The Diamond Queen, the BBC’s three-part series celebrating
Elizabeth II’s 60 years on the throne, is perhaps the most intimate ever
portrait of Britain’s monarch. Its presenter, Andrew Marr, was given
unprecedented access to the Royal family, whose personal recollections offer a
rare glimpse of the woman behind the role.
Among the most intriguing stories in last Monday’s first
programme was that of The Little House, the miniature cottage in the grounds of
Windsor’s Royal Lodge where the Queen played as a child. Long forgotten by the
public, it was revealed that it has recently been refurbished by Princess
Beatrice, who charmed Marr and viewers alike when she spoke of her love for the
tiny property and gave him a tour.
Another tantalising scene showed the Queen - dubbed Reader
Number One by Parliament for her insistence on poring over every official paper
- sitting at her favourite writing desk in Buckingham Palace. It was described
as having once belonged to the Bourbons of France prior to the Revolution, but
with no further explanation.
Behind the fleeting insights into these aspects of her life
are fascinating stories, which can now be revealed by the Mail on Sunday...
Tucked away from public view in the south side of the
gardens of Windsor’s Royal Lodge stands a miniature thatched, white-washed
cottage described by the Queen’s granddaughter Princess Beatrice as ‘the most
glamorous wendy house ever.’ Called Y Bwthyn Bach, or The Little House, it has
been a play den for the Queen and subsequent generations of her family for the
past 80 years.
The two-thirds size cottage, which measures 24 feet long,
eight feet deep and with five feet high rooms, was presented to Princess
Elizabeth and her sister Margaret in March 1932 on behalf of ‘the people of
Wales’ on the occasion of Elizabeth’s sixth birthday.
Designed by architect Edmund Willmott, who had earlier built
a less grand little house for his own daughter to play in, it was intended as a
symbol of the love and fascination of the Welsh people for the little princess
who was, at that stage, never expected to become Queen.
The mining communities of the valleys had suffered more
unemployment than any other part of Britain during the Depression, and the
house, built exclusively by Welsh labour and from Welsh materials left over
from the Llandough Hospital, was a poignant reminder of a workforce in despair.
It was also designed as a link between the two privileged
little princesses and those who lived in genuine cottages. It gave the sisters
the chance to play at keeping an ordinary house - although it was far more
luxurious than the vast majority of family homes at the time.
The layout of a typical Welsh cottage was followed for the
interior. The front door opens onto a small hallway with a kitchen to the right
and the ‘siamber fach’, or Little Chamber, on the left. A staircase gives
access to a bedroom and a bathroom, which, when it was first built, was very
modern, with hot and cold running water, a heated towel rail and electricity.
The contents included a tiny radio, a little oak dresser and
a miniature blue and gold china set. There was linen with the initial ‘E’ and a
portrait of the Queen’s mother, the Duchess of York, hanging over the dining
room mantelpiece. A bookcase filled with Beatrix Potter’s little books,
including Jemima Puddleduck, ensured the girls never grew bored. Lattice windows,
blue and white checked curtains, blue carpets and white walls finished off the
decor.
The house also contained little books, pots and pans, food
cans, brooms, a packet of Epsom salts and a radio licence, all made to order
and to scale. In the kitchen, there was a gas cooker and a fridge which both
worked. There was even a working, miniature-sized telephone. The house also had
its own front garden with scaled down hedges and flower borders.
The presentation of the finished house was preceded by a
narrowly averted disaster. When the house was in transit, first by low loader
and then by a steam traction engine, the tarpaulin protecting it caught fire,
destroying the thatched roof and many of the timbers. Luckily, the Sea
Insurance Company had issued a miniature fire policy for £750 on the building
and £500 on the contents.
Craftsmen worked day and night to repair the damage, with
the final bill for all the work coming to an estimated £1,100. When it was
finally ready, it was displayed at the Daily Mail’s Ideal Home Exhibition at
Olympia for the masses to see. It was then reconstructed in Windsor Great Park
for Elizabeth and became a favourite pastime.
The princesses spent many hours cleaning and tidying their
tiny home, with Elizabeth in particular developing a reputation for being
exceptionally neat. This was the children’s domain, and adults, who had to
crounch to fit through the door, were admitted only by invitation.
Over the years, the Queen’s children have also played in the
house and latterly, her grandchildren. It holds a special place in the hearts
of all the royal children, but Beatrice was especially captivated it, adding,
as a child, a selection of her own
teddy-bears to the living room sofa.
She has recently overseen its complete refurbishment over
the course of a year, believed to have been paid for by her father, the Duke of
York, who has resided at Royal Lodge since 2004. In the first episode of The
Diamond Queen, the princess was seen showing presenter Andrew Marr the results.
Under Beatrice’s guidance, new curtains and upholstery were put
in, the paintwork was refreshed, the roof was rethatched and the cottage was
rewired. The original blue colour scheme was replaced by pale green sofa
coverings and cream curtains with tiny dark pink flowers.
‘Granny was very clear that for all the fabric she wanted
very little designs. It’s such a little house that she wanted little flowers
and patterns,’ she said.
