transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 5:
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Speaker 6:
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Speaker 7:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 5:
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Speaker 6:
[01:49] This April marks the centenary of the birth of Elizabeth II, who reigned over an incredibly transformative period in British history. But who was the real woman behind the crown? In this special episode of our Life of the Week series, Kate Williams guides Charlotte Vosper through the late Queen's life, picking a key moment from each decade that illuminates the monarch's personality, public role and private life. How did she feel when she unexpectedly became heir apparent to the throne? And what did she really think about the media furore that surrounded her and her family? And before we get going, just a flag that you can join Kate for a six-part History Extra Academy series, uncovering the little known stories behind some of history's most famous queens. All the details of that are in the show notes, but for now, it's on with today's episode. This month is the centenary of Elizabeth II's birth, which offers us the opportunity to think about the key moments in her personal and her public life. She was born in 1926. So let's start there. Kate, what was Elizabeth's early childhood like?

Speaker 8:
[03:02] Elizabeth was born, as you say, on April the 21st, 1926, and she was born in her grandparents' house in Piccadilly. It's been through various iterations, a car showroom and now a restaurant. But even though she wasn't born in a royal palace, the royal rules applied, and that was that the birth had to be assented, as legitimate, by a member of the cabinet. Ever since the warming pan baby scandal of the 1680s, every royal birth had to be watched by politicians. So poor Queen Victoria had a screen up between her and the politicians, which she was really pretty annoyed about. And Elizabeth is not in line to the throne. She is not destined for the throne at all, but still she is a granddaughter of George V, Elizabeth, and she must have this legitimacy is centred to. Now this is a bit of a problem because it's 1926. It is the time of the general strike. The unions, the miners, the print workers, the iron workers, the dockers, they are going to go on strike. So the government is in some high level negotiation. So the Home Secretary has to come out of these high level negotiations about the general strike to sit in a room in Mayfair to check whether the baby is legitimate. And I don't know, perhaps you find it a welcome break or he was just panicking. He wasn't like he could sit there answering emails or checking tweets. And Elizabeth is born. She's named Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. Now, sometimes people think she's named after Elizabeth I, but she wasn't. She was named for her mother, her grandmother, her great grandmother. She's born in the 1920s. The intention is she'll be a good wife, happy marriages, happy memories. That's what her mother says. But the general strike was set for the beginning of May, 3rd of May, so not long after she was born, it is called off and the king says, how marvelous, what a wonderful people we are. Not a single shot was fired. How great. The following year, a law is passed to outlaw sympathetic strikes. That's not going to happen again. Elizabeth is really, I think, born in this feeble political time and into this moment of high politics, this moment that the middle classes and the upper classes were so fearful. They thought this could be maybe like the French Revolution. We might end up with Elizabeth being apprentice to a carpenter. The whole world could be turned upside down and it wasn't and it wouldn't be. But that moment that she was born into, in which it was at one point this incredibly secure aristocratic house. But on the other hand, outside, the crowds were coming, I think, embodied the dynamic change you would see in her life. To think that she was born when not all women had the vote, when only women over 30 had the vote. Only eight years after the end of World War I, the streets would have been full of horses and carriages. All the changes and laws are made about women's lives had not been made. Here is Elizabeth born to be a wife, but instead she'll be a queen.

Speaker 6:
[06:01] She absolutely will, because in late 1936, King Edward VIII abdicates, and Elizabeth moves from being third in line to the throne to being the direct heir. So do we know how Elizabeth reacted when she heard this news? When did she hear?

Speaker 8:
[06:18] The girls, Elizabeth and Margaret, were very sheltered from Wallace Simpson, from Edward VIII. They didn't really know what was happening. Their governess Marion Crawford, a very down-to-earth lady who stayed with them throughout their lives, she actually wrote a memoir, which the Royal Family were quite shocked. They thought it was fine. They said, yes, go ahead. And my goodness. And she tells us a lot in there. And she said that what she tried to do was distract the girls, distract the princesses by swimming lessons because they love swimming lessons. And it was a real novelty. So she took them to the swimming lessons lots and lots. But I think that Elizabeth was a very prescient child. I think that even though she didn't say, she knew what was going on. And what happens is, as Marion Crawford records it, is that she saw the Duchess of York, who would then be the queen. She saw her, and the Duchess of York was just overwhelmed, felt very ill and stressed. And she said, there are going to be great changes in our lives, Crawford. And Crawford goes to tell the girls. And she says, you're going to be moving to Buckingham Palace now. They have this beautiful townhouse in Piccadilly, which was bombed much later. Now, it wasn't really a townhouse by our standards. It had a ballroom and a lift and many, many rooms. In royal standards, this was living in a real kind of house. So Crawford comes to the girls and says to them, you are moving to Buckingham Palace now. And that's the sort of euphemistic way she tells them. And Elizabeth says, what? Forever? And Margaret says, but I've only just learned how to spell York. But she's no longer Margaret of York now. She is now going to be in line to the throne after her sister. And it was really a very overwhelming moment. Everything that they knew was going to be turned upside down. And now Elizabeth, who's been destined for happy marriage into a great aristocratic family and tending the Argo and looking after children. And Elizabeth herself said, when I grow up, I want to have lots of horses and lots of dogs. Now her life is different. And apparently she was also writing up her swimming notes at the time. And so she sat down and continued her swimming notes and wrote abdication day at the top and underlined it. Elizabeth knew at that point she was going to be queen. And with hindsight, we see the abdication as just a blip. Edward VIII abdicated, George VI came to the throne, popularity ensued. And at the time it was seen as such a revolutionary moment, such a terrifying moment, and a moment that could bring down the monarchy. So the weight on little Elizabeth's shoulders could hardly have been greater.

