The Daily - How Queen Elizabeth II Preserved the Monarchy

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

The death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday brought to an end a remarkable reign that spanned seven decades, 15 prime ministers and 14 American presidents.During her time on the throne, which saw the crumbling of the British Empire and the buffeting of the royal family by scandals, Elizabeth’s courtly and reserved manner helped to shore up the monarchy and provided an unwavering constant for her country, the Commonwealth and the wider world.Guest: Alan Cowell, a contributor to The New York Times and a former Times foreign correspondent.Background reading: Amid social and economic upheaval across her 70-year reign, the queen remained unshakably committed to the rituals of her role.Her heir, Charles, was long an uneasy prince. But he comes to the throne, at 73, as a self-assured, gray-haired eminence.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

I was going to ask you a question. I'm collecting reactions to the Queen's death. Did she die? She died. Really? Yeah. You're lying. No, I'm not lying.

When did she die? Like three hours ago. Today? Yeah. No. She's dead. This is not good. Are you joking?

What? Are you sure she died? Yeah, that's why I'm here. This is not good. Are you joking? What, what? Are you sure she died? Yeah, that's why I'm here. I'm a reporter. From where? New York Times. That's really sad. It's really sad because I pray to her every morning. Every morning, every morning I pray to Her Majesty, the Queen. Every morning I pray to her and I want her to live forever.

Why do you pray to the Queen every morning? Because I love her. I love Her Majesty. I love her so much. Can I ask, what does she represent to you? Everything. She's divine to me. You see, I don't believe in God, but I believe in Her Majesty the Queen. From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. This is The Daily.

It's absolutely devastating. I think the whole country is. Why? Because she was such an amazing woman. Yeah, I'm just speechless. I can't even put it into words, to be honest. I met the Queen twice. My mother was there and my brother Ben and I had just opened a restaurant in Oxford. She was opening it and she came along and it was like meeting your grandmother because you've always known her. She's always been there, right? The Queen. The reign of Queen Elizabeth II spanned seven decades, 15 prime ministers and 14 American presidents.

And what did she represent to you? Stability. Stability, consistency. I feel like, I don't know, it almost felt like she'll be here forever. Today, my colleague, Alan Cowell, on how Queen Elizabeth saved the monarchy, even as the British Empire crumbled. And what happens now that she's gone? I don't really know what this means now.

What does it mean? What's going to happen next? It's Friday, September 9th. Alan, tell us your first memory of Queen Elizabeth. It was 1953. It was the coronation. And I was six years old. And we went to a friend's house where they had a television set, which had like a nine-inch screen in a huge walnut cabinet. And there in this tiny little black and white image, we could see the Queen's coronation in Westminster Abbey.

And as the music rises in triumph, we await Her Majesty the Queen. It was a very touching moment. England at that time, Britain was still recovering from the Second World War. There was rationing in force. You couldn't get orange juice or plenty of things. So even at that young age, I think one understood that this was the start of something that things could get better, that the war and the war years were finally over

and Britain was looking towards something new in the future. Madam, is your majesty willing to take the oath? I am willing. What do you remember from what you saw on that little screen? Well, I just remember the sight of this very small, beautifully turned out monarch being crowned, and it was kind of a fairy tale. Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of the United Kingdom of...

She wasn't meant to be queen at all, but her uncle had abdicated the throne, and here she was. It felt like this is something we did. We had a queen, we had a new queen. It felt like the natural order of things, and it was her job to sustain that impression. I solemnly promise so to do. Will you to your power cause law and justice in mercy

to be executed in all your judgments? I will. And throughout that period and throughout her entire reign, she had to preserve the essential mystique, and that relied on the pageantry and the formality of her office, the grand parades down the mall, the ceremonial occasions of the changing of the guards and all of those moments when the symbols of her reign were on display.