‘It’s beautiful. I’ve been lucky enough to play here and now
Granny’s a great-granny, so now Savannah [Peter and Autumn Phillips’s daughter]
can enjoy it too.’
My father put in the plumbing... and I played in the house
before Elizabeth
The honour of presenting the keys of Y Bwthyn Bach to
Princess Elizabeth’s parents, then the Duke and Duchess of York, was
bestowed Welsh schoolgirl Jean Blake.
On March 16 1932, the seven-year-old dressed in Welsh
national costume and accompanied her father William, a plumber and engineer, to
Cardiff’s Drill Hall. There, Jean was allowed to explore the little house
before greeting the future King and Queen and proudly posing with them.
The Mail on Sunday has tracked down Jean, now 86 and living
in Ontario, Canada. Eight decades on, she still recalls the excitement of the
day she spent with Royalty.
‘It was luck that I was chosen really,’ she says. ‘I was a
similar age Princess Elizabeth and my dad had installed all the plumbing and
electricity in the cottage and knew the architect who designed it.
‘My first thought when I saw the house was that it was
absolutely beautiful, unbelievable because everything was so life-like but in
miniature. The tea sets, the pictures, a
fridge and a cooker, all perfect for a child to use.
‘I remember sitting down at the kitchen table and pouring
myself a cup of tea in the little cups. Everything worked just like in a normal
house, yet it was a toy.’
Jean, a retired secretary who moved to Canada with her
husband Frank Sharman, 90, in 1968, presented a bouquet of flowers to the
Duchess of York. The princesses themselves were unable to attend, but their
parents were thrilled with the little house.
Jean Sharman on the day she handed over the keys in 1932
‘It was really difficult for adults, especially men, to get
into the house easily but the Duke of York ducked down and had a look around. I
can’t remember what I said to them, but I do remember they were impressed with
the cottage. It would be hard not to fall in love with it.
‘The highlight for me was peddling round in a toy car that
was also being given to Princess Elizabeth. It had a little space in the back
with a small puppy sitting in it that was another gift from the people of
Wales. I’ve always loved dogs and if I’d had the chance I would have taken him
home with me rather than hand him over,’ she adds, laughing.
Jean and her husband, who have six great grandchildren,
still come back to Britain every year to visit family and friends.
‘A couple of years ago we went to Windsor Castle and asked
about The Little House but we were told that it was tucked far back in the
gardens of Royal Lodge away from public view and no-one except the Royal Family
are given access, which is a great shame.
‘We are coming back to Britain next month and it would be
lovely to see it again. At the age of six I didn’t really think about the part
I was playing in this historic event, but now I feel very privileged to have
been one of the few people outside the Royal Family to have played in the house
- even more so knowing I got to go inside it before the Queen herself.’
To celebrate the acquisition of the Tom Phillips archive,
the Bodleian Library has asked the artist to assemble and design a series of
books drawing on his themed collection of over 50,000 photographic postcards.
These encompass the first half of the twentieth century, a period in which,
thanks to the ever cheaper medium of photography, 'ordinary' people could
afford to own their portraits. Menswear presents men in all manner of outfits,
formal, practical or casual but always
as individuals nudging the stylistic vocabulary this way and that, in fashion’s
wide, rich and entertaining spectrum. Each book contains 200 images chosen with
the eye of a leading artist from a visually rich vein of social history. Their
covers will also feature a thematically linked painting, especially created for
each title, from Tom Phillips' signature work, A Humument.
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE (born 16 June 1934) is an
English actress and occasional screenwriter. She has worked in the theatre,
film, and television consistently since 1953. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV
Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in
a Miniseries or Movie for Cranford. She is also a three-time Olivier Award
winner, winning Best Supporting Performance in 1988 (for Multiple roles) and
Best Actress for The Unexpected Man (1999) and Honour (2004). She was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander
of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001.
Atkins joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1957 and made
her Broadway debut in the 1966 production of The Killing of Sister George, for
which she received the first of four Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in
a Play in 1967. She received subsequent nominations for, Vivat! Vivat Regina!
(1972), Indiscretions (1995) and The Retreat from Moscow (2004). Other stage
credits include The Tempest (Old Vic 1962), Exit the King (Edinburgh Festival
and Royal Court 1963), The Promise (New York 1967), The Night of the Tribades
(New York 1977), Medea (Young Vic 1985), A Delicate Balance (Haymarket, West
End 1997) and Doubt (New York 2006).