Speaker 6:
[08:50] Yeah, absolutely. It must have felt really momentous for Elizabeth. That moment when Crawfee says, you're moving to Buckingham Palace. It's brilliant isn't it, that that's how she found out.

Speaker 8:
[09:00] I love that. You've got a new house, a new bedroom, new house. And we haven't had the woman on the throne since Queen Victoria. And Elizabeth has been incredibly popular. She was called the world's best known baby when she was born. She is celebrated, but now she's going to be heir to the throne and that is pressure.

Speaker 6:
[09:15] It absolutely is. As you mentioned earlier, when Elizabeth was born, it wasn't that long after World War I. And as we move into the 1940s, we're coming out of World War II. Traditionally, I think, there's lots of attention around the fact that male royals have been involved in the military. But Elizabeth, as heir apparent, did she get involved in the war effort in any way?

Speaker 8:
[09:38] I think Elizabeth was shaped by World War II. It's impossible to understate how much World War II shaped her and her outlook for her entire life. The idea of pulling together the importance of peace and most of all the importance of service. So she and Margaret were evacuated. Now they evacuated to Windsor Castle, a pretty nice place to be evacuated to. And they do get involved in the war effort they put on these pantomimes to raise money for soldiers. And also Elizabeth and Margaret make this iconic broadcast to children. And this is so successful. But she wants more. She wants actual service. And as she's in her maturity, she says, well, other girls are signing up to serve. And I really want to serve as well. I'm a teenager. I want to too. And the king is really resistant about this. He is very protective. And also, I mean, royals are targets throughout wars. That's who you want to kidnap most of all. But he does relent and allow her to train as an ambulance driver. So she goes to Aldershot and trains. And the ambulance drivers have to fix the ambulance. And it's a job given to quite a lot of aristocratic girls, because aristocratic girls were often thought to be the ones who knew how to drive, even though, you know, they often had to drive. I wouldn't say Elizabeth had driven a car before. But it is a frontline job. You have an ambulance that's being bombed. You have men in the back who are dying and probably will die in the back. So you are trained for severe, serious frontline work. And Margaret did mock her. She said, how on earth do you know how to do with a spanner? But Elizabeth did never go to the front because the war was called off before she could do so. But the pictures of Elizabeth fixing her ambulance were on the front page of all the magazines and all over the press. And the idea that the future queen was going to be out there driving an ambulance. This was allied propaganda at its best. In the dying embers of the Nazi regime, you then have this image of this queen fixing the ambulance, making it very clear that she will go to the front.

Speaker 6:
[11:41] Yeah, I think it says something that she was ready to fight for her country. I think that's an image she carried through with her for a long time.

Speaker 8:
[11:47] She was so determined. She said, I must do as other girls do. I must be as other girls and she's not ordinary. She's a princess. She lives in a gilded cage and a gilded world. But at the same time, I think that idea that I want to be ordinary, I must do what other people do really shaped her outlook. I think that she wanted the monarch to be seen as not being exceptional. I think that was something that carried her through her entire reign.

Speaker 6:
[12:14] One moment though when she does look extremely exceptional is in 1953 when she is crowned. She comes to the throne in 52 and her coronation is in 53 and it's broadcasted on TV. I think 20 million Britons watched the ceremony, which is incredible. What must have been like for Elizabeth to be thrust into the limelight like that?