But against that, she had to be adaptable, she had to be flexible, she had to change with the times. And she managed somehow to combine the rigidity and formality of the monarchy with sometimes a sense of humor and preserve the mystique. And her presence was not imposed upon her people, but it was somehow transmitted that she was there and she was the head of the royal family.

Even as the British Empire dwindled and shrunk back onto its island core, she maintained the role of the monarchy within that framework. And I suppose that we all, in a way, whether we admitted it or not, came to rely on that presence. The homage is ended. The drums shall beat and the trumpets shall sound and all the people shall cry, God save Queen Elizabeth. So tell me about the UK at that point, when the Queen came to power. What was happening?

At that time, I think the uk was really in a state of recovery it was much weakened by the effort of the war years the economy was in a deep shock and suddenly quite to everyone's surprise this young princess who had gone out on a trip, a formal official trip with her husband, Prince Philip, to Kenya. And she went to sleep as a princess and she woke up as a queen because her father had died overnight. And under the rules of the monarchy, there is an instant transition. Remind us, Alan, what the British Empire was. Like, what did it include? It was this kind of far-flung place with lots of different countries, right?

It was indeed. It was said that the sun never set on the British Empire because it was so vast. British Empire because it was so vast. It included India, a lot of Africa, Australia, Canada. The expansionism of the British in the 19th century had left them in control of a whole slew of countries to which they had no inherent entitlement and which has left a huge controversy about the manner of their rule, the cruelty, slavery. But at the time, it was an accepted part of life. Queen Victoria had been the founder of this. She was the Empress of India as well as the Queen of England. And that enormous empire had been handed down. And slowly, through the wars and the weakening of the central power, it was shrinking back.

And so one of the first things that the new queen had to contemplate was that that empire was soon going to be whittled away. And so how did she do that, Alan? What was her role? Her role was largely ceremonial, and she would go herself or she would send representatives to basically decolonize. There would be a negotiation, there would be a new constitution. The Soyuz had a whole range of African countries, Ghana, Kenya, achieving independence in the 50s and 60s. And the Queen's role, in fact, was to, or the role she chose for herself, was to try and salvage something from this by sponsoring the Commonwealth of Former Colonies, as it was then known, and preserving British influence in

a post-colonial world. So how exactly does she transition beyond empire, kind of moving Britain to a new place? I think there was a very, very important speech in 1957. Happy Christmas. speech in 1957, when she set out a new vision. It's inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you, a successor to the kings and queens of history, but who never really touches your personal lives. But now, at least for a few minutes, I welcome you to the peace of my own home. A vision of service, essentially. In the old days, the monarch led his soldiers on the battlefield,

and his leadership at all times was close and personal. That she put herself in a position not as a ruler or as a traditional monarch, but who would lead troops into battle or lay down the law, but as a servant of the people. Today, things are very different. I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice. But I can do something else. I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands

and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations. But what she could do was give them her heart. I hope that 1958 may bring you God's blessing and all the things you long for. And I know that might sound very naive almost now, but if you think about it, what she was doing to almost to the very, very end of her life fitted into that rubric of being a servant of the people she was leading into a new era. And how did that manifest itself, Alan? I mean, what's an example of that? Well, I would say that it was a very tight definition of service because it was really wrapped up in an awful lot of formality. If you look back at the old clips of the Queen going about her routine business, there'd be travels to far-flung parts of the empire or soon-to-be former empire where she

would go through a very, very closely choreographed ceremonies to greet and make friends with local people or even traveling around in the UK, opening libraries, or shipyards, or launching ships, and all of these things she did in the name of being present and showing the presence of the monarchy to the people on the ground. And did it work? I mean, did people like this? I think it did work, because what it showed, what she showed, was that the monarchy was still strong even though the empire was weak. And she found a way of ensuring that the monarchy survived the demise of the empire largely