Atkins co-created the television dramas Upstairs, Downstairs
(1971–75) and The House of Elliot (1991–93) with Jean Marsh. She also wrote the
screenplay for the 1997 film Mrs Dalloway. Her film appearances include Equus
(1977), The Dresser (1983), Let Him Have It (1991), Wolf (1994), Jack and Sarah
(1995), Gosford Park (2001), Evening (2005), Last Chance Harvey (2008), Robin Hood
(2010) and Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a
Salvation Army maternity hospital in East London. Her mother, Annie Ellen (née
Elkins), was a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and her father, Arthur
Thomas Atkins, was a gas meter reader who was previously under-chauffeur to the
Portuguese Ambassador. She was the third child in the family and when she was
born the family moved to a council home in Tottenham. Her father did not, in
fact, know how to drive and was responsible, as under-chauffeur, mainly for
cleaning the car. At the time Eileen was born, her mother worked in a factory
the whole day and then as a barmaid in the Elephant & Castle at night. When
Eileen was three, a Gypsy woman came to their door selling lucky heather and
clothes pegs. She saw little Eileen and told her mother that her daughter would
be a famous dancer. Her mother promptly enrolled her in a dance class. Although
she hated it, she studied dancing from age 3 to 15 or 16. From age 7 to 15,
which covered the last four years of the Second World War (1941–45), she danced
in working men's club circuits for 15 shillings a time as "Baby
Eileen". During the war, she performed as well at London's Stage Door
canteen for American troops and sang songs like "Yankee Doodle." At
one time she was attending dance class four or five times a week.
By 12, she was a professional in panto in Clapham and
Kilburn. Once, when she was given a line to recite, someone told her mother
that she had a Cockney accent. Her mother was appalled but speech lessons were
too expensive for the family. Fortunately, a woman took interest in her and
paid for her to be educated at Parkside Preparatory School in Tottenham. Eileen
Atkins has since publicly credited the Principal, Miss D. M. Hall, for the wise
and firm guidance under which her character developed. From Parkside she went
on to The Latymer School, a grammar school in Edmonton, London. One of her grammar
school teachers who used to give them religious instruction, a Rev. Michael
Burton, spotted her potential and rigorously drilled away her Cockney accent
without charge. He also introduced her to the works of William Shakespeare. She
studied under him for two years.
When she was 14 or 15 and still at Latymer's, she also
attended "drama demonstration" sessions twice a year with this same
teacher. At around this time (though some sources say she was 12), her first
encounter with Robert Atkins took place. She was taken to see Atkins'
production of King John at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. She wrote to him
saying that the boy who played Prince Arthur was not good enough and that she
could do better. Robert Atkins wrote back and asked that she come to see him.
On the day they met, Atkins thought she was a shop girl and not a school girl.
She gave a little prince speech and he told her to go to drama school and come
back when she was grown up.
Mr Burton came to an agreement with Eileen's parents that he
would try to get her a scholarship for one drama school and that if she did not
get the scholarship he would arrange for her to do a teaching course in some
other drama school. Her parents were not at all keen on the fact that she would
stay in school until 16 as her sister had left at 14 and her brother at 15 but
somehow they were convinced. Eileen was in Latymer's until 16. Out of 300
applicants for a RADA scholarship, she got down to the last three but was not
selected, so she did a three-year course on teaching at the Guildhall School of
Music and Drama. But, although she was taking the teaching course, she also
attended drama classes and in fact performed in three plays in her last year.
This was in the early 1950s. In her third and last year she had to teach once a
week, an experience she later said she hated. She graduated from Guildhall in
1953.
As soon as she left Guildhall she got her first job with
Robert Atkins in 1953: as Jaquenetta in Love's Labour's Lost at the same
Regent's Park Open Air Theatre where she was brought to see Robert Atkins' King
John production years before. She was also, very briefly, an assistant stage
manager at the Oxford Playhouse until Peter Hall fired her for impudence. She
was also part of repertory companies performing in Billy Butlin's holiday camp
in Skegness, Lincolnshire. It was there when she met Julian Glover.
It took nine years (1953–62) before she was working
steadily.
She joined the Guild Players Repertory Company in Bangor,
County Down, Northern Ireland as a professional actress in 1952. She appeared
as the nurse in Harvey at the Repertory Theatre, Bangor, in 1952. In 1953 she
appeared as an attendant in Love's Labours Lost at the Regent's Park Open Air
Theatre. Her London stage debut was in 1953 as Jaquenetta in Robert Atkins's
staging of Love's Labour's Lost at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park.
Atkins has regularly returned to the life and work of
Virginia Woolf for professional inspiration. She has played the writer on stage
in Patrick Garland's adaptation of A Room of One's Own and also in Vita and
Virginia, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for the
former and screen (the 1990 television version of Room); she also provided the
screenplay for the 1997 film adaptation of Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, and
made a cameo appearance in the 2002 film version of Michael Cunningham's
Woolf-themed novel, The Hours.
Atkins joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1957 and
stayed for two seasons. She was with the Old Vic in its 1961–62 season (she
appeared in the Old Vic's Repertoire Leaflets of February–April 1962 and
April–May 1962).
She appeared as Maggie Clayhanger in all six episodes of
Arnold Bennett's Hilda Lessways from 15 May to 19 June 1959, produced by the
BBC Midlands with Judi Dench and Brian Smith. In the 1960 Shakespeare
production An Age of Kings she played Joan of Arc.
She helped create two television series. Along with fellow
actress, Jean Marsh, she created the concept for an original television series,
Behind the Green Baize Door, which became the award-winning ITV series
Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–75). Marsh played maid Rose for the duration of the
series but Atkins was unable to accept a part because of stage commitments. The
same team was also responsible for the BBC series The House of Eliott
(1991–93).
