Queen Elizabeth II: Stories From Her Majesty's Extraordinary Life | Real Royalty

i'm alice loxton and i present documentaries over on history hit tv if you're passionate about all things royal history sign up to history hit tv it's like netflix but just for history you've got hours of ad-free documentaries about all aspects of the past you can get a huge discount for history hit tv make sure you check out the details in the video description and use the code real royalty all one word when you sign up now on with the show [Music] queen elizabeth ii is one of the longest reigning monarchs in history since she came to the throne in 1952 she has met more presidents and potentates than any other head of state her reign has witnessed some astonishing changes in britain and the world for 60 years she has tried to make the monarchy more relevant in a changing society her personal life has seen much turbulence the failed marriages of her sister margaret and three of her own four children have deeply saddened her the idyllic royal family image was shattered by divorce and scandal culminating in the tragic death of princess diana in 1997. public reaction to diana's death posed the biggest royal crisis since the abdication of edward viii in 1936 after diana the queen successfully rebranded and modernized the monarchy while keeping its colorful pageantry intact the queen's diamond jubilee celebrates her years on the throne and the resurgence of popularity that the monarchy enjoys today with prince charles settled into his second marriage and prince william also married the queen has every reason to believe that the foundations she has laid will endure [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the queen has traveled over a million miles and made over 250 foreign visits in october 2011 she flew to australia one of the commonwealth nations in which she is sovereign it was her 16th visit to australia she was 85 her husband prince philip 90. preserving britain's links with the commonwealth remains one of the queen's most important challenges personal visits strengthen bonds and revive old memories the queen was 27 when she made a two-month journey across australia with prince philip in 1954 the year after her coronation it was a landmark in australian history the first visit of a reigning monarch i want to tell you all how happy i am to be amongst you and how much i look forward to my journey to australia [Music] it was estimated that one-third of australia's entire population turned out in person to greet their young queen many still remember that historic visit among those greeting the queen in 2011 was margaret cunningham who as a young child presented the queen with a bouquet of flowers on her first visit to australia 57 years before there is definitely a warmth in her eyes that has been maintained yet yeah definitely some wonder if the queen now 86 will be able to make this long journey again and whether she'll have to rely on other members of her family to maintain the precious links with australia and other commonwealth countries [Music] saint paul's cathedral was the setting for a service of thanksgiving to mark the queen's 80th birthday in 2006. the nation's gratitude was expressed by the archbishop of canterbury rowan williams birthdays are among the most vivid reminders we can have of our common humanity and our common call to journey through time with each other so today your majesty we give thanks with you simply for the gifts of life and experience afterwards the crowds showed their affection just a few years before diana's death had caused unprecedented public reaction but the queen's efforts to connect more closely with her subjects had made the monarchy popular again prince charles paid this tribute to his mother it gives me enormous pride to be able to congratulate her publicly in this way and to thank her on behalf of us all for the many wonderful qualities which she's brought to almost an entire lifetime of service and dedication the divorces of three of her four children challenged the family image of the royal house of windsor starting in 1973 with prince cezanne's marriage to mark phillips spectacular royal weddings which promised so much had ended in failure and scandal no one foresaw the problems at the marriage of charles the prince of wales and lady diana spencer in 1981 would bring to the royal family the marriage of prince andrew and sarah ferguson in 1986 also failed on her divorce from charles in 1996 diana princess of wales lost the title her royal highness but after her death following a car accident a year later she was given a royal funeral befitting the mother of a future king then in 2005 charles married his longtime mistress camilla parker-bowles in a private civil ceremony he had married diana in the splendor of saint paul's cathedral to the queen his first wedding meant the continuation of the royal line i think the day that the prince of wales married lady diana spencer was a great day for the queen what it was showing that day was that the continuity of her family was con was being continued in a correct and proper manner i think there was always a certain amount of concern about diana who was really quite young for her yes i think she was happy and satisfied that her son was marrying somebody and they would produce children and and the continuity of the house of windsor would almost certainly keep going diana became pregnant soon after the wedding her problems and illnesses were concealed from the public at first shortly after these pictures diana threw herself down some stairs at sandringham the queen's norfolk estate the queen must have known that there were all sorts of problems almost from the word go so without us knowing and she hid this very well she was aware that diana was having an incredibly difficult time settling down to married life since childhood the queen has kept her private feelings hidden from the public although she's paid tribute to diana she's given little sign of the turbulent emotions that the princess's life and death created behind palace walls and while the outward display of monarchy has gone on the queen has had to accommodate prince charles's determination to marry the woman diana called the third person in her marriage [Applause] camilla parker-bowles was charles mistress for several years before the public became aware of her after diana's death charles no longer hid his affair with the now divorced camilla a campaign to gain public acceptance began with an appearance outside the london ritz hotel in 1999 the press eagerly followed each stage of the public relations exercise a series of high-profile events for charles's main charity the princess trust propelled camilla evermore into the public arena according to the law charles still had to ask the queen's consent to marry of course had to go and ask her surely the only 56 year old man in this day and age who has to undergo such a humiliating and embarrassing experience to ask his mother for permission to marry charles was technically a widower but camilla's divorce made a church of england wedding impossible the couple had a civil service at windsor's town hall on april the 9th 2005. william and harry were among the few witnesses the queen did not attend she was advised both by the archbishop of canterbury dr rowan williams and also by her own private secretary sir robin janbrynn that it would be unwise and inappropriate to attend the civil wedding because she is of course the supreme governor of the church of england however the queen did attend the church blessing held at st george's chapel in windsor castle against expectations camilla had become a member of the royal family but the queen was still concerned about her impact on the monarchy i think what the queen felt at the beginning was that the people wouldn't accept camilla because of camilla being the other woman in in the marriage when charles was in love supposed to be in love with diana and the queen was worried that her people her subjects wouldn't accept camilla what she does feel is that camilla has been a wonderful influence on prince charles and she truly loves prince charles and so the queen warms to camilla by the day recently camilla has worked hard at gaining public acceptance which has improved thanks largely to the queen's support [Music] now known as her royal highness the duchess of cornwall she is tactfully avoided using the title princess of wales which is irrevocably associated with diana we are told she will be the princess consort when charles is king queen has now come to the conclusion camilla is winning over the people in a way that a year ago looked impossible frankly and that the monarchy therefore is in in much safer hands than perhaps it was she knows that there is um strong opposition still to camilla that's why we go through the idea that camilla will never be queen but in 20 years time if that's when prince charles comes to the throne who is then to say that camilla shouldn't be his queen at his side prince andrew a naval officer married sarah ferguson in 1986 and became duke of york there were high hopes for this marriage but like diana the new duchess of york disappointed the queen her backgrounds are so very different from hers afterwards she'd grown up with it she'd been used to buckian palace windsor castle as a child she'd been trained for her job for forever and so i don't think she fully understood the difficulties that these girls experienced and i think when it came to um the duchess of york particularly so because for the queen her own naval days as a naval wife had been absolute joy to her and the fact that sarah ferguson didn't all the judges of york didn't seem to enjoy that aspect of her husband's life she found very difficult to understand with hindsight it was clear that diana and sarah found adapting to royal life more difficult than anyone expected but the queen did try to help them [Music] if we look back remember it was the queen who called the editors to the palace in the early days uh when the princess of wales uh felt she was being pressurized by the press and the media and the queen said uh you know my daughter-in-law's piece must must be protected and she at that time moved to protect the princess princess wales to her was like an adorable skittish niece i mean she just knew diana from childhood um and so she was indulgent caring and a little bit bewildered sometimes i mean in the early days when the princess was married and they were at balmoral and it was stuffy occasion princess would jump up from the table and run round the table and sit on prince charles's lap and give him a kiss i mean something like that had never been seen before amongst the royal family the queen would just shake her head and give a little smile the queen attended the wedding of princess margaret's son vikant lindley to heiress serena stanhope in 1993 both david lindley and his sister lady sarah armstrong jones were close to the queen princess margaret had married lord snowden in 1960 but the marriage fell apart the snowden's divorced in 1978 after several hostile years the queen took the children under her wing she dotes on princess margaret's children especially um lady sarah who is just a favorite niece and she was a very sort of loving aunt figure and very proud of lord lindley i think one of the queen's coaches said to me that sometimes those young children thought the queen was their mother because she would always take them up to balmoral with her when princess margaret and lord snowden would go on their summer holidays to sardinia or to tuscany and she was very much a stable figure in their lives and she loved them very much that stability of the queen was needed when three of her four children divorced and her grandchildren had to cope with split homes the queen took a special interest in charles's sons william and harry william the second in line to the throne developed a close relationship with his grandmother but as their parents marriage disintegrated there were gaps in the young prince's contact with the rest of the family i think with william and harry she's got to know them far far better in the last few years i think when the marriage was still going on and charles and like diana were in each other's throat she hardly saw them at all but obviously in in the last 10 years she's seen them grow up and although she might not see them that much i think she's very proud especially of prince william in 1992 both the yorks and the wales is separated after a series of scandals which shocked the queen princess anne also divorced in the same year and remarried i knew that when these divorces came one after another she did say to close friend well what have we done wrong it is very difficult to be a queen and a mother i think every important executive woman finds this i think that the winds are temperament which has been handed down from george v and queen mary has also been a factor the stiff upper lip the sweeping problems under the carpet and the lack of communication and this also comes from living in enormous houses like buckingham palace where they live quite separate lives each with their own sweet and their own servants and so it isn't that you have a jolly get-together in front of the television it's a different life and then on november the 20th 1992 windsor castle caught fire it happened on the queen's 45th wedding anniversary the queen was upset at the damage to her favorite home where she had spent the war years with princess margaret she supervised the removal of family treasures and days later she spoke of her sadness 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 an annus horribilis i suspect that i'm not alone in thinking it's so couldn't have been worse could it all the children's marriage is going wrong one after another the tremendous scandals in the papers and the constant attention to the royal family's private lives and then the outspoken criticism of her which she wasn't used to she'd been used to nothing but kindness all her life and when the public turned on her at the time of the winds of fire and said no we won't pay i think she was deeply hurt and surprised by this the world mourned the loss of diana but the queen's slow public reaction provoked criticism of course the queen was shocked when diana died as was everybody else but her concern wasn't actually for diana or her family or prince charles it was for her grandchildren and william and harry were up at balmoral staying with the queen in scotland and her whole concentration was on protecting and safeguarding those poor young children as best she could at balmoral the queen learned of the growing tension in the capital attention focused on the empty flagpole on top of buckingham palace she then gave orders for a flag to be put up never happened before and that it should fly at half-mast i think she was out of touch i think it was mainly because she was trying to protect the grandchildren and i think she very nearly got it seriously wrong william and harry walked behind their mother's coffin with their grandfather to support them on their heartbreaking journey prince william asked his grandfather to walk in the funeral procession it was prince william's request and i think that prince william is probably the sort of son prince philip would like to have had i think he's very proud of him and he likes prince harry's robustness and i i think he's um very devoted to them in his in his way the death of diana will have a lasting impact i think it probably will be looked at in the history books as the time when the monarchy radically changed its attitude to its past and its future however the business of monarchy always goes on entertaining heads of state is one of the queen's most important duties this ceremonial hospitality builds bridges between countries and cements international friendships a state banquet at windsor castle was the highlight of this visit of polish president lec foensa in 1991. guests dined from the finest china silverware and crystal 300 staff served them quails eggs turbot veal and peaches for many in white tai and tiaras this was a unique experience but it was the queen's 65th state banquet i raise my glass to you and mrs valenza and the well-being and happiness of the polish people international diplomacy requires visits abroad like this one to france in 1992 the queen is one of the most widely traveled monarchs in history her reliability and grasp of foreign affairs are never in doubt [Applause] her professionalism was evident on this tour of germany in 1992 it was her first visit there since the fall of communism and the unification of west and east germany [Applause] she came to support the newly united republic and to strengthen ties between germany and britain which had been disrupted by two world wars [Music] her speech put aside old enmity like all close friends we do not always see eye to eye but as friends should we try not to let the sun go down on our corals visiting the united states reinforces the special relationship enjoyed with britain since before world war ii in 1991 the queen was welcomed by president george bush senior there is a symbolism in the events of such a visit that defies analysis but which has a way of reaching the hearts of people far and wide she is head of state in australia as in a further 15 out of 54 countries comprising the commonwealth she went to australia in 1992 after a gap of 12 years republicanism was a growing movement but her personal popularity ensured that she is still queen there today during the trip she unveiled one of the many portraits of her reign this one captures the reserved character of the woman behind the crown the queen isn't by nature an emotional person she doesn't have great highs and great lows she accepts life and if there's something she doesn't want to understand or doesn't want to see she compartmentalizes it so she avoids emotional confrontation she avoids moral confrontation altogether elizabeth had a golden childhood with her younger sister margaret her life was carefree until her parents became king and queen in 1936 when she was 10. they became the family firm or we 4 as her father george vi called them as heiress presumptive elizabeth was influenced by her formidable grandmother queen mary she didn't inherit her own mother's warmth and spontaneity and the person she admires almost most apart from queen victoria is her grandmother queen mary and you can see a great resemblance between the two you know that uh shyness that formality that slight distance from the public at 21 she became engaged prince philip of greece despite the reservations of her father there were some family tensions mainly because the king king george vi uh the queen's father of course princess elizabeth's father didn't feel that philip mountbatten at that time um was a suitable prospective husband he just didn't feel so a he didn't come out of the top drawer of