the 8th
not doing his duty as the royal
family saw it.

Indulging in his love
for a woman and putting that
above his duty to the Crown.

And certainly World War II.

During the Second World War,
she and her younger sisters...

lived at Windsor Castle
really in sort of isolation.

They lived in the castle.
People came in to
entertain them.

Dances were given,
parties were given.

They met young aristocratic
soldiers, Guardsmen of the day.

Well, it sounds a bit strange,
but I think the war...

was actually rather an enjoyable
time for the princess.

And I think Princess Elizabeth
actually said to her governor...

perhaps we're smiling too much.
We're looking too happy...

because she knew what was going
on, obviously, and she was
really interested.

But they were really had their
war years at Windsor Castle.

And it was like a great,
big playground.

She wanted to join something
called the ATS, the Auxiliary
Territorial Service.

Effectively the women's army.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.):
Though she drives it
with a patent composure...

she had no experience
of driving before she commenced
her training.

And for a couple of months,
she went to Aldershot
every day...

and studied how
to be a car mechanic.

How to change wheels.

How to take off
a cylinder block.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.):
And when it comes
to checking the plugs...

Princess Margaret has obviously
become suitably impressed.

Yes, she did do war work.

She got into a uniform,
she did some training.

She learned how to change,
you know, the wheel on a car.

She, you know,
got her hands dirty.

But she then went back at night
to the safety of the castle.

She'll come home in the evening
and bore the family rigid...

with the dynamics of cylinder
blocks and that sort of thing.

I mean, everything this woman
does, at any age...

is something she's done
seriously.

At the end of the Second World
War, when victory in Europe
was announced...

there was huge celebration
in the streets of London.

Literally dancing in the
streets.

Princess Elizabeth asked her
father if she might go down
into the streets...

to see what was going on.

And with a couple of cruddies,
guardsmen...

she went down
into the streets of London...

and briefly mingled
with the crowds.

And that really was as close as
she'd got to the reality of war.

QUEEN ELIZABETH 2 (V.O.):
My sister and I realized...

we couldn't see
what the crowds were enjoying.

So we asked my parents
if we could go out and see
for ourselves.

I remember we were terrified
of being recognized.

So I pulled my uniform hat well
down over my eyes.

We cheered the king and queen
on the balcony...

and then walked miles
through the streets.

I think it was one of the most
memorable nights of my life.

It was the Emperor Napoleon who
said, "If you want to understand
a person...

"you should look at the way the
world was in the year that
person turned 21."

Well, the queen became 21
in the 1940's...

and she has the values
of a woman of that generation.

She is decent, she is discreet.

She does her duty.

One of the extraordinary things
about the queen...

is that she fell in love
and married just about the first
man she met.

Of course, it's a slight
exaggeration...

but she met Prince Philip
of Greece, as he then was
in 1939...

when he was a dashing naval
cadet at Dartmouth Naval
College.

She'd met him before
at family occasions...

but this was the occasion when,
by her own account...

the spark was struck.

Very dashing and very handsome,
and I mean quite unusually.

She actually thought this man
is wonderful, you know, as a
13-year-old could think.

A handsome prince.

And never really had any
affection for any other
man ever since.

He was astonish good looking...

in a flaxen, and yet a number of
women who swooned at the time...

and who swooned later...

and described him as having
Viking looks and flaxen hair
and all the rest of it.

He was an astonishing figure
and in uniform he looked
ridiculously good.

And he's always maintained
a very fit profile...

and he looked what he was,
a young Greek god.

Prince Philip
was very alpha male.

Quite controlling,
but very positive...

and I don't think Princess
Elizabeth ever met a man
like that in her life.

She was used to going out
with lord this and lord that...

and you know, people being very
deferential to her...

and suddenly someone comes
along and tells her what to do.

And drives too fast,
and does all kinds of things.

And I think he was just so male,
she was so incredibly in love
with him.

They were both great-great
grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

And by the end of the 1930's,
Prince Philip...

though he had a family...

his father was in the
south of France.

His mother was back in Greece.

His sisters were in Germany
and he was in England.

And he would go to homes,
houses of people...

and in the visitor's book would
write when his address as
no fixed abode.

And Princess Elizabeth and he
became friendly as the war
wore on...

and by the end of the war,
their friendship was deepening.

From time to time, he used
to wind up at Windsor Castle.

He saw the queen
in one of his pantomimes...

and at a certain point,
she was writing to him...

and indeed had a photograph
of a bearded gentleman...

on her dressing table, which
is always quite fun to share
in lectures...

because that is indeed
Prince Philip.

In the days
when he had a beard.

And then, of course,
shortly after that,
the romance developed.

He was in the Royal Navy.
He was a cousin.

He was certainly eligible.
He was hugely charming.

And by 1946, they were in love
and ready to get engaged.

I don't think that Prince
Philip...

ever fell foul of King George
the 6th particularly...

but she, his bride to be,
was very young.

They were both quite young.

And he wanted her to wait.

And it's rather touching,
actually...

that they went off the only time
that they were together on a
foreign trip, en famie.

Just the four of us, as he
always said, George the 6th.

Was the 1947 trip
to South Africa.

Princess Elizabeth became 21
when she was in South Africa...

and made this extraordinary
speech dedicating her life...

to the services of the
Commonwealth, the Empire, indeed
I think she said in those days.

And it's very, very harevert.
I mean, it fits in with this
wish to serve first.

And I think that that's what
she's always wanted to do.

When you, you of the British
family of nations...

let me speak on my birthday
as your representative.

Now that we are coming
to manhood and womanhood...

it is surely a great joy to us
all to think that we shall be
able to take...

some of the burden off the
shoulders of our elders...

who have fought and worked
and suffered to protect
our childhood.

Now she didn't write it herself.

It was written by one of her
private secretaries and given
to her to approve.

But apparently, the first time
she read it, she cried.

And she said, "This is exactly
what I feel. This is exactly
what I want to say."

It showed that her father's
faith in her was justified.

That she had this overwhelming
sense of duty.

Not just to Britain, but the
Commonwealth as a whole.

And that that was gonna be
the most important thing
in her life.

I declare before you all, with
my whole life, whether it be
long or short...

shall be devoted to your
service, and to the service
of our great Imperial family...

to which we all belong.

But I shall not have strength
to carry out this resolution
alone...

unless you join in it with me as
I now invite you to do.

It was really her last time
as a daughter in the family.

She knew that when
it was over...

she was going to get engaged
to Philip and then marry him.

The king was naturally anxious
that his daughter make the right
decision...

and of course he was also, no,
not totally happy at the idea,,,

of this very, very close-knit
family of four.

Us Four as he used to call them,
being broken up...

and the additional figure of
Prince Philip, who was of course
an interesting character...

but he's not entirely easy,
either.

I mean, he wasn't going
to just arrive on the scene
and not make an impact.

And I think the king was well
aware of that, too.