Her film and television work includes Sons and Lovers
(1981), Smiley's People (1982), Oliver Twist (1982), Titus Andronicus (1985), A
Better Class of Person (1985), Roman Holiday (1987), The Lost Language of
Cranes (1991), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Talking Heads (1998), Madame Bovary
(2000), David Copperfield (2000), Wit (2001) and Bertie and Elizabeth (2002),
Cold Mountain (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Vanity Fair (2004), Ballet
Shoes (2005) and Ask the Dust (2006).
In the autumn of 2007, she co-starred with Dame Judi Dench
and Sir Michael Gambon in the BBC One drama Cranford playing the central role
of Miss Deborah Jenkyns. This performance earned her the 2008 BAFTA Award for
best actress, as well as the Emmy Award. In September 2007 she played Abigail
Dusniak in Waking the Dead Yahrzeit (S6:E11-12).
In 2009 Atkins played the evil Nurse Edwina Kenchington in
the BBC Two black comedy Psychoville. Atkins replaced Vanessa Redgrave as
Eleanor of Aquitaine in the blockbuster movie Robin Hood, starring Russell
Crowe, which was released in the UK in May 2010. The same year, she played
Louisa in the dark comedy film, Wild Target.
Atkins and Jean Marsh, creators of the original 1970s series
of Upstairs, Downstairs, were among the cast of a new BBC adaptation, shown
over the winter of 2010–11. The new series is set in 1936. Marsh again played
Rose while Atkins was cast as the redoubtable Maud, Lady Holland. In August
2011, it was revealed that Atkins had decided not to continue to take part as
she was unhappy with the scripts. In September 2011, Atkins joined the cast of
ITV comedy-drama series Doc Martin playing the title character's aunt, Ruth
Ellingham. She returned as Aunt Ruth for the show's sixth series in September
2013, the seventh in September 2015 and eighth in September 2017.
Atkins starred as Lady Spence with Matthew Rhys in an
adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's The Scapegoat, shown in September 2012.
She has portrayed Queen Mary on two occasions, in the 2002
television film Bertie and Elizabeth and in the 2016 Netflix-produced
television series The Crown.
Atkins portrayed graduate school professor Evelyn Ashford to
Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson) in the film Wit. Wit is a 2001 American
television movie directed by Mike Nichols. The teleplay by Nichols and Emma
Thompson is based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same title by
Margaret Edson. The film was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival on
9 February 2001 before being broadcast by HBO on 24 March. It was shown at the
Edinburgh Film Festival and the Warsaw Film Festival later in the year.
Dame Eileen Atkins: 'I'd rather be content than happy'
She may now be 83 but Dame Eileen Atkins still works just as
often as she likes. There are rumours of a West End role on the horizon and, in
the meantime, she’s back in ITV’s feelgood series, Doc Martin, playing Martin
Clunes’s irascible aunt, retired clinical psychiatrist, Ruth Ellingham.
If she existed would Eileen like Ruth? “Oh, very much,” says
Atkins, “although she might frighten me a bit.” That would take some doing. “I
know. Everyone says that a lot of people are frightened of me but I’ve no idea
why.”
Well, she’s quite formidable, not someone to suffer fools.
“That’s silly when I’m such a fool myself,” she insists. “I do admit, though, I
have a tendency to blow up but then it’s all over for me in five minutes.” But
perhaps not for everyone else? She chuckles. “Yes, I can leave people in
pieces.”
Eileen Atkins with
Michael Gambon and director Trevor Nunn
Eileen Atkins with Michael Gambon and director Trevor Nunn
in 2012 CREDIT: ANDREW CROWLEY
She was at her most combustible when the BBC decided to
revive Upstairs, Downstairs in 2010. (Atkins and actress Jean Marsh had created
the original hit series in the early 70s.) “That’s when I blew up
outrageously,” she admits.
Initially, she didn’t want to be in it but it was made clear
they’d only go ahead with the revival if she agreed. She wanted to play the
cook; they wanted her to be the matriarch. There were several rows and she
lost. She was cast as Maud, Lady Holland.
Everyone says that a lot of people are frightened of me but
I’ve no idea why
This new series was written by Heidi Thomas, creator of the
enormously successful Call The Midwife. “Heidi writes brilliantly for the lower
middle classes,” says Atkins, witheringly. “But she simply cannot write for the
upper classes. I was endlessly trying to change my lines which must have driven
her crazy.”
Atkins was also determined to make Lady Holland as distinct
from Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton as possible. The
two actresses are friends and knew they were going to be in rather similar
rival shows. “So I suggested Maud ought to have a pet monkey called Solomon.”
EILEEN ATKINS
"There were some [illicit liaisons]. It would have been
odd if there weren’t"
Heidi Thomas was unconvinced. “If she’d said right at the
beginning she hated the idea of the monkey, then I would have chosen another
pet – a parrot perhaps.” But it had gone too far by that stage and Eileen,
well, blew up. “I said: ‘If you don’t get the f***ing monkey, then you don’t
f***ing get me.’”