Speaker 8:
[12:36] Well, yes, as you say Charlotte, she was presenting herself as an ordinary person and the coronation presented her as magical. She is a magical, mythical princess in the images. She's golden, radiant and the idea that the coronation was going to be televised was a big debate in the royal household because the BBC wanted it, the government wanted it. They felt that it would really pull people out of the post-war doldrums, which was still going on, rationing was still in place. There was privation, there was a lot of suffering. The idea that this great golden moment could whiz everyone out became really a potent idea. Elizabeth and her household were not sure about the coronation. She felt if she made a mistake, it would be broadcast to the whole world and there would be this pressure of the cameras. But eventually the household and the royal family realized and the queen herself realized that this is a way to really put her on the throne. Because her father had died very young. He'd been a popular war leader. You can see where people might think, well, she's a bit young. And in fact, Winston Churchill, he was like, oh, she's only a child. Oh no, I'm so sad. I mean, he was sad for the king, but really only a child, a woman in her mid-twenties with two children. That's just ridiculous. And he was comforted that she was very pleasant and attractive. She was a woman in a man's world. In the 1950s, women were being sent back to the home after World War II. There were very few women in positions of power. And there was actually a quite influential article in The Lancet, the very respected medical journal, saying that, well, you shouldn't really be doing this as a woman with two children. She should retire from the limelight and pop out when they're a teenager. So this is a man's world. And how do you deal with a queen on the throne, even though we've had Victoria? And what they do is they create her as this magical, radiant, mythical being. And those photos, the TV, it has such an effect. It was all magical. And so that was the way that really, I think, the idea of a woman on the throne in a man's world was got around, that she was magical and mythical. Because Elizabeth was not having any comparisons to her former monarchs. I love it because people often try to compare her to Elizabeth I. And she said in one of her broad questions, well, I'm nothing like Elizabeth I, because she was a tyrant and didn't have husbands and children. But I think that Elizabeth I said, I see and say nothing. And that also was a mantra for Elizabeth II. Although she claimed to be nothing like, the tyrant Elizabeth I with no husband and children. That was a very 50s sentiment, wasn't it? But I think just scanning slightly forward to the River Pageant in 2012, when Elizabeth II was going past Shakespeare's Globe on the Thames, in that barge with that dress on that was sort of punctuated by buttons that look very like Elizabeth I's portraits. I think that perhaps by the end of her reign, she had changed her mind on her vision of Elizabeth I. That's just my theory.

Speaker 6:
[15:35] Yeah, I like that idea that maybe by the end of her reign, she'd sway towards seeing.

Speaker 8:
[15:39] Yes, sway towards seeing that Elizabeth I was perhaps more of a role model than she had thought.

Speaker 6:
[15:44] Yeah, that's really interesting.

Speaker 4:
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Speaker 6:
[16:46] By the 1960s then, Elizabeth would have been settling in to queenship. The 60s was a decade of great cultural shifts. We've got the swinging 60s, we've got the moon landing at the end of the decade. But is there a particular moment from Elizabeth's life in the 60s which really stands out to you?

Speaker 8:
[17:03] I think what we see with Elizabeth in the 1960s is really a customizing herself to this new world. In the 50s, it was all marvelous. And now, in the 60s, it's youth, it's excitement, there's the civil rights, there's great movements in terms of sexual equality, in terms of racial equality, and countries across the world becoming independent of Britain. And for many, the royal family was seeing a bit out of touch. And Elizabeth, I think, has to create herself back into the 60s. She can't be a young, swinging girl about town. She can't be Mary Quant. But she can, I think, be part of this new world. And certainly, the moon landings. Now, Prince Philip was fascinated by the moon. He even subscribed to UFO Monthly. But the Queen, Elizabeth II, was not quite so sure about this new technology. And she was asked if she wanted to contribute a message for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. And there was some resistance in the royal household to supplying a message. And eventually, the Queen agreed to do it and put out, On behalf of the British people, I salute the skills and courage which have brought man to the moon. May this endeavor increase the knowledge and well-being of mankind. And her message was there, along with the other world leaders and figureheads of state. But I think there was this kind of nervousness about these new technologies in the 1960s that she really had to get over. She really, by the end of her reign, was a much keener early adopter. But certainly at this point, I think she felt that there was something, perhaps a little bit gimmicky about it. The astronauts themselves did come to Buckingham Palace and have a meeting. Neil Armstrong had a very bad cold. And his wife said, no, no, you're not cancelling. We're going to Buckingham Palace. If we're embalmed, we have to go and meet the Queen on the moon landings. And apparently poor Neil coughed in the Queen's face, but I'm sure she was absolutely used to that. So that was one use of new technology which was very successful. But one that's much more controversial was in the same year, 1969, the making of the documentary Royal Family, in which all kinds of intimate royal encounters and engagements were shown. They went to the shop, Prince Philip did some barbecuing, and the Queen seems to be making some jokes about people at a reception. It was put out and it had huge viewing figures and almost too big, because then it was put away and never to be seen again. Now it was leaked online, wasn't it, during COVID? It was. It was leaked online, but otherwise it is locked away in the archives. Perhaps it was just a show for the moment. But also I think this is when the Royal Family opened the door. You open the door to TV. Now, yes, you've opened it in the coronation, but this is different. You've opened it to your intimate home life. Once you open that door, once you open that gate, once you show this part of monarchy, the door is open. You can't shut it again. The intimacy that television brings, that's a new intimacy for the Royal Family. And with that documentary, The Royal Family, opened the door. And after that, TV was coming for them. It couldn't be controlled.

