How Queen Elizabeth juggled being a mother, grandmother and a monarch

The documented life of Queen Elizabeth II will account for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pieces of paper. Investitures, parliamentary documents, Letters Patent and official correspondence. But somewhere at the bottom of the box sits one letter that gives us the clearest glimpse at the woman behind the crown.

“Darling mummy,” then-Princess Elizabeth wrote, in a letter to her mother Queen Elizabeth, sent from her honeymoon at Broadlands, Earl Mountbatten’s estate in Hampshire. “I think I’ve got the best mother and father in the world and only hope that I can bring up my children in the happy atmosphere of love and fairness which Margaret and I have grown up in.”

Queen Elizabeth II.Credit:Frank Augstein

It is a tender letter, written in her characteristically florid script and, set against the heft of official papers, seems perhaps to be the least of letters. At the same time it reveals a hint of the future Queen Elizabeth II rarely seen: daughter and wife and, later, mother and grandmother. Different aspects kept in sometimes imperfect balance by the most important woman of the 20th century.

When Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952, she was already a mother of two. As with most royal promotions, it came with a grim preface: nobody gets promoted in a royal family unless the person ahead of you in the line of succession dies. When her father, King George VI passed away, she inherited an institution that had not only survived a number of turbulent scandals, but one which incredibly defied the convention of the time.

As their cousins, the royal houses of Europe, were pummelled into submission, either dissolved entirely or scaled back or, in the case of Russia’s Romanov family, slaughtered in revolution, the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas morphed into the House of Windsor and glittered like the Koh-i-Noor, the 105.6-carat diamond that is the unequivocal rock star of the British Crown Jewels.

First, under the hand of Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, who transformed them from German-speaking farmers to a tangible force in society, diplomacy and politics, under the gaze of the still emerging news media, and later under Queen Elizabeth II, who turned her grandmother’s House of Windsor cottage industry into a full-blown corporation.

Princess Elizabeth in 1950, after the birth of Princess Anne, with Queen Mary (left) and Queen Elizabeth.Credit:AP

In 1936, Edward VIII’s abdication had plunged the monarchy, and the country, into crisis. Seen by many as a wastrel, the former king was a man whose indulgences damaged an ancient institution, unfairly burdening his younger brother and, by all accounts, shortening his life. Seen in another light, we might consider him the most mortal of men, one who “gave it all up for love”.

But even in that dark historical chapter, the Queen’s complex relationship with her family was on display. Her mother, the Queen Mother, excommunicated the former king and Mrs Windsor. But the Queen engaged with her “Uncle David”, understanding that, in constitutional terms at least, they were rare equals.

Those encounters were brief but illuminating. And they illustrate how the Queen, despite her age, already understood the myriad of human complexities that came with the crown. That she needed to be all things to all people. To her mother, a loyal daughter. And to the disgraced Windsors, both Queen and niece. In her 70-year-long reign, this pattern would be repeated over and over.

As Queen, she was there to police the continuity of the crown. She disapproved of the abdication but eventually made peace with the human characters in its story. She disapproved of her daughters-in-law Diana and Sarah, but, in different ways, understood their challenges. And while she ordered the severing of ties (and titles) for the Sussexes, her role as Prince Harry’s grandmother was unchanged.

The Queen (second from left) speaks with the exiled Duchess of Windsor at Edward VIII’s funeral in London.Credit:Press Association

The distinction between the two roles – mother (or grandmother) and monarch – was made evident barely a year and a half into her reign when she embarked on a formidable six-month world tour, visiting 13 countries, including Australia. Her children, Charles, then five, and Anne, just three, stayed at home.

In one of the most photographed and subsequently analysed moments of her reign, she met her children upon her return with a handshake, and not a hug. To frame that moment as maternal failure, as many do, misunderstands the multi-faceted nature of the role. With the cameras rolling, Elizabeth II was immutably Queen and nothing else.

Her relationships with her two younger children, Andrew, born in 1960, and Edward, in 1964, would be quite different. Less formal. This suggests that even as she inhabited these multiple roles, like a tiara-laden Sybil, over time she had also come to understand them more, and to understand the intricacies of their connection.

“We understood what the limitations were in time and the responsibilities placed on her as monarch, in the things she had to do and the travels she had to make,” her daughter Princess Anne said in a 2002 interview. “I don’t believe that any of us, for a second, thought she didn’t care for us in exactly the same way as any other mother did. I just think it’s extraordinary that anybody could construe that that might not be true.”

The Queen with grandchildren James and Louise, and great grandchildren Mia Tindall, Princess Charlotte, Savannah Phillips, Prince George and Isla Phillips.Credit:Annie Leibovitz via AP

Indeed the multiple roles of monarch and mother have been intertwined for centuries. Even for members of her family, something as simple as permission to marry must be formally obtained from the Queen.

The 2013 amendment to the Succession to the Crown Act restricted that to the first six members of the Royal Family in line to the throne. And it is the reason in 2018, for example, that Prince Harry required the Queen’s permission to marry Meghan Markle, but Princess Eugenie, for her marriage to Jack Brooksbank, did not.

This fusion of different aspects of the one woman came into sharp focus as far back as June 1969, when the documentary Royal Family aired. In purely numerical terms it was a hit. Broadcast on the BBC and ITV, it was watched by 30 million viewers in the UK, and later an estimated 350 million around the world. And yet it has faded into history, largely because after that initial broadcast the Queen – who, sensibly, owned the rights – withdrew it from circulation.

