The Rest Is History - 232. Queen Elizabeth II - part 2

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

In February 1952, on the death of her father King George VI, the 25-year-old Elizabeth became Queen. During her long reign she was served by 15 Prime Ministers and met an extraordinary array of people. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland here examine her 70 years as Queen of the United Kingdom & 14 other countries, and head of the Commonwealth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hello, welcome to The Rest is History. Welcome back to those of you who've listened to the first of these two podcasts that we're doing to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of King Charles III. So, Tom, we ended the last episode, you talking about um the queen's anointing at her coronation in 1953 and uh her sense of dare i say it as her sacral queenship um and i i guess for the first certainly the first few years the first sort of half decade decade or so, everything is actually pretty smooth, isn't it?

For the queen sort of domestically. But of course, the paradox is that at home, her reign seems entirely untroubled. But abroad, the context is changing so quickly. You know, she becomes queen of an empire. But within a decade or so, that empire is largely defunct, isn't it? Yeah. but within a decade or so that empire is largely defunct isn't it yeah and she she um i mean i think she plays i don't know an important role but she certainly plays a facilitating role doesn't she in the process of decolonization she is i mean she's certainly not battling to save the empire and yeah and often i mean she so when harold mcmillan uh gives his his speech in south africa

about the winds of change blowing and all that kind of thing, she writes to him and says, what a wonderful speech. I approve of it. And it's not like she is going around desperately trying to was Queen of Sri Lanka. I mean, it's kind of amazing to think that. But the great object of her love becomes the Commonwealth, which is essentially quite a neat shimmy. So what had been the empire becomes first the British Commonwealth and then the Commonwealth, in which Britain has no kind of primal role. And the Queen's evident devotion to the Commonwealth and to all the countries of the Commonwealth kind of enables even countries that have been kind of emerged from colonial wars, from kind of resistance movements to British rule, to actually say, it's a kind of halfway house. We won't have the Queen as head of state, but we will stay in the Commonwealth and the Queen will be the head of the Commonwealth. And so it's a brilliant trick,

I think. And the degree to which it was kind of consciously designed by the Queen, I don't know, but I think it was kind of quite effective. But Dominic, what I would also ask you is, does this create a tension between her role, say, in Britain and her overseas roles? But we should kind of focus, shouldn't we, on the fact that she is not just the Queen of the United Kingdom. So she's the head of the Commonwealth. She is Queen of kind of various overseas territories that Britain still holds, so Falklands, Gibraltar, that kind of thing. She's Queen of the Crown Dependency, so famously as she's the Duke of Normandy in the Channel Islands.

And then she's Queen of what? Is it 16 independent nations, I think? She's Queen of Australia. She's Queen of Canada. She's Queen of New Zealand. Exactly. And Queen of those things in her own right, as it were, not as a function of being Queen of the United Kingdom.

Exactly. Exactly. And so she's head of state of about a seventh of the Earth's surface, which is by miles more than any other head of state. So is there a tension there yeah i mean i don't think to begin with that that tension is evident so she goes to australia and she's they're saying what 75 i think on the news yesterday on her first tour went out to see her yeah three quarters of the australian population turned out to see her an extraordinary statistic

and she she is devoted. I mean, she's devoted to Australia, to New Zealand, to Canada, I think, especially. She goes to Canada. She's visited Canada more than any other country. And so she clearly feels very, very, you know, the coronation oath that she swore in Westminster Abbey applies equally to all those countries as well. And she is committed and dutiful to it.

But is there a tension between that role that she has as a queen of the world, queen of the Commonwealth, queen of all these other countries and her role as queen of the United Kingdom? Yes, I think is the short answer, but it doesn't become apparent until later on. So at the beginning, just to go back to something you were saying a second ago, I completely agree with you that the queen plays, I mean, it's obviously not a leading part, but she definitely doesn't play no part in decolonization. So in other words, she does play a small supporting role. And I think the importance there is we were talking the first um podcast about the sense of the queen being in a prison and the sense of whether you have choices she does have a choice she and her court could unquestionably have put themselves in the late 1950s and early 1960s

on the on the side of deep entrenched conservatism. Because her father and grandfather were both overtly Tory, right? Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, you know what? They are. But one of the brilliance actually of George V, her grandfather was an operator,