Speaker 6:
[20:06] Yeah, I think there is historically and ongoing a real craving from the public to see the inside, to see the behind the scenes of monarchy and royalty, particularly around Elizabeth.

Speaker 8:
[20:17] It's like me with chocolate biscuits. I can't just have one. Once you've had one, you've got to taste for more. Yeah, you've got to taste for more. And I think that was certainly, they thought that in the 1960s, this was the way to satiate this interest in the intimate lives of the royal family. This was a way of saying they're ordinary like the rest of us. This was a way of saying they're not in their ivory castle. They're part of 1960s British society. And I think the thinking was then that we can just shut the door and people would say, oh, thanks very much, marvelous. Great. Case closed.

Speaker 6:
[20:47] No. Exactly. Once people got a taste for it, they wanted more. That's something we're going to be coming back to later on in this episode. There's an element of the Queen's role which we haven't spoken about yet. And that's her title as head of the Commonwealth. What did the Commonwealth mean to Elizabeth? I know the 70s is a decade where she particularly has to kind of define her stance on it.

Speaker 8:
[21:08] The Commonwealth meant everything to Elizabeth II. Her father had been the king of empire. She saw herself as the queen of Commonwealth. And the vision of Commonwealth, which Elizabeth had, was one of peace, joining together. She believed so strongly in the alliances of nations. And Elizabeth saw her role as head of the Commonwealth as the most important role, I think, that she had. We only have to watch a lot of her Christmas speeches in which she talked about the Commonwealth and her visits. I mean, she's the most traveled monarch. She went around the world about 42 times, which is a lot.

Speaker 6:
[21:45] That is a lot.

Speaker 8:
[21:45] A lot. I know that's a lot of air miles if she were collecting them. Pretty much the first thing she did after she became queen was go on a big Commonwealth tour. Not just on a plane but by sea. But at this point, countries are divesting themselves of the queen as head of state. Elizabeth sees it as her role to be overseeing a peaceful transition. There are many moments of great political change during the Commonwealth. And one, of course, is in the 1980s, a few years forward, when the Commonwealth is aligning together on sanctions on South Africa. And Mrs. Thatcher, the prime minister at the time, does not agree with sanctions on South Africa. And so Britain is the outlier in the rest of the Commonwealth. But the Queen does agree that the Commonwealth should stick together. So the Queen and Mrs. Thatcher are opposed on this matter. That is a very serious point. You are supposed to be neutral as a monarch. But how can you be? How can you be neutral in a position like this, when you are both head of state in Britain, but head of the Commonwealth, and the Queen saw it as her role to stick with the Commonwealth? And so we see that in the 1980s. In the 1970s, there is the case of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and to summarise it quite quickly, which is quite a complex affair, when Rhodesia declares independence, the UDI, United Nations Declaration of Independence, and says that Elizabeth is monarch, is head of state. And this is the Ian Smith government. And he says that Elizabeth is monarch, we're still going to take our oath to her. And the British government, the UN, most world governments totally disagree with the Ian Smith government and see it as an illegal act. And therefore, Elizabeth cannot accept this. She cannot accept the role of her majesty's government that she's been given by Ian Smith and his government. She cannot do this. And so she does not. And by the Queen not accepting this role as the head of state for Rhodesia, as it is then, it means that that is excluded from world conversation. So she has this key political role. And that really underlines the fact that yes, as a monarch, she was being used for soft power, soft diplomacy, shaking hands, touring and smiling. But also there are times in which her role is absolutely in the crucible of politics and the crucible of world affairs.

Speaker 6:
[24:05] Definitely. And I think that example speaks back to what we were saying earlier about Elizabeth I and that policy of kind of silence and choosing when is the right moment not to say anything. I think that's something we see quite a lot through Elizabeth II's reign, that she chooses diplomatically to not comment on things, because that's what's ultimately going to ease political tension.

Speaker 8:
[24:25] I mean, politically she is supposed to be neutral and she really developed political neutrality throughout her reign as her great strength. But in terms, I think in terms of the Commonwealth, this was the area in which she did come out of political neutrality because she always chose for the Commonwealth. So for example, Mrs. Thatcher wants to resist sanctions on South Africa and the Queen Elizabeth II, she goes with the Commonwealth and so she puts her at odds with Mrs. Thatcher. And so you cannot be politically neutral all the time. And for the Queen, I think we can say that if there was a choice between Commonwealth and Britain, the Commonwealth would win because she believed so strongly in the alliance of nations during her reign, particularly the 70s and the 80s. It was really what Elizabeth saw as a guarantor of world peace. That was her viewpoint.