european royalty the greek royal family were fairly low down in the league table of european royalty he didn't have a great title he didn't have a vast fortune or estates to bring into um into the marriage um and also he felt at 21 was a bit young he thought she should have waited four or five years but she showed that she had some steel in her and indeed she persuaded her mother and her mother supported her and of course the late queen elizabeth queen mother had a huge influence over her husband and that's what happened in 1947 during a family tour of south africa elizabeth made her 21st birthday speech i declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service enter the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong but i shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me as i now invite you to do i know that your support will be unfailingly given god help me to make good my vow and god bless all of you who are willing to share in it nearly 50 years later she returned to a country where great changes had taken place south africa had withdrawn from the commonwealth in 1961 over its policy of apartheid this ended in 1994 and south africa was readmitted to the commonwealth on this visit in 1995 the queen met a statesman who became a personal friend president nelson mandela the following year mandela came to london to visit the woman he called my friend elizabeth the queen isn't racially prejudiced at all she's colorblind if you like and one of her greatest friends and the person who impressed her and the other members and members of royal household if you like was nelson mandela when she met mandela she was tremendously impressed with his sincerity and with his integrity and with his compassion and i think the fact that he felt all this um endeared him to the queen and indeed they are still very much in touch they correspond with each other if not regularly but certainly quite frequently when princess elizabeth married her sailor prince in 1947 it was an occasion for national rejoicing still burdened with ration books and clothing coupons the british public welcomed this glittering relief from post-war austerity [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] heiress to the kingdom since the age of 10 elizabeth was the nation's sweetheart her wedding brought romance and promise to a country still adjusting to life after a world war elizabeth's lavishly embroidered silk wedding gown was designed by the royal couturier norman hartnell it was beyond the dreams of any other bride at the time although the king found the parting from his daughter painful it was a day of family joy shared by his subjects it was very very depressing time and churchill described the wedding as a bright ray of color on the hard grey road we have to travel despite the november weather the happy couple travelled in an open carriage to waterloo station for the journey to their honeymoon they were accompanied by susan the bride's favorite corgi unknown to the public elizabeth had married the man she had loved since her early teens the queen was 13 when she first saw prince philip who was then young naval cadet at dartmouth and very good looking you know every sort of school girl's idea of a dashing hero blonde life very sort of athletic they then met some years later and of course was so different then a courtship was conducted perhaps at a distance but the queen had met the man she loved and i think has never stopped loving the couple spent the early part of their marriage on the island of malta where philip was stationed at the naval base for princess elizabeth it was like um flying out of a cage after all she'd been brought up during the war at windsor castle very much isolated and there in walter she just lived the life of any naval wife going to dances going to parties going to beach parties uh just living a totally normal life and it was perhaps the happiest period of her life the birth of a son charles a year after the wedding brought further happiness and secured the windsor dynasty for another generation letters sent by the doting mother showed maternal warmth and paternal pride baby charles brought great joy to both his young parents in 1950 charles was joined by a sister anne but princess elizabeth soon had to deputize for her ailing father she was on a state visit going to visit australia and new zealand when she stopped off in kenya and it was there that she heard that her father died her coronation on june the 2nd 1953 was an occasion of great pageantry and splendor charles iv and anne ii watched as their parents left the palace in the gold coronation coach afterwards they joined their newly crowned mother and watched the cheering crowds from the palace balcony on that historic day the world heralded a new elizabethan age people were optimistic in the way that they thought oh this is going to be a new britain with a young queen and then on the day of the coronation came the news that hillary and tensing had conquered everest and this was another terrific morale boost the queen's duties took her away from her young children as a result charles grew close to his grandmother he seemed rather bemused by the protocol surrounding the queen sometimes he and anne joined their parents at the end of foreign tours such as here in gibraltar in 1954 they hadn't seen their mother for six months we have to remember that um prince charles and princess anne were born before she came to the throne and she was still just heir to the throne and so she had more time she had a more private life as soon as she exceeded the throne she had so much to do so much to learn huge commonwealth tours to do which in those days before the jet planes had rarely caught on took months the person who has given the queen the greatest public support is prince philip but in their family life she has chosen to defer to him arguably this has had unfortunate consequences for charles who was sent to philip's old boarding school gordenstein he is very much a boss in the home um he was the man who he was the one who decided that the boy should go to gordonston whereas the queen herself might have preferred eaton she took her eye off her son i think that um she listened to her husband and said look i think it's a good idea if he goes away to a boarding school i'm not sure in retrospect that that was such a good idea but then we'll never really know how prince charles would have turned out if he'd been to a sort of day school or had had governors it's very very hard to tell but i think phillip was very harsh on prince charles we know that this has not been an immense success and poor prince charles was deeply unhappy there but i think the queen felt particularly um that in her marriage it should be a traditional marriage of her time which in which the husband called the shots and the women ran the house and also i feel that she had to compensate felt that she had to compensate for the fact that she was in essence the boss and this dominant um male macho man that duke federer had to take second place in public anyway prince andrew was born in 1960 and prince edward in 1964. after a marriage lasting nearly 65 years elizabeth and philip remain close the queen will call prince philip darling but if she's in public or she's cross with him she'll call him philippe and one knows then that things are not are a little glacial and the queen is not the sort of person to lose her temper um i think if there's a blistering row about something she would probably go out and ride her horses or go and feed the dogs or groom the corgis and he may stomp about a bit but the queen her voice is not raised loudly but everyone is aware if she is displeased and not amused in 1977 the queen celebrated her silver jubilee she traveled to saint paul's cathedral in the 200 year old gold state coach her grandparents george v and queen mary celebrated their silver jubilee in 1935 riding in the same coach the queen's processional route was lined with cheering crowds all the way from buckingham palace to saint paul's cathedral then to london's guild hall where she had lunch and back to the palace she had not expected the warmth of the public's response amazed at the spontaneous bursts of cheering outside saint paul's cathedral the queen made an impromptu walkabout the first of her reign she comes from an era when it was not done for those people to be demonstrated in public and sometimes she said after a day of meeting people you know i simply ache with smiling but as confident it's a sad thing she doesn't have a smiley face but where she was actually very touched and very natural with the time of the silver jubilee going through the streets and the people came out once again and shook her warm and she was astonished by this i think she gets a lot of her shyness from queen mary same sort of uprightness and inability and yet it's so caring on this memorable day over a hundred thousand people waited to cheer her outside the palace five years earlier the queen and prince philip celebrated their silver wedding playing on the famous royal use of the pronoun we she included a subtle joke in her speech we and by that i mean both of us are most grateful a 21-gun salute marked prince philip's 70th birthday in 1991. last december he was successfully treated for a blocked coronary artery five years older than the queen philip has retained his energy and enthusiasm for the monarchy he is prince consort in all but name at balmoral their home in scotland the royal couple relax with their family and their favorite pets this is the granddaughter of susan the corgi that the queen took with her on her honeymoon this is the breed most associated with her she appears to be at her happiest with her pack of corgis and likes to feed them herself the queen is in the palace she does give them afternoon tea herself i mean she chops up their food and their biscuits and puts it down in little silver silvers and some of them are quite snappy and are not averse to biting an ankle and i sometimes think that gives her a very secret chuckle after lunch at windsor and this is quite disconcerting for guests the queen will spray dog biscuits around under the table the footman appears with a salve and on one occasion the salva of dog biscuits was presented to the queen and a nervous bishop who was sitting beside her actually took one and ate it prince philip took up carriage driving when he was forced to give up the very physical sport of polo at the age of 60. for a horseman of long experience carriage driving offered a way of prolonging his participation in equestrian events [Music] even after his heart operation philip still takes the reins for a spot of more leisurely carriage driving and just as he supports the queen in her official role she likes to show her encouragement for her husband's unusual hobby she always made time to watch him when he competed at carriage driving trials horses can be disturbed by noisy and intrusive spectators which puts the drivers at risk sometimes she let her feelings be known showing off unwelcome attention few dare argue with the queen she is a renowned horse woman with legendary control she rides frequently at windsor sometimes with prince edward the earl of wessex she's notably relaxed with her youngest son who's happily married with two young children the queen is passionate about racing she owns ascot racecourse near windsor and attends royal ascot there each june the parade of open carriages before the start of the races was as much part of the attraction in the 1960s as in more recent times [Music] but the duchess of york princesses anne and margaret and of course the princess of wales didn't share the queen's boundless enthusiasm for watching her horses [Music] you can see the sort of absolute girlish glee with which she treats them on when she'll run down you know to get a better view and you know her face lights up as you never see it light up on public occasions she shared her love of horses with her racing manager lord carnavan they'd been friends since their teens his death from a heart attack on 9 11 the day of the terrorist attacks in america was a bitter blow the queen had a wonderful relationship with laura carnavan he was her racing manager and racing is one thing that the queen loves above all else and she's extremely extremely intelligent about breeding and here was one man that she could talk to to her heart's content and never be bored now even if he called in the middle of dinner i'm not saying a state banquet but if it was a family dennis she would always take his call um so she misses him a great deal the queen owns racehorses and broodmares worth several million pounds when president reagan visited windsor in 1982 the queen was keen to show off her horses to the one-time hollywood actor and owner of a californian ranch he happily posed for the cameras and then led back by the queen into windsor castle rich list compilers have cautiously estimated the queen's personal fortune at 400 million pounds it's terribly hard to work out just how rich the queen is it's very hard to separate the goods chackles which are very valuable ones that she is custodian of for her life the crown worn at the opening of parliament is state property but the queen has fabulous jewels magnificent homes a huge investment portfolio and paintings and drawings which are the envy of the art world her art collection is just astonishing there are so many van dykes around there are michelangelo's i mean absolutely endless goodies but i'm not sure that she could classify them as being hers windsor castle is her favorite home but officially it too belongs to the state despite her lavish surroundings the queen is well known for her frugal habits we'll still find the queen perhaps with a small electric fire i i think it may run to three bars but uh quiet and very often she'll put on two but she likes to be thrifty the duchy of lancaster is the ancient custodian of 50 000 acres including farmland historic buildings urban developments and other assets held in trust for the monarch the duchy pays an annual private income to the queen of over 13 million pounds this is separate from the civil list awarded by parliament to cover her official expenses as head of state and head of the commonwealth she pays regular visits to the duchy and keeps in touch with her many tenants this way here as everywhere else she visits the queen's clothes and grooming reflect her position rather than her wealth she has a very matter-of-fact attitude to clothes she has always said i'm not a film star clothes you know are just essential to the job and she has very strict rules she will say to designers who will draw up some beautiful um thing for a tour and she'll say hopeless for waving i can't wave with sleeves like that so they must always ensure that you can wave hats must always be off the face because people must be able to see me and lipstick is always a very strong red and this is for the sake of the photographers and so that she can be seen by people from a great distance but she doesn't have a frivolous attitude to clothes though she does like pretty bright colors she likes um lemons pinks blues purples although she looks very good actually in dark colors her hair is immovable probably in in whatever the weather conditions and i once said to her hairdresser what is the secret of the queen's hair you know why why does it never move in the wind and he said brute force and lacquer the queen welcomes world leaders to britain nelson mandela came in 1997. pope john paul ii in 1982 ronald and nancy reagan visited britain in the same year [Music] president george bush senior and his wife barbara were welcomed in 1991. bill and hillary clinton came to call in 1995. more than 2 billion people in 54 countries across six continents count themselves citizens of the commonwealth and subjects of the queen about a third of her visits abroad have been to commonwealth countries starting in 1953 the year of her coronation these tours foster international cooperation and trade links between member countries she has known many commonwealth prime ministers all as important to her as her 12 british ones from winston churchill to david cameron a lot of people don't appreciate this they consider the commonwealth as really very unimportant a relic from the past it's not how the queen views it at all she considers her role as some queen of australia new zealand canada any of the other 16 dominion countries she considers that every bit as important as being queen of britain uk northern ireland wales all that every bit is important and she loves her prime ministers the commonwealth love her they think that she's the person who cares about them that the government of the day in britain usually doesn't and also she's been around so long that all these she's such friends with all these leaders she knows their problems she knows their families she knows intimate details about them you know whether their brothers just died or something so they really feel that she genuinely cares and she does she speaks privately to everyone at the commonwealth heads of government meetings although royal tours are immensely well prepared gaffes can still happen when she made a speech at the white house in 1991 the stand was arranged for a taller figure than the queen some nitwit had got to the stand from watching where she was reading her speech a little bit too high and the camera was too low and you just had a picture up over the lectern onto you couldn't see the queen's face properly all you could see was a hat and everybody dubbed it as the speaking hat she finds this actually immensely amusing she has a great sense of humor well the queen's friends will tell you what a wonderful sense of humour she has and how she finds she likes to laugh at herself for a start and she loves ridiculous things i mean she'll laugh till the tears run down her face and then she's got a quick wit a sense of irony and there's a story i particularly like and she was in a norfolk shop dressed as she normally is in the country with her head scarf and everything and a woman came up to and said um i hope you don't mind my saying so but you look awful like the queen and the queen said how very reassuring a fountain in kensington gardens is britain's memorial to diana it was opened by the queen in 2004 the diana who made such an impact on our lives of course there were difficult times but memories melee with the passing of the years i remember especially the happiness she gave to my two grandsons william has learned a great deal from the queen when william first started at eaton every sunday afternoon he was taken up to have tea with granny at windsor castle when he was given a few off the cuff lessons in constitutional history not the ideal way for a 13 and 14 year old to spend a sunday afternoon i would have thought but he did and he absolutely worships his grandmother they have a wonderful time at the