Elizabeth II by Douglas Hurd

Author:Douglas Hurd
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141979427
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

8

Vox Populi

It is now possible to measure scientifically the state of public opinion about the Queen and the monarchy. In earlier centuries the ebb and flow of royal popularity were gauged in a much more haphazard way. The public response to the main events involving the monarch was noted without being measured. There were two main means of judging this – the buzz of courtiers and later of the press, and loudest of all the people of London, originally known as the London mob. Since the days of the Plantagenets those on the throne were affected by the actions of the crowd, not least because it could make its presence heard and felt in the streets of the City and of Westminster. The royal reaction varied from reign to reign. Some, like Richard II, used their personal presence to humour and persuade those outside the Palace gates, at least until they had acquired enough power to overcome them. For the Stuarts, London was always a problem. Charles II decided that his last Parliament should meet not at Westminster but in Oxford. The Gordon Riots of 1780 and the demonstrations in favour of George IV’s wife Caroline showed that the power of the mob was still strong, though volatile in its opinions. There was in London no Versailles to separate the ruling elite from the crowd. The Duke of Wellington had to protect himself: even the hero of Waterloo was vulnerable to a stone-throwing London crowd. However, once he was dead only his victories were remembered; the Duke’s funeral in 1852 was one of the great public events of the century.

Disraeli had drawn comfort from his reception by the crowd when he was applauded and Gladstone booed in 1872 as they gave thanks in St Paul’s for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from typhoid. Usually men had to rely on the taxi driver, the stationmaster or the daily charlady for their estimate of the public’s view. But at last a way of measuring opinion was emerging; it was in the form of a general election punctuated by occasional by-elections. As the franchise gradually expanded general elections became more accurate as a measure of public opinion. This was a godsend for those in positions of responsibility who had been accustomed to rely on casual conversations and fleeting impressions for their opinion of the public mood.

By the time the Queen came to the throne in 1952, opinion polls were emerging which purported for the first time to measure public opinion accurately and comprehensively. The Queen’s advisers used these techniques on her behalf, but it is hard to find examples of the Queen altering her view to align it more accurately with the findings of the polls. Their impression on her was less direct. She knows that her ministers, and especially the Prime Minister whom she sees every week, are politically influenced by the polls. She adds their opinions to the store of information which she accumulates in her own exceptional memory.

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