The Dame got her monkey.
She’d won the battle but not the war. She kept asking for
the scripts for the second series, which finally arrived a matter of weeks
before filming began. “I had about six lines in three different scenes – and in
one of them I was wearing a gas mask.” It was time to quit.
I believe I was put on this planet to act and it’s given me
huge fulfilment. I feel I’ve realised my destiny
She was quickly snapped up by Clunes for Doc Martin, where
she and I meet on the set in Port Isaac, Cornwall, and then enjoyed much
acclaim for her one-woman show about Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry. More
recently, she graced Netflix’s global hit, The Crown, as Queen Mary.
How does she explain all the Bafta nominations it garnered
but failure to win a single one? “I think it was something called jealousy.
People – by which I mean the panel – were envious of Netflix having such a big
budget. I thought it was absolutely stunning.”
Atkins loves her work, always has done. “Does it define me?
Yes, I’d say it does. And I never had children. In fact, it was only when I
turned 80 that I began to realise the point of grandchildren. I see other
people with theirs and they seem quite sweet.”
But motherhood just didn’t pan out. She got married the
first time to actor Julian Glover when he was 21, she a year older. “By our
mid-20s, people began asking when we were going to have children. Well, we
tried but nothing happened and then Julian was told that no way could he ever
become a father.”
As it happens, his second wife, actress Isla Blair, got
pregnant almost immediately after they married. Their son, Jamie, is also an
actor. So how did Atkins react to the prospect of being childless? “To be
honest, I hadn’t got married wanting children and my career was then beginning
to show signs of possibility.”
She and Julian applied to adopt; “It was what everyone did
then. What’s more, we both had to agree that, if it came to it, we’d be happy
to have ‘a child of colour’, as they were called then.
“We lived in a flat on the top floor of a large house and
there was no intercom. One day, the doorbell rang so I went downstairs and
opened the front door. On the step was a baby in a cradle, a little black baby.
“I stood and stared
at it and my only thought was: ‘They’ve delivered our baby.’ And the feeling
that swept over me was as if the blood was running out of the ends of my
fingers.
“I remember thinking: ‘This is your life now, looking after
this baby for the next 20 years.’ And then a woman appeared from the basement.
She’d left the baby on the doorstep while she went downstairs to collect more
things and she’d rung the doorbell so someone would keep an eye on it until she
got back.
It was only when I turned 80 that I began to realise the
point of grandchildren
“I’m not a particularly spiritual person but I knew that
moment was sent to me. It was a sign. The only thought running through my head
was that I had to tell Julian I couldn’t ever adopt. And when I did, his
instant reaction was: ‘Thank God, neither can I.’ As it turns out, Jamie is like
my godson, a wonderful addition to my life.”
Divorced at 29, Atkins didn’t marry again until she was 43.
“And there was no way I’d have chosen to be a single mother in the meantime.
Anyway, I was having a high old time.”
So were there many illicit liaisons? “Well, there were some.
It would have been odd if there weren’t. As it happens, I’ve been reading
Artemis Cooper’s biography of Elizabeth Jane Howard and she had lots and lots
of affairs. It’s made me feel quite virginal by comparison.”
EILEEN ATKINS
"I believe I was put on this planet to act"
Bill Shepherd was nine years Eileen’s junior, unmarried and
without children, when they met. “I said to him early on that I was getting a
bit old for motherhood and anyway I didn’t really want a child. But then nor
did he.
“I’ll never forget Miriam Stoppard saying to me when I was
about 50: ‘It’s a terrible thing not to have children. But I can help you.’ I
said: ‘Miriam, please, I’m OK.’ I don’t want to sound like Edith Piaf but being
childless has never been a matter of regret.
“I believe I was put on this planet to act and it’s given me
huge fulfilment. I feel I’ve realised my destiny and I’ve had a very, very good
time doing it.
Atkins believes “people look down their noses at the word
‘ambition’ – and especially when applied to women. But I was ambitious and I
don’t see anything wrong in that. I know some people feel you’re not quite a
woman if you’re ambitious. Not me.”
And she’s happy? “No, I’m content and I think contentment is
rather underrated. I’m content to be an old woman. I’m vastly lucky that I can
still work. And that makes me content, too.
“Mark you, I’m thinking of putting a contract out on Angela
Lansbury. Still acting at 91? Utterly ridiculous!”
Darcy Clothing Ltd
began life as The Vintage Shirt Company in 2004. The intention then
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"You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment".
House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller
television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher's
tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised by the BBC
from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim.
Andrew Davies adapted the story from the novel of the same
name by Michael Dobbs, a former Chief of Staff at Conservative Party
headquarters. Neville Teller also dramatised Dobbs's novel for BBC World
Service in 1996, and it had two television sequels (To Play the King and The
Final Cut). The opening and closing theme music for those TV series is entitled
"Francis Urquhart's March."