is that he had accommodated himself very, very successfully to having a Labour government. He had, in fact, got on extremely well with his Labour ministers. But no one ever doubted that he was a kind of Tory country squire at heart. In many ways, certainly culturally, he's very reactionary, but he's intelligent and flexible enough to adjust to the new reality. But in the 1950s and 1960s, there are people, I think Lord Salisbury, for example, within the Conservative Party

who are critical of Macmillan's government, who say they're scuttling to get out of all these places. The empire is being dismantled before our very eyes. She could, and she and Philip could, by gestures, by hints, by selective leaks, all these kinds of things have made clear their dissatisfaction with what Macmillan is doing. But quite the reverse. I mean, the most famous example, which people who, we talked about the crown in the first episode, people who've seen the crown will undoubtedly remember this, that in 1961, she goes to Ghana and she dances with Kwame Nkrumah, the president,

who was at the time one of the absolute iconic standard bearers of anti-colonialism, of criticism of the Western empires and so on and so forth. And indeed, in South Africa, as we were saying, the apartheid government is shocked. One newspaper says how horrible it is to see the honored head of the once mighty British empire dancing with the black natives of pagan Africa. I mean, that's an extraordinary thing, I think. Her palpable enthusiasm, her love of Africa, it's clearly not contrived and feigned. I mean, you can see from the clips that this isn't a sort of a smile painfully worn and the fact she's bored out of her mind. She hates it.

She genuinely enjoys it. She takes the Commonwealth very seriously. And I think, as you say, it makes the decolonization process an easier sell, I think, to sort of conservative minded people in Britain. And I suppose the contrast is with France, where the monarchical role is played by the president, but he's also a politician. Right. So de Gaulle has to play both roles in that. So de Gaulle, with Algeria, let's say, he goes to Algeria and he says, I'm on your side, I understand you. And yet at the same time, he has to crack on with the dismantling while in public, she is the smiling, friendly, emollient face of the Commonwealth. But within Britain, so by the 60s, her association with the Commonwealth, with overseas

territories, with all this kind of stuff, and the sense of viceroys with plumed helmets which still faintly lurking in the background this is coming to seem ever tweedier and more fusty isn't it as britain starts to swing and i know that you will say well britain was still a very conservative country in the 60s i i entirely accept that you ever heard me say that before? Sure enough. But the sense that she can't play Queen Victoria, that is not her role. So what is her role? And so the sense I have, and again, very happy to be corrected on this because I suspect that it's a stereotype that can be complicated,

but that she decides that they're going to play the role of the first family. They're a normal family. Yeah, absolutely right. So the first criticism comes much earlier than people think. The first criticism comes about 1955, 56, 57. People are sort of outspoken journalists who like to be contrarians. So the tone is very, very reverential in the 50s, but you have people like Malcolm M outspoken journalists who like to be contrarians so the tone is very very reverential in the 50s but you have people like malcolm muggeridge who says uh people think the

whole show is out of hand most famously uh the historian john grigg lord alteringham he uh biographer of david lloyd george he you know is close to the court. He writes articles in which he says, her speechwriters make her sound like a priggish schoolgirl and a pain in the neck. And this is incredibly controversial. I mean, he was punched in the face by a member of the League of Empire Loyalists who shouted at the time, punched him in the face and shouted,

take that from the League of Empire Loyalists, which is an extraordinary thing. So is it the phrase, a British Shintoism? Was it Philip Murphy coined this idea that you can't, you know, that this is a kind of blasphemy to insult a queen like that? And so then that goes away again. It kind of bubbles back up with the satire boom of 1963. That was the week that was and so on.

And there is a sort of sense, I think, particularly when the empire begins to fragment. Peregrine Worsthorn, the future Sunday Telegraph editor, writes at the time, he says, if the empire goes, if we lose all these institutions and all this sort of flummery, he thinks the monarchy will go down with it because he thinks the monarchy is so closely bound up with empire. And so it's a very important sort of, again, is it a bit of spin? Is it a trick to reposition the royal family as the idealized nuclear family? So that's when you

get things like the documentary Royal Family, which was commissioned in 1968 and then came out in 1969. This is the Queen barbecuing with Philip and Charles. It's actually never been repeated, I think, Tom. Yeah. And that shows Nixon, doesn't it? Yes, because he visited at precisely this point, 68, 69. He was inaugurated in January 69.