start of her diamond jubilee the queen made an official visit to the london store of fortnum and mason it was dubbed the visit of the three queens elizabeth ii and the future queens camilla and kate a strong bond between the queen and prince william now embraces his wife kate the duchess of cambridge the queen has made sure that kate has been welcomed into the royal family and given the guidance that diana and sarah ferguson lacked and in the year since her wedding kate has created a new wave of royal popularity as the queen moves into her seventh decade on the throne she can reflect on the huge changes in her reign not least in her own family seven years have passed since the wedding of charles to camilla once reviled as the woman who destroyed diana's marriage making camilla acceptable to the public as a future queen consort became one of the most important challenges of the queen's reign in her autumn years the queen has had to rebrand the monarchy and stabilize it after the turmoil of the 1990s and the tragic death of diana [Music] in 1981 the queen had shared the hopes of the world in this star-crossed union of prince charles and lady diana spencer thirty years later the wedding of her grandson prince william to kate middleton has given the queen every confidence that the future of the monarchy is finally secure [Applause] [Music] [Music] saint paul's cathedral was the setting for a service of thanksgiving to mark her official birthday it was attended by the queen and the royal family the nation's gratitude was expressed by the archbishop of canterbury birthdays are among the most vivid reminders we can have of our common humanity and our common call to journey through time with each other so today your majesty we give thanks with you simply for the gifts of life and experience the prime minister tony blair praised the queen as a remarkable source of constancy and strength adding that she'd met changes in the world with extraordinary grace and dedication but perhaps the finest tribute to the queen's 80th birthday was paid by her son prince charles it gives me enormous pride to be able to congratulate her publicly in this way and to thank her on behalf of us all for the many wonderful qualities which she's brought to almost an entire lifetime of service and dedication the queen hoped that her family would secure the continuity of the windsor dynasty but the divorces of her children challenged the stability of the monarchy starting in 1973 with princess anne's marriage to mark phillips all those spectacular weddings which had promised so much ended in failure and scandal no one foresaw the problems that the introduction of lady diana spencer in 1981 and sarah ferguson five years later would bring to the royal family diana's epic wars with charles resulted in divorce and the loss of her royal title in 1997 but after her tragic death she was given a funeral befitting the mother of a future king in 2005 charles married camilla parker-bowles in a private ceremony unseen by the world 24 years earlier he married diana in the splendor of saint paul's cathedral to the queen this wedding signified continuity and a new life for the monarchy i think the day that the prince of wales married lady diana spencer was a great day for the queen what it was showing that day was that the continuity of her family was con was being continued in a correct and proper manner i think there was always a certain amount of concern about diana who was really quite young for her yes i think she was happy and satisfied that her son was marrying somebody and they would produce children and and the continuity of the house of windsor would almost certainly keep going diana became pregnant soon after the wedding her problems and illnesses were concealed from the public at first shortly after these pictures diana threw herself down some stairs at sandringham the queen's norfolk estate the queen must have known that there were all sorts of problems almost from the word go so without us knowing and she hid this very well she was aware that diana was having an incredibly difficult time settling down to married life despite her love of formal and ceremonial events the queen is a woman of genuine emotion often kept hidden from the public the archbishop of canterbury has said that she was devastated by diana's death afterwards she had to accommodate prince charles's determination to marry the woman diana had called the third person in her marriage camilla parker-bowles was charles's mistress for several years before the public became aware of her diana blamed her for the breakup of her marriage a campaign to gain public acceptance for camilla began with a staged appearance outside the london ritz hotel in 1999. the press eagerly followed each stage of the public relations exercise a series of high-profile events for charles's main charity the prince's trust propelled camilla evermore into the public arena but according to the law charles still had to ask the queen's consent to marry charles of course had to go and ask her surely the only 56 year old man in this day and age who has to undergo such a humiliating and embarrassing experience to ask his mother for permission to marry camilla's divorce made a church of england wedding impossible the couple opted for a civil service at windsor's town hall on april 9 2005. william and harry were among the few witnesses the queen did not attend she was advised both by the archbishop of canterbury dr rone williams and also by her own private secretary sir robin janbrynn that it would be unwise and inappropriate to attend the civil wedding because she is of course the supreme governor of the church of england a church blessing was held at saint george's chapel in windsor castle against expectations camilla had become a member of the royal family but the queen was still concerned about her impact on the monarchy i think what the queen felt at the beginning was that the people wouldn't accept camilla because of camilla being the other woman in the marriage when charles was in love supposed to be in love with diana and the queen was worried that her people her subjects wouldn't accept camilla what she does feel is that camilla has been a wonderful influence on prince charles and she truly loves prince charles and said the queen warms to camilla by the day since her marriage camilla's immaculate grooming and stylish wardrobe have played their part in gaining public acceptance now known as her royal highness the duchess of cornwall she's tactfully avoided using the title princess of wales which is irrevocably associated with diana we're told she'll be the princess consort when charles is king queen has now come to the conclusion camilla is winning over the people in a way that a year ago looked impossible frankly and that the monarchy therefore is in in much safer hands than perhaps it was she knows that there is um strong opposition still to camilla that's why we go through the idea that camilla will never be queen but in 20 years time if that's when prince charles comes to the throne who is then to say that camilla shouldn't be his queen at his side prince andrew a naval officer married sarah ferguson in 1986. again there were high hopes for this marriage but like diana the new duchess of york disappointed the queen her backgrounds are so very different from hers afterwards she'd grown up with it she'd been used to buckian palace windsor castle as a child she'd been trained for her job for forever and so i don't think she fully understood the difficulties that these girls experienced and i think when it came to um the duchess of york particularly so because for the queen her own naval days as a naval wife had been absolute joy to her and the fact that sarah ferguson didn't all the judges of york didn't seem to enjoy that aspect of her husband's life she found very difficult to understand with hindsight it was clear that diana and sarah found adapting to raw life more difficult than anyone had expected but the queen did try to help them if we look back remember it was the queen who called the editors to the palace in the early days uh when the princess of wales uh felt she was being pressurized by the press and the media and the queen said you know my daughter-in-law's piece must must be protected and she at that time moved to protect the princess princess wales to her was like an adorable skittish niece i mean she just knew diana from childhood um and so she was indulgent caring and a little bit bewildered sometimes i mean in the early days when the princess was married and they were at balmoral and it was stuffy occasion princess would jump up from the table and run round the table and sit on prince charles's lap and give him a kiss i mean something like that had never been seen before amongst the royal family the queen would just shake her head and give a little smile the queen attended the wedding of princess margaret's son vikant lindley to heiress serena stanhope in 1993. both david lindley and his sister lady sarah armstrong jones were close to the queen princess margaret had married lord snowden in 1960 but the marriage fell apart the snowden's divorced in 1978 after several hostile years the queen took the children under her wing she dotes on princess margaret's children especially um lady sarah who is just a favorite niece and she was a very sort of loving aunt figure and very proud of lord lindley i think one of the queen's coaches said to me that sometimes those young children thought the queen was their mother because she would always take them up to balmoral with her when princess margaret and lord snowden would go on their summer holidays to sardinia or to tuscany and she was very much a stable figure in their lives and she loved them very much that stability of the queen was needed when three of her four children divorced and her grandchildren had to cope with split homes the queen took a special interest in william the second in line to the throne and he developed a close relationship with his grandmother but as their parents marriage disintegrated there were gaps in the young prince's contact with the rest of the family i think with william and harry she's got to know them far far better in the last few years i think when the marriage was still going on and charles and like diana were in each other's throat she hardly saw them at all but obviously in in the last 10 years she's seen them grow up and although she might not see them that much i think she's very proud especially of prince william in 1992 both the yorks and the wales is separated after a series of scandals which shocked the queen princess anne also divorced in the same year and then remarried [Music] i knew that when these divorces came one after another she did say to close friend well what have we done wrong it is very difficult to be a queen and a mother i think every important executive woman finds this i think that the winds are temperament which has been handed down from george v and queen mary has also been a factor the stiff upper lip the sweeping problems under the carpet and the lack of communication and this also comes from living in enormous houses like buckingham palace where they live quite separate lives each with their own sweet and their own servants and so it isn't that you have a jolly get-together in front of the television it's a different life and then on november the 20th 1992 windsor castle caught fire it happened on the queen's 45th wedding anniversary the queen was upset at the damage to her favorite home she supervised the removal of family treasures and days later she spoke of her sadness [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 an anus or rebellious i suspect that i'm not alone in thinking it so couldn't have been worse could it all the children's marriage is going wrong one after another the tremendous scandals in the papers and the constant attention to the royal family's private lives and then the outspoken criticism of her which she wasn't used to she'd been used to nothing but kindness all her life and when the public turned on her at the time of the winds of fire and said no we won't pay i think she was deeply hurt and surprised by this the world mourned the loss of diana but the queen's slow public reaction provoked criticism of course the queen was shocked when diana died as was everybody else but her concern wasn't actually for diana or her family or her prince charles it was for her grandchildren and william and harry were up at balmoral staying with the queen in scotland and her whole concentration was on protecting and safeguarding those poor young children as best she could at balmoral the queen learned of the growing tension in the capital attention focused on the empty flagpole on top of buckingham palace she then gave orders for a flag to be put up never happened before and that it should fly at half-mast i think she was out of touch i think it was mainly because she was trying to protect the grandchildren and i think she very nearly got it seriously wrong william and harry walked behind their mother's coffin with their grandfather to support them on their heartbreaking journey prince william asked his grandfather to walk in the funeral procession it was prince william's request and i think that prince william is probably the sort of son prince philip would like to have had i think he's very proud of him and he likes prince harry's robustness and i i think he's um very devoted to them in his in his way the death of diana will have a lasting impact i think it probably will be looked at in the history books as the time when the monarchy radically changed its attitude to its past and its future [Music] entertaining heads of state is one of the queen's most important duties this ceremonial hospitality builds bridges between countries and cements international friendships the grandeur of a state banquet at windsor castle is the highlight of this visit 150 guests dine from the finest china silverware and crystal 300 staff serve them quails eggs turbot veal and peaches for many guests in white thai and tiaras this is a unique experience but it's the queen's 65th state banquet i raise my glass to you and mrs valenza and the well-being and happiness of the polish people international diplomacy requires visits abroad like this one to france in 1992 since her coronation the queen's travelled over a million miles made over 250 foreign visits to 128 countries and still plans more the queen's reliability and grasp of foreign affairs are never in doubt her professionalism was evident on this tour of germany in 1992 it was her first visit there since the fall of communism and the unification of western east germany she came to support the newly united republic and to strengthen ties between germany and britain which had been disrupted by two world wars [Music] her speech put aside old enmity like all close friends we do not always see eye to eye but as friends should we try not to let the sun go down on our corals visiting the united states reinforces the special relationship it's enjoyed with britain since before world war ii in 1991 the queen was welcomed by president george bush there is a senior in the events of such a visit that defies analysis but which has a way of reaching the hearts of people far and wide a visit to australia is different she's head of state there and she's made 15 visits since becoming queen she went in 1992 after a gap of 12 years to a country where republicanism was a growing movement but her personal popularity ensured that she's still queen there today during the trip she unveiled one of the many portraits of her reign this one captures the reserved character of the woman behind the crown [Music] the queen isn't by nature an emotional person she doesn't have great highs and great lows she accepts life and if there's something she doesn't want to understand or doesn't want to see she compartmentalizes it so she avoids emotional confrontation she avoids moral confrontation altogether the elder daughter of the duke and duchess of york elizabeth had a golden childhood with her sister margaret her life was carefree until her parents became king and queen in 1936 when she was 10. they became the family firm or we 4 as her father king george vi called them now heiress presumptive elizabeth was influenced by her formidable grandmother queen mary she didn't inherit her own mother's warmth and spontaneity and the person she admires almost most apart from queen victoria is her grandmother queen mary and you can see a great resemblance between the two you know that shyness that formality that slight distance from the public at 21 she became engaged to prince philip of greece despite the reservations of her father there were some family tensions mainly because the king king george vi uh the queen's father of course princess elizabeth's father um didn't feel that philip mountbatten at that time um was a suitable prospective husband he just didn't feel so a he didn't come out of the top drawer of european royalty the greek royal family were fairly low down in the league table of european royalty he didn't have a great title he didn't have a vast fortune or estates to bring into um in into the marriage um and also he felt at 21 was a bit young he thought she should have waited four or five years but she showed that she had some steel in her and indeed she persuaded her mother and her mother supported her and of course the late queen elizabeth queen mother had a huge influence over her husband and that's what happened in 1947 during a family tour of south africa elizabeth made her 21st birthday speech i declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service enter the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong but i shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me as i now invite you to do i know that your support will be unfairly given god help me to make good my vow and god bless all of you who are willing to share in it nearly 50 years later she returned to a country where great changes had taken place south africa had withdrawn from the commonwealth in 1961 over its policy of apartheid this ended in 1994 and south africa was readmitted to the commonwealth on this visit in 1995 the queen met a statesman who's become a personal friend president nelson mandela in 1996 mandela came to london to visit the woman he calls my friend elizabeth the queen isn't racially prejudiced at all she's colour-blind if you like and one of her greatest friends and the person who impressed her and the other members of the royal and members of royal household if you like was nelson mandela when she met mandela she was tremendously impressed with his sincerity and with his integrity and with his compassion and i think the fact that he felt all this um endeared him to the queen and indeed they are still very much in touch they correspond with each other if not regularly but certainly quite