Being the Queen: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II | National Geographic (Full Episode)

[Music] look at how the great problems of the queen and the monarchy in her lifetime have been all about love and marriage and sex the question a lot of people here in britain are asking this morning is where's the queen [Music] it's like being brought up in a monastery with glass walls everyone can look in and every moment of weakness it'll all be seen and exposed and ridiculed [Music] the red lights off we are interviewing larry adler bringing to prince we are interviewing commander michael agustin into the year in lady janet mary [Music] for the first time in her reign the queen put family before duty we could now be witnessing the end of the monarchy and the reigning queen could possibly be the last [Music] [Music] she was being the princess and working very hard he was still in the navy [Music] now in our innocence we thought this was going to go on for a very long time after all the king was quite young there might have been 40 more years as princess [Music] when we were on that commonwealth tour and we were in kenya and the people of kenya having the wedding present in the little cigar a lot we had a day out there to do to adjust and rest and do things prince philip went i went to sleep in a little room that was off to one side the queen was at a desk writing letter's phone rang my colleague said mike there's a ghastly rumor going around that the king has died and they used it amongst all the press people there and they were saying that they'd heard so i said well martin that's frightening but i cannot do a thing on a rumor like that i mean i just won't do anything and he said no i'm not suggesting he should darn went the phone i saw a radio on the shelf above me and there's a door open to where the queen is sitting so i shut the door and switched on the radio and hunted about the bbc and then i could hear the bell of um big ben i thought we need god so my hair stood up a little bit more this is london it is with the greatest sorrow that we make the following announcement at 10 45 today february the 6th 1952 that the king passed peacefully away in his sleep earlier this morning and uh that was that so there was drought into where prince william was sleeping and told him his first reaction was one of almost there's a huge way to hit him [Music] and he just stood there silently in thought the implications of the fact that she's becoming the queen [Music] and then he straightened himself up and he went in to tell the queen and she was in you know weeping desperately for the loss of her father they walked up and down together very close and then she strengthened up [Music] fully uh conscious of the fact that she was queen and that she must tend to that affair immediately and she went into the desk that she'd been working on and started to send all these telegrams off around the commonwealth and to friendly countries like the united states [Music] there was no time then for her if she had wanted to to grieve and a very typical reaction actually she said oh i'm so sorry it means we forgot to go home [Music] as the plane was about to touch down at london airport and the prime minister winston churchill and my parents that you've noticed of johnston and all the receiving lines of the cabinet were drawn up there in their black clothes and she sort of leans across and looks out and says oh god they sent the hearses meaning that instead of her car one of the big black cars and somehow the way she said when you this 25 year old realized that the end of her private life had come and that for the rest of her life she would be about it bigger don't they should die [Music] i asked you all whatever your religion to pray for me on the day of my coronation and as the storms of cheering surge with the approaching procession along the river here in contrast the abbey holds its ancient peace [Music] i think what changed for the queen at the moment that she succeeded her father was the sense that she was on her own i think that that's what really changed for her [Music] she did have the enormous advantage of being trained by her own father and i think she must have enjoyed those training sessions with papa because it was something so special between those two nobody else has it i remember once saying to me that my father told me i must always remember that whatever i've said or did to anyone that they would remember it so that if i show disapproval they will remember that i showed disapproval therefore i i think she's very very careful not to give any sort of impression that might be construed of disapproval [Music] the duke of edinburgh comes to vow lifelong allegiance to his queen [Music] she's the queen and he performs as the husband so what does the husband do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] elizabeth as princess and queen has always been guided by her sense of duty [Music] but it's one of the extraordinary things about the queen is that she fell in love and married just about the first man she met [Music] my father happened to be there when the king and queen took the two girls to dartmouth when i think princess elizabeth was only about 12 years old and as prince philip was almost the senior cadet and of course this absolute greek god and i think that the princess fell headlong enough with him at that moment the queen was too young nobody talked about falling in love and remaining in love with that person for the rest of her life i mean she was a child but clearly he made a great impression on her and the romance if you like developed sort of rather gradually [Music] now it caused her parents great anxiety what parent wouldn't be anxious about a daughter who wants to marry the very first man she's fallen in love with [Music] it was a matter of her personal happiness it was a matter of the stability of the crown her parents in fact while accepting philip and having philip because he was after all a member of the family to stay wouldn't let her actually get engaged until she was over 21 several