And this thing, you know, this is sort of we're a normal family, just like you. And people comment at the time. So the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1964, I think, says Britain is lucky to have around the throne a Christian family, united, happy, and setting to war. An example of what the words home and family should mean. Oh, dear. I mean, that will, you know, it's a brilliant, united, happy, and setting to war with what the words home and family should mean. Oh dear.

I mean, that will, you know, it's a brilliant, as I said, hostage to fortune. It's a brilliant bit of political presentation, if it works. If it works. I was told a brilliant story yesterday by my friend, Jamie Muir, who is the son of Frank Muir. And Frank Muir in the, I think, mid-60s, or maybe a bit later, maybe 70s, went to Buckingham Palace for tea.

They all kind of sat around. And they were talking about adverts and the power of advertising. And the Queen said, yes, you know, they said how it sways you. And she said, yes, that if she had to buy a drill um she would buy a black and decker and and um so she's watching a lot of itv she's watching a lot of itv so i mean i think that's a kind of wonderful thought that she's sat around with her tupperware watching black and decker adverts and apparently um frank me a few months later met the head of black and decker and said i've got you the best slogan you can never

use oh yeah so they have to keep it quiet but there is that sense isn't there that you know the queen is you know she she she's very abstemious tupperware using black and decker drills all that kind of thing uh and a model family and that absolutely then sets up for the uh the kind of the great crisis of her reign really which is yeah if it kicks in from the 70s onwards so it's interesting how how politics plays such a small part in all this because of course she's had a labor government from 1964 under harold wilson but she gets on brilliantly with wilson gets on pretty well with most of his ministers except only ben right who wants to take her head off the stamps and she's not having that. Wants to take her head off the stamps, which she plays a very canny game. She doesn't say no.

She just says, well, I'll have a look at them. And there's this sort of, Ben commissions all these stamps and shows the Queen. She smiles and she nods and basically she knows the Wilson. So Harold Wilson, who is the sort of Mr. White Heater technology, but he's also the former boy scout who takes the scouting oath so seriously. So it's the essence of his socialism. And he is the world's biggest monarchist, and there's no way he's ever going to take the Queen's head off the stamps. So she plays this waiting game and Ben fumes in the post office tower

or wherever he's holed up in rage that he can't get her head off the stamps. But the politics plays so... I mean, the key protagonist is the media, not politics. So if you think when... I suppose you would say the problem starts to mount up in the 70s, which is not surprising because it's a terribly conflicted decade for Britain, the decade of the IMF bailout and the three-day week and the winter discontent. But those things actually are not a factor at all. The real problem, I think, is that the media starts to become more populist. And you have the sun overtakes the mirror in, I think, 1976.

And that, of course, is the year when Princess Margaret's divorce from the photographer anti-Armstrong Jones, Lord Snowden, is announced. And the coincidence of those two things, you've got the first really juicy royal scandal story, but at the same time, you have this intense circulation war between two populist tabloids. And the coincidence of those two things is toxic for the monarchy. And also the Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is an Australian Republican. Yeah. So that presumably is an element to it as well. I mean, is he the first Republican press baron? Oh, that's a good question, Tom. He probably is. Yes, he probably is. But I think even had he not been a Republican, the tenor of public life is moving in that direction. It's undifferential. It's individualistic. It's critical of institutions. tilting at the old establishment, tilting at institutions that have let Britain down,

this sort of aggressive populist culture, which you see ever more vociferous from the mid-70s onwards. And that's the paradox of Mrs. Thatcher's relationship to the Queen, isn't it? That on the one hand, obviously, Mrs. Thatcher is a conservative. She is devoted to the monarchy, devoted to the Queen, extravagant curtsies whenever she meets the queen. But on the other hand, she is a radical. And for instance, I mean, notoriously, one of the things that she is sceptical about is the Commonwealth. And so we were talking about the tension between the queen's role as the queen of the United Kingdom and head of the Commonwealth and all the arguments that blaze up throughout the 80s over what to do about apartheid South Africa.