The antihero of House of Cards is Francis Urquhart, a
fictional Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, played by Ian Richardson. The
plot follows his amoral and manipulative scheme to become leader of the
governing party and, thus, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Michael Dobbs did not envision writing the second and third
books, as Urquhart dies at the end of the first novel. The screenplay of the
BBC's dramatisation of House of Cards differs from the book, and hence allows
future series. Dobbs wrote two following books, To Play the King and The Final
Cut, which were televised in 1993 and 1995, respectively.
House of Cards was said to draw from Shakespeare's plays
Macbeth and Richard III, both of which feature main characters who are
corrupted by power and ambition. Richardson has a Shakespearean background and
said he based his characterisation of Urquhart on Shakespeare's portrayal of
Richard III.
Urquhart frequently talks through the camera to the
audience, breaking the fourth wall.
After Margaret Thatcher's resignation, the ruling
Conservative Party is about to elect a new leader. Francis Urquhart (Ian
Richardson), an MP and the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons,
introduces viewers to the contestants, from which Henry "Hal"
Collingridge (David Lyon) emerges victorious. Urquhart is secretly contemptuous
of the well-meaning but weak Collingridge, but expects a promotion to a senior
position in the Cabinet. After the general election, which the party wins by a
reduced majority, Urquhart submits his suggestions for a reshuffle that
includes his desired promotion. However, Collingridge – citing Harold
Macmillan's political demise after the 1962 Night of the Long Knives – effects
no changes at all. Urquhart resolves to oust Collingridge, with encouragement
from his wife, Elizabeth (Diane Fletcher).
At the same time, with Elizabeth's blessing, Urquhart begins
an affair with Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker), a junior political reporter at
a Conservative-leaning tabloid newspaper called The Chronicle. The affair
allows Urquhart to manipulate Mattie and indirectly skew her coverage of the
Conservative leadership contest in his favour. Mattie has an apparent Electra
complex; she finds appeal in Urquhart's much older age and later refers to him
as "Daddy." Another unwitting pawn is Roger O'Neill (Miles Anderson),
the party's cocaine-addicted public relations consultant.
Urquhart blackmails O'Neill into leaking information on
budget cuts that humiliates Collingridge during the Prime Minister's Questions.
Later, he blames party chairman Lord "Teddy" Billsborough (Nicholas
Selby) for leaking an internal poll showing a drop in Tory numbers, leading
Collingridge to sack him. As Collingridge's image suffers, Urquhart encourages
ultraconservative Foreign Secretary Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney) and
Chronicle owner Benjamin Landless to support his removal. Urquhart also poses
as Collingridge's alcoholic brother Charles (James Villiers), to trade shares
in a chemical company about to benefit from advance information confidential to
the government. Consequently, Collingridge becomes falsely accused of insider
trading and is forced to resign.
In the ensuing leadership race, Urquhart initially feigns
unwillingness to stand before announcing his candidacy. With the help of his
underling, Tim Stamper (Colin Jeavons), Urquhart goes about making sure his
competitors drop out of the race: Health Secretary Peter MacKenzie (Christopher
Owen) accidentally runs his car over a disabled protester at a demonstration
staged by Urquhart and is forced by the public outcry to withdraw, while
Education Secretary Harold Earle (Kenneth Gilbert) is blackmailed into
withdrawing when Urquhart anonymously sends pictures of him in the company of a
rent boy whom Earle had paid for sex.
The first ballot leaves Urquhart to face Woolton and Michael
Samuels, the moderate Environment Secretary supported by Billsborough. Urquhart
eliminates Woolton by a prolonged scheme: at the party conference, he pressures
O'Neill into persuading his personal assistant and lover, Penny Guy (Alphonsia
Emmanuel), to have a one-night stand with Woolton in his suite, which Urquhart
records via a bugged ministerial red box. When the tape is sent to Woolton, he
is led to assume that Samuels is behind the scheme and backs Urquhart in the
contest. Urquhart also receives support from Collingridge, who is unaware of
Urquhart's role in his own downfall. Samuels is forced out of the running when
the tabloids reveal that he backed leftist causes as a student at University of
Cambridge.
Stumbling across contradictions in the allegations against
Collingridge and his brother, Mattie begins to dig deeper. On Urquhart's
orders, O'Neill arranges for her car and flat to be vandalised in a show of
intimidation. However, O'Neill becomes increasingly uneasy with what he is
being asked to do, and his cocaine addiction adds to his instability. Urquhart
mixes O'Neill's cocaine with rat poison, causing him to kill himself when
taking the cocaine in a motorway lavatory. Though initially blind to the truth
of matters thanks to her relations with Urquhart, Mattie eventually deduces
that Urquhart is responsible for O'Neill's death and is behind the unfortunate
downfalls of Collingridge and all of Urquhart's rivals.