ANNOUNCER (O.S.): With news
of growing preparations
for the royal wedding...

come these notable pictures of
the royal family accompanied by
Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.

People at court weren't sure
who this man was.

Princess Elizabeth
was a perfect princess.

She was beautiful,
she was well brought up.

She knew how to behave.

Nobody was quite sure
about Prince Philip.

Who was he?
Where were his parents?

His grandfather, the king of
Greece, had been assassinated.

His own father, in the year
of Prince Philip's birth...

was put on trial in a show trial
and due to be possibly executed.

He escaped into exile.
This is Prince Philip's father.

With his family,
and they settled in France.

Prince Philip's upbringing
was in a sense difficult.

I mean, he was born famously
on a kitchen table in Corfu...

and he was evacuated in an
orange box on board a British
destroyer.

And he led a life
of comparative.

And I think it's reasonable
to say comparative fennury
in France.

Then at the end of the 1920's,
his parents split up.

His mother had a breakdown
and ended up in asylum
in Switzerland.

His father floated down
to the south of France...

where he ended up with a
girlfriend, living in a boat
off the French Riviera.

He always said to me that he was
essentially Pan European.

I don't know what he was.

He certainly is categorized
as being filled with grief.

But he doesn't have any Greek
blood in him at all.

The Greek royal family
of which he was a member...

were parachuted in,
they were rent-a-royals.

Insofar as he comes
from anywhere, I guess
he comes from Germany probably.

And you know, he himself said,
"Why should I like the Greeks?

"They treated my family
appallingly." Which they did.

So the idea that he's Greek
is very far from the truth.

See people didn't know
who this prince was.

He hadn't been to a proper
English public school.

He hadn't been
in the brigade of guards.

He'd been to this school
called Gordonstoun.

Founded by a German,
Prince Max of Baden...

you know, who'd founded Salem.

He joined the Royal Navy, well,
mentions dispatches.

That isn't bad,
but who was he?

And so, when the engagement
happened...

there were lots of people
around the queen and the king
at the time...

who had their reservations.

ANNOUNCER (O.S.):
Homage and rejoicing, side by
side with flowing pageantry...

marked Britain's greatest royal
occasion since the coronation.

The royal wedding was seen as a
sort of new Elizabethan Age.

The country was in a terrible
state. It was very austere right
after the war.

And certainly that this
beautiful bride...

because Princess Elizabeth
was incredibly beautiful...

and this handsome
Naval officer...

were going to carry the country
out of the doldrums of war...

and present them
with a golden future.

But the feeling was very much
of their wedding...

it was like a fairy tale.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.):
Before long, the cause
of a people that answered...

as onto the famous balcony
came the bride and bridegroom.

The time of the wedding
of Princess Elizabeth
and Prince Philip...

his sisters were not invited...

simply because they were Germans
living in Germany...

with, you know, German husbands.

One of whom was still going
through the de-Nazification
process.

So, you know,
they had to be careful.

I think the British public
on the whole, regarded
the marriage...

of Prince Philip and to the
future queen as welcome,
blessed relief...

you know, from a time
of considerable austerity
and awfulness.

And there was more rationing
paradoxically after the
war ended...

then there had been during
the war itself.

And one of the charming things
is, that I think of the 1,700...

or so wedding presents
that were officially listed...

several hundred were nylon
stockings, which ladies...

loyal ladies in the country
decided to send to the princess.

They knew in those hard times,
what every girl wanted.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.):
May the present happiness
of our princess...

and her sailor husband
grow ever deeper for the years
to come.

After her marriage to Philip,
they'd had their first two
children pretty rapidly.

She wanted more, she had
to delay her family.

That's why her children come
in two tranches, as it were.

One before her coronation.

One once she'd played herself
in and settled.

And she had had this wonderful
experience for just about
a year with Philip...

of being a naval officer's wife.

Philip insisted after the
marriage that he should pursue
his naval career.

She wanted him
very much to do this.

The royal family agreed and so
he actually went off to Malta...

where the British Navy
had still a large contingent
in those days.

He was given his own ship.

She went out there,
not as a princess,
but as the captain's wife.

And for the first and only
time in her life, she drove
her own car...

she went to hairdressing salons,
she met friends in cafes
for coffee.

She had something resembling
an ordinary life...

and it had been her wish and
hope that that could continue
for several years.

It was obvious that she meant
to enjoy herself.

She had no restriction.
She could move about on her own
in motor.

It was simply novel for her,
you know.

I think officially,
she was the boss.

But in private life,
I think Philip ran the show.

That's my impression, yes.

He seemed to boss her around
most of the time, you know?

I shouldn't say this, perhaps.
I've heard him swear at her.

The thing about the queen and
Prince Philip...

is that they both, as it were,
they're very, very well matched.

I mean, she took on somebody
her own size.

I mean, he is the one person...

who can categorically tell her
if something is not going well.

He can talk to her directly
and he does.

And it's been a very, very
interesting relationship...

which has lasted now...

you know, very nearly 64 years.

I think the queen herself will
be the first to admit...

that Prince Philip isn't
somebody you minces his words.

He's got an opinion
on everything...

and he doesn't mind
expressing it.

And for the queen herself,
when you consider that she's
surrounded...

by a lot of lackeys and perhaps
a lot of yes men.

Actually having a man in her
life to tell her what he
thinks...

of what she's doing is probably
a refreshing change.

He does wear the trousers behind
palace doors and he's the head
of the family...

and he's made a lot of changes
at Buckingham Palace, which have
been for the better.

I think he likes to avoid
comparisons with Prince
Albert...

and didn't want to be called a
consort and he wanted to be an
individual in his own right.

And if you say anything about
Prince Philip, it's certainly
that he's an individual.

I think that perhaps some of the
queen's character that she has
today...

because she's very funny
and can be incredibly waspish.

I think a lot of that sort
of comes from being around...

someone as strong
as Prince Philip.

And it's an enduring love
she has for him.

I think he would have been
so different...

to Princess Elizabeth herself.

And you know, in many happy
marriages, that is the key.

It's the differences between
people that make it work.

And I think-- that's how I think
what has been the glue...

that has held that marriage
together so well.

All too often, I fear Prince
Philip has had to listen
to me speaking.

He is someone who doesn't take
easily to compliments.

But he has quite simply been
my strength and stay all
these years.

I remember a few years ago,
I went to the theater
with them one evening...

and sat in the royal box with
them and the interval came...

and I came out
and joined the interval.

I walked with the queen and
I walked by and obviously
with the Duke of Edinburgh...

the queen went first and she was
introduced to all sorts of
celebrities during the interval.

And I stood at the side of the
room with the Duke of Edinburgh.

And he looked across the crowded
room towards the queen,
who is quite a small woman.

And she was surrounded by people
meeting her and bowing and
shaking her hand.

And he leaned against the wall
and he was holding a drink...

and he caught her eye.

And across the crowded room,
she smiled at him.

He merely lifted his glass
and toasted her.