frequently an english princess marrying her handsome sailor prince meant an occasion for national rejoicing britain was still burdened in 1947 with ration books and clothing coupons and they welcomed this glittering relief from post-war austerity [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] heiress to the kingdom since the age of 10 elizabeth was the nation's sweetheart her wedding brought romance and promise to a country still adjusting to life after a world war elizabeth's lavishly embroidered silk wedding gown was designed by the royal couturier norman hartnell it was beyond the dreams of any other bride at the time although the king found the parting from his daughter painful it was a day of family pride shared by his subjects it was very very depressing time and churchill described the wedding as a bright ray of color on the hard grey road we have to travel despite the november weather the happy couple travelled in an open carriage to waterloo station for the journey to their honeymoon they were accompanied by the bride's favorite corgi susan elizabeth had married the man she loved unknown to the public since her early teens the queen was 13 when she first saw prince philip who was then a young naval cadet at dartmouth and very good looking you know every sort of school girl's idea of a dashing hero blonde life very sort of athletic they then met some years later and of course was so different then a courtship was conducted perhaps at a distance but the queen had met the man she loved and i think has never stopped loving the couple spent the early part of their marriage on the island of malta where philip was stationed at the naval base for princess elizabeth it was like um flying out of a cage after all she'd been brought up during the war at windsor castle very much isolated and there in malta she just lived the life of any naval wife going to dances going to parties going to beach parties just living a totally normal life and it was perhaps the happiest period of her life the birth of her son charles a year after the wedding brought further happiness and secured the windsor dynasty for another generation letters sent by the doting mother showed maternal warmth and parental pride baby charles brought great joy to both his young parents in 1950 charles was joined by a sister anne but elizabeth soon had to deputise for her ailing father [Music] she was on a state visit going to visit australia and new zealand when she stopped off in kenya and it was there that she heard that her father died her coronation on june the 2nd 1953 was an occasion of great pageantry and splendor charles h4 and anne too watched as their parents left the palace in the gold coach afterwards they joined their newly crowned mother and watched the cheering crowds from the palace balcony on that historic day the world heralded a new elizabethan age people were optimistic in the way that they thought oh this is going to be a new britain with a young queen and then on the day of the coronation came the news that hillary and tensing had conquered everest and this was another terrific morale boost the queen's duties took her away from her young children charles grew close to his grandmother as a result he seemed rather bemused by the protocol sometimes he and ann joined their parents at the end of foreign tours such as here in gibraltar in 1954 they hadn't seen their mother for six months we have to remember that prince charles and princess anne were born before she came to the throne when she was still just heir to the throne and so she had more time she had a more private life as soon as she exceeded the throne she had so much to do so much to learn huge commonwealth tours to do which in those days before jet planes had rarely caught on took months the person who's given the queen the greatest public support is prince philip but in their family life she's chosen to defer to him arguably this has had an unfortunate consequence for charles who was sent to philip's old school gordenstein he is very much a boss in the home um he was the man who he was the one who decided that the boys should go to gordonston whereas the queen herself might have preferred eaton she took her eye off her son i think that um she listened to her husband and said look i think it's a good idea if he goes away to a boarding school i'm not sure in retrospect that that was such a good idea but then we'll never really know how prince charles would have turned out if he'd been to a sort of day school or had had governors it's very very hard to tell but i think phillip was very harsh on prince charles we know that this has not been an immense success and poor prince charles was deeply unhappy there but i think the queen felt particularly um that in her marriage it should be a traditional marriage of her time which in which the husband called the shots and the women ran the house and also i feel that she had to compensate felt that she had to compensate for the fact that she was in essence the boss and this dominant um male macho man that duke of edinburgh had to take second place in public anyway a second family followed after a 10-year interval andrew was born in 1960 edward in 1964. after a long marriage the royal couple remained close the queen will call prince philip darling but if she's in public or she's cross with him she'll call him philippe and one knows then that things are not are a little glacial and the queen is not the sort of person to lose her temper um i think if there's a blistering row about something she would probably go out and ride her horses or go and feed the dogs or groom the corgis and he may stomp about a bit but the queen her voice is not raised loudly but everyone is aware if she is displeased and not amused in 1977 the queen celebrated her silver jubilee she traveled to saint paul's cathedral in the 200 year old gold state coach her grandparents king george v and queen mary celebrated their silver jubilee in 1935 riding in the same coach the queen's processional route was lined with cheering crowds all the way from buckingham palace to saint paul's cathedral to london's guild hall where she had lunch and back to the palace she'd not expected the warmth of the public's response amazed at the spontaneous bursts of cheering outside saint paul's cathedral the queen made an impromptu walkabout the first of her reign she comes from an era when it was not done for those people to be demonstrated in public and sometimes she said after a day of meeting people you know i simply ache with smiling but as confronted it's a sad thing she doesn't have a smiley face but where she was actually very touched and very natural was the time of the silver jubilee going through the streets and the people came out once again and shook her warm and she was astonished by this i think she gets a lot of shyness from queen mary same sort of uprightness and inability and yet it's so caring on this memorable day over a hundred thousand people waited to cheer her outside the palace five years earlier the queen and prince philip celebrated their silver wedding playing on the famous royal use of the pronoun we she included a subtle joke in her speech we and by that i mean both of us are most grateful a 21-gun salute marked prince philip's 70th birthday in 1991 five years older than the queen phillips retained his energy and his enthusiasm for the monarchy he's prince consort in everything but name the royal couple have weathered many storms and clearly still enjoy each other's company at balmoral their home in scotland they can relax with their family and their favorite pets this is the granddaughter of susan the corgi the queen took with her on her honeymoon and this is the breed most associated with her she likes to feed them herself the queen is in the palace she does give them afternoon tea herself i mean she chops up their food and their biscuits and puts it down in little silver silvers and some of them are quite snappy and are not averse to biting an ankle and i sometimes think that gives her a very secret chuckle after lunch at windsor and this is quite disconcerting for guests the queen will spray dog biscuits around under the table the footman appears with the salve and on one occasion the salva of dog biscuits was presented to the queen and a nervous bishop who was sitting beside her actually took one and ate it prince philip took up carriage driving when he was forced to give up the very physical sport of polo at the age of 60. for a horseman of long experience carriage driving offered a way of prolonging his participation in equestrian events he also enjoys the company of others who are equally keen on this test of skill and control and just as he supports the queen in her official role she likes to show her encouragement for her husband's unusual hobby [Music] she always makes time to watch him when he competes at carriage driving trials [Music] horses can be disturbed by noisy and intrusive spectators which puts the drivers at risk [Music] sometimes she lets her feelings be known showing off unwelcome attention few dare argue with the queen she's a renowned horse woman herself with legendary control she rides frequently at windsor sometimes with prince edward the only one of her children who's not being divorced she's notably relaxed with her youngest son and riding gives them a chance to talk away from the pressures of palace life the queen's passionate about racing she owns ascot racecourse near windsor and attends royal ascot there each june the parade of open carriages before the start of the races was as much part of the attraction in the 1960s as it was in more recent times but the duchess of york princesses anne and margaret and of course the princess of wales didn't share the queen's boundless enthusiasm for watching her horses you can see the sort of absolute girlish glee with which she treats them when she'll run down you know to get a better view and you know her face lights up as you never see it light up on public occasions she shared her love of horses with her racing manager lord carnavan they'd been friends since their teens and his death from a heart attack on 9 11 the day of the terrorist attacks in america was a bitter blow the queen had a wonderful relationship with laura carnavan he was her racing manager and racing is one thing that the queen loves above all else and she's extremely extremely intelligent about breeding and here was one man that she could talk to to her heart's content and never be bored now even if he called in the middle of dinner i'm not saying a state banquet but if it was a family dinner she would always take his call um so she misses him a great deal the queen owns racehorses and broodmares worth over three and a half million pounds when president reagan visited windsor in 1982 they went riding together the queen was keen to show off her horses to the one-time hollywood actor and owner of a californian ranch he happily posed for the cameras before being led back by the queen into the fabled splendor of windsor castle professional rich list compilers have cautiously estimated the queen's personal fortune at 300 million pounds it's terribly hard to work out just how rich the queen is it's very hard to separate the goods chattels which are very valuable ones that she is custodian of for her life the crown worn at the opening of parliament is state property but the queen has fabulous jewels magnificent homes a huge investment portfolio and paintings and drawings which are the envy of the art world her art collection is just astonishing there are so many van dykes around there are michelangelo's i mean absolutely endless goodies but i'm not sure that she could classify them as being hers windsor castle is her favorite home but officially it too belongs to the state despite her lavish surroundings the queen's well known for her frugal habits we'll still find the queen perhaps with a small electric fire i i think it may run to three bars but uh quite and very often she'll put on two but she likes to be thrifty the duchy of lancaster is the ancient custodian of fifty thousand acres including farmland historic buildings urban developments and other assets held in trust for the monarch the duchy pays an annual private income to the queen of around 8 million pounds this is separate from the civil list awarded by parliament to cover her official expenses as head of state and head of the commonwealth she pays regular visits to the duchy and keeps in touch with her many tenants this way here as everywhere else she visits the queen's clothes and grooming reflect her position rather than her wealth [Music] she has a very matter-of-fact attitude to close she has always said i'm not a film star clothes you know are just essential to the job and she has very strict rules she will say to designers who will draw up some beautiful um thing for a tour and she'll say hopeless for waving i can't wave with sleeves like that so they must always ensure that you can wave hats must always be off the face because people must be able to see me and lipstick is always a very strong red and this is for the sake of the photographers and so that she can be seen by people from a great distance but she doesn't have a frivolous attitude to clothes though she does like pretty bright colors she likes um lemons pinks blues purples although she looks very good actually in dark colors her hair is immovable probably in in whatever the weather conditions and i once said to her hairdresser what is the secret of the queen's hair you know why why does it never move in the wind and he said brute force and lacquer the queen has welcomed over 90 world leaders to britain each is treated with equal courtesy that of one head of state to another and whatever government's in power it's the queen who acts as the nation's host her unique position above the changing political scenes in britain and abroad enables her to provide a degree of diplomatic hospitality respected throughout the world [Music] elizabeth is queen in 16 countries as well as being head of the commonwealth a free association of 53 countries [Music] [Applause] about a third of her visits abroad have been to commonwealth countries starting in 1953 the year of her coronation these tours foster international cooperation and trade links between member countries she's known many commonwealth prime ministers all as important to her as her 10 british ones from winston churchill to tony blair [Music] a lot of people don't appreciate this they consider the commonwealth as really very unimportant a relic from the past it's not how the queen views it at all she considers her role as some queen of australia new zealand canada any of the other 16 dominion countries she considers that every bit as important as being queen of britain uk northern ireland wales all that every bit is important and she loves her prime ministers the commonwealth love her they think that she's the person who cares about them that the government of the day in britain usually doesn't and also she's been around so long that all these she's such friends with all these leaders she knows her problems she knows their families she knows intimate details about them you know whether their brothers just died or something so they really feel that she genuinely cares and she does she speaks privately to everyone at the commonwealth heads of government meetings although royal tours are immensely well prepared gaffes can still happen when she made a speech at the white house in 1991 the stand was arranged for a taller figure than the queen some nitwit had got to the stand from watch where she was reading her speech a little bit too high and the camera was too low and you just had a picture up over the lectern onto you couldn't see the queen's face properly all you could see was a hat and everybody dubbed it as the speaking hat she finds this actually immensely amusing she has a great sense of humor well the queen's friends will tell you what a wonderful sense of humour she has and how she finds she likes to laugh at herself for a start and she loves ridiculous things and she'll laugh till the tears run down her face and then she's got a quick wit a sense of irony and there's a story i particularly like and she was in a norfolk shop dressed as she normally is in the country with her head scarf and everything and a woman came up and said um i hope you don't mind my saying so but you look awfully like the queen and the queen said how very reassuring a fountain in kensington gardens is britain's memorial to diana it was opened by the queen in 2004. the diana who made such an impact on our lives of course there were difficult times but memories mellow with the passing of the years i remember especially the happiness she gave to my two grandsons william has learned a great deal from the queen when william first started at eaton every sunday afternoon he was taken up to have tea with granny at windsor castle when he was given a few off the cuff lessons in constitutional history not the ideal way for a 13 and 14 year old to spend a sunday afternoon i would have thought but he did and he absolutely worships his grandmother they have a wonderful time [Music] and the queen does not forget the far-flung countries of the commonwealth in the spring of 2006 she returned to australia she visited canberra sydney and melbourne where she opened the commonwealth games prince philip accompanied her there was a busy program each day and walkabouts to meet the people the queen first visited australia during the commonwealth tour the year after her coronation and she still fondly remembers that first visit first time i came here on a glorious summer's day 52 years ago there was of course no opera house the city was smaller the skyline were modest the strain was beginning to show after the queen's 14 engagements two speeches and several walkabouts it must be extremely tough although i mean she travels with prince philip who's 85 i mean how long they can carry on doing these long long flights and then a week or so of of duties in in often in hot dusty conditions is anyone's guess i can't imagine she could she'll be doing this when she's 90 but i think she'll carry on for a few more years [Music] on april the 21st 2006 the queen celebrated her 80th birthday she emerged from windsor castle with her husband to receive congratulations long past normal retirement age she'll still keep the vows she made at her coronation in 53 she took her an oath she was anointed with holy oil she took an oath to serve as monarch for the rest of her life and indeed she will do and there are many people who believe that the best hope for the continued stability and popularity of the monarchy is if the queen has inherited the longevity genes of her mother and lives and reigns for another 20 years you can only imagine the queen standing aside if she's impaired by illness some kind of mental illness or such a physical