years after she wanted because you know she wasn't just taking on the man she thought she loved she was taking on the man who had to shoulder almost half the burden of the monarchy [Music] well i was this back to the party the night before the wedding the princess delivered he was scared his face was white this man just began to realize what he was getting into and now he finally doesn't like it [Music] it was very much a conventional british household he was very much the man of a family he took the decisions she looked up to him in that private life obviously as princess she had a lot of visual things to do but they were still able with these two small children to have this family group [Music] prince philippe was basically a man and he was a big man and he was a man's man too i think there must have been marriage when it would have been [Music] pretty heavy for him to take this extremely active enthusiastic young man who's suffering advice is so life is going to be taken away from him and probably thinking he'll become a yes man for the rest of his life that's really devastated their lives actually it's america could you tell me what is your job in your own mind well i've got one i'm self-employed but you must have some clear idea of what role you fulfill in modern society very difficult to answer [Music] the queen can't be the wife anymore the mother she really had very little time to be with her children so prince philip in a way sort of became the house husband and he was the one that looked after the children not actually physically looked after them but he organized them [Music] when she became queen they would see her perhaps for half an hour in the morning nine o'clock for half an hour and then she would go off for a week maybe a month maybe several months but in a good week she might be there in the evening and go up to see them having their baths and sit on a little guilt chair which will be brought in by a lackey not take part in bath time or splashing or anything like that but just sit there rather and easily and then dash away after half an hour i don't think it was you know in that prince phillip and indeed the queen was significantly different to an awful lot of upper middle class british parents since that was the way behaving you didn't cry in public you don't cuddle et cetera life may be a lot more civilized but it wasn't something peculiar to prince charles's relationship with his parents and it wasn't that anybody was being deliberately unkind or cold it was just that was the way you you did things what the queen and the dude did with their children boarding school that often had strict discipline and didn't always produce rounded human beings emotionally at the end of the process [Music] you know she's really sacrificed her family in a way duty really what came before personal happiness and she had her work and that came first [Music] elizabeth and her younger sister margaret were always very close as children but both of them knew that in the end elizabeth would be on the throne and princess margaret would need to find a role for herself i don't think she ever really settled to that to be honest [Music] [Music] the arrival of princess margaret and her husband is greeted with a cheers the crowd the flashing lights and nervous children dignified bedlam rings [Music] most adults remember margaret growing up with her sister and the two children were as loved by americans as they were by britons [Music] the british and european press has tried to make margaret the subject of romance with 29 year old rodney lewellen but despite pictures of them in the caribbean together there has been little substance to back up the perennial gossip mongers [Music] queen elizabeth has ruled out divorce for her sister margaret instead the 45 year old princess may obtain a legal separation from her husband lord snowden they've been married for 16 years but 10 of those years have reportedly been stormy and recent stories of princess margaret's involvement with a 28 year old jet setter named roddy llewellyn provide motivation for the current separation talk divorce is a thorny subject for the british royal family [Music] she was a divorcee i think and the quest whether it was appropriate for the king of england to be married to already was first divorced [Music] this is london a quarterback an hour ago the prime minister came to the bar of the house and handed to the speaker a message from his majesty the king a few hours ago i discharged my last duty as king and emperor that i have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility without the help and support of the woman i love we therefore do now hereby proclaim that the high and mighty prince albert friedrich author george is now become our only lawful and rightful king god save the cake [Music] the two girls were in a house at hyde park corner when elizabeth heard all the noise of the cheering when george became king and elizabeth ran downstairs to see what all the excitement was and footman told her that her father was king she came back and told her little sister who was six and princess margaret said does that mean you'll be queen and she said yes someday princess margaret said poor you [Music] princess margaret has been leading an active and for royalty a somewhat untraditional social life now england is intrigued by the rumor that margaret has fallen in love the man is peter townsend a war hero a captain in the raf townsend however has been once divorced and powerful social and religious forces are marshaled against the romance still margaret wants to marry townsend [Music] invited me to dinner and we talked about this very disturbing situation obviously but the queen i shall never forget her reaction was one of great sympathy although no doubt she harmed the greatest anxiety i expect marriage seemed to be the least likely solution the queen was in conflict because as head of the church of england she could not really permit her sister to marry a divorced man but as the sister of princess margaret she obviously was very keen that princess