Speaker 6:
[25:14] That's really interesting. Now, also in the 1980s, the royal family was expanding. We've got Prince William, who was born in 82, Harry in 84. Both of their births were massive media events. Do we know how Elizabeth felt about that level of media attention that her family was getting?

Speaker 8:
[25:33] Her Majesty is now a grandmother. Now, William wasn't her first grandchild. That was Peter Philip's son of Princess Anne. But with William and Harry, they are the next in line. So it's Charles, it's William, and then it's Harry. And it's an all-male line in front of her. Well, Elizabeth, I think, was taken something by surprise by the 1980s and the star power of Diana, Princess of Wales, because we have this great, gigantic fairy tale wedding. It's all a fantasy. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury says this is a fairy tale. Huge wedding watched all over the world. You've got Diana, who everyone wants to photograph. Everyone wants to film. And the birth of William and Harry only add to that. That Diana really making this quite revolutionary. I mean, it's not a huge revolution, but a small revolution of having the heir to the throne in a hospital, not at home. And we don't have the politicians ascending to legitimacy anymore. That was banished for Elizabeth herself by her father. So you don't have the Prime Minister popping up. Yes, exactly. I can just imagine, you know, some of Margaret Thatcher popping in and Boris Johnson later popping in with all kinds of suggestions. You can just imagine, oh, hello, I've had some children. So, you know, but Diana coming out of the hospital in Paddington, just carrying the baby. I mean, this is a photo that's all over the papers all over the world. Diana was a royal megastar and made even more so by the birth of her two children. And we know how much she was suffering behind the scenes. But in front of the cameras, this was a superstar comet. And I think it was very difficult for the wider royal family. On one hand, wonderful. Their heir is married. Charles took his time. He has children and the line is secure. On the other hand, there is attention on parts of the royal family that are not Elizabeth and Philip. And I think that shift in media attention was quite difficult for Elizabeth. However, she was delighted by her grandchildren. She was devoted to William and Harry. She thought they were quite marvellous. They caught her granny. As is so often the case, she had a much more relaxed, I think, attitude towards her grandchildren than her own children. And William and Harry had a wonderful time at Balmoral visiting the Queen and playing with their cousins. And I think it was very important to the Queen that William and Harry went to school at Eaton so they could pop over for tea, which they often did. They weren't going to Gordonston like their grandfather, like their father, but they'd be near. And imagine you can see your grandma's house just looking out of the window in Eaton. And so it was the moment when Elizabeth sees her role change in the 1980s and that increasingly the attention is on the younger generation.

Speaker 6:
[28:19] It's such a brilliant idea, isn't it, that you could just pop over for tea at Grandma's, but it's Windsor Castle. It's brilliant, isn't it? I love that.

Speaker 8:
[28:26] Any chaps want to come home with me for tea? I just want to be over to see if Grandma's got any cupcakes. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 6:
[28:31] Yeah, it's hilarious, isn't it? I love that. And that level of interest in the royal family continues into the 90s and it peaks particularly in 97 with Princess Diana's death. How did Elizabeth respond to her death? Was she criticized?