illness that deems her incapable of doing her duties as head of state i think she will and is reducing her the number of her commitment she does and charles is stepping up and doing more but she does not believe in abdication to her abdication as a dirty word the coronation was an overwhelming experience for the four-year-old charles and was too young but charles was allowed to watch the ceremony he grew up in awe of a mother who was also queen [Applause] [Music] they may not always see eye to eye but charles publicly praised her on her 80th birthday it gives me enormous pride to be able to congratulate her publicly in this way and to thank her on behalf of us all for the many wonderful qualities which she's brought to almost an entire lifetime of service and dedication to her country to her family to the realms and to the countries of the commonwealth for very nearly 60 of those 80 years she has been my darling mama and my sentiments today are those of a proud and loving son who hopes that you will join with in wishing the queen the happiest of happy birthdays together with the fervent prayer that there will be countless memorable returns of the day the scandals that rocked the royal family are largely overcome [Music] [Applause] on her birthday elizabeth had been queen for 54 years her reign has seen great changes and she has successfully taken the british monarchy into the 21st century following the terrorist attacks in america the queen attends a special service of remembrance at saint paul's cathedral [Music] before a congregation united in grief for the three thousand victims a candle is lit and thoughts turn to grieving families [Music] at a more cheerful occasion the queen with her mother and sister margaret acknowledged the cheers as the queen mother celebrates her 100th birthday a year later the scene has changed now margaret can only raise her arm to acknowledge the birthday crowd from her wheelchair a lifetime flashes before her back to happier days when she and her sister were part of the royal family firm under the watchful eye of their adoring parents they were very tight-knit they did a lot of things together and of course king george vi absolutely doted on his youngest daughter princess margaret he was cheeky and naughty and beautiful and princess elizabeth was more studious and he loved her too but it was margaret's sort of mischievousness that he adored and totally spoiled her trained by queen mary the young princess elizabeth was very much like her grandmother she didn't inherit her own mother's warmth and spontaneity and the person she admires almost most um apart from queen victoria is her grandmother queen mary and you can see a great resemblance between the two you know that shyness that formality that slight distance from the public [Music] aboard hms vanguard bound for south africa the young princesses were filmed with their mother and father during the long journey to cape town it was 1947 the first royal trip to the empire since the war it was also an opportunity for the young princess elizabeth heir to the throne to pledge her life to the service of the monarchy i declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service enter the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong but i shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me as i now invite you to do i know that your support will be unfairly given god help me to make good my vow and god bless all of you who are willing to share in it nearly 50 years later after making that vow the queen returned to south africa she was welcomed to a country free from racial discrimination and a republic within the commonwealth color pictures of sleek people carriers replaced the old black and white fuzzy images of open saloon cars she advanced through the cheering crowds on a journey to meet the president nelson mandela and to unveil a plaque commemorating her visit in november 1947 princess elizabeth married lieutenant philip mountbatten his wedding day her husband-to-be was given the title prince philip duke of edinburgh princess elizabeth was 21 years old following the war years the country was still in the grip of austerity the government recommended a low key wedding but for millions it was a long overdue chance for celebration the wedding dress made of ivory satin was designed by royal dressmaker norman hartnell it was the first joyful royal event they'd been since the war and britain had been through very difficult times of poverty of people without homes after all the bombing of the cities it was very very depressing time and churchill described the wedding as a bright ray of colour on the hard gray road we have to travel on a cold november evening the newlyweds arrived at waterloo station to board the royal train at the start of their honeymoon princess elizabeth took along her favorite corgi susan the young bride had met her husband eight years earlier the queen was 13 when she first saw prince philip who was then young naval cadet at dartmouth and very good looking you know every sort of school girl's idea of a dashing hero blond life very sort of athletic they then met some years later and of course was so different then a courtship was conducted perhaps at a distance but the queen had met the man she loved and i think has never stopped loving princess elizabeth was a young naval officer's wife stationed in malta with her husband these were happy days for the young woman for princess elizabeth it was like um flying out of a cage after all she'd been brought up during the war at windsor castle very much isolated and there in malta she just lived the life of any naval wife going to dances going to parties going to beach parties just living a totally normal life and it was perhaps the happiest period of her life in november 1948 six days before her first wedding anniversary prince charles was born at buckingham palace elizabeth wrote to a friend i can't believe he's really mine this particular boy's parents couldn't be more proud of him she saw him as much as any families any aristocratic families see their children in those days i mean she would see him in the morning and she would see him in the evening and so she was able to have those first four formative years around him princess anne was born two years later in 1950 at her christening the young charles shared his parents enthusiasm for the new addition to the royal family with the arrival of a little sister the toddler charles needed special attention the queen always had a soft spot for her firstborn the boy child and anne was very naughty and therefore not quite so endearing as prince charles he was very sweet very loving and just adorable in fact his grandfather said we love him just tumbling around the room in 1952 the sick king george said goodbye to his daughter at heathrow airport she was on a state visit going to visit australia and new zealand when she stopped off in kenya and it was there that she heard that her father died a black cloud of grief descended on the nation when it learned of the loss of its king but while the old king was being mourned the new queen's reign had begun the death of her father had a huge impact on her because suddenly her young marriage her young children were all but taken away from her she was queen she had pacific duties which she had to do which really left her very little time to see her children the young children watched as their mother left buckingham palace in the gold state coach for her coronation at westminster abbey later they joined her on the balcony to acknowledge the crowds people were optimistic in the way that they thought oh this is going to be a new britain with a young queen and then on the day of the coronation came the news that hillary and tensing had conquered everest and this was another terrific morale booster official duties meant long absences away from home for the young queen on one occasion her son hardly recognized his mother being a young member of the royal family had its compensations occasionally charles and anne would join their parents on trips abroad we have to remember that um prince charles and princess anne were born before she came to the throne and she was still just the heir to the throne and so she had more time she had a more private life as soon as she exceeded the throne she had so much to do so much to learn huge commonwealth tours to do which in those days before the jet planes had rarely caught on took months the steam train allowed the young family to spend more time together a special royal children's nursery coach was hitched up to the royal train allowing the young children to travel in comfort with their parents it was the great age of the train they traveled everywhere by train and there was a special nursery coach for prince charles and princess anne and their two nannies and their detectives and their footmen and it was all fitted out beautifully the luxury of royal nursery life soon gave way to the realities of education for prince charles as a young boy his own father had been sent away to a tough school with the spartan regime and so it was to gordenston in scotland that philip sent his son he is very much a boss in the home um he was the man who he was the one who decided that the boys should go to gordonston whereas the queen herself might have preferred eaton she took her eye off her son i think that um she listened to her husband and said look i think it's a good idea if he goes away to a boarding school i'm not sure in retrospect that that was such a good idea but then we'll never really know how prince charles would have turned out if he'd been to a sort of day school or had had governors it's very very hard to tell but i think phillip was very harsh on prince charles we know that this has not been an immense success and poor prince charles was deeply unhappy there but i think the queen felt particularly um that in her marriage it should be a traditional marriage of her time which in which the husband called the shots and the women ran the house and also i feel that she had to compensate felt that she had to compensate for the fact that she was in essence the boss and this dominant male macho man that duke had to take second place in public anyway in february 1960 prince andrew was born almost 10 years after princess anne so why the gap between their second and third child she was just too busy i think the duke of edinburgh thought that um two children probably enough they had after all boy and a girl that was enough to ensure the succession but then i think as the queen like many of us as a certain age becomes a little broody and thinks how nice to have a baby and that's what happened once you have one baby you ought to have another keep keeper company at their first meeting the teenage princess elizabeth confided in a friend that she never took her eyes off philip how have things changed since then the queen will call prince philip darling but if she's in public or she's cross with him she'll call him philippe and one knows then that things are not are a little glacial and the queen is not the sort of person to lose her temper i think if there's a blistering row about something she would probably go out and ride her horses or go and feed the dogs or groom the corgis and he may stomp about a bit but the queen her voice is not raised loudly but everyone is aware if she is displeased and not amused in 1977 the queen celebrated her silver jubilee the pageantry had not changed since her grandparents king george v and queen mary celebrated their silver jubilee along the same route in the same coach in 1935. more than 40 years later the gold state coach pulled up in front of saint paul's cathedral since succeeding to the throne 25 years ago the queen acknowledges the warmth from the crowd in a manner unbeknown to her royal ancestors the royal walkabout is now part of royal duties she comes from an era when it was not done for those people to be demonstrated in public and sometimes she said after a day of meeting people you know i simply ache with smiling but as confident it's a sad thing she doesn't have a smiley face but where she was actually very touched and very natural was the time of the silver jubilee going through the streets and the people came out once again and shook her warm and she was astonished by this i think she gets a lot of shyness from queen mary same sort of uprightness and inability and yet it's so caring later during the silver jubilee celebrations the queen paid tribute to her husband in a speech at the guildhall she explained the real meaning of the royal we we and by that i mean both of us are most grateful a 21-gun salute in hyde park to celebrate prince philip's 70th birthday culminated in an open carriage drive with the queen prince philip was born royal he was the only son of prince andrew of greece and his british-born wife alice his royal heritage extended to the queen's love for her pet corgis this fine specimen is the granddaughter of susan she's the corgi who accompanied the newlyweds in 1947 on their honeymoon to hampshire the current pack of seven corgis is the tenth generation descended from susan the queen is in the palace she does give them afternoon tea herself i mean she chops up their food and their biscuits and puts it down in little silver silvers and some of them are quite snappy and are not averse to biting an ankle and i sometimes think that gives her a very secret chuckle after lunch at windsor and this is quite disconcerting for guests the queen will spray dog biscuits around under the table the footman appears with a salve and on one occasion the salva of dog biscuits was presented to the queen and a nervous bishop who was sitting beside her actually took one and ate it in windsor great park the queen watches prince philip enjoy one of his favorite pastimes carriage driving however she is not amused when a crowd of nosy photographers get in her way when prince philip gave up playing polo due to a bad back injury carriage driving became a source of great satisfaction [Music] although the queen lives in palaces and castles she is a famously frugal person despite owning private estates valued at 75 million pounds you will still find the queen perhaps with a small electric fire i i think it may run to three bars but uh and very often she'll put on two but uh she likes to be thrifty and this is very sort of aristocratic in a way but as i said it's curious because the queen mother is not thrifty at all and if you eat a client's house the food is lavish and whipped cream and wonderful salmon wonderful beef wonderful wine but the queen is perhaps a little different [Applause] the queen is custodian of many royal treasures her wealth is incalculable she has in her possession a royal collection worth more than 10 billion pounds it's terribly hard to work out just how rich the queen is it's very hard to separate the goods chattels which are very valuable ones that she is custodian of for her life she can't sell any of these things so i don't think that should be included in her assets the stamp collection of buckingham palace is worth millions all the china and she's got so many different sets of dinner sets and whereas you and i might have we would consider ourselves to have 20 set pieces hers are most likely 450 set pieces of every item she's most likely got 20 of those micen porcelain all the great ones of the world now is that hers or is she just custodian i think she's just custodian her art collection is just astonishing there are so many van dykes around there are michelangelo's i mean absolutely endless goodies but i'm not sure that she could classify them as being hers i don't think she can certainly not the crown jewels that's the state but obviously this is an immensely rich woman [Music] the queen is an excellent horse woman and enjoys a good canter in windsor great park she breeds her own horses from her studs in norfolk and hampshire they are run on a commercial basis and all the profits are taxed [Music] [Music] every year in june the royal family attends ascot races [Music] queen's passion for racing goes back to her father who had a string of racehorses an early victory for her was in 1952 at glorious goodwood it was announced during the meeting that the queen at least the cult gave time from the national stud so it was a fitting climax when on the last day of the meeting gordon richards riding for the first time in the queen's colours rode gay time to victory in the gordon stakes horse racing has always given the queen enormous pleasure she has tremendous knowledge of horses and horses and breeding but um it's gone way back and there's a little story which i think is just so lovely about her and about racing she's very fond of her trainers and years and years ago there was a trainer called captain charles moore very old man who was very very ill and she went to see him with queen mother and she said well how are you captain moore well mommy said to tell the truth he said i feel like a rabbit that's just been bolted by a ferret she said and turned to the queen mother she said well i've been called many things behind my back before but i've never been called a ferret to my face before at the races she expresses her emotions you can see the sort of absolute girlish glee with which she treats them when she'll run down you know to get a better view and you know her face lights up as you never see it light up on public occasions this is when you see the queen really excited absolutely natural excited you see her nudging the queen mother whoever is beside her with binoculars up um it's marvelous to see because this is this is the queen at play she's very knowledgeable on the way horses are be they race horses two-year-olds in training sprint horses or whether they're driving carriages [Music] among the queen's myriad of less well-known duties is her stewardship of the duchy of lancaster her huge land holding which makes a substantial contribution to the monarchy's finances as its land lady the queen pays the duchy regular visits her tenants turn out delighted to see their queen at close quarters [Music] there is nothing which arouses more interest among her female tenants and their daughters than the choice of clothes the queen makes for these visits to the duchy she has a very matter-of-fact attitude to clothes she has always said i'm not a firm star um clothes you know are just essential to the job and she has very strict rules she will say to designers who will draw up some beautiful um thing for a tour and she'll say hopeless for waving i can't wave with sleeves like that so they must always ensure that she can wave hats must always be off the face because people must be able to see me and lipstick is always a very strong red and this is for the sake of the photographers and so that she can be seen by people from a great distance but she doesn't have a frivolous attitude to clothes though she does like pretty bright