And the Queen becomes very, very upset about Mrs. Thatcher's obduracy in refusing to impose sanctions. Yeah, absolutely. That's absolutely right, Tom. So actually the irony is that you've had two Labour prime ministers, Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. We can't do a podcast about the Queen's reign, Tom, without mentioning. No, the people's prime minister. Tony Jim, the people's prime minister.

So she's had two Labour prime ministers who are probably the two most devoted monarchists of her entire reign in Callaghan and Wilson. I mean, they will not hear a word of criticism of the monarchy and are incredibly deferential to the Queen. And patently, you can tell from photographs and films, they love every moment they spend in her company. And then Mrs. Thatcher comes in. And Mrs. Thatcher, although, as you say,

she has this romantic idea of Britain's history, which I think people often miss when they're talking about Mrs. Thatcher, and she does these massive curtsies and all that sort of stuff. She thinks, I think, that the palace is the incarnation of what she sees as the pinkish, wet, weedy, lily-livered, chinless establishment who have sold out to socialism and all this sort of thing. So Mrs Thatcher is absolutely adamant there

will be no sanctions she doesn't agree with sanctions on the apartheid regime in south africa she doesn't think they work she is actually again i think a lot of people miss this she she is trying to put pressure on the apartheid government sort of behind the scenes but you know she sees them as a cold war ally and she she just thinks it's weedy and wet to give into pressure on this. The Queen is aghast, is really aghast, and socially divisive. And supposedly this, you know, I mean, we never know what goes on in the audiences, but I think everybody's agreed this causes a terrible cooling of relations between Downing Street and the palace. I mean, Mrs. Thatcher, by all her aid, say she was gutted when she read this. I mean, she just thought this was the most awful thing.

She couldn't believe that the Buckingham Palace had allowed this to appear in the newspapers. And she thinks she's been incredibly hard done by. And I definitely think that for the quick, you know, actually what you have here is two women whose entire working lives have revolved around dealing with men not with other women um and particularly in mrs thatcher's case actually and so that lack of a rapport neither of them can play the part in a way that they've always been accustomed to. And I think the Queen respected Mrs. Thatcher, you know,

as a woman, as somebody who was a three-time election winner and all these kinds of things. But I definitely don't think it was a warm relationship by any means. No, she preferred to her Orson. Oh, definitely. I mean, when Wilson would go to Balmoral, I mean, Wilson resigned, basically told the Queen he was going to resign, when they've had tea together in a cottage at Balmoral

and she's helping him doing the washing up. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to imagine. With her and Mrs. Thatcher, it would be an argument about who's going to do the washing up. Right. So that's kind of the first great crisis that the Queen has to face up to in the 80s.

And then there's another one, isn't there? Well, in the person of just Diana, you mean. In the person of Diana. Because, I mean, basically the Queen is no longer the most famous female member of the royal family, which must have been quite a shock. That's right, Tom. But I can't help noticing that you're skating over something,

I suspect for political reasons of your own, because you know what's coming. You know what's coming. So, Tom, for people who don't know, Tom has often spoken in this podcast at frankly interminable length about Prince Edward's admiration for Tom's works. And you're on record, aren't you, Tom, saying that wherever a House of Windsor succession crisis, you would consider yourself

Prince Edward's bannerman. I think that was the... I have sworn my sword to Prince Edward. That is true. So of course, I mean, you know, Prince Edward, like the other, the Queen's other children, is now looking for a role in the 1980s.

And they have the kind of choice that the Queen didn't have in war-torn Britain. Right, because they're not the products of the interwar years and the World War era and the era of collective responsibility and all these things. They're trying to find their own niches. in prince edward's case part of his niche involves staging this thing called um it's actually called the grand knockout tournament

but it's better known as it's a royal knockout in june 1987 as a great admirer of prince edward you will remember this occasion well it's a learning curve. It's like Prince Hal becomes Henry V. Prince Edward, who directed this, I'm not going to in any way defend it, will go on to become Edward the Great. Edward the Great, very good, yes. So, I mean, it's got George Lazenby, it's got Barbara Winter, it's got John Travolta chasing cliff richard dressed as a leak it's actually got i have to say dressed as a leak i think because they're dressed as the

symbols of the united kingdom maybe there must be somebody dressed as a leak i mean actually they're dressed as a daffodil i don't know actually i mean you know i'm feeling embarrassed about it i'm not embarrassed about that i think that's a kind of surreal genius lewis carroll would have been proud of that he would and there's actually another reason why you shouldn't feel embarrassed about it because the company that produces our podcast, Goldhanger Films, Goldhanger Podcasts, is owned by another participant in its Raw Knockout, Gary Lineker. So Gary, if you're listening, you will remember this very well.