Mattie looks for Urquhart at the point when it seems his
victory is certain. She eventually finds him on the roof garden of the Houses
of Parliament, where she confronts him. He admits to O'Neill's murder and
everything else he has done. He then asks whether he can trust Mattie, and,
though she answers in the affirmative, he does not believe her and throws her
off the roof onto a van parked below. An unseen person picks up Mattie's tape
recorder, which she had been using to secretly record her conversations with
Urquhart. The series ends with Urquhart defeating Samuels in the second leadership
ballot and being driven to Buckingham Palace to be invited to form a government
by Elizabeth II.
The Politician's Wife is a British television political
drama broadcast on Channel 4 in 1995, written by Paula Milne, and starring
Trevor Eve and Juliet Stevenson. Milne returned to the same themes in her BBC 2
drama miniseries, The Politician's Husband (2013).
Duncan Matlock (Trevor Eve), a high-flying politician and
Families Minister for the British government, who becomes embroiled in a
tabloid scandal as it is discovered that he has been having a 10-month affair
with a former escort turned parliamentary researcher (Minnie Driver). Duncan's
wife, Flora (Juliet Stevenson), becomes the focus of media attention as her
reactions to the revelations are played out. Initially she plays the part of
the loyal wife, but as an aide of her husband's, Mark Hollister (Anton Lesser),
feeds her details about the affair and various other political scandals that
could be made to happen, she begins to sabotage her husband's integrity and
reputation through a campaign of leaks and misinformation to the press and
British Conservative Party stalwarts. After a series of increasingly
sensational and damaging stories in the press, her husband is forced to resign
in humiliation. The last episode closes with the results of the by-election
being announced on TV. Flora Matlock wins with the support of her party, whilst
her husband is exiled to a minor post in Belgium.
The Politician's Husband is a three-episode British
television miniseries, first shown on BBC Two between 25 April and 9 May 2013.
Written by Paula Milne, it makes a pair with her 1995 drama The Politician's
Wife.
Senior Cabinet minister Aiden Hoynes (David Tennant) and his
wife Freya Gardner (Emily Watson) are a high-flying golden political couple.
Hoynes resigns from his post as part of a planned leadership bid, which is
thwarted when his friend, the equally ambitious Bruce Babbish (Ed Stoppard),
condemns Aiden's resignation and inflammatory resignation speech. Babbish is
aided by Chief Whip Marcus Brock (Roger Allam), who plans to help the former in
his own leadership bid. Freya, who had to temporarily stall her career to look
after her and Aiden's two children, Noah and Ruby, replaces Aiden in Cabinet.
Away from Westminster, husband and wife face an uncertain future as they come
to terms with the diagnosis that Noah (Oscar Kennedy) has Asperger syndrome.
Desperate to salvage his political career, Aiden convinces
Freya to bide her time until an opportune moment in which she can pledge
support to her husband's position, thus undermining the current Prime Minister.
However, soon afterward, on a television interview, Freya is asked point-blank
if she supports her husband's reasons for resigning, and she reluctantly says
she does not. Aiden initially reacts with rage but later reasons that it was
the only answer his wife could give if she hoped to save her job. The two seem
to make up, but then Aiden rapes Freya later that night. Aiden leaves the room
crying and later apologises to his wife for his actions.
Aiden and Freya slowly attempt to mend their relationship.
Undermining their efforts are the necessity that Freya work closely with Bruce
due to the close linkage of their departments (Work and Pensions, and Welfare
and Employment, respectively), leading Aiden to become paranoid that his wife
and Bruce will have an affair. The couple's au pair Dita (Anamaria Marinca)
attempts to seduce Aiden, is rebuffed, then later quits and tells numerous
tabloids she and Aiden were having an affair. Freya stands by her husband,
believing his claims of innocence. Aiden, however has become convinced that
Freya is now sleeping with Bruce, though unknown to him Freya has already
rejected Bruce's attempts at seducing her. Aiden's father Joe (Jack Shepherd)
stays with the family to fill in for Dita.
Aiden calls a meeting with Bruce, telling the latter he
wants to mend their relationship for Freya's sake. He offers Bruce a
revolutionary plan to provide much-needed elder care through incentives offered
to qualified immigrants, overseen by a local start-up management company. Bruce
accepts the plan and readies to propose it, meeting with the management firm.
With Bruce occupied, Aiden makes a speech in the House of Commons decrying the
current government as lacking ethics, which makes headlines. The next day,
Bruce is forced to resign when it is revealed that the firm representatives he
met were actually undercover reporters, tipped off by Aiden, and that they have
video of him soliciting and accepting bribes from them.
Bruce confronts Aiden and Freya, accusing them of having
conspired against him. Freya doesn't believe the accusation but later finds a
draft of the plan in Aiden's home office. She accuses him of being unable to
cope with no longer being "on top" in the relationship and confronts
him over how his deception nearly ended her own career. Then, she becomes
mortified when she realises that was his intent. Aiden accuses Freya of
sleeping with Bruce and claims his scheme was meant to restore things to the
way they originally were, before realising that this means the end of their
marriage.
That night, Aiden's father berates him for what he has done.
The next morning, the couple's daughter, Ruby, finds Aiden's father dead in the
back yard, having died walking back from Aiden's office. After the funeral,
Freya makes arrangements for Aiden to move out.