I thought, "Yes, of course."

There is some special
relationship between these
two people.

The king's unexpected death
changed everything, not only for
Elizabeth, but for Philip, too.

As a couple, they had enjoyed
a blissful existence in Malta...

where the Duke of Edinburgh
was then based as an officer
in the Royal Navy.

And their first tour,
so to speak...

was brought to an abrupt
halt when they heard news
of the king's death.

Where in Kenya, of course, it
was the Duke of Edinburgh that
broke the news...

to Princess Elizabeth
and understandably she
was devastated.

You get this extraordinary
vision of the queen coming
down the steps...

to meet all these ancient
ministers like Winston
Churchill, born in 1874...

who'd served
in Queen Victoria's army.

A junior minister under
Edward the 7th, who was then
her prime minister.

Atlee and Edon and Mountbatton
and the Duke of Gloucester and
all these other figures...

that were standing there and the
old cars that came to meet her.

and she arrives back into her
country to take over the reigns
of being sovereign.

From that moment when she
stepped out onto the runway
back in Britain...

people were bowing to her
and she was the new queen...

and for both of them, it really
brought to an abrupt end...

what had been as normal
a marriage as possible
for a royal couple...

and they were suddenly thrust
into the limelight.

And it was a mortal blow
to Prince Philip...

because he realized that family
life as he knew it was over.

I mean, he realized it
in a way before she did.

The enormity of the situation
hit him.

Suddenly she's queen and she
can't be the wife anymore.

The mother, she can't be
the mother anymore.

I mean, there was just,
she really had very little time
to be with her children.

So Prince Philip, in a way, sort
of became the house husband.

From 1952, as soon as she
became queen, she was off
on lots of royal tours...

and, in the early days,
they were very lengthy.

They often went by ship.

So I think there was a distance
between her and her children...

that hadn't applied
in her own case.

Basically, Prince Philip,
in a way, lost his wife.

Lost his wife
to the role of duty.

What would have struck
journalists at the time...

is her relative age
and innocence in the scheme
of things.

She was certainly a very
well-read and well-schooled
woman...

of her tender years
in those days.

That said, she had no experience
really at all...

of even married life,
let alone being queen.

I think people would have wanted
to know how she felt she was
gonna cope...

with such a huge burden
on her shoulders...

at such a young age when she's
just starting out in her
marriage and starting a family.

If you lose a parent,
any age is difficult.

If you're going to be
the next monarch...

if you know that your father
dies and you're going to step
into the job.

One can't begin to imagine
the sort of weight
of responsibility...

the weight of apprehension and
suspension that would give you.

So, I think that when her father
died, it was a cataclysm
both personally and then...

she had to face the fact that
she was going to be the monarch
of the United Kingdom.

There was anxiety to start with.

When George the 6th died so
young, a father figure...

how could this young girl cope?

And then it was actually Winston
Churchill who in his speech...

of mourning and farewell
to George the 6th...

and welcomed the new queen,
pointed out that here she was...

modern Elizabeth coming to the
throne at the same age...

as the first Queen Elizabeth
in Tudor times.

And here perhaps Britain
and the whole Commonwealth...

had the chance of a modern
Elizabethan Age.

( ROYAL MUSIC PLAYING )

I think the coronation, again
coinciding with the roll out
of TV around the world...

meant that it was one of the
first and biggest televised
events of its kind.

Television was just taking off.

Low and behold, we have the
coronation in 1953.

So many people acquired their
television sets for that.

My family did.

We sat in the house.
My dad bought a television.

The neighbors came around
as in so many other cases.

And really, that set
television going as well.

I think it was very much
the notion that this should
be a world event...

and that everybody in the
Commonwealth should be able
to enjoy...

what was an occasion where they
would be seeing their queen
crowned.

Madam, is Your Majesty
willing to take the oath?
I am willing.

She was very worried that she
might make mistakes that would
be recorded live on television.

According to the respective laws
and customs.

I solemnly promise so to do.

There's also several very
emotional private moments
in the service...

like when she took communion.

Another moment when she has
to bear most of the upper part
of her breast...

and have the coronation oil
anointed there.

She didn't want that
to be shown on television.

The people wanted
to see royalty.

They wanted to not
just be able...

to watch them physically
in London...

but I think they really needed
to see this happening.

God save the queen!
God save the queen!

God save the queen!

And the BBC really pushed...

for the coronation
to be televised.

And it wasn't the queen that
said no, or indeed the queen
that said yes.

It was actually her advisors
were very sniffy about it...

and said no, no, no, it can't
possibly be the case...

because they'll be men with
cloth caps in palms, you know,
they won't be deferring.

There was a national outcry.

You know, people said look,
you know...

it says the queen should be
crowned in the sight
of all the people...

and these days people are
watching their tellies.

It was televised, as we know,
and of course, it was a huge,
huge success...

and a sort of bringing together
of the Commonwealth...

and the whole world, in fact.

I think for the queen,
it was a very momentous
occasion in her life.

Not just because of the world
was following, but because she's
a deeply religious woman...

and making her vow before God
in such austere circumstances...

to serve her country was really
a defining moment in her life.

She'd always had a strong
sense of duty...

but that became even stronger...

and, you know, her coronation
was a religious service...

as much as anything else...

and she was very much at the
center of religious ceremony...

presided over by the archbishop,
why, her archbishop
and all the rest of it...

and I think that what really
changed her life totally...

at the coron-- at the, first
of all, the accession...

even more so after the
coronation in 1953...

was the sense that she
was on her own...

she was chosen by God,
if you like.

( JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING )

Very soon after the coronation,
the euphoria of that great
event...

was overshadowed by the
Margaret Townsend affair.

The queen was in conflict there,
because as head of the
Church of England...

she could not really permit her
sister to marry a divorced man.

But as the sister of Princess
Margaret...

she obviously was very keen
that Princess Margaret
should be happy.

And it wasn't easy.

In the 1950's, it was a very
different period from today.

The family meant a great deal.

Divorce was terrible.

The idea of going out for the
married man was frowned upon.

A married man with children,
who was going to divorce...

to marry a royal princess?

It was just unheard of.

Probably the queen just didn't
want to believe...

even if she thought
it might be possible.

What happened in that particular
situation was that they
separated the couple.

They sent Peter Townsend off
to Brussels as an attaché...

and by the time he returned in
1955, when the general public...

all getting tremendously excited
at the thought that Princess
Margaret was now 25...

and could some extent
do what she wished.

In fact, I think, no, the path
of love had, as it were, run
through...

and by the time Princess
Margaret realized there was
a possibility...

of her civilest allowance
ceasing...

and possibly losing her royal
titles and things, it was over.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Princess
Margaret's personal message
issued from Clarence House.

I would like it to be known
that I have decided...

not to marry Group Captain
Peter Townsend.

I am deeply grateful for the
concern of all those...

who have constantly prayed
for my happiness.