margaret should be happy and it wasn't easy i don't think for a moment that the queen said to her listen here margaret you can't do that the queen would have been told by advisers that it was not on very painful for all concerned it's sometimes been misreported that it was the queen that said that this relationship couldn't be allowed actually she was devastated that when push came to shove it was the government who said actually we can't allow you to marry this man [Music] the following statement has just been issued from clan's house by her royal highness princess margaret i would like it to be known that i have decided not to marry a group captain peter townsend mindful of the church's teaching that christian marriage is indissoluble and conscious of my duty to the commonwealth i have resolved to put their consideration before any others i think she had a lot of sympathy for margaret because after all the queen knew what true love was she had married the man of her dreams [Music] i don't envy the royals their life at all really they have to live under the glare of publicity all the time everything they do is reported and quoted and criticized but princess margaret she had a really difficult life i think this is one of the tragedies of her life that she never knew who she was never knew who she was supposed to be and she left it to others not least the media to work it out for her [Music] oh [Music] it is a scene of chaos and destruction this castle dating back to the ninth century the fire started in the private chapel miatas and george's fall the events read like a tabloid redo of old testament curses plague and pestilence have been replaced by fire rumor and outright scandal rocking the british royal family with three broken marriages among her four children the queen's efforts to promote an image of family harmony are now under the strain look at how the great problems of the queen and the monarchy in her lifetime have been all about love and marriage and sex the abdication princess margaret peter townsend later and that creates problems [Music] buckingham palace has condemned the publication of a series of newspaper photographs of the duchess of york and the texan businessman john bryan [Music] i just feel very sad i think it's very sad when two people who appear to be so happily married quite suddenly divorced [Music] royal composure collapsed as princess diana under extraordinary media attention broke down in tears since a book detailing her unhappiness was published last week the book claims diana's marriage became so miserable that she tried to take her life [Music] 1992 is not a year on which i shall look back with undiluted pleasure in the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondence it has turned out to be new institution city monarchy whatever should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support not to mention those who don't but we are all part of the same fabric of our national society 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 [Music] as a result of the occurrences over the course of the past several months and the pushing of the self-destruct button by the monarchy that we could now be witnessing the end of the monarchy and the reigning queen could possibly be the last britain's queen elizabeth said she has had it it's time for prince charles and princess diana to officially end their troubled marriage the prince who made his televised admission of adultery over a year ago is said to agree the princess who made her televised admission of adultery a few weeks ago is said to be devastated and will give her a response after the holidays the queen actually tried to bring diana under her wing but diana was very reluctant [Music] obviously charles couldn't handle it and neither could the queen [Music] the princess of wales embroiled now in a fresh round of personal controversy the polo playing former guards officer claims he had a three-year affair with the princess this morning as she left her exclusive london health club the princess of wales was saying nothing rugby star will carling and his wife julia are splitting up and everyone's asking is the princess of wales to blame confirmation of princess diana's first serious romance since her split with charles will be shown in london's sunday mirror tomorrow the evidence of photograph of a kiss with millionaire dodie fired during a mediterranean cruise cost four hundred thousand dollars this is bbc one we have interrupted our programs for a news report we now go over to martin lewis in the news studio we interrupt this film to tell you we are getting reports that diana princess of wales has been badly injured in a car crash in france [Music] just to confirm the news that diana princess of wales has died in a car accident in paris which also killed her companion bloody fired [Music] the question a lot of people here in britain are asking this morning is where's the queen the oceans of flowers from diana's mourners are piling up in front of buckingham palace but they haven't been acknowledged and unlike the rest of britain where the flags are at half-staff in diana's memory there's no flag flying over the palace nobody's home [Music] when princess of wales died the queen was up at belmore with the two little princes whose mother had been killed and yet she was passed for not leaving there they're coming to london to mourn in the streets with people who never even let the people she had two grandchildren he must be very caught up with their mothers one such dead to rush them down to london for the height of this big it seemed palace [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'm now looking through the walls of the shattered school into the main hall which is a massive people of firemen and policemen mothers fathers brothers and sisters and everybody [Music] this south wales disaster it's now feared that nearly 200 lives were lost when the cold tip at abervan near martha tidwell slid forward today one of the few regrets that the queen has about her reign was that she felt that she reacted too slowly in