and went on to give itself a new niche in a new world in the post-colonial era. We'll be right back. So, Alan, you told us that the queen was holding together this whole idea of the monarchy at a time when Britain was really changing. And that she did this in this kind of silent, symbolic way. But you also said she was good at adapting, bending to meet the moment. So tell me about that. ending to meet the moment. So tell me about that. Well, I think that came to a head in 1992, when everything that she was presiding over just seemed to be unraveling. Good evening. Part of the centuries-old Windsor Castle, one of the Queen's residences,

has been consumed by fire for much of the day. There was a huge fire at Windsor, one of her favorite residences. The Duke of York joined scores of people who formed a human chain to save one of the greatest collections of art treasures in the world. He said the Queen, who went to the castle soon after hearing about the fire, was absolutely devastated. There were scandals relating to her children all over the tabloids. The latest shock scandal to rock Buckingham Palace. For instance, there were photographs of an affair between the Duchess of York and an American millionaire. Fergie, as she's commonly known, had been caught by the pool with her top off,

smooching with her financial advisor, Texas millionaire John Bryan. One picture showed him kissing the Duchess's foot. Another showed the Duchess rubbing suntan oil into Bryan's balding head. Her daughter Princess Anne got divorced. Prince Andrew separated from Sarah, his wife. And there is speculation that the Duchess now separated from her husband Prince Andrew could be stripped of her title by the Queen. Princess Diana was figured heavily in a tell-all book. Much has been made of the author's allegation that the princess attempted suicide on five occasions.

And there was more evidence of infinite conversations between Diana and the lover that were leaked. So after all that happened, Charles finally separated from Diana. The royal couple began their new separate lives today with separate engagements in different parts of London. 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. She did actually say, look, this has been a horrible year for me. There can be no doubt, of course,

that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life. There were any number of issues, publicity that she would have preferred not to have. But we are all part of the same fabric of our national society. And she had to, in a way, appeal for a degree of sympathy. And I think that showed her ability to adapt and be flexible. And in a way, I think a lot of people understood that. And that scrutiny by one part of another can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of gentleness, good humor, and understanding.

And Alan, why do you think she decided to tell people that her year had been horrible? I mean, actually to show herself and level with people. Why'd she do that? I think that's just part of her gift, her knack for finding the right moment to make these kind of gestures that count with people. In a way, it was a plea for sympathy, which wasn't always given to the monarchy because they'd been held to a much higher standard. I guess she was saying, look, we all have these problems and I'm no different. Although plainly, plainly she was in a much more, a far different position from ordinary people.

So she was sort of nodding to the British people in a way and reconnecting with them, saying, you know, I understand that this is all pretty awful. And did that work? I think by and large, most things that she's done have been very carefully thought out. And the timing is all, and it was very, very, very effective. What's another example of the Queen's timing? The monarchy being tested and the Queen being flexible at just the right moment? Well, paradoxically, there were occasions when she seemed to get it terribly wrong, and there was no greater example of that

than in 1997 after the death of Princess Diana. Prime Minister, can we please have your reaction to the news? I feel like everyone else in this country today, utterly devastated. Everybody loves her! When the whole nation, literally, was in a paroxysm of grief and mourning and was looking to the Queen for a signal, some kind of acknowledgement of the enormous loss, personal loss that people felt with the death of Princess Diana. The absence of a flag at half-mast at Buckingham Palace upset many people. And she didn't seem to give it. And the absence of the royal family,

who've remained at Balmoral throughout, has dismayed others. She secluded herself in Balmoral with Diana and Charles's sons, William and Harry, and really cited the need to protect those children as the reason for not emerging into the public eye. And it was the beginning of a crisis that built very, very visibly. Many had been contrasting the outpouring of popular grief and emotion with the silence and perceived detachment of senior members of the royal family. People were saying she's lost her touch. This is it. I mean, all these people here today are showing the strength of the nation and she hasn't

said anything, the Queen. You know, they must know how we're feeling and we'd like to know how they're feeling. Why isn't she saying something? Why isn't she sharing our grief with us? In today's Sun newspaper, an editorial criticises the royal family's response and states bluntly, all the royals can do is pull up the drawbridges on their emotional castles and retreat into an artificial world where all that matters is doing it by the book. And of course, she had good advice from Tony Blair, an arch politician, a very deft politician, who advised her that if she wanted to get the situation back under control, she needed to make a big gesture to the people. So she came back to London.