So anyway, yes, that's a – What was Gary Dress does? I mean, he can... A race or a unicorn or something. A thistle. Let's say a unicorn, even though I'm not sure. A lion. You'd have been a lion, wouldn't you?

One of the three lions. It's a royal knockout. And the press reaction to it, which is very scathing, is in its sort of silly way, it does reflect a deeper issue, which is the press are much more feral than they were at the beginning of the Queen's reign. Her children are of an age when there are going to be ups and downs. And obviously, the biggest issue becomes Diana. So you have the dissolution of various marriages, but the implosion of the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana,

I think obviously the trouble is that what it does is that it plants a bomb at the heart of that image that they have created since the 1960s and an image that nods back to george v and george the sixth her great predecessors right so so it it puts a bomb under the idea of them as a the first family a kind of model family but doesn't it also i mean diana's emphasis on expressing your feelings living your truth all that kind of stuff is very very contrary to the Queen's stoical, you know, stiff upper lip, rattle on, all that kind of stuff. And it makes her, what have always been seen as her virtues, look like problems, that they're old fashioned, they're out of tune. And so when Diana dies, you know, show us you care, mom.

That was the headline, wasn't it? It was indeed. Absolutely. It was the sum. You know, the Queen isn't in the business. I mean, I suppose she would say she shows that she cares in her own way. And we talked at the beginning, you know, the genius of that image of her at the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh. But Diana's way of showing that she cares was a much more overt one.

Yeah. And therefore, the kind of thing that could be more readily photographed and put in the sun and and the queen that was the great crisis point for her wasn't it yeah i think it's a series of tensions actually tom it's it's that absolutely as you say it's the the tension between what i frankly greatly prefer which is a um an ethos of of sort of uh bottling everything up and not talking about it. That's one way of putting it. But I think a sense of, you know, you deal with things with dignity. You don't air all your linen in public.

That there is a value in restraint and in taciturnity and these kinds of things, an understatement. And, of course, the alternative view, which is you should air your linen in public, there's a great value in the public display of empathy and emotion and all this sort of stuff. I mean, probably most of our listeners would say they fall somewhere in between those two things. So there's that, but there's also the tension between the private and the public.

So her reaction to the death of Diana is actually she thinks her responsibility should be to William and Harry, her children. And she thinks, well, that's obviously my focus. But there you have probably the greatest example in her reign of something where there is this great conflict between what she sees as her role as a grandmother and indeed a mother and her role as a sort of avatar of national identity and she's expected to by the public to reflect value and represent values that ultimately she doesn't really hold i suppose and that's why that's such a it's it's also that's i think that was a an extraordinary moment and i i i say most people, maybe I'm just projecting my own prejudices onto this, and some listeners may well say that I am, but I suspect most people now

feel faintly embarrassed about what happened in 1997. Do you think, Tom? Well, so we've talked about the crown a lot, haven't we, over the course of this? And that is fascinating as an example of how the Queen is someone whose life can be mythologized even while she's alive. I mean, it's kind of almost Shakespearean process of turning the stuff of royal drama into literal drama. looking at the events of Diana's death and her funeral through the Queen's eyes and I would guess that that would be representative of a slight gear shift in the wake of Diana's death that actually the Queen eased into a new role as I suppose really the country's grandmother I mean that's a stereotype isn't it i'm sounding like hugh edwards there you're back in hugh edwards i'm back in edward hugh edwards mode but it's a great mode to be in actually i'm not knocking hugh edwards at all i think he's

doing an amazing job i think the queen proves brilliant at that yeah and but but and it may be that people expect their grandparents actually to have different standards and approaches. And that's precisely why you value them. Yeah, that's actually very astute, Tom. I think I agree with you. I think there was definitely a gear shift. And I think that film does capture it because, of course, the funny thing is that in 1997 at the time, it'd be interesting to know what our sister podcast, The Rest Is Politics, makes of this. Of course, Alastair Campbell's involvement.