Speaker 8:
[28:47] Despite the shift in the 1980s, it was a high point for the monarchy. This changes in the 1990s, doesn't it? Because we've got the War of the Windsors, the breakdown of the Windsor Marriages, stories in the newspapers, a lot of exposure. You know, that door we talked about being opened by the 1969 documentary. Well, it's not just people barbecuing or going to the shops. With the separation and the divorce of Charles and Diana, Elizabeth has to sort of comprehend a new way of the royal family surviving, a new way of the royal family living, which Charles is divorced from Diana. And it's so sad because when you research Diana, she really was coming into her own in the end of 1996, the beginning of 1997. She was doing so much work for landmines. She was finding her own voice and using her platform for global good, which is what she wanted. And then she's tragically killed in Paris. Shock to the whole world, but such a shock to the royal family. There will be no preparations for a funeral or anything because Diana had been so young and fit and full of life. And she's tragically killed. It's totally heartbreaking. And the boys, William and Harry, are at Balmoral with their father, with the Queen, with Prince Philip. And the news is received at Balmoral. And the decision is made to allow the boys to sleep and then tell them in the morning that their mother has gone and Charles is going to go and tell them that their mother has passed. And for the Queen, her focus was on the children. And she always put duty first. I mean, she had to. And this is one of the times in which she put family first. She wanted to look after the boys, keep them in this sort of cocoon of Balmoral. Because the minute they went back to London, it would be photographs, it would be coverage. And that was her desire to keep life sort of normal in Balmoral for them, where their father went to Paris to escort Diana back to London. And the queen's decision to keep life in a sort of comforting countryside Scottish cocoon was one that she got very attacked for. There was some avalanche of grief for Diana. And the crowds came to Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace. They laid out flowers, they were heartbroken. And they were asking, where is the queen? She should be here. She should be here with us in our grief. And it was almost presented a bit as if the queen was miles away. I mean, she was in Scotland, she's in the United Kingdom. And very previously loyal newspapers like The Express had big headlines saying, Show us you care. And I think that we can certainly say that there was this feeling within a lot of the press that, oh, we could perhaps blame the queen. All this emotion and anger that the people had could be deflected from the newspapers and put on to the queen. And so the queen really became in the course of a few days after Diana's death, very much resented. And everything that Diana had been through, you know, suffering in the royal family, the queen was blamed for that. And she had to take immediate action. So what she does is she comes down to London, she goes out to see the crowds and the flowers. And there is genuine concern, someone's going to hit her or scream at her at those points, but they don't. And she makes that address to the nation as a grandmother, where she talks about Diana's gifts. And that very significant moment at Diana's funeral, where she curtsies to Diana's funeral cortege, I mean, that sign of respect. So the queen using her instinct for television, using her instinct for how things appear, how things will be shown, she does put the monarchy back on track, it cannot be denied that after Diana's death, the monarchy is in the lowest popularity that it ever has been. Yes, the immediate crisis has been averted. And I think we can also say that some of the immediate crisis was averted by William and Harry agreeing to walk behind Diana's coffin through the streets of London, impossible burden to put on two young boys. So the royal family and these two boys are saving the monarchy. And all of this does write the monarchy and the immediate crisis is over. But the royal family and particularly Charles is really, really very unpopular after Diana's death. The death itself was a tragic accident, but they are roundly blamed for Diana suffering within the royal family. I think we can say in historical terms, that is the lowest point in Elizabeth II's reign.

Speaker 6:
[33:26] And not long after Diana's death in 2002, Elizabeth celebrated her golden jubilee, a moment of huge celebration following such tragedy. She had been on the throne for 50 years. How at this stage do you think Elizabeth saw her reign? After so much change, she came to the throne post World War II, and now she's given a television broadcast to try and write the monarchy's popularity following Diana's death.

Speaker 8:
[33:52] Elizabeth, when she came to the throne, she said, my whole life, whether it be long or short, should be dedicated to your service. And that had been her watchword of service and duty. And this is now 50 years of her life. She's been on the throne. You can't resign, you can't just stop. There's a tradition of monarchs in the rest of Europe abdicating not in disgrace or abdicating because they want to marry someone, abdicating because they're retiring. It's just like the rest of us retiring and getting the carriage clock and the thank you card and off we go. But that's not the case in the British monarchy. You are supposed to stay until your dying breath. Elizabeth knows that even though she's been on the throne now for 50 years, she will be carrying on. I think the Golden Jubilee is the quietest jubilee that we see for the Queen, much quieter than the silver, much more so than diamonds. Certainly, I think diamonds is the biggest and then platinum also. Because there is this overhang, this anger and distrust of the royal family, of Charles and really everything about the royal household. Although I think Elizabeth is looking back on her reign, this is a woman who came to the throne. She's a woman in a man's world. She was distrusted even by the Prime Minister at the time. And she has made it clear that a woman can do the job just as well as a man, if not better. But still, the monarchy itself is at this point in its lowest times.

Speaker 6:
[35:15] I think the fact that the early 2000s are still maintaining that dip in popularity show us just how much weight there was behind China's death and that kind of PR hit for the monarchy. As we move into the 2010s, Elizabeth's family grows again. We have the marriages of Kate and William, Harry and Meghan. Do we know how Elizabeth felt about those marriages?