Because of their closeness, the
queen during the whole Group
Captain Peter Townsend period...

was very supportive of Margaret,
because it was really their
mother...

who they didn't want to let
in on the notion
of the relationship.

And I think Elizabeth and Philip
counseled Margaret...

as much as they could
through that...

and it's sometimes been
misreported that it was
the queen...

that said that this relationship
couldn't be allowed.

Actually, she was devastated
that when push came to shove...

it was the government who said
actually we can't allow you to
marry this man.

And I think she had a lot
of sympathy for Margaret...

because after all, the queen
knew what true love was.

She had married the man
of her dreams.

She obviously played a part
in it, an important part.

And it could not have been done
without her agreement.

Problem the queen has,
I think, often had...

is as it were, the role
of the queen as queen...

and the role of the queen
as a person.

I mean, in some extent,
they're two different people...

and the queen has been known
sometimes to turn to a private
secretary...

who produces something for her
to look at and to ask her the
question...

"What should the queen do?"

At the beginning
of the queen's reign...

the massive tour of the
Commonwealth that she
undertook...

the best part of a year
in the newly built yacht
The Britannia...

was obviously partly a
celebration of her ascension...

but it was mainly a thank you
to the British Commonwealth...

to Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, South Africa, India...

the African countries that had
contributed so many men and
lives to the war effort...

against Germany and Japan.

When the queen came to the
throne, we still had the
British Empire.

It was very much part
of all of our lives.

I remember, I was young,
but I can remember it.

Hard to think of it now,
but we had influence
all over the globe.

Real influence, and the queen
was queen of all those
countries, as well.

It became the Commonwealth,
a much looser association
of mostly friendly countries.

The queen has always taken that
extremely seriously.

Of all the jobs that she does,
I think possibly she would
say herself...

the two that really matter
to her are being
head of the church...

because she takes her religion
extremely seriously...

and being head
of the Commonwealth.

I'd say that the queen has
adopted the Commonwealth...

almost as one of her sort
of prime causes.

Rather like a prime minister
with a new government.

Identifies an area that he
wishes to be identified with.

It's true to say that's what
the queen has considered
to be very important.

And she never misses these
Commonwealth heads
of government meetings.

You know, she has prime
ministers all over the world...

and she has said that sometimes
when she goes to these
meetings...

she feels a bit like a doctor.

She sees four prime ministers
in the morning and four
in the afternoon.

And they all tell her
their different problems.

And who better to talk to than
her, because she's not gonna
tell us what they say.

And equally, of course, she's
known all their predecessors
way back into the 1940's...

before a great deal
of them were born.

And the queen doesn't mind
if these countries wish to not
have her as queen any more...

as long as they remain
in the Commonwealth.

That's the thing
she's most keen on.

Likes to keep the link going.

Princess Elizabeth as princess
and queen has always been guided
by a great sense of duty.

When she became crowned queen,
one of the symbols
of authority...

that she took was what's called
the Wedding Ring of England.

She considered herself
and she considers herself...

married to England, Britain,
Australia, the British
Commonwealth...

all the countries that
acknowledge her.

And that, for her,
is the most important thing.

I don't think she has yet seen
the film called The Queen...

because she's not
interested in herself.

She doesn't read about herself.

She is not preoccupied
with herself.

She doesn't belong to the
me-me-me generation.

She isn't touchy-feely
as a human being.

There are no photographs
in existence...

of the queen and Prince Philip
walking along, holding hands.

They reflect their generation.

That's not what
they want you to see.

You may want it, it may reflect
what you were looking
for in royalty.

That's not what
they're going to give you.

I think there are two big
influences on the queen's
approach to her job.

One was the example of what
happened with her uncle,
Edward the 8th...

king for such a short time,
never even crowned.

I think that would have
instilled in her the idea...

that you do not walk away
from what is your duty.

What her father had done,
she carried on...

and I think succeeded
even more, if you like.

She was even more taken
to people's hearts
than her father had been.

It's wonderful. She's our
monarch and for her
to take the time...

to speak to me is wonderful.

I can't believe it.

I made it.

One of the most interesting
things I ever heard
about the queen...

said to me by one of her private
secretaries, and it was this.

That the queen sees it as her
duty to walk at the pace...

of the slowest person
in the land.

So that nobody in the country
feels left behind.

So there is the
Duke of Edinburgh,
thrusting, going forward.

Trying to do this,
trying to do that.
Trying to change this.

And there's the queen, quite
steadily walking along at the
pace of the slowest person.

Feeling, okay,
this is the way it is.

Everyone should be included
in this.

And so the queen has actually
been hugely inclusive...

in the way that she
has run things.

I think the strength of the
queen is she's seen it all
come and go.

There is no doubt at all that
she had a special feeling
for Winston Churchill.

None whatsoever...

because she'd known him since
she was literally a little girl.

She sat on
Winston Churchill's knee.

He was a friend of her parents.

Her father went through the
Second World War
with Winston Churchill.

She was a young girl in her
mid-20s when she became queen...

and Winston Churchill, the grand
old man of European politics...

was her first prime minister.

He was the special
prime minister.

Since then, I think,
she's seen them come and go...

and been very skillful...

at not letting them become
too intimate with her.

James Callahan, a British prime
minister said to me once...

"You know, royalty,
they offer you friendliness,
not friendship.

"There is a difference."

I've worked for a succession
of prime ministers...

who have enormously valued the--

what they get from their weekly
audience with the queen...

in terms of very penetrating
and shrewd questioning...

and expressions
of judgment and view.

The idea has always been...

that at least once a week,
on a Tuesday...

the prime minister makes time,
clears his diary...

and goes over to Buckingham
Palace to talk to the queen.

The prime minister just sits and
talks in total confidence...

totally openly with the queen
about what's going on.

She listens, she does much more
listening than anything else.

A few years ago, I found
myself at a private party
in a corner...

making conversation
with the queen.

And I found myself talking about
the prime minister of the day,
John Major.

And I found myself
saying to the queen...

"Oh, you had an audience
with him today."

There was a recession at the
time and I said...

"Do you know it's very bad,
the recession?"

She said, "Oh, yes, very bad."

And she said, "Do you know how
I've been queen since 1952?"

I said, "I do know that,
Your Majesty."

She said, "You know,
I've had 13 prime ministers."

I said, "Oh, yes, I know that,
too, Your Majesty."

"You know, we have one of these
recessions every few years...

"and I'm not sure any of my
prime ministers knows
what to do about it."

She's very dry, the queen. She's
got a very good sense of humor.

Behind it, she's not as much of
an actress as the Queen Mother.

I would say that if you
succeeded in making
the queen laugh...

you can be genuinely 100%
certain that you have
amused her.

She is a very amusing person.

People always think the queen
is looking rather serious...

and this is simply because
she's a bit older now...

and she's got one of those
faces that looks solemn when
it's in repose.