colors she likes um lemons pinks blues purples although she looks very good actually in dark colors on one occasion she was wearing a very she'd chosen a very pretty outfit for fergie and andrew's wedding it was kind of bluey bluey lilacy and some kick cleats and she was trying it on with her dressmaker and prince philip walked and he said that's rather nice lily burt and she flushed bright pink so she does like to be praised and she is there is a feminine side to the queen which perhaps we don't always see her hair is immovable probably in in whatever the weather conditions and i once said to her hairdresser what is the secret of the queen's hair you know why why does it never move in the wind and he said brute force and lacquer elizabeth is queen of 15 countries her commonwealth is very dear to her a lot of people don't appreciate this they consider the commonwealth as really very unimportant a relic from the past it's not how the queen views it at all she considers her role as some queen of australia new zealand canada any of the other 16 dominion countries she considers that every bit as important as being queen of britain uk northern ireland wales all that every bit is important and she loves her prime ministers the commonwealth love her they think that she's the person who cares about them that the government of the day in britain usually doesn't and also she's been around so long that all these she's such friends with all these leaders she knows their problems she knows their families she knows intimate details about them and you know whether their brothers just died or something so they really feel that she genuinely cares and she does as a world traveler the queen is often exposed to all the pitfalls of bad planning during a visit to the united states a speech at the white house resulted in some red faces some nitwit had got to the stand from watch where she was reading her speech a little bit too high and the camera was too low and you just had a picture up over the lectern onto you couldn't see the queen's face properly all you could see was a hat and everybody dubbed it as the speaking hat she finds this actually immensely amusing she has a great sense of humor during a visit to russia the queen entertained president yeltsin and his wife receptions on the royal yacht drinks are very lavish indeed and of course this loosens people's tongues and she loves that and she loves people to be natural and i've been at some receptions abroad where people have perhaps relaxed a bit too much and they start to tell her a story which is terribly funny to the rest of us but you wonder how is this going to go down and she loves it she's very easily amused and makes people feel very good well the queen's friends will tell you what a wonderful sense of humor she has and how she finds she likes to laugh at herself for a start and she loves ridiculous things and she'll laugh till the tears run down her face and then she's got a quick wit a sense of irony i mean it's a story i particularly like and she was in a norfolk shop dressed as she normally is in the country with her head scarf and everything and a woman came up and said damn i hope you don't mind my saying so but you look awfully like the queen and the queen said how very reassuring [Applause] in 1981 prince charles set out to marry lady diana spencer the daughter of one of the queen's equeries it was heralded as a great step forward for the house of windsor i think the day that the prince of wales married lady diana spencer was a great day for the queen what it was showing that day was that the continuity of her family was con was being continued in a correct and proper manner he was quite late when he married prince charles you know he was he was old for a prince of wales to marry anybody i think there was always a certain amount of concern about diana who was really quite young for her years she was young anyway but she was quite childlike and i think there must have been a little bit of concern from the queen on that she'd come from a family who the queen knew and respected i mean diana's father el spencer had been the query not only to herself the queen but to her father king george vi and previous ancestors of the spencers had served the royal family going back two or three centuries so there was sort of good pedigree there and although the queen may have had one or two reservations i mean we'll never really know she's so clever at hiding all her feelings i think she was happy and satisfied that her son was marrying somebody and they would produce children and and the continuity of the house of windsor would almost certainly keep going the young princess diana was thrown into the public spotlight totally unprepared for the demanding nature of the job the queen must have known that there were all sorts of problems almost from the word go so without us knowing and she hid this very well she was aware that diana was having an incredibly difficult time settling down to married life with the focus of attention now firmly on the new princess diana accompanied the queen to the state opening of parliament in 1984 unaware that her new hairstyle would overshadow the solemnity of the occasion she had this incredible new hairstyle and this very important dignified occasion which is all part of the process of being the sovereign the head of state the opening of parliament was just blown out the window because all the newspapers and the televisions really concentrated on diana's hairstyle rather than the solemnity of the occasion now this i was told very close to the time had really infuriated the queen she didn't mind diana having a new haircut that wasn't the point the point was that by introducing it on the day of the opening of parliament she took all the emphasis away from the dignity of the occasion and it all concentrated on dan and that was not very good for democracy and for the house of windsor in 1985 prince andrew a naval officer married sarah ferguson a commoner all the royal family turned out to welcome their new member as a former naval officer's wife herself the queen could not understand why sarah was so different to her their backgrounds are so very different from hers afterwards she'd grown up with it she'd been used to buckian palace windsor castle as a child she'd been trained for her job for forever and so i don't think she fully understood the difficulties that these girls experienced and i think when it came to um the duchess of york particularly so because for the queen her own naval days as a naval wife had been absolute joy to her and the fact that sarah ferguson didn't all the judges of york didn't seem to enjoy that aspect of her husband's life she found very difficult to understand the queen did not fully appreciate the gulf between her and her daughter's in-law although differences were to develop later on she obviously thought she'd done her best to protect them if we look back remember it was the queen who called the editors to the palace in the early days when the princess of wales felt she was being pressurized by the press and the media and uh the queen said uh you know my daughter-in-law's piece must must be protected and she at that time moved to protect the princess princess wealth to her was like an adorable skittish niece i mean she just knew diana from childhood um and so she was indulgent caring and a little bit bewildered sometimes i mean in the early days when the princess was married and they were at balmoral and it was stuffy occasion princess would jump up from the table and run around the table and sit on prince charles's lap and give him a kiss i mean something like that had never been seen before amongst the royal family the queen would just shake her head and give a little smile in 1993 the queen attended the wedding of her nephew lord david lindley at westminster abbey there was a close bond between them and to david's sister lady sarah armstrong jones their parents were married in 1960 and by the time their marriage was dissolved 18 years later the queen had become a very supportive aunt to her young niece and nephew who spent many weekends and holidays with their aunt lilybet she dotes on princess margaret's children especially lady sarah who is just a favorite niece and she was a very sort of loving aunt figure and very proud of lord lindley i think one of the queen's coaches said to me that sometimes those young children thought the queen was their mother because she would always take them up to balmoral with her when princess margaret and lord snowden would go on their summer holidays to sardinia or to tuscany and she was very much a stable figure in their lives and she loved them very much in 1989 the duke and duchess of york were with the queen aboard britannia with their new daughter princess beatrice as the couple's marriage broke down the queen confided in a friend about sarah's behavior i can't understand my children sarah didn't even try to be a naval wife she said by 1991 the queen was aware that parts of her family were crumbling around her there had already been a royal marital breakdown when princess anne and her husband mark phillips had split up after 15 years of marriage the publication of andrew morton's book diana her true story ended any sympathy queen elizabeth might have had for diana these events focused attention on the queen's relationship with her grandson when prince william was at eaton the queen saw a lot of him and got to know him quite well she was concerned in the early years that she never saw them because diana in her diana ish way sort of made a great thing of bringing the children to see the queen usually when she wanted something so it wasn't always a natural happening and she didn't see very much of them but then when william was at school she saw a lot of him but now sort of geography really keeps them apart and william's you know his own man now and he's at saint andrews and he doesn't see that much of his grandmother harry sees more of her because he's just over the road and he goes to windsor castle for tea in public william and harry appeared at ease with their estranged parents but the whole royal myth which the queen had tried so hard to build up had started to unravel she found her son's behavior unsatisfactory if charles and diana met each other after they'd both been married to someone else it might have worked because there was a magic there there really was but i just she was too young and he was too emotionally young too and he just had never met anyone like diana who was so demanding and she was so basically insecure that she needed love and attention all the time which his role prevented him from giving her the queen had the highest hopes for diana and i think she she rather liked the way that diana was such a hands-on mother she was almost envious of the fact that diana could spend so much time with her children but as the years went on and the the cracks appeared in the marriage i think she felt that diana smothered rather than mothered her children and she also disapproved strongly of diana showing such emotion and she in front of her children many stories of william pushing tissues under the bathroom door diana sobbing in the bathroom and the queen really thought that that was the wrong way to bring up children not to let them feel guilty about their mother's own unhappiness [Music] the two young women who had voluntarily married into the royal family enjoyed all its privileges and then turned on the system i knew that when these divorces came one after another she did say to close friend well what have we done wrong the queen mother said to her well darling you haven't gone wrong it's just a different era and it's hard for children to bring people from the outside into that very stiff world of royalty and it still remains hard so i don't think the queen totally blames herself but i think she feels had she been around a little bit more for them perhaps she could have been more help but i don't think i think perhaps they just married the wrong people it is very difficult to be a queen and a mother i think every important executive woman finds this i think that the windsor temperament which has been handed down from george v and queen mary has also been a factor the stiff upper lip the sweeping problems under the carpet and the lack of communication and this also comes from living in enormous houses like buckingham palace where they live quite separate lives each with their own sweet and their own servants and so it isn't that you have a jolly get-together in front of the television it's a different life in 1992 the queen's home wins the castle was severely damaged by fire where the finest carpets once lay there were only charred remains the government asked the queen to pay for rebuilding and restoration coming on the heels of her family's other catastrophes the queen alluded to her sadness in a speech at the guildhall 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 an anus horribilis i suspect that i'm not alone in thinking it's so it couldn't have been worse could it all the children's marriage is going wrong one after another the tremendous scandals in the papers and the constant attention to the royal family's private lives and then the outspoken criticism of her which she wasn't used to she'd been used to nothing but kindness all her life and when the public turned on her at the time of the winds of fire and said no we won't pay i think she was deeply hurt and surprised by this on duty again for the second world war anniversary celebrations the queen is dignified in the company of other statesmen i can do it she says because i have been properly trained for the job she has been doing it for a very long time 20 years ago in scotland she was photographed arriving at the bremer games it was the same thing 30 years before same camera positions almost the same people back in the 80s the queen was hoping that a new royal generation would be equipped to take over in the event the new blood made her task a little more difficult [Music] [Applause] despite her natural ability to raise the image of royalty with her hands-on approach diana realized too that she was not the queen's type of girl for the job it has to be said that diana was more interested in buying clothes than country pursuits did the news of her death shock her of course the queen was shocked when diana died as was everybody else but her concern wasn't actually for diana or her family or prince charles it was for her grandchildren and william and harry were up at balmoral staying with the queen in scotland and her whole concentration was on protecting and safeguarding those poor young children as best she could when the royal standard was not flown at half-mast the queen narrowly escaped a major public relations disaster she then gave orders for a flag to be put up never happened before and that it should fly at half-mast i think she was out of touch i think it was mainly because she was trying to protect the grandchildren and i think she very nearly got it seriously wrong at his mother's funeral the young prince william walked beside prince philip prince william asked his grandfather to walk in the funeral procession it was prince william's request and i think that prince william is probably the sort of son prince philip would like to have had i think he's very proud of him and he likes prince harry's robustness and i i think he's um very devoted to them in his in his way the death of diana will have a lasting impact i think it probably will be looked at in the history books as the time when the monarchy radically changed its attitude to its past and its future enter mrs camilla parker bowles long time friend and mistress to prince charles and possibly his next wife i don't think the queen will ever willingly accept camilla parker-bowles as her daughter-in-law i think that any marriage between charles and camilla gives a big problem to the house of windsor and that is the queen's consideration above the happiness of her son charles so i don't think that'll happen she has seen and met camilla once in the last i think it's 26 years they met for about four seconds camilla parker-bowles dropped to curtsy and said hello ma'am and then the queen moved swiftly on since then she has not set eyes on the lady at all [Music] the unity of the royal family is held together by an ageing generation of royals essentially private and self-contained in their own world royal appearances often make headlines for the wrong reasons princess margaret's health is a major concern for the queen she's quite strict with margaret when margaret burned her feet in the bath a few years ago which is the beginning of all her problems the queen would make her get out of her wheelchair and walk she's quite strict with i mean she she says get on with it it's her sister but she's also very concerned for margaret and wants to have her around her so that she can sort of lend a sisterly support and during the unhappiness of margaret's marriage the queen was always there for her but she was kind of this thought margaret was a bit of a drama queen and she wouldn't stand any nonsense from her for all its problems the queen's own family with its succeeding generation is the guarantee of the monarchy's continuity there won't be an abdication that's never ever been discussed at buckingham palace or anywhere else it just doesn't enter any of their minds of an abdication the main reason for that they're all sorts but the main one is that the queen was anointed with holy oil and took a vow to continue as sovereign until she died it was taken before god the queen is a deeply religious person a practicing christian and when she took that vow that was for life that's why there won't be an abdication above all other considerations like most families the windsors have not been unscathed by the vast social changes of the last century i think in this day it's very difficult being a queen because you have to appear to be modern and outgoing and yet remember she's been in that ivory tower since the age of 26. she's never been able to walk down the street and buy an apple who doesn't even know the price of an apple so then relating to this modern world when you're in the ivory tower very difficult and really she's often said she just wants to go and live in the country with her dogs and horses [Music] [Music] prince philip once claimed that the monarchy exists not in the interests of the monarch but in the interest of the people this has certainly been true throughout the queen's reign [Music] [Music] [Applause] amidst the call for changes in the monarchy one should not forget the extraordinary relationship which has existed between the people and its sovereign over the last 50 years and before who can deny that while her subjects look forward to their monarchy changing with the times there is so much the queen can look back on with pride [Music] for the last 50 years