Equal parts Undercover Boss and Survivor: Balmoral Edition, it contained a revealing look at the woman behind the crown: in her office dealing with staff and official correspondence, travelling on the Royal Yacht Britannia, meeting with US president Richard Nixon and, at times, engaged in side tasks such as trimming the Christmas tree at Sandringham and choosing dresses and jewellery.

Queen Elizabeth II with the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William.Credit:Geoff Pugh/Pool via AP

The last of those perhaps exposed a less relatable side of the Queen, who, while handling the Timur Ruby, an unfaceted 361-carat polished red spinel set in a necklace whose legend dates back to the Emperors of Persia, remarked: “I think one really ought to get a dress designed so that one could wear it.” One should indeed.

But the 89-minute film also illustrates the emerging role the Queen would play: head of The Firm, as she called it, the operation that runs the Royal households, including its lavish palaces, at the centre of which is the 775-room Buckingham Palace, with a staff of thousands. But she is also mother and grandmother, fussing over salad dressing while Prince Philip cooked sausages during a riverside BBQ in Scotland.

“I think we were very lucky as a family to be able to do so much together,” Princess Anne said in 2010. “I also think that because it’s a relatively unique situation, and the level of interest from elsewhere, it does push you back slightly inwards on those who have the same experience and understand what those pressures are. So, it was both a defensive [and] appreciative group.”

The death of the Princess of Wales in Paris in 1997 would trigger the most challenging clash of the Queen’s many roles.

The Queen with the Princess of Wales in London in 1987.Credit:Martin Cleave/AP

“The death of Diana was a particularly difficult and almost dangerous period for the Queen and Prince Philip and the whole royal family,” Countess Mountbatten of Burma, a cousin and close friend, said in 2010. Despite the expectation that her role as monarch should come first, the Queen decided to remain at Balmoral in Scotland, away from public view, with Diana’s sons, William and Harry.

The impact – and the headlines – were devastating. “Show us you care.” “Your People are suffering. Speak to us Ma’am.” And, on the front page of The Sun, with a damaging image of a flag-less pole atop Buckingham Palace: “Where is our Queen? Where is our flag?”

In her address to the nation, which was as much an acknowledgement of Diana’s death as it was a not-so-subtle mea culpa for her hesitancy, the Queen said: “What I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart. I, for one, believe there are lessons to be drawn from her life, and from the extraordinary and moving reaction to her death.”

For the future king Prince William, particularly, the distinct roles of grandmother and monarch would become much clearer after the death of his mother. “When I was younger, and being a small boy growing up, I would probably say [she was] Queen first, then grandmother,” William said in a television interview in 2012. “But now it’s definitely grandmother first, Queen second.”

The Queen Mother (left) and the Queen (second from right) at the funeral of the Princess of Wales.Credit:Reuters

The distinction between the two was given even greater clarity, William said, during the planning of his marriage to Catherine Middleton, now Duchess of Cambridge. “There was very much a subdued moment when I was handed a list of 777 names, not one person I knew or Catherine knew, and it was very much a case of, right, it’s like that, is it?” William recalled.

As any grandson might, William turned to his grandmother for help. “I went to her and said listen, I’ve got this list, not one person I know, what do I do? And she went, get rid of it, start from your friends, and we’ll add those we need to in due course. It’s your day.”

As the Queen grew older, and the moving parts of the monarchy slowly re-aligned around her, with the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge shouldering more of the workload, the roles of grandmother and monarch found new balance.

“I think that’s often true of grandparents, it’s in theory one of their great advantages because they’re not strictly speaking responsible, they can have more fun, and it if all goes horribly wrong, you can have it back, you know,” Princess Anne said in 2010.

Prince Philip, Princess Anne, Prince Edward, the Queen, Prince Andrew and the Prince of Wales in 1972.Credit:Press Association

“I think it’s extraordinary really, she seems to have time for all of them,” Princess Anne added, referring to the Queen’s eight grandchildren William and Harry, Anne’s children Peter and Zara, Andrew’s daughters Eugenie and Beatrice and Edward’s children Louise and James.

“But her grandchildren have also grown up in a very different family environment, which is a more casual environment than she was brought up in, or to some extent we started in,” Anne added. “I suspect to begin with that was a bit of a change to deal with, I think she’s got used to that.”

Queen Elizabeth II also became a slightly less formal monarch, more willing to let her multiple worlds fold into each other, appearing in a 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony sketch with James Bond (Daniel Craig), and in an infamous “mic drop” clip filmed with Prince Harry in 2016 before the Invictus Games. “Hey Prince Harry,” challenged Barack and Michelle Obama in a clip with the punchline “Boom”.

“Boom, really, please,” the Queen deadpanned in reply.

The Queen with James Bond (Daniel Craig) in clip created for the London Olympics.Credit:AFP

“For me, [we are] a lot closer than we used to be,” Prince William said in 2012. “I think being a small boy, it’s very daunting, seeing the Queen around, and not really knowing quite what to talk about or what to ask her. I think over the years that’s got a lot better, I’ve grown up, hopefully, a little bit, and tried to understand a bit more about her role, and my own role. She’s an extremely caring grandmother to me as well.”

And in a curiously prescient afterthought, Michael Flanders, in his closing narration for Royal Family, offered this thought: “We cannot know what Prince Charles will make of it. Over the centuries his family has provided some sovereigns who will be remembered forever. And a few who are best forgotten. But if he needs help, there is a thousand years of family experience to call on.”

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