What I say to you now, as your queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart. She gave a very important public address. First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. I admired and respected her for her energy and commitment to others. I share in your determination to cherish her memory. And I think most significantly of all... The cortege is now reaching the bottom end of Constitution Hill. As the funeral cortege with Diana's coffin

was passing in front of Buckingham Palace... A bow from the Queen as the coffin passed. She bowed her head as the coffin went by and really it was a tremendously powerful gesture, an acknowledgement of Diana's role and importance. Monarchs don't bow to anybody else, other people bow to them and there had been all this speculation that she didn't respect Diana, she didn't like her, that she was being high-handed

towards the memory of Diana. And with that single, solemn nod of the head, she reversed all of that imagery and did indeed begin to turn the situation around. So, again, by being flexible, by adapting, the queen repairs relations with her subjects. Exactly. But I think sometimes it is only under enormous pressure that her first instinct that she's been brought up with is to be discreet, to refrain from bowing to public outcry, to maintain her dignity and aloofness.

And when she does it, it has to count because I think it was a huge gesture and it must have been very carefully thought out on her part. Are there any other instances where the monarchy seemed imperiled, and she had to react? I think these moments seemed to come thick and fast, and they almost accelerated the older she got. Could it be Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are now saying ta-ta for... Harry and Meghan say we quit. One of these, of course, was the relationship

that soured between Buckingham Palace and Harry and Meghan. In a statement, the two said they've chosen to transition to a, quote, progressive new role within the institution. They chose to renounce their position as fully fledged royals and move to California, which was quite embarrassing for the Queen. And remind us, Alan, what did the Queen do? Queen Elizabeth has confirmed in a statement that in stepping away...

She made it very clear that Harry was no longer a fully fledged royal. For Harry, the loss of his military roles, particularly as Captain General of the Royal Marines, will be particularly hard. He was stripped of some positions. He was not allowed to have the kind of security detail that he would normally have expected. And he was basically cast into the outer darkness

as far as being what he had been, which was a fully-fledged member of the royal family. So when it came to the crown and her grandson, she chose the crown. Absolutely. She chose the crown and she always did. And she went on even with her son, Andrew, who had become embroiled in a scandal relating to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the American financier who was a convicted sex offender.

When that blew up, the same thing happened as it happened with Harry. The prince said that he would be stepping down from royal duties for the foreseeable future. Which was that he was stripped of royal duties. He was not allowed to preside over events that he would have done. Certain military ranks were withdrawn. Britain's tabloids going into full swing, calling Prince Andrew a royal outcast. And he too was sent into what I guess a kind of internal exile. The man eighth in line to the throne says he went to his mother, the queen,

for permission to step down for the foreseeable future from his duties, and she granted it. So it's almost as though in the beginning of her reign, the threats were external, you know, from the outside world, the threats to the monarchy. And at the end of her reign, the threats were from inside, from her own family. I think it had been a developing trend throughout her reign. The standards that she aspired to and that she stuck to just were too much for the next generations. And with the exception, perhaps, of Prince William, none of those subsequent descendants was able to come up to the same levels of respectability, probity, as she had displayed throughout her reign. Alan, that brings us to her death and to the fact that her son Charles is now finally king.

What will it mean for the monarchy and for the United Kingdom? I think there's a huge burden that will fall on his shoulders. There are no high expectations of Charles. He's got a reputation for having embraced some fairly quirky ideas in his time. He's been a king in waiting for a long, long time, and a lot of people have had time to prejudge him. So he must somehow reassert the validity of the monarchy's role at a time when it could well come under renewed challenge. What held it together, what holds it together, was Elizabeth and her memory. And somehow he needs to harness those feelings of respect for his mother to be able to navigate through very, very choppy waters into the monarch's future.