At the time, there was a sense that Tony Blair, she was the people's princess. He had caught the mood of the nation and the Queen had not. But by the time the film The Queen came out, Tony Blair was now on the sort of always getting kickings from the public. The public had sort of wearied of Tony Blair. And actually, in that film, it is the queen rather than blair who is the real protagonist and who with whom ultimately you're really invited to empathize i would say yeah definitely you're invited to respect her her self-restraint her self-discipline and so on and you're i think

you are invited very subtly is it to laugh at or to recoil from Tony Blair's kind of shiny facility? Well, I'm not sure about that, because I think that Peter Morgan then went on to write a play, The Audience. Yes. Yeah. In which it wasn't just that the Queen was seeing Blair, it was also all the other prime ministers. And that play in turn inspired Netflix to commission The Crown. And what Peter Morgan is focusing on, which he could do by the time he, you know, because the Queen was starting to knock up an incredible array of jubilees by this point,

I mean, she was kind of knocking them out of the park, was the sense of just how remarkably long lived she was, and how remarkable it was that this woman had met so many prime ministers. So I think it's not that it's mocking Blair as an inherently comic figure. But it sees him as transitory, doesn't it? It sees him as transitory, exactly. And that the self-conceit of a prime minister is as nothing compared to a monarch who has seen them come and go. And I think that that is a crucial part of the affection that the Queen has been held in in Britain over the past, say, two or 25 years perhaps.

Yeah. It's the sense that she is a living embodiment of a vast sweep of time. I think that's right, Tom. I think there was definitely a point in the early 21st century where people did what they had never done in the 80s. I mean, people in the 80s and 90s never said, gosh, isn't it extraordinary? She knew Attlee Churchill.

I mean, Attlee wasn't one of her prime ministers, but he was waiting for her on the tarmac when her plane touched down after she had become queen, that she knew Attlee Churchill. She knew Eden and Macmillan and all of these people. I mean, people didn't say that in the 1980s and 90s. Of course she knew them. But I think there was definitely a point in the early 21st century when people suddenly started to say, oh, my God,

Winston Churchill was her first prime minister. Isn't that extraordinary? I mean, we were talking in the first podcast about how we had this week's events not happened. We would have now been recording our episodes about the young churchill which we will do in due course i mean it is extraordinary that her first prime minister went into a cavalry charge at the battle of omdurman i mean what a what an incredible story that is and i think it comes to be seen as extraordinary as well by people

of other countries so you know for americans know, she's met every president except for Lyndon Johnson. Or France, she's met every French president. And I think that, you know, people around the world can look at her and see her, you know, she is this astonishingly famous woman who provides contact with, or in India, she met Nehru. I mean, it's astonishing, I think, not just for people in Britain. And I think that that's why her death has had a kind of the global resonance that it's had. Well, there was an extraordinary statistic I saw yesterday, Tom. When I'm thinking about it, it's probably true that her life since 1926 spans 30% of the lifespan of the United States. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

Well, so Obama went to the funeral of Shimon Peres. It was a funeral in Israel. And he gave an address and he name-checked giants of the 20th century. So he was, I think it was Peres. He was associating Peres as a giant of the 20th century. So he was, I think it was Perez. He was associating Perez as a giant of the 20th century. And he cited two other people. He cited Nelson Mandela and he cited Elizabeth II. And that's coming from a president whose father was born in Kenya,

the subject of the British Empire. It's quite something, I think. And actually, of all the footage of her meeting dignitaries, I always think that her meeting the Obamas is... Yeah, they obviously really got on, didn't they? Yeah. She loved meeting them. They clearly loved meeting her. The symbolism, it sort of continues that theme that we talked about. She was always clearly very, very comfortable, probably because she had been brought up steeped in empire she that made that in what some listeners may consider a paradoxical way that made her unusually comfortable

i would say for somebody of her class and and background with black and asian people and i think that's the sort of i mean that's the last night at Buckingham Palace when there were sort of crowds assembling. I mean, it was a very diverse crowd. And the image that people sometimes have abroad, which is that the monarchy in Britain symbolizes fustiness and nostalgia and a sort of reactionary backward looking aspect of Britishness. And there's perhaps an element of truth in that. But I think people outside sometimes miss the extent to which

that Commonwealth dimension actually really matters. It gives the monarchy an opportunity it wouldn't otherwise have to embrace modernity and to embrace change, I think. Yeah. Don't you think? Yes. Although, of course, there are limits, which have been tested by Harry and Meghan, I suppose.