Speaker 8:
[35:37] So if the monarchy is in decline in the 2000s, it soars up around the marriages of William and Kate and Harry and Meghan. And I think we can say that the younger generation really have inject a new popularity into the monarchy. With the 2011 marriage of William and Kate, huge viewing figures, huge coverage, huge excitement, parties all over the country, street parties. It is back to royal business as usual. And with Harry and Meghan as well, great celebration, great excitement, more television crews covering it than probably cover all the Jubilees and the common nations put together. These are exciting moments. And we don't know Elizabeth's exact feelings, but I think when we see the footage of Elizabeth in both weddings, she literally looks overjoyed, absolutely delighted that her beloved grandsons are marrying and look at the excitement and coverage. It was Queen Victoria and her ministers who had the idea of a white royal wedding. Before Victoria, weddings had been late at night, very private royal weddings. You could wear anything. You didn't have to wear white. And Victoria wears white. I mean, everyone thinks she's in her nightgown. Everyone can see her in an open carriage. And this is the beginning of royal wedding mania. We saw it over and over again. We see it for Elizabeth II herself as Princess Elizabeth and this great post-war wedding that she has. Charles and Diana, perhaps the biggest royal wedding in history. And now we have William and Kate and Harry and Meghan. And I think she can feel when she looks at William and Harry, that the monarchy is safe in the next generation. We perhaps got to give a little shout out if we're thinking about the 2010s to one of, for me, the most iconic moments of Elizabeth II. So we have the wonderful royal wedding. It's all marvellous in 2011. Then in 2012, the Olympics come to London. And there is this superb film when Daniel Craig's walking through Buckingham Palace. And I have to say, I was watching it with a half eye because I was like, yeah, he's walking through Buckingham Palace, whatever. And there's someone pretending to be the queen sitting at the desk. Yeah, yeah. And then she turns around and it is Elizabeth II. Good evening, Mr. Bond. And she is now a Bond girl. She's a Bond girl in her eighties. And there's that moment where the queen comes out of the helicopter. Literally, for one brief moment, we all thought, is the queen actually coming out of a helicopter over the Olympic stadium? And the fact that it could have been the case. We actually believe that possibly that would happen. And that just is testament to the queen's incredible sense of humour and wit. And she leans in to all the excitement about the Olympics. And she leans in to this notion of her as the nation's grandmother and the notion of her as a national treasure, along with James Bond. There have been many amazing Olympic opening ceremonies, but we never saw one in which we thought James Bond was jumping out of a helicopter.

Speaker 6:
[38:41] I'm so glad you brought that up because I remember watching that thinking, is that her? For a brief second.

Speaker 8:
[38:46] I was covering it for BBC World and I was like, what? What am I going to say? How can I comment on this?

Speaker 2:
[38:53] How can I comment on this?

Speaker 8:
[38:55] I'm totally lost for words. And I think I understand it to be the case that it was actually leaked to one of the papers, but no one believed it. Because it seemed too ridiculous. It was leaked and no one knows about it. That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard. Of course, that's not going to happen.

Speaker 6:
[39:14] As we move into the 2020s, we come to the final decade of Elizabeth II's life. When did her health start to decline?

Speaker 8:
[39:22] So the Queen really did have this incredibly robust health, and really just absolutely superb. I don't know what they fed her in the nurse for the 1920s, but something very good.

Speaker 6:
[39:33] The coffee was up to something back in the day.

Speaker 8:
[39:35] Whatever they were dosing her with, it was absolutely splendid. She had this really very strong health throughout her life. And yes, we might say that the Queen had looked after her health in the way that wellness influences would talk about now. She had a set routine. She went to bed at set time every night. She went on lots of nice walks. She enjoyed the fresh air. And there were a few little things nearing the end of her life. Actually, her nineties, she was in really great form. And in the Platinum Jubilee, she was out there and watching the celebrations. What we understand to be the case is in the summer before she passed away, she is becoming much less mobile. And although she's enjoying a lot of her time at Balmoral, there were many visitors, many social occasions. She was really enjoying herself and still her mind was as sharp as a tack. She was really becoming less and less mobile. But overall, the Queen was still working and she was still working up until her death. I mean, she had the meeting with the new Prime Minister, Elizabeth Truss, just a couple of days before she actually passed away. And this photo, that very iconic photo of Elizabeth II, just having met this Truss and smiling at the Camerawoman. And she doesn't look there as if she's about to leave this earth. But there was a meeting canceled on the next day, a Zoom meeting. And after that, it was becoming very clear that the Queen was in a decline. But I think her health had been so good that it did take everyone by surprise. I remember watching the footage of Parliament when the notes were passed, and everyone looked a bit confused about what to do next. Because she had been in such great form. And when she did pass, although she's in her nineties, it was a great shock, I think.

Speaker 6:
[41:23] Yeah, I think it definitely did feel like a shock to the general public as well, when they heard the news. As you mentioned, she was at Balmoral. She passed away in 2022. What was it like when she died?