wales at a place called abbavan back in the 1960s there's always been a controversy and criticism about the queen not actually coming earlier to abervan or immediately to abervan because obviously lord snowden was the first royal to actually come to abervan princess mark couldn't understand why i wanted to go down i just did you know but i i must and i stayed there just going into people i was just making cups of tea they wanted to talk but they were in a state of terrible shock [Music] so for the queen i think her decision not to come at that time wasn't probably the right decision for surviving people and i think to this day the queen actually had a bit of guilt about that herself [Music] the queen stood there as a mother knowing that had circumstances been somewhat different her child's name might be fastened to the sandbag to mark his place of honor in death's final ceremonial occasion i know with all the tragedies in the world i think abervan has been the main one that's touched the queen forever and a day really until the day she dies [Music] queen elizabeth and the rest of the royal family are on summer holiday as usual in scotland and apart from a customary trip to church on sunday the queens made no public appearance and no public statement but to those who are close to the royal family that's no surprise and if ever the monarchy was it was in those 48 hours when they were stuck up in balmoral when the country wanted the queen in london and grieving [Music] on the eve of princess diana's funeral the royal family is returning to london hoping and perhaps to quell some of the criticism of their actions since diana's death the queen's convoy arrived in london as it swept up to buckingham palace the limousine halted at the gates and the queen of prince philip got out to take in the mass of floral tributes the queen was actually extremely nervous because she could feel the hostility and actually she heard people say oh about time you've come you know they can hear an awful lot of things at the crowd and say and then i think a woman actually gave her a bunch of flour and said would you like me to place it for you and said no mom it's for you and that sort of broke the ice it was that moment and i think suddenly people saw her instead of feeling all prickly and angry they suddenly thought my goodness this is a grandmother and she's got to deal with all this [Music] queen elizabeth will speak publicly today about the death of diana princess of wales joining me from london is npr's michael goldfarb to talk about the extraordinary move by the queen to speak to her subjects any idea what you will say today it will be a very carefully crafted speech because people will listen to it with great interest since last sunday's dreadful news we have seen throughout britain and around the world an overwhelming expression of sadness of diana's death so what i see to you now as your queen and as a grandmother i say from my heart first i want to pay tribute to diana myself she was an exceptional and gifted human being in good times and bad she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness i admired and respected her for her energy and commitment to others i hope that tomorrow we can all wherever we are join in expressing our grief of diana's loss and gratitude for her all too short life i thought she said everything she should have said i can't think of anything that she left out until i think it's completely [Music] and they're gathering now at the entrance this is an extraordinary view we're seeing here we've never as far as i'm aware seen the royal family standing like this at the gates of buckingham palace at the funeral the queen was very dignified and she bowed her head when diana's coffin went past [Music] and it was spectacularly done i for one believe there are lessons to be drawn from her life and from the extraordinary and moving reaction to her death it is a chance to show to the whole world the british nation united in grief and respect [Music] mr speaker today her majesty the queen becomes the country's longest reigning monarch and it is of course typical of her selfless sense of service that she would have us treat this day just like any other but mr speaker while i rarely advocate disobeying her majesty least of all in our own parliament i do think it's right that today we should stop and take a moment as a nation to mark this historic milestone and to thank her majesty for the extraordinary service that she's given to our country over more than six decades 63 years and 216 days she's worked with 12 prime ministers six archbishops of canterbury nine cabinet secretaries she's answered three and a half million pieces of correspondence send over a hundred thousand telegrams to centenarians across the commonwealth and met more people than any other monarch in history she has served this country with enduring grace dignity and decency and long nation continue to do so the important thing to remember about the early upbringing of princess elizabeth was that although she was a princess she was not in line for the throne and i believe this gave her a modesty that people respect i think the only thing she might allow herself to feel is to say to her father look i've done it i've been queen for such a long time and i've tried to do it the way you taught me there is a motel which has been born by many of my ancestors a noble motto i serve i should like to make their dedication now it is very simple i declare before you all with my whole life whether it be long or short shall be diverted to your service enter the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

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Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, Queen, Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth II, treasure, Being the Queen, Life of Queen Elizabeth II, interview, recordings, archival footage, archival photos, influential events, history, British Monarchy, Article, British Royalty, United Kingdom 4k

Id: yxqniR7BBH4

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022