But the issue there, I think, is not actually. I mean, OK, we did a podcast about Harry and Meghan at the time. I think actually the issue there is not race. No, I don't think it is. I think it's about the different standards of America. I think that, you know, and actually that, I think that that is something that suggests that perhaps the monarchy has not evolved as much as people might think, which is that the problem the monarchy has with Meghan is pretty much the problem that it had with Wallace Simpson. It's the fact that ultimately, although the Queen adores America, has been to

America loads, has met all the presidents, you know, goes racing there, all that kind of stuff. She embodies a kind of concept of Britain, an idea of Britain that is incompatible with everything that makes America, America. And there is something indigestible, I think, about American culture for that reason. And someone who embodies American culture as kind of flamboyantly as Meghan does, was always going to end in tears, perhaps. Well, there's obviously a generational difference, isn't there? I mean, you talked about Diana and you said, you know, public empathy and indeed used expression, living her truth, which is, of course, a Meghan expression.

That Meghan was sort of Diana turned up to 17. But America is about meritocracy. It's about choice. Megan was sort of Diana turned up to 17. But America is about meritocracy. It's about choice. It's about blazing your own path. I mean, that's the essence of Hollywood. It's the essence of California. That's where they've gone to live.

And that is antithetical. No matter how much the monarchy may modernize, it is antithetical to the idea of hereditary privilege, I think. And I think it inevitably gratesates it rubs up against it but the funny thing actually is that the harry and megan um imbroglio it clearly didn't affect the queen's popularity one job did it i mean by the end of the day she was absolutely colossally popular tom i mean the jubilee her speech we talked about that before, her speech when COVID hits, consciously looking back to the Second World War, the enormous success of the

Platinum Jubilee. I mean, the funny thing with all these jubilees, and I've written about jubilees and royal occasions before, is that people always predict disaster and washout and public apathy. And that's never, ever vindicated that there's this enormous reservoir. And I think in the case of the Platinum Jubilee in particular, it's not just patriotic monarchism, but there was clearly an enormous reservoir of affection for somebody who basically, you know, she'd made that famous oath when she was 21 that she would serve the country. And in this extraordinary sort of self-abnegating performance, she had done that.

What I found myself watching the news yesterday and what I have found from talking to family and friends is weirdly, and I feel ashamed of myself for this, because I know it's completely manipulative. And I know that it's being complicit in whatever film company it was that made Paddington. But the moment when I get the lump in the throat and have to wipe away a manly tear is when they show the footage that came from the Queen's recent jubilee where she is um having tea with paddington bear and he offers her a marmalade sandwich which she always keeps for emergencies and she opens her handbag and pulls out a marmalade sandwich and says that she does as well and and it's she gives this kind of seraphic smile and it's the sense that she's earned that smile i think over the decades and decades that she's you know lived in this gilded cage and she's in you know she's in a gilded cage she's in buckingham palace and all the people are outside and then the the um the opening of um

we will rock you starts kicking in outside and then she joins in and she starts to tap her teacup with her teaspoon and it's a bit you know this is as close as she gets to to what happened on ve day when she went out and joined the crowd and and she became part of us she became part of the people she became part of the crowd it's as close as she come and i found i find it incredibly moving and i think i think i'm not alone in finding that movie no not at all i completely agree with you tom the bit where paddington says thank you mom for everything i mean i found that moving even at the jubilee i found that very yeah lump in the throat and uh yeah and i found you know and also i i found so uh the last photos

of her uh the last office she did was to receive Boris Johnson, who resigned and to receive his trust, the new prime minister, two days before she died. And she looks so frail, so ill in those photographs. And she's still carrying on. She's still doing it. She is living true to the coronation oath that she will serve right to her death. And she does. And I think that it kind of taps into the weirdness and the power of monarchy as a system of government, which is that a living person can become a symbol in a way that even presidents

can't. But Tom, you can see that as a mad, weird thing, that this person who is descended from Noah and from Woden is our head of state. But I think that you would have to be very... The madness and weirdness. Deaf. Very, very oblivious to the tug of history and the power of history. Not to feel some sense of the... There is a strange power to this that kind of short circuits everything rational. But Tom, the madness and weirdness lies in thinking that it's mad and weird.