But when she smiles, her face
is absolutely transformed...

and she looks wonderful,
radiant, but she's also
very amusing...

and does impressions, some
impressions of individuals...

but she does accents, she can go
to a place and come away and do
you impressions of people.

When I just first joined
majesty in 1983...

the queen and Prince Philip
did a tour of Jordan...

and I remember going on it.

The queen said to me,
"What do you find...

"to write about
in your magazine?"

And I said,
"Oh, your family, ma'am.

And she said, "Well, I'll use
it as a diary to know what
they're all doing."

One story I rather like about
the queen was that she always
wanted to see a supermarket.

And once in Norfolk, she was
put on her sort of house gear
and her head scarf...

and she had claimed that she
hadn't been to a supermarket...

other than when
she'd be opening ones...

so she wanted to go along and
say she was walking up and down
the aisles...

and a little old lady spotted
her there, went up to her and
said...

"My dear, I must tell you, you
look awfully like the queen."

To which the queen replied,
"Thank you, that's very
reassuring."

That's very much the queen.

People look to the monarchy,
especially in tight...

because they are above politics.

They're not there because
we've elected them there.

Maybe they don't even
want to be there...

but they're there and they've
devoted their lives to duty...

Which is really important
that we see that.

Which is why the behavior
of some of the young royals...

in the 80's was so damaging
to the monarchy.

But I think because they're
above politics...

and because we know people like
Prince Charles really care.

He does really care about this
country and its people.

We want to look up to them.

It's really no secret that
she has her differences
with Prince Charles.

I mean, she loves him,
obviously as her eldest son...

but she feels that he is
espousing of quite
controversial causes.

He's dangerous for the monarchy.

Now Prince Charles, in his own
defense, would say...

Well, this is only while
he's Prince of Wales.

When he becomes monarch in due
course, all of that would end.

And he totally understands
the impartiality...

that a modern constitutional
monarch has to have.

I think when you look
at Charles and Andrew...

you can probably make
comparisons with William
and Harry...

in that Andrew's the spare
to the heir, as Harry is...

and they can both get away with
a bit more...

and they might be labeled party
princes or playboy princes...

because they haven't got the
burden of responsibility
on their shoulders.

They aren't gonna be
the future king.

Andrew seems to have an
extraordinary place
in our heart...

that he can do no wrong.

Or if he does, she forgives him.

He also had a very gung-ho image
in that he was out in the
Falkland's...

and flying helicopters and
generally being quite macho...

and it fitted in with that
whole Top Gun image.

He had a bit of a Hollywood
image at the time...

and it was easy to label him
as Randy Andy...

because of the excitement
that title might bring
to the royal family...

as far as the press were
concerned anyway.

There's sometimes a perception
of aloofness and distance...

which was certainly bridged--

Now I think I would twist
that slightly and say to you...

that perhaps that's the way
that other people think
we want to be.

Rather than necessarily the way
that we would choose to be.

Do you understand
the difference?

Yes, I do, but what is then
preventing you from being that?

Probably, again, other peoples'
perceptions, rather than our
own desire...

because when you actually see
and understand and feel...

what it is that, for instance,
you've seen what Prince William
is doing...

in Australia and New Zealand.

He was able to do that.

The difficulty is being able
to do that all the time...

because there are times when
things have to be more formal.

I, for one, think that the
royal family is relevant.

I think it's relevant probably
more so in the 21st century...

than we really either want
to or realize.

When it comes to Andrew and
Edward, these are her indulged
younger sons.

And she's fond of them...

and perhaps she's less critical
of them than she is of Charles.

I think everybody that saw
It's a Royal Knockout...

realized that it was an
incredibly undignified
thing to do...

and although it made great
television, it was almost
embarrassing...

watching the way that some
of the members of the
royal family behaved.

I mean, actually Diana wanted
to do it and Prince Charles
wouldn't let her.

He was quite right.

And of course, Edward came out
of it very badly...

because he really did go
into a sort of funk.

Haven't you been watching it?

Yes.

Well, what did you think of it?

( PRESS LAUGHING )

Thanks.

Well, Prince Edward didn't have
a great press in those days...

because I think he was very much
in his elder brother's shadow
as the youngest child.

He didn't do very well in the
Royal Marines and so was
labeled soft...

if not gay in some quarters,
which was later denied
by his wife...

in the ill-fated interview she
gave to the Fake Shake.

Not knowing that he was
undercover at the time.

Headlined My Edward's Not Gay.

to have his own endeavors...ed a

and he ran odd in his production
company it didn't do very well.

I think the nail in the coffin
was when he went and filmed
Prince William at Eton.

When he had been expressly
told not to...

and that really ended his career
and the queen didn't want
the bad publicity.

On this particular occasion, we
are celebrating somebody which
was really an accident at birth.

Over which I have no control.

And for which I seriously owe
one very important thank you...

which is to my mother
and father.

I think people will say that
Princess Anne is her biggest
support...

and that is both personally
as her only daughter...

but also in a professional
sense...

in that she's an absolute
tireless workhorse...

for the royal family.

She carries out multiple
engagements...

most days of the week.

And in that respect, she is the
Forbes number one performer...

and the queen really admires
that in a daughter.

I think probably Princess Anne
is actually more like
Prince Philip...

than her mother in some
other respects.

She's also very straight
talking and no nonsense.

But I think the queen is close
with all of her children.

It's really her grandchildren
on whom the queen focuses.

She is a great matriarch,
the queen.

She loves having all the family
around her...

and that's why I had time
at Sandringham at Christmas...

and Balmoral in the summer.

Very precious to her, because
those are the times...

when she can be a matriarch
for a few weeks, at least.

The royal family has reflected
family life in general...

because behind palace gates they
are a normal family with normal
problems and normal emotions.

In fact, they're under more
pressure really than the rest
of us...

because their moves are all
scrutinized and if there's
problems in the relationship...

the cameras are there
to pick it up...

and that very much happened
of course with Prince Charles
and Diana.

But the interesting thing
about Diana Spencer,
who became Princess Diana...

was that she rather came out
of nowhere, no one really
spotted her...

although she had some royal
connections in her family...

she wasn't the usual type
of girlfriend...

that I remember Prince Charles
accompanying to places.

A lot of his girlfriends had a
past and we the press knew that
Prince Charles had to find...

at that time definitely,
find someone who had no past.

And then Lady Diana Spencer
appeared, and you know,
it was a gift to all of us.

She was a young girl and quite
naive at the time, as we know.

Charles' parents...y Prince

were relieved that he had
decided to marry someone.

He had quite a long period
of bachelorhood where he
couldn't seem to settle down...

and it was actually attracting
the wrong kind of headlines.

And was he a playboy prince? Was
he not able to make decisions.

Was he not able to commit and
suddenly this beautiful young
girl came into his life...

and it really improved his PR
enormously...

because not only had he managed
to settle down, but with such a
gorgeous and glamorous figure.