Speaker 8:
[41:35] Well, I think it was a shock to the country, but it was also a shock to the royal family, really people hadn't been there. Now, Charles and Camilla were in Scotland in Berkhall nearby. So they rushed to be with Her Majesty. But everyone else really was rushing to try and get there on time, because simply no one had realized that the Queen was actually so ill. I'm not a doctor or anything. I just think she went to a very, very swift decline. And William and Harry really had to move very swiftly to try and get there. And Harry did not get there. William did. So the royal family did try and get there in time to be at the Queen's bedside when she passed. And I think it must have felt a great comfort for Charles that he was nearby when the Queen did actually pass. And I think for the Queen herself to pass at Balmoral would have been very precious to her. She loved Balmoral. It was a place where she felt totally at home. I don't think any monarch loved Balmoral as much as the Queen. I think she liked it even more than Queen Victoria. I'll go out on that limb. And I don't think many of the royal families were quite as fond as Balmoral as the Queen was. She loved it there. It was where she felt at home. It reminded her of her happy childhood. She loved the countryside. She felt that she could be much more ordinary there. That she could chat to local landowners and have the local people round for tea. And I think for the Queen herself, passing in Balmoral would be something that was very precious to her. Those last days were spent in one of her favourite places. And the Queen always said, I will not abdicate. It became a discussion, didn't it? Near the end of her reign, will the Queen abdicate? Will she abdicate for health reasons? Even though she was in splendid form. And what she did was she was really working up until the end. And it seems very significant to me in retrospect that the cancellation of one meeting, we all should have read more into it than we did. That the Queen canceled a meeting. That was something that was really meaningful. And I think that moment after the Queen had passed, when her body was in the aircraft and it took off to be escorted to London, was just incredibly moving to watch. That the Queen was on her final journey and on an aircraft, something that had really shaped her reign. The invention of the passenger aircraft had changed the monarchy, her state visits, her attitude towards diplomacy, what she did for the world. And I think it was very poignant that part of her final journey was on an aeroplane.

Speaker 6:
[44:17] Yeah, I think that offers a really kind of, like you say, poignant and memorable full circle moment for the Queen's life. Now, finally, as we've mentioned, this month is the centenary of Elizabeth's birth. How do we think we should be remembering her as an individual, as Elizabeth rather than as just the Queen?

Speaker 8:
[44:36] Well, it would have been marvelous, wouldn't it, if the Queen had lived to her centenary and perhaps be able to send herself a telegram congratulating herself. My great grandmother pretty much hung on to get a telegram from the Queen. She really did hang on to get a telegram from the Queen. And if I'm anywhere near 100, I certainly will be doing the same. But would she have sent herself a telegram? She certainly could have sent herself a congratulations for 60 years married. And we would have loved the Queen to live to her centenary. But what an incredible life she lived from that little girl born in 1926 that no one expected to come to the throne was expected simply to make a good aristocratic marriage. And there she is being one of the greatest monarchs that Britain has ever known and one of the most celebrated monarchs across the world. Soft power, diplomacy, the head of the Commonwealth, and above all proving that a woman can do the job just as well as a man. And I think it's very fitting that the law was changed in 2013 to allow women to inherit equally to men, that it would now go in birth order, not sex. So it was the case before that if you had four daughters and then a son, even if the son's a baby, you get the throne. Now, from now on, if the first born child of George is a girl, she gets the throne, she goes straight into it. And that, I think, is really the ultimate accolade. And I think in terms of women's history, looking at Elizabeth II, how much the world changed for women during her reign. To think she was born when not all women had the vote. And since then, in her reign, we've seen the first female prime minister in Margaret Thatcher. And we've also seen women reaching the top in so many parts of British society and world society. And laws passed from the Equal Pay Act to maternity leave to even the Equal Credit Act. It does seem incredible, doesn't it? That not until the 1970s could a woman sign for her own mortgage or credit card, that even the queen, if she's been wanting to take out a mortgage or a credit card, I don't think she ever did. Probably not. But if she wanted her own credit card, Prince Philip would have had to sign it for her, for one of the wealthiest women in the world. And these great changes that have taken place during Elizabeth's reign. And of course, these great changes strides forward for the lives of women in legal and practical and political terms have been made due to the campaigning, grassroots campaigning of feminists and feminist groups and government. But also, I think, having a woman on the throne does provide a different image. And certainly for me, I grew up with a woman on the throne and a female prime minister, that all the big jobs are taken by women. And that, I think, is unique. And we are never going to see a woman on the throne again in my lifetime. That was this unique moment. And Elizabeth II, dedicating her life to duty, dedicating her life to service, proved above all that a monarch can be female. In fact, perhaps it's better if a monarch is female. Dare we say? Controversial point.

Speaker 6:
[47:54] A queen on the throne. Well, thank you so much for talking us through her life, her personal experiences. It's been amazing.

Speaker 8:
[48:01] It's been wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, queens forever. I love that.

Speaker 6:
[48:07] That was Kate Williams speaking to Charlotte Vosper. Kate's new book, A New History of Women and Power, is out in June. And we'll be chatting to her about that closer to the time. And don't forget that you can join her for our six part HistoryExtra Academy series on some of history's most famous queens launching this week. The details of that are in the description for this episode.