I mean, most societies that have ever existed have been monarchies of some sort. I agree. Every constitution. But not just monarchies. So, you know, the ideals of the French Republic or the United States are similarly contingent, culturally determined.

Any American, whoever says to you, whoever says to you, oh, the monarchy, I don't agree with this principle, blah, blah, blah. And then in the next breath says the sanctity of the Oval Office, the president, the symbols matter. All our knowledge of history says that symbols matter, nations matter, a sense of- Well, I wouldn't say that. Human beings are not rational creatures.

I wouldn't say the nations inherently matter, but I would say that for nations to exist as kind of concepts that the people who live within them are prepared to accept, it is inherently a kind of a weird idea that we all belong to a kind of entity that has a kind of degree of sovereignty. I mean, these are quite culturally contingent ideas, and they are freighted with all kinds of history and assumptions that, if you pull the camera right back, are likely to look very odd. And I think that that is why there is always an oddness at the heart of how a nation represents itself and thinks of itself. And I think in that sense, a monarchy is as good a way of channeling that weirdness as any other. It's good if it works and it clearly does work. I mean, lots of people are invested in it and therefore to argue, if people are invested in it, that's what matters.

Okay, but to play devil's advocate. Tom, now revealing his unpatriotic colors. No, I'm not. Monarchies work when the monarch is dutiful and as talented at serving the role that is ordained for her or for him obviously the prop you know as the application shows it's perfectly possible for to have terrible kings terrible queens yeah but i think another reason why people thank you for everything the paddington line why why people say that is the feeling that the queen has played her part brilliantly well you said tom didn't you that uh before we started recording

that you thought the queen, we were talking about how good a monarch the queen had been. And you said you thought there was a very good case that she had been given the options open to her and the possibilities that she had been the best monarch. I think so. She had fulfilled her duties more completely

than any monarch before her. Apart from Alfred, but he's not a king of England. Right. Are you still not counting Athelstan? Yeah, maybe Athelstan as well. I mean, to reiterate, the queen has to play her role as queen within the frameworks of the age as constituted. So she's not a Henry II or a or henry the eighth or henry the fifth

or whatever but i think that to have died a much-loved symbol of her country but more than that a symbol that has evolved with her country and that has enabled her country to feel that it's it's still what it was even though it no no longer is. Yes. I think has been a remarkable achievement. And I think it's required incredible self-abnegation because I think she has had to repress her personality, the life she would have liked to have led for her whole life, pretty much, except perhaps briefly when she was in Malta.

And I think that is a kind of heroic quality. Yeah. There's a wonderful uh George Orwell when he wrote about Englishness in the Blitz he talked about the sort of what makes a nation a nation he has a wonderful um passage where he says is there a kind of continuity you know what do you have in common with the child whose picture is on the mantelpiece who was once you everything has changed and yet somehow you're still the same and that that's sort of, that's true of countries, isn't it?

And it's also true of the Queen herself. She did change. Her voice changed. She proved much more flexible than people often make allowances for. But she was still the same.

You know, it's that great line from the leopard. For everything to stay the same, everything has to change. Yeah. And she was the perfect example of that.

Well, may she rest in peace. Agreed. So on to the new Tom, God Save the King. It'll be strange to get used to saying that, won't it? Yeah, it will. I actually sang it last night. That's good to know. But not in the privacy of your own home.

No, no. I went to, there was a service. I was out and I saw that the service was on at um st bartholomew so i popped in for that and i think the service had been intended as one to pray for the queen and the rector very hurriedly had to change the script because she died about half an hour before the service was due to start and it ended with god save the king so i will always remember where i was yeah that's a wonderful moment on which to end and are you going to sing us out or will you will we be spared that pleasure you can spare that so an extraordinary

sort of moment in history a nation in mourning we will be resuming normal restless history service of course um very soon uh but for the time being i think we should just simply say goodbye and uh thank you for everything. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.