I was always very much actually
a Diana Spencer fan...

and of course, it was terribly
interest to watch how she
emerged from that chrysalis...

that early chrysalis
into the girl she became.

And she was very, very good
at those royal duties.

And of course, they were,
for a time, really,
completely a dream team.

They could have gone anywhere
and done anything.

Everybody wanted to see them.

The problem for Diana Spencer
and what she really fell victim
to was a time warp.

By the 1970's, when Diana
Spencer arrived on the scene...

most people couldn't care less
whether the bride walking up the
aisle...

was a virgin or not
in ordinary life...

but when it came to the royal
family, we still expected this
old-fashioned view.

It meant she was much younger
than Prince Charles.

And Prince Charles, of course,
as we've since discovered...

was already committed
emotionally to another woman
and that was Camilla.

But poor Camilla's problem
was sort of Catch-22.

And when she met Prince Charles,
she fell in love, they went
to bed together...

but that sort of automatically
ruled her out as a future queen.

It sounds ridiculous,
it sounds primitive, and it was.

And, of course, in two or three
years Prince Andrew fell in love
with Fergie.

She didn't pretend she was
a virgin, she'd had boyfriends
in the past.

Everybody had moved on
by that time.

But Diana was caught
in this particular trap...

and it's the basis for,
really the tragedy...

that became her life
and Prince Charles' life.

And an enormous challenge to the
monarchy and to the reputation
of Elizabeth the 2nd.

One of the many, many problems
that Diana had...

was I don't think anyone
actually explained to her the
enormity of what she was doing.

And you'd think her father would
have done, because he was the
one person that did know it.

And Diana was just thrown
in at the deep end.

She went to live
in Buckingham Palace.

She was incredibly lonely.

She was looked after
by a footman, actually
was a friend of mine...

and Prince Charles was away
traveling a lot.

And I think she thought it was
all gonna be wonderfully
romantic...

and they'd be having candle-lit
suppers in Buckingham Palace...

and he would sort of whisk her
away on a white charger, but it
wasn't like that at all.

She hardly saw him.

Well, we didn't cover her
unhappiness until probably
about 1987.

When it became so obvious
that she was unhappy.

The queen was immensely
distressed by what was
happening...

in the marriage of Charles
and Diana for a number
of reasons.

Obviously, the threat that it
carried to the reputation
of the royal family...

but particularly to the
happiness of the couple...

and particularly their ability
to be parents, too.

William and Harry, whom she
loved dearly as a grandmother...

but also who represented the
future of the royal family.

So there was a whole complex
of emotions going on in here.

The queen actually tried to
bring Diana under her wing...

but Diana was very reluctant.

She thought, you know,
she didn't want to have supper
with the queen.

That was too boring,
and also she found it
a bit daunting.

I mean, the queen would invite
her to come and have lunch with
her or have supper with her...

and Diana really didn't want
to do that, and so she'd
find excuses.

And so, they never really formed
a very close relationship...

at a time when it might have
really helped Diana to do so.

When the marriage really
started to break down...

Diana used to go and see the
queen. Now nobody sees the queen
without an appointment.

But Diana used to wait
in the page's vestibule...

until the queen's last visitor,
if you like, had left.

And then she'd dash in
before the next one,
and she'd just cry.

And say, "Everybody hates me.
I hate my mother. I hate my
sister. I hate my husband."

And the queen, not used to this
kind of moral confrontation...

just didn't know how
to handle Diana.

It really threw her.

And as a result, she sat
on the fence with Diana.

It would be a great mistake
to think that she blamed Diana
for what went wrong.

If anything, I believe, that she
and her husband Prince Philip...

put more of the blame on
Prince Charles than on Diana.

Because after all, he was the
one who had this extra
girlfriend...

who was by then not a secret
to the royal family.

He was the one, the older
partner of the couple...

who's job it was to steer
things through.

He was the royal who'd spent all
his life getting ready for this.

I just think from everything
I know about the queen...

and everything everyone's told
me, she tries not to interfere
with her children's lives.

She probably should have done.

I think that could be the great
mistake of her reign,
is that she didn't interfere...

between Charles and Diana and
say now enough is enough.

I don't care if you loathe
each other, you're gonna
have to stay together.

She didn't do that.

Prince Philip made a very
concerted effort to commune
with Diana.

I've seen the letters that he
wrote to her and I've seen
her replies.

And they're very moving and they
were very constructive on his
side...

desperately trying to find a
way of keeping her in the
fold...

and trying to work out balance
where the things that she might
do with Prince Charles...

that they did both like doing,
they should do more of...

in the hope that things
would settle down.

I asked Prince Philip about it
once and he said to me simply...

"We're a family.
We are a family.

"These things happen
in families."

And they cope with it
as a family would.

that of parents... to it was

of their particular generation.

Actually the royal family
was very fond of Diana...

and even after the divorce,
there were lots of letters
exchanged...

between Diana
and Prince Philip.

Prince Philip very much wanted
that relationship to stand the
test of time.

Not because of the image
of the royal family being dented
by their divorce...

but because he really was fond
of Diana...

and wanted the relationship
to last for the couple's benefit
and for the boys.

The queen was curiously on
Diana's side certainly, while
the marriage was breaking up.

Now when it comes to a question
of what she thought of Diana's
behavior...

after the marriage broke up,
and her succession of boyfriends
and particularly Dodi Fayed...

and all that sort of thing.

That's another issue.

( ROCK MUSIC PLAYING )

I once asked the Duke of
Edinburgh why he felt the press
approach...

to the royal family was
as it is and where it had
begun to go wrong.

And he told me, in terms,
it began to go wrong when
Rupert Murdoch arrived here.

And I think he would say that
the sort of day-to-day insidious
gnawing away...

at the views
of the royal family...

really began when Rupert Murdoch
arrived in this country.

The royal family are convinced,
and I've spoken to Prince
Charles about it.

I've spoken to other members
of the royal family.

They are convinced that Murdoch
was out to destroy them.

They really are.

I mean, Prince Charles banged
on about Murdoch and the
Murdoch press.

And they almost seemed to think
that there's a Murdoch plot.

I'm not talking about actually
now, but say like ten years ago.

It's terribly easy
for journalists to latch
onto an alleged failing.

And to say that Prince Philip
was committed an another gaffe.

I think he's been rather
unfairly treated.

Prince Philip is known for his
gaffes and he's known for not
mincing his words...

and saying what he thinks,
and often people like me...

in the press like to interpret
that in a certain way to make a
good headline.

And I don't think there's
anything wrong with that...

because often he has made
controversial comments.

That said, often I've observed
Prince Philip...

and really all he's trying
to do is put people at ease...

in the way he thinks he should
put people at ease is by
cracking jokes...

and I recently profiled him
for his 90th birthday...

and he suggested to a chef
who was collecting an award...

that it was no wonder he was
a good chef, because he was
certainly the size for it.

And this man was enormous
and wasn't offended at all,
thought it was hilarious.