the queen's marriage to prince philip has been like a golden thread woven into the fabric of her life as princess elizabeth and as queen elizabeth ii in the massive change which her kingdom has undergone during her reign the queen's relationship with prince philip has been a welcome constant and a source of reassurance to her subjects it all began officially with their engagement in june 1947 but they had already been in love for several years one of the world's most glamorous couples at the time theirs truly was a romance of the century in november 1947 amidst cheering crowds they made their way to westminster abbey to be married in a magnificent ceremony [Music] elizabeth's wedding dress of white satin was embroidered with 10 000 seed pearls and crystals to form the illusion of a mass of flowers including the rose of york the train over 18 feet long proved almost too much to handle for her pages her cousins prince william of gloucester and michael of kent when the royal couple appeared on the balcony of buckingham palace they were greeted by huge crowds it was hard to believe that the king and the government had originally planned a family wedding at st george's chapel for fear that a large ceremony would offend the british people still beset by rationing most of the jewelry worn by the royal family had been in store since 1939 one of the most striking things about it was it was the first joyful royal event that had been since the war and britain had been through very difficult times of poverty of people without homes after all the bombing of the cities it was very very depressing time and churchill described the wedding as a bright ray of color on the hard grey road we have to travel many of the landmarks of the queen's life with prince philip including philip's 70th birthday have by necessity been official public occasions consequently to many of her subjects the queen's relationship with her husband has sometimes seemed essentially formal even their departure for their honeymoon had to be supervised by countless officials but as they left by train for broadland the country seat of philip's uncle lord man baton it was quite clear that the future queen was looking forward to spending some time alone with her bridegroom it had been a long wait for both of them the queen was 13 when she first saw prince philip who was then young naval cadet at dartmouth and very good looking you know every sort of school girl's idea of a dashing hero blonde life very sort of athletic they then met some years later and of course was so different then a courtship was conducted perhaps at a distance but the queen had met the man she loved and i think has never stopped loving perhaps their happiest time was between their marriage and her accession to the throne prince philip rejoined the navy and was stationed in malta here for much of the time the princess had the freedom to enjoy the life of a naval officer's wife for princess elizabeth it was like flying out of a cage after all she'd been brought up during the war at windsor castle very much isolated and there in malta she just lived the life of any naval wife going to dances going to parties going to beach parties just living a totally normal life and it was perhaps the happiest period of her life during this near idyllic period prince charles was born charles's grandparents george vi and queen elizabeth his great-grandmother queen mary and the entire nation were as excited at the birth of the second in line to the throne sometimes princess elizabeth and prince philip shared their enthusiasm as new parents with the newsreel makers of the day anxious to show the progress of their son to his future subjects two years later princess anne was born as parents princess elizabeth and prince philip were delighted with the birth of their daughter so was the entire royal family but as the future queen and consort they were equally delighted that with the birth of their second child they had already secured the succession of the monarchy sadly as the king's health deteriorated princess elizabeth and her husband had to perform more and more of his official duties she was on a state visit going to visit australia and new zealand when she stopped off in kenya and it was there that she heard that her father died a black cloud of grief descended on the entire nation when it learnt of the loss of its king at his death no one was more devastated than the new queen her mother now the queen mother and her sister princess margaret but while the old king was being mourned the new queen's reign had begun this was celebrated the following june by the coronation public support for the occasion ran so high that the queen and prince philip insisted that their route to westminster abbey from buckingham palace be extended to accommodate the number of children that they expected to watch their progress the husband of a queen ragnan has no set role in a coronation unlike a queen consort he is not crowned but it was arranged that following the homage the queen and her husband knelt side by side for the blessing and together took holy communion her appearance on the balcony after her coronation was greeted with tumultuous applause the queen was only 27 a young wife and a mother of two young children during the ceremony his grandmother and aunt had real difficulty in restraining prince charles's bouts of over-excitement punctuated by extreme boredom which he expressed by sinking his head in his hand but he had inherited some of his grandmother's way with an appreciative gallery and he instinctively knew how to win their affection people were optimistic in the way that they thought oh this is going to be a new britain with a young queen and then on the day of the coronation came the news that hillary and tensing had conquered everest and this was another terrific morale booster queen elizabeth was only 27 when she acceded to the throne having prince philip some five years her senior at her side was to prove a great source of strength and comfort to her [Applause] within five months of the coronation the queen and prince philip made amends for the official tour they had abandoned on the death of her father by embarking on a six-month tour of the commonwealth in all they traveled some 43 000 miles traveling abroad they seem to go from one official engagement to another with hardly a pause in between some critics have argued that the queen was so preoccupied with her duties it appeared both she and prince philip were guilty of neglecting their duties as parents what is your queen i shall get to know you well and learn something of your achievements and your problems well i think basically we have to remember that um prince charles and princess anne were born before she came to the throne when she was still just heir to the throne and so she had more time she had a more private life as soon as she exceeded the throne she had so much to do so much to learn huge commonwealth tours to do which in those days before the jet planes had rarely caught on took months after long absences abroad the queen and prince philip saw their children and grandmother as soon as they could occasionally prince charles and princess anne would be flown out to meet their parents on their way home and sometimes enjoyed the company of some exotic playmates there sometimes the queen and prince philip were able to relax with charles and anne in the tranquil setting of their royal homes at sandringham or balmoral at balmoral especially the royal family were in some ways part of the local community which had known the queen since she was a little girl consequently the queen and prince philip could happily take their children to local events and therefore to a great extent enjoy the outing just like any other family no doubt the queen would have welcomed many more occasions like these [Music] but the business of being elizabeth ii and prince philip goes on almost round the clock between the trooping of the color in the 1950s to the state visit of the emir of kuwait 40 years later she has barely had a break from her official duties she must have accompanied state visitors on this route to buckingham palace more than a hundred times [Music] thirty years before she received the emir of kuwait she received king faisal of saudi arabia each visit by a foreign head of state requires a massive research to ensure its success not only must she be fully conversant with her visitors personality likes and dislikes but also the political situation in their country and its relationship with britain [Music] [Applause] one of the climaxes of the queen's reign was the silver jubilee of 1977. a million people patched the mile to cheer the queen and prince philip as they rode in the golden state coach from buckingham palace to saint paul's cathedral for a service of thanksgiving here she was accompanied by both prince philip and prince charles after the service she went on a walkabout through the city of london some of her subjects regarded the queen's open enjoyment of mingling with the crowds as out of character she comes from an era when it was not done for those people to be demonstrated in public and sometimes she said after a day of meeting people you know i simply ache with smiling but as confined it's a sad thing she doesn't have a smiley face but where she was actually very touched and very natural was the time of the silver jubilee going through the streets and the people came out once again and shook her warm and she was astonished by this i think she gets a lot of vaginas from queen mary same sort of uprightness and inability and yet so caring the queen gratefully acknowledged the part prince philip had played in her reign we and by that i mean both of us are most grateful earlier she reiterated the pledge she had made as a young princess in 1947. i declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong god help me to make good my vow and god bless all of you who are willing to share it the queen made that declaration near the end of the royal tour of south africa in 1947 one purpose of the tour was to thank south africa for its effort in the second world war another was to stop the rise of the nationalist party which planned to disenfranchise the black population the tour's subsequent failure to achieve the same was a great disappointment to the queen and so years later she took great pleasure in her visit to south africa after the abolition of apartheid and its readmission to the commonwealth and in receiving president mandela as south africa's first black president during their visit to south africa in 1947 the royal family was given a rapturous reception wherever they went to accompany their children on the tour king george vi and queen elizabeth had taken their favorite equity group captain peter townsend with them faithfully as the tour progressed his friendship with princess margaret deepened her wish to marry group captain townsend after his divorce from his first wife became one of elizabeth ii and prince philip's most difficult problems [Music] i have to say that they didn't cope that well um first they tried to pretend that the problem didn't really exist and that it would go away and that probably um townsend and margaret then romance wouldn't last what was interesting about it at the time was it was the first time that the public really felt that the royal family's private life was part of their life and that they had the right to comment on it and when princess margaret went to the east end with a friend of mine to visit um settlements there all the women in the street would say you know go for it meg you know you do what you want now this is the first time that the royal family had experienced that kind of personal interest in their private affairs for allowing her sister's love match to be vetoed some critics have accused the queen of cruelty i think the queen behaved beautifully and very humanely to her sister i think perhaps very early on them steps might have been taken to part the couple before it got too serious and nobody did anything it was a very difficult time for princess margaret after all her adored father had died and she still felt his loss and she found in townsend a very sympathetic shoulder to cry on and he was very popular with the royal family particularly with the queen mother and he in the queen mother and princess margaret very much part the same circle that clarence has unlike previous dowager queens the queen mother did not bow out of public life on the death of her husband on the contrary she issued a declaration that she wanted to continue with the good works that she'd been carrying out whilst queen and ever since she has remained a pillar of the monarchy and a source of strength to her daughter [Music] an impressive trio in public even prince philip is said to be wary of the strong bond that exists between the queen the queen mother and princess margaret those three are so close and they talk to each other every single day and the queen and princess margaret will sometimes pretend to be exasperated with mummy as they call the queen mother when she buys yet another outfit you know incredibly extravagant and appears you know swathed and chiffon and flowers and they say oh mummy what you've been spending money again but of course they totally adore her and they love this frivolous extravagant insider and in fact the queen pays for the queen mother's racing and for her horses i mean they totally indulge the queen mother and the queen and princess margaret have a very close bond and in times of difficulty princess margaret will be very supportive and the queen of her [Music] when she was a child she was taught to keep the wrapping paper from her presents and the ribbon and it all had to be flattened out and put away and the ribbons rolled up and i think these are habits that stick with you you will still find the queen and buckingham palace perhaps with a small electric fire i i think it may run to three bars but uh quite and very often she'll put on two but uh she likes she likes to be thrifty and this is very sort of aristocratic in a way but as i said it's curious because the queen mother is not thrifty at all and if you eat a clown's hives the food is lavish and whipped cream and wonderful salmon wonderful beef wonderful wine but the queen is perhaps a little different in february 1960 the queen gave birth to prince andrew her third child almost 10 years after princess anne was born the queen had been thrilled to find herself pregnant again and described the future duke of york as a welcome surprise she and prince philip completed their family with the birth of prince edward four years later some commentators have claimed that the queen and prince philip had an easier time with their two younger children as growing children both andrew and edward seemed more at ease than their elder brother perhaps this was because their parents took a more direct approach in their upbringing so why did they leave a gap of nearly 10 years between their second and third child she was just too busy i think the duke of edinburgh thought that um two children were probably enough they had after all a boy and a girl that was enough to ensure the succession but then i think as the queen like many of us as a certain age becomes a little broody and thinks how nice to have a baby and that's what happened once you have one baby you ought to have another to keep it company all of prince philip's sons followed him to gordenstein where he had been one of kurt hahn's first pupils he is very much a boss in the home he was the man who he was the one who decided that the boys should go to gordonston whereas the queen herself might have preferred eaton we know that this has not been an immense success and the poor prince charles was deeply unhappy there but i think the queen felt particularly um that in her marriage it should be a traditional marriage of her time which in which the husband called the shots and the women ran the house and also i feel that she had to compensate felt that she had to compensate for the fact that she was in essence the boss and this dominant um male macho man that duke had to take second place in public anyway throughout his marriage prince philip has pursued many public interests of his own the most famous of these has been the duke of edinburgh's award scheme which he launched in 1956. since then over two million people have met personal challenges and enjoyed many forms of recreation which they would never have undertaken but for the scheme's existence [Laughter] like his brothers prince edward successfully participated in the scheme to his father's great delight and took the scheme over after his father retired 1973 saw the marriage of princess anne it was celebrated with a royal wedding in westminster abbey as befitted the only daughter of the queen and prince philip in the spirit of the times anne married the untitled captain mark phillips there was a substantial gulf between their social backgrounds but they were united in their passion for horses mark phillips was a member of the british olympic team when he met anne in 1968. the queen and prince philip were apparently happy about the match and so were the british public who turned out in vast numbers the queen mother once ironically observed that had ann and mark's details been fed into a dating agency computer it would have certainly made them a perfect match princess anne's marriage was to end in divorce but not before to produce the queen's first two grandchildren peter and zara phillips anne would often bring her young family to join her unmarried brothers and her parents at balmoral where all together they would enjoy a well-earned rest amidst the tranquility of the countryside it's hard to imagine the queen and prince philip having their differences but when the queen is crossed how does she show it the queen will call prince philip darling but if she's in public or she's crossed with him she'll call him philippe and one knows then that things are not are a little glacial and the queen is not the sort of person to lose her temper i think if there's a blistering row about something she'll probably go out and ride her horses or go and feed the dogs or groom the corgis and he may stomp about a bit but the queen her voice is not raised loudly but everyone is aware if she is displeased and not amused it was that balmoral whilst on holiday with the royal family more than 50 years ago that prince philip unofficially asked the queen to marry him and she unofficially agreed to it since then it's been the scene of countless private celebrations often with just the royal corgis for company the queen an excellent horse woman has always had a passion for racing and has been a significant owner since she inherited a string of horses on the death of her father an early victory was in the year of her accession at glorious goodwood it was announced during the meeting that the queen had