The Queen's Speech by Ingrid Seward

Author:Ingrid Seward [Seward, Ingrid]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Because of the general sense of apathy surrounding the monarchy, the Queen decided that the fortieth anniversary of her accession, 6 February 1992, was to be suitably low key. She discouraged any festivities and a plan to erect a fountain in Parliament Square was dropped at her request. The milestone was marked, however, by a BBC documentary, Elizabeth R, which showed a relatively informal monarch at work in her various homes, preparing speeches, making official visits and with her family at Balmoral. The 110-minute film, produced and directed by Edward Mirzoeff, was extremely well received, and attracted a huge audience of 17.85 million, making it one of the most-watched programmes of the year, and when it was released on video, it sold extremely well.

However, by then, the year had already provided the first of its major problems. In January, the Queen was confronted by her favourite son Prince Andrew and his wife telling her that their marriage was all but over. The meeting was brief and painful and Sarah later wrote: ‘She asked me to reconsider, to be strong and go forward.’ To placate the Queen, the Yorks agreed to delay any final decision for six months. But this patchwork solution did not last, as later in January embarrassing photographs of the Duchess of York with Steve Wyatt, an American millionaire, were published, leading to a legal separation in March.

Princess Anne’s separation from Mark Phillips was formalised and the couple divorced in April. In May, Sarah was seen to pack up and leave the marital home, Sunninghill, with her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. But of far greater constitutional significance was the fact that the ‘War of the Waleses’ occupied many of the newspaper front pages.

In the current climate, with the success of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s marriage and the general upsurge in popularity of the royal family, it is hard to remember just how bad things were in the 1990s. There was no direct criticism of the Queen, but Charles and Diana’s disintegrating relationship and the increasingly outlandish antics of the Duchess of York eroded the brand of royalty. When the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Australia in 1992, they received a lukewarm reception compared with earlier visits. Prince Philip, ever the keeper of family affairs, told Diana and Sarah (in the nicest possible terms to the former but rather more vehemently to the latter) that their behaviour was damaging the institution of the monarchy, which the Queen had strived her whole life to uphold.

According to Robert Lacey, author of Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, ‘the turning point in the history of the modern monarchy occurred in a transport café in North Ruislip in the summer of 1991’. There, an old friend of Diana, Dr James Colhurst, told journalist Andrew Morton about her ‘catalogue of marital grievances and proposed that this should form the basis of a book, which Morton would write with the covert assistance of Diana, alongside the on-record testimony of her family and friends, whom she would authorise to speak’.

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