Do you think that her success was singular? I mean, did it have to do with her? Or was it more about the position she inherited? I think it was very much to do with her. I mean, it was how she played it. You know, plenty of members of her family, her own sister, people played things in a different way. They partied or they gallivanted or whatever. And she didn't.

She chose not to. She devoted herself. As she'd said way back, that she could give the British people her heart and the Commonwealth people her heart. And I think that's what she tried to do. It was very much her personal style and manner that held things together. And the monarchy, for all its clever PR and its facility with pageantry and symbols still comes down to the personality of the person at the head of it. And that is going to be Charles's biggest challenge, King Charles's biggest challenge. And of course, Charles is in some ways coming to the throne at an even more

challenging time than his mother did. I mean, Britain is in a perilous place economically and really in terms of its place in the world. It's farther than ever from its sort of glorious past, you know, the past of empire that his mother was kind of tapping into. I think that's right. If you look across where Britain is at the moment, it's left the European Union. There's the whole question of cost of living, the soaring price of energy. There is a sense of malaise and gathering crisis across the political front. And it makes it more difficult for King Charles to act. difficult for King Charles to act. I mean, he has got very strong credentials on some issues that count a lot for Britain's future, notably his approach to climate change and global warming.

He could give a lead where Britain needs it to help it look to a future where these crises it has at the moment because of its energy dependence on outsiders will be a thing of the past. But again, as with his mother, it'll come down to his personality and whether he, after all this time waiting, finally steps up to the throne with his visions intact and able to be transmitted to the people in a manner that gives them confidence. I think there'll be probably a honeymoon period. People will be fairly ready to forgive him initially, but in the long term, that might not last. And if that doesn't last, it does not augur well for the future of the monarchy.

Yeah. Alan, how did you feel when you heard the Queen had died? It was a difficult moment because as a journalist, I didn't want to feel involved at all. I'd spent many years writing about the Queen, and I'd always striven for objectivity in my reporting. And against that, there was the feeling, I'm sure many Britons have, that this is a changing of the guard in a major way, and that we're in a new era with incalculable coordinates. with incalculable coordinates. Across the road, there's a local parish church, St Anne's,

and just after the announcement that the Queen had died, the single toll of a bell went on for a couple of hours, and I think that that sort of, you know, the curfew tolls the Nell a parting day was how a lot of people would have felt a day was parting and we don't really know what tomorrow will bring. Alan, thank you. Thank you, Sabrina. Thank you very much.

It's been a great pleasure to talk to you this evening and discuss these issues. Thank you. There. It's been a great pleasure to talk to you this evening and discuss these issues. Thank you. There is a motto which has been borne by many of my ancestors, a noble motto, I serve. Those words were an inspiration to many bygone heirs to the throne when they made their nightly dedication as they came to manhood. I cannot quite do as they did. But through the inventions of science, I can do what was not possible for any of them.

I can make my solemn act of dedication with the whole empire listening. I should like to make that dedication now. It is very simple. I declare before you all that 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 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. I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today.

On Thursday, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that advocates for abortion rights could add a question to the ballot in November that would ask voters whether to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution. protections in the state constitution. The measure had previously been blocked by a state board that cited typographical issues on the petition to include the question on ballots. The measure to enshrine abortion rights will bring even more attention to the November election in Michigan, a swing state with several closely contested races on the ballot. races on the ballot. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja, Stella Tan, Muj Zaydi, Jessica Chung, and Lindsay Garrison, with help from Rachel Quester and Asa Chaturvedi. It was edited by Michael Benoit, Lisa Chow, and Paige Cowett, and fact-checked by Susan Lee. It contains original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemesto, and Marian Lozano and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Special thanks to Eva Krzyzsiak. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you on Monday.