leased the cult gay time from the national stud so it was a fitting climax when on the last day of the meeting gordon richards riding for the first time in the queen's colors rode gay time to victory in the gordon stakes since then the queen has gone on to win all the english classics except the derby but whatever the result horse racing has always given the queen enormous pleasure she has tremendous knowledge of horses and horses and breeding but um it's gone way back and there's a little story which i think is just so lovely about her and about racing she's very fond of her trainers and years and years ago there was a trainer called captain charles moore very old man who was very very ill and she went to see him with queen mother and she said well how are you captain moore well mommy said to tell the truth he said i feel like a rabbit that's just been bolted by a ferret she said and turned to the queen mother she said well i've been called many things behind my back before but i've never been called a ferret to my face before a race meeting is one place the queen makes no effort to hide her emotions you can see the sort of absolute girlish glee with which she treats a wind she'll run down you know to get a better view and you know her face lights up as you never see it light up on public occasions this is when you see the queen really excited absolutely natural excited you see her nudging the queen mother whoever is beside her with binoculars up um it's marvelous to see because this is this is the queen at play sometimes the queen is quite content to spend her time keeping her corgis happy while prince philip enjoys his favorite equestrian sport since a wrist injury put paid to his polo playing career this has been carriage driving this is a more sedate sport than horse racing but is still fiercely competitive no doubt drawing on the queen's legendary knowledge of bloodstock and horsemanship the prince became one of the world's leading competitive drivers winning at meetings at home and abroad apart from the natural stimulation of the sport it also offers philip a good chance to unwind from his public duties when technical problems arise the queen shares prince philip's concern but she makes certain that he doesn't become so preoccupied with them that he forgets to give his horses all the encouragement they need and show is running deserve minutes early in the main ring so this is a 20-minute call now for you please uh note that we are running 20 minutes early a favorite competition of prince phillips has been the harrods international driving grand prix which is held on home territory for him wins the great park prince philip is never averse to winning but more important to him is the chance to compete and the challenge each course presents [Applause] the 34th year of the queen's marriage saw the wedding of prince charles to lady diana spencer the tragic death of diana the princess of wales makes it impossible to recall this event without extreme sadness but no account of the queen's marriage could be complete without the marriage of her eldest son and heir apparent overshadowed though it is now by subsequent events charles and diana's wedding was one of the most magnificent royal occasions of the century it would be impossible to pass over the nation's massive enthusiasm for this occasion huge crowds flocked to london and an enormous audience watched the ceremony on television there has never been better evidence for the deep affection the british people had and continues to have for its monarchy one of the many national rituals the queen performs is the state opening of parliament in the queen's speech he outlines the forthcoming program of legislation there are numerous other rituals more intimately connected to the throne which the queen dutifully performs every year among these are the investitures of the several orders of chivalry over which she presides the most senior of these is the order of the garter those who've been appointed to the order include several foreign royalties as well as senior members of the british royal family senior members of the nobility and the most distinguished former politicians and servicemen as the night of the garter prince charles used to attend these ceremonials with princess diana as head of the commonwealth the queen fervently believes in this unique international club the curious grouping of countries which encompass a quarter of the earth in many ways she is the commonwealth and she sees it as a central part of her role to ensure that the commonwealth is preserved and strengthened since she came to the throne virtually every nation in the commonwealth has achieved independence and most of them have opted to be republics so that the queen is no longer their head of state many people believe that because of this the commonwealth would disintegrate but the reverse has proved true prince philip has shared the queen's commitment to this family of nations by accompanying her on all her commonwealth tours he's also undertaken several tours on his own to some of the more remote regions despite all the commonwealth conferences that have taken place during the queen's reign it can still prove extremely difficult to get its leaders organized for the official photo this can irritate the queen who is always keen to get the formalities over with so that she can renew old friendships [Music] you only have to go to a commonwealth day reception to see the tremendous joy there is on her face and in the face of people around her the commonwealth love her they think that she's the person who cares about them that the government of the day in britain usually doesn't and also she's been around so long that all these she's such friends with all these leaders she knows their problems she knows their families she knows intimate details about them you know whether their brothers just died or something so they really feel that she genuinely cares and she does breaking with old tradition queen elizabeth ii was the first english monarch to meet the pope since the establishment of the church of england by henry viii although the queen is in hereditary monarch she's often seen as the guardian of democracy this was one reason why she was invited to visit the united states to celebrate the bicentenary of american independence there is a symbolism in the events of such a visit that defies analysis but which has a way of reaching the hearts of people far and wide when the queen visited the czech republic her presence was generally regarded as a sign that the new nation had been reintegrated into the mainstream of european culture and politics after years of isolation under soviet domination president havel saw his meeting with the queen as an endorsement of its democratic constitution in order to cement britain's friendship with the new democratic state of russia the queen and prince philip paid a state visit there they were received by the russian president in the magnificent setting of saint george's hall in the heart of the kremlin later they traveled to leningrad here they made a spectacular boat trip across the river from the winter palace to the chapel of saint peter in saint paul where the russian tsars are laid to rest [Music] they also attended a commemoration of the 600 000 russians who died of starvation in the 900 day siege of the city in the second world war this was a rare british acknowledgement of russia's crucial role in the allies defeat of nazi germany one evening the queen and prince philip furthered cultural relations between russia and great britain by attending the bolshoi ballet the queen also entertained the russian president and his wife mrs yeltsin aboard the royal yacht britannia with a banquet in true royal style the queen and prince philip's second son prince andrew married sarah ferguson in july 1985. there was unrestrained excitement during the celebrations led by the princess of wales [Music] [Applause] on that heady summer's day it seemed that the new duchess of york could only benefit the monarchy with her boisterous informality it was unprecedented that the queen stood amidst her subjects princess diana carried the second in line to the throne amongst the throng to see his uncle and his new aunt head off for their honeymoon the queen was initially very fond of both her daughters-in-law but the problem was she didn't fully appreciate the gulf which existed between her and them [Applause] their backgrounds are so very different from hers afterwards she'd grown up with it she'd been used to buckingham palace windsor castle as a child she'd been trained for her job for forever and so i don't think she fully understood the difficulties that these girls experienced and i think when it came to um the duchess of york particularly so because for the queen her own naval days as a naval wife had been absolute joy to her and the fact that sarah ferguson didn't all the judges of york didn't seem to enjoy that aspect of her husband's life she found very difficult to understand although differences were to develop later on the queen obviously thought she'd done her best to protect princess diana if we look back remember it was the queen who called the editors to the palace in the early days when the princess of wales felt she was being pressurized by the press and the media and the queen said you know my daughter-in-law's piece must must be protected and she at that time moved to protect the princess princess wales to her was like an adorable skittish niece i mean she just knew diana from childhood um and so she was indulgent caring and a little bit bewildered sometimes i mean in the early days when the princess was married and they were at balmoral and it was stuffy occasion princess would jump up from the table and run round the table and sit on prince charles's lap and give him a kiss i mean something like that had never been seen before amongst the royal family the queen would just shake her head and give a little smile whatever her problems with her daughters-in-law the queen like her mother has always enjoyed a close relationship with her grandchildren if they're going away for a long time the queen likes to stay with them until the last possible moment [Music] whether at windsor balmoral or sandringham time off with the family is undoubtedly precious to the queen and prince philip [Music] the more private royal surroundings offer their grandchildren the chance to relax and spend time with their cousins and to keep up with each other's parents [Music] informal occasions are ideal opportunities for passing on ideas and enthusiasms over the years it has been known that four generations of the windsors have attended church together particularly at christmas time something not many families can boast the queen takes an active interest in all her grandchildren but in particular from his earliest days she has played an important part in preparing prince william for all of the responsibilities he will undertake when in due course he becomes king [Music] not only is she an important figure to her grandchildren but she has been a great support to princess margaret's children the lindleys during the queen's reign alone windsor castle has been the setting for hundreds of state occasions like walentha the shipyard worker who rose to become the polish president came to wins the castle to pay a state visit to the queen in 1992 because of poland's recent emergence from the communist bloc it attracted considerable public interest whatever their previous background every world leader is given the same ceremonial hospitality and afforded all courtesies by the queen and prince philip the statesman that he is mr valencia took great care not to break any royal conventions by sitting down before the queen mother as the occasion progressed no one had any inkling that this was going to be the last royal banquet in saint george's hall for many years to come a few months later windsor castle was severely damaged by fire where the finest carpets once laid there were now only charred remains massive timbers centuries old had become nothing more than smoldering ashes the queen's grief at the fire and other events of that year were graphically alluded to in her speech at her traditional december banquet at the guildhall 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 an anus horribilis i suspect that i am not alone in thinking it so it couldn't have been worse could it all the children's marriage is going wrong one after another the tremendous scandals in the papers and the constant attention to the royal family's private lives and then the outspoken criticism of her which she wasn't used to she'd been used to nothing but kindness all her life and when the public turned on her at the time of the winds of fire and said no we won't pay i think she was deeply hurt and surprised by this still the queen could not escape the never-ending treadmill of public engagement no doubt she had to struggle to keep up appearances when she welcomed the president of malaysia to an official banquet at the dorchester hotel but the queen and prince philip treated the malaysian leader and his wife with all their usual charm if the rift between the princess of wales and their son prince charles was troubling them they made certain they did not spoil the occasion for their guests by betraying any sign of it [Music] but there were one or two heads of state whom the queen might have felt she knew so well that she could have unburdened her family's problems to them these included president mandela and other commonwealth leaders whom she had met regularly at commonwealth conferences over the years tremendous bond between some people like president mandela and i think she feels that she's seen these countries through lots of turbulence she's seen in her own family and it's it's coming good in the end the 50th anniversary of the allied landings in normandy in the second world war was marked by several eye-catching ceremonies both on sea and on land by this time much of the british public were preoccupied with the marriage difficulties of the queen's sons her response was to put them to one side and make the most of the celebrations the queen when she was princess elizabeth had joined the ats and learned how to drive heavy vehicles and how to service heavy vehicles and she's always been very proud of what she learnt then and regards herself as extremely good driver as a result and it also conjured up memories of their father who was the leader during the war they all stood on the balcony the family being cheered by the crowds at the end of the war in europe so there must be many memories of that day and i think what was particularly nice for them was the huge crowd that gathered in in the mall i can't remember how many there were 50 fifty thousand also and the great feelings of emotion from that crowd which is something that you can't choreograph who can't organize and one young man said although he hadn't been born at the time the war ended this is what the royal family is all about no doubt amidst the splendor and excitement of the occasion memories of the queen's own wartime experiences came flooding back but the problems of her sons and their wives could never have been far from her mind i know that when these divorces came one after another um she did say to close friend well what have we done wrong but she said we shouldn't i what are we done wrong where have we gone wrong i think partly it's a question of circumstances it is very difficult to be a queen and a mother i think every important executive woman finds this and the queen aspect adds even more difficulty we were speaking earlier about the aura that the queen has um i think that the winds windsor temperament which has been handed down from george v and queen mary has also been a factor the stiff upper lip the sweeping problems under the carpet and the lack of communication and this also comes from living in enormous houses like buckingham palace where they live quite separate lives each with their own sweet and their own servants and so it isn't that you have a jolly get together in front of the television it's a different life prince philip may have sometimes seemed a forbidding even distant figure whilst bringing up his own sons but he clearly enjoys the sympathetic relationship with his grandsons his closeness to prince william has already become evident in the wake of princess diana's tragic death prince william asked his grandfather to walk in the funeral procession it was prince william's request and i think that prince william is probably the sort of son prince philip would like to have had i think he's very proud of him and he likes prince harry's robustness and i i think he's very devoted to them in his in his way the queen's premature return from her holiday at balmoral to witness the full extent of public grief before diana's funeral was unprecedented the death of diana will have a lasting impact i think it probably will be looked at in the history books as the time when the monarchy radically changed its attitude to its past and its future and really talk aboard the necessity for modernization for closer relationship with the public and also one has to say a better public relations attitude than they've shown either two [Applause] but amidst the cause for changes in the monarchy we should not forget the extraordinary relationship which has existed between the people and its sovereign over the last 50 years and before who can deny that when they look back over the great events of this nation's recent history the images of the queen inevitably come to mind in good times and in bad the queen has continued to represent her nation's independence even identity [Music] prince philip once claimed that the monarchy exists not in the interests of the monarch but in the interest of the people this has certainly been true throughout the queen's reign for all its problems her own family with its succeeding generations is the guarantee of the monarchy's continuity like most families the windsors have not been unscathed by the vast social changes that have occurred over the last half century but whatever challenge life has brought them the queen and prince philip have faced them together [Music] thank goodness that while her subjects look forward to their monarchy changing with the times there is so much the queen and prince philip can look back on with pride not least that royal romance which began over 50 years ago [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 3,501,558

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, queen elizabeth ii, platinum jubilee, diamond jubilee, silver jubilee, prince philip, queen elizabeth ii and prince philip love story, the life of queen elizabeth ii, king edward viii abdication, 70 years of queen elizabeth ii, queen's coronation

Id: cVbC2gPueXc

Length: 195min 28sec (11728 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 02 2022