And I think people quite
like being singled out
by the Duke of Edinburgh.

I think the notion of Rupert
Murdoch coming and being a
staunch Republican...

from Australia didn't really
change things that much...

because at the time, 80's and
90's...

the stewardship
of The Sun was very much
Kelvin McKenzie's domain...

and he realized in Fleet Street
more than anyone that Diana was
gonna sell papers.

And in that respect,
it was what the readers wanted.

And if you look back to those
times in the 80's...

of how many resources were
thrown at royal stories...

you'd have royal reporters
sent across the world.

They spent hardly any time in
Britain. All they did was follow
royals around on their holidays.

One of the things that
disturbed, distressed the queen
and Prince Philip...

about Diana Princess of Wales...

and about Sarah Ferguson
who married the young
Duke of York...

was that the attention
they got...

they may have thought that it
was for their them
as individuals.

And the Duke of Edinburgh said
to me once, "You know when the
queen first became queen...

"and went on tours in the early
1950's, millions...

"millions of people came out
in the streets and cheered."

And if the queen had taken that
attention for herself...

it would have been corrosive.
She never did.

She knew the attention, the
adulation was not for her.

It was for the position
of being queen.

One of the things that makes
them feel a bit distressed about
the way they're presented...

I've discussed this with
the Duke of Edinburgh...

is that people now regard
them as part of the
celebrity culture.

They're not.

They think of themselves
as part of history.

There is blood in their veins
that has been coursing through
royal veins since before 1066.

The queen's mantra when
it comes to her family...

has always been never complain
and never explain.

And in that respect...

she's always remained
resolutely solid on issues...

such as love, marriage, divorce.

But she's someone to whom...

the public display of emotion
is offensive.

It's rude. You know? You keep
those things to yourself.

You don't lay them
on other people.

You keep them to yourself.

You suffer your pain
and your elation...

and your difficulty privately.

Probably the most demonstrative
she ever was was when she talked
about her annus horribilis.

Well 1992 was the worst year,
the queen says, of her life.

She called it her annus
horribilis.

Now there was the divorce
of Andrew and Fergie.

Before that, there was
the fire at Windsor Castle...

when the queen
sort of almost saw her--

It was her wedding anniversary
and I think she almost felt her
life was going up in flames.

And then of course,
the separation...

of the Prince
and Princess of Wales...

which really was something
the queen had tried...

incredibly hard
to help them avoid.

She said, "You know,
just try a bit longer,
just try a bit longer."

And then, she realized
that it wasn't going to work.

So, that was a really rotten
year for her.

Shortly after the Windsor fire,
the queen was scheduled
to make a speech...

and she didn't duck the issue,
she didn't avoid it.

She was ill herself, she
had a terrible sore throat...

from the smoke and from a cold
that she was suffering from.

And all of this added up
to this poignant image...

of this middle-aged
elderly woman...

who'd seen her home burnt down,
who'd seen her children divorce.

It has turned out to be
an annus horribilis.

If it hadn't been Latin,
she wouldn't have been
able to say it.

But suddenly it provided her
with a format for broaching
this dreadful subject.

And she did, and of course
people loved her the more for it
and rallied around...

and gave her the emotional
support that the monarchy...

so often offered to them.

I was asleep in bed
when the phone rang...

and one of my bosses said...

"Nick, there's been
a car crash in Paris.

"Dodi Fayed is dead and we think
the princess is dead, too."

So I obviously got up, got
dressed, went straight to the
studio...

in the middle of the night and
then was really on television...

I have to say,
for the next week really.

We have a flash here from the
Press Association news wire...

of Wales has died...incess

in a car crash in Paris.

What happened was,
of course, that the week
after Diana died...

was a long week
from a media point of view.

So, on the Sunday
you had the shock.

The next day it was discovered
it turned on the paparazzi...

or perhaps even on the same day
that it had pursued the car.

Then after that it was
discovered that the chauffeur
had more alcohol in his blood...

than he should have done, so he
was the next one to be blamed.

And then once they'd finished
with that, they turned
on the queen.

And the press played it up like
anything, they played up the
fake thing of the flag.

There being no Union Jack
flying at half mast
on Buckingham Palace.

I tried to tell ITN time
and time again...

why didn't you film Windsor
Castle which has its flag
at half mast?

Surely that makes a certain
point. Didn't quite fit what
they were interested in.

They wanted the stark flag pole.

The monarch that did not care
and so forth.

We didn't whip up hysteria.

I always get a bit cross when
people accuse us of that.

The British people felt
very deeply, most of them,
about Diana.

They felt her loss personally.

And we were very aware that we
shouldn't enflame people.

We shouldn't say, "Oh, the
queen's being terrible.

"She hasn't come down
to London to meet the crowds."

We tried to be very careful
about what we were doing.

But the story just swept along.

No one could have imagined
what had happened to Diana.

And what would happen
in the days that followed.

With Diana's death, the queen
did what she's always done.

Remember, she likes continuity.

And she did what her father
would have done and what her
grandfather would have done.

So, they battened down the
hatches, stay at Balmoral.

On the outward, act as
if nothing so terrible
has happened.

But she completely misread
the mood of the country...

because then the ivory tower
of Balmoral.

You don't know what's
going down in London.

The queen is somebody
who'd been through the war.

And her generation respond
to things like car crashes...

in which ex-daughters-in-law
are killed in a different way.

To the more touchy-feely way
that the younger generation
responded to that.

Her job was to look after these
boys at this traumatic, terrible
moment in their lives.

That became a priority and that
was very much the reason...

why she did not want cameras
paraded around.

She did not want
to make public statements.

She certainly wanted to keep
William and Harry away
from attention.

And she thought, let's go down
at the last moment.

It was the practical matter
of not disturbing people
at the palace...

but more important,
it just means the boys
can focus on this one thing.

Paying tribute to their mother
at the funeral and then
come home.

Well, of course, that was
not how people in London...

or indeed through the media,
people around the world saw it.

The image of the queen
took a serious dent
in that first week.

They seem to misjudge
the mood of the nation.

And I think that the silence
from the royal family...

for those early days
and nothing happening.

The no mention of Diana at
Crathie Church at the service.

And no flag coming down
at Buckingham Palace.

You know, that in itself
caused probably a lot
of anger with people.

I know it's tradition that
they're flag flies
at Buckingham Palace...

when only the royalty
are there...

but I really would have liked
to seen the flag flying half
mast there as well.

They're the most cold people
on this earth.

I mean, all these people here
today are showing the strength
of the nation...

and she hasn't said anything,
the queen.

well, the queen, when she came
back to Buckingham Palace...

from Scotland, I think she was
actually extremely nervous...

because she could feel the
hostility of the crowd.

So she did a walkabout.

And actually she heard things
like, "It's about time
you've come."

You know, they can hear
an awful lot of things
that the crowd said.

And then I think a woman
actually gave her a bunch
of flowers...

and said, "Oh, would you
like me to place it for you?"

And the woman said,
"No, Mum, it's for you."

And that sort of broke the ice,
it was that moment...

and I think suddenly
people saw her...

and started feeling all prickly
and angry.

They suddenly thought,
"My goodness, this is a
grandmother...

"and she's got to deal
with all this."

I suppose it was a sort of
natural feeling of sympathy
in many ways for the queen.

Plus the fact, and I remember
this terribly well.

The queen went on television,
live from Buckingham Palace...

to address the nation
in the middle of all of that.

And it was
a very masterful speech.

What I say to you now as your
queen and as a grandmother...

I say from my heart.

First, I want to pay tribute
to Diana myself.

It did just the right thing.
It said just the right thing.

She used the famous words,
"As your queen and a
grandmother."

That was very important thing to
say, to remind people that she
is not just some remote figure.

But she has a family, children,
grandchildren...

and all the sorrows and
pleasures that that brings
to everybody.

For a woman who's thought
of as conservative and a bit
stick in the mud...

she's always shown
throughout her reign
in moments of crisis...

the ability to think on her
feet and switch and change.

And of course, what was also
very interesting about that was
that there was a time...

when Prince William wasn't
terribly keen to walk
in the procession...

because he thought the whole
thing had turned into a terrible
ghastly media shenanigans.

But the night before,
Prince Philip said to him...
"I think when you're older..

"you would regret it if you
didn't walk in your mother's
procession...

"and I will walk with you."

And that's an immensely
supportive grandfather.

I think he got it
absolutely right.

And there's a moment, if you
look at the footage of that...

they're passing under White Hall
and they think the cameras
aren't on them...

and Prince Philip sort of leans
over and says, "How's it going?"

That's what you need from
a grandfather on an occasion
of that kind, I think.

The distinguish about it that
the royal family had some
difficult times...

in the late 80's and I
suppose almost right the way
through the 90's.

It shows tremendous regenerative
powers of the hereditary system.

In that this year in which we
speak now, which is 2011...

it's been a very exciting year
for the royal family.

And when Prince William was
getting married, of course,
there's always excitement...

about a good looking prince
getting married.

At he same time, of course, they
are actually very interested in
the queen...

as she approaches
the Diamond Jubilee.

And of course, the whole thought
that the queen presiding over
this family...

might, you know, be seeing
perhaps even a, you know...

another generation of the House
of Windsor in direct line
of succession to the throne...

in her Diamond Jubilee year
or very soon afterwards.

Well, that's all
very exciting, indeed.

The queen symbolizes stability
and sovereignty.

Means permanence and the
ability to go on and on.

People like me who are sort of
monarchists, we like the royal
family and the queen...

not only for political reasons,
because we think it's
a good system...

but also for historical reasons.

I would say for emotional,
even aesthetical reasons.

It's a much more wider thing,
there's a great affection for
the queen and the royal family.

The effect of having
a monarchy or a crown...

presiding over our society
is to make it very hierarchal.

Everybody's got their place,
God bless this crown and his
relations...

and keep us in our proper
stations.

If you're a plain mister,
there's a gentleman above you...

And a squire,
above an esquire is a knight.

Above a knight is a baronet,
above a baronets is a baron.

Above a baron is a viscount,
above a viscount is an earl.

Above an earl is a marquis,
above a marquis is a duke.

Above a duke is a royal duke,
and then a royal duke bows and
scrapes to the crown.

So, it is a hierarchal society.

We definitely got a class
distinction within the
households of the royal family.

At the very top, you could call
it the aristocracy, if you like.

Of the royal household,
that is the members.

Then you've got a sort
of middle class area...

which may well be described
or is the officials.

And then of course, you've got
the downstairs area.

The working class, if you like,
which is called the staff.

The three classes
are completely separate.

They do not socialize
in any way.

They don't eat together.

The lower orders have to address
the upper ones as sir or madam.

The whole thing is very,
very class-based.

Very much like it was
in Victorian times.

If you want to receive the
accolade, the way that I
recommend you go down...

stop behind it as I am here.

Take the hand rail in your
right hand, your left foot
on left side...

and just go down
on the right knee.

So you stop,
and it's one, two, three.

Very nice and easy
and quite comfortable.

The key person for any
monarch...

in modern times, has been
the private secretary.

And this tends to be a very
senior figure who's been in
royal service for many years.

In our country, the monarch
does not have any real power.

And there are times when people
almost wish they would...

and it's the job of that advisor
to steer Her Majesty through all
the problems that arise.

Being the sort of character that
she is, she has always accepted
her role in life.

And she is very, very dutiful.

Somebody once wrote of her
that she possesses that calm,
level gaze...

conscious of duty fulfilled.

I've been writing articles and
books about the royal family...

for just about 40 years
since the early 70's.

And I have to say that though I
think I know the queen and the
monarchy pretty well...

the essence of the queen
remains an enigma to me.

And that, I think, is her
strength and that is,
I think, how it should be.

I think she's absolutely
fascinating for the fact that
she has been on the throne...

all these years, celebrating
a Diamond Jubilee...

and naturally well we can make
a historic record of every
second of her reign...

what we don't know much
about is the queen herself,
and as a woman...

and how she's been as a mother
and what she's felt...

as she's seen these momentous
historical events take place.

Her emotions have always been
kept under lock and key.

And that's why she is one
of the most elusive figures
of our time.

She's got one personality
when you're her friend.

Another personality
with her family.

She's got that wonderful
mimicry, which she can do.

And then she's got her formal
personality.

I don't think anyone,
maybe no one ever will get
to the root of her.

I think people find her
endlessly fascinating...

from what is going
on behind the facade.

And of course, why she's
also fascinating,
is because deep down...

we know we'll probably
never find that out.

She has been consummate at
preserving her own privacy...

her own values, her own ideas...

her own sense of self.

And mystery and enigma is a very
important element of the magic.

Her strength always has been
steadfastness.

That she takes the good
and the bad in her stride.

That she takes a very long
view of everything.

People admire her longevity.

They also admire her
consistency.

There she is,
she keeps on going.

The queen is one person
who can get a crowd together.

And we witness that time
and time again...

and people are then surprised
afterwards to see so many people
out there celebrating with her.

But she is one of those public
figures that people will turn
out and see.

And history has repeated
itself in that respect.

The Silver Jubilee, the Golden
Jubilee again was poo-pooed.

Even people said before
the royal wedding,
"Does anyone really care?"

You look at them now
and make your own mind up.

I think the queen is constantly
surprised of the great
feeling...

of goodwill she gets from her
people, and I find that strange
after all these years.

And rather charming that
it still surprises her.

I mean, it's extraordinary,
she is still there.

She was there in 1952.

60 years later,
she's still there...

the same queen, the same smile.

She goes through the same
things year in, year out.

It's what a poet once
described as...

"the security of known
relationships."

We know where we are
with the queen.

She doesn't let you down.
She's always there.