Six months later, Aiden has seemingly been elected Prime
Minister, with Freya as his Deputy Prime Minister. However, they only remain
married for political purposes. They share a brief private moment before their
first cabinet meeting, comprising staring at each other emotionlessly. As the
cabinet files in, a brief exchange with Marcus Brock reveals that it is Freya,
not Aiden, who has been elected Prime Minister.
The Politician's Husband – TV review
Ambition, betrayal and battles in the bedroom – and that's
just episode one of this follow-up to Paula Milne's The Politician's Wife
Sam Wollaston
@samwollaston
Fri 26 Apr 2013 07.00 BST First published on Fri 26 Apr 2013
07.00 BST
I like to think of a few real politicians watching The
Politician's Husband (BBC1). Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, certainly; it might
give her a few ideas. Ed Miliband, too, for the betrayal, though here the
betrayal is not of a brother, but of a best friend, best man, godparent of
children etc. And any number of politicians for dramatic resignations and/or
leadership challengers – Geoffrey Howe, Michael Heseltine, John Redwood …
In the belated follow-up to Paula Milne's 1995 drama The
Politician's Wife, Westminster golden boy Aiden Hoynes (television's golden boy
David Tennant, worryingly golden-haired here) resigns from the government,
nominally in protest at the PM's immigration policy, though really because he
is challenging for the leadership himself. It backfires big time, mainly
because his best mate, secretary of state for work and pensions and master of
the dark arts Bruce Babbish (Ed Stoppard) hangs him out to dry. Aiden scuttles
home, to plot bitterly, between the school run and comedy dismal MP's surgeries
in the local church hall; and to stare at a symbolic question mark-shaped crack
on the bedroom ceiling. While the political career of his wife, Freya Gardner
(Emily Watson), who always put the brakes on her own ambition to support her
husband and for the good of the family, goes through the roof.
So we're not just talking about power battles in the
corridors of Westminster here, we're (actually mainly) talking about power
battles in the hall and on the landing at the top of the stairs of a semi in a
salubrious-looking London suburb. Oh and in the bedroom; big shift going on in
there too. It's not just careerwise that Freya's on top. And she's enjoying it,
a lot.
There is heaps to enjoy in The Politician's Husband. Well,
him and her, Tennant and Watson; they're both great, and great together,
convincing as a couple. I like – no, not like, approve of – the fact that their
son Noah has Asperger's. That also makes them more convincing, more real – even
before themassive (question
mark-shaped?) cracks begin to appear in their relationship. And Aiden's
difficult relationship with Noah, a son he – and she – clearly find it very
hard to love, acts as a subplot to what is going on between his parents and
down in London SW1.
It's an entertaining, but bleak, picture of politics in this
country too, a world of bitter competitiveness and ruthless ambition that has
very little to do with the interests of the country. Any ideological motivation
someone might have once had is soon squeezed out by the pressure of the system.
Soon it's only about party politics, power, battles and games. Probably fairly
accurate, then.
A couple of things don't quite ring true for me. Aiden's
total betrayal by his pal Bruce, whose hand Aiden held when Bruce's wife left
him and when he had a health scare, now stabbing him in the back and kicking
him in the balls, when he's down. I suspect there's more betrayal to come from
him, I'm thinking maybe involving Freya. No, that's OK, they all do that? OK
then, the bottle of wine that Bruce orders over lunch with Freya? Lunchtime
boozing doesn't go on any more does it? Unless you're Kenneth Clarke, perhaps.
But if you're young and thrusting and power-crazed, you can't do all that after
a bottle of 2009 Châteauneuf du Pape blanc.
The Politician's Husband isn't subtle, sometimes to the
point of crudeness. Like when Freya, invited to drinks at No 10, sneaks in to
the cabinet room, and runs her hands over the backs of the chairs, the ones at
the middle of the table where the PM and the most important members sit, and
she is overcome with a look of deep sensuality, literally seduced by the power.
Ha! Nor is it Borgen – it lacks that humanness, the genuine plausibility and
depth of character of the Danish drama. And though, like Borgen, it does have a
strong woman at its heart, she's not strong simply because she's brilliant; it
looks as if Freya is going to be sucked into the wicked power game with the
rest of them. Oh, what the hell. It's melodrama, and a lot of fun, a big
boiling pot of hot, lusty power soup, with crunchy croutons of deceit and a
generous sprinkling of revenge.
Nice performance by Kirsty Wark too – almost uncanny – as
herself.
A special documentary to mark the seventieth birthday of HRH
the Prince of Wales.
For this observational documentary, film-maker John Bridcut
has had exclusive access to the prince over the past 12 months, both at work
and behind the scenes, at home and abroad. He speaks to those who know him
best, including HRH the Duchess of Cornwall and the Dukes of Cambridge and
Sussex. His sons discuss their upbringing and their feelings about the prince's
working life.
As the prince reaches his seventith birthday, he has been
involved in public affairs for 50 years, championing environmental and social
issues long before they reached the mainstream, from plastic waste and global
warming to lack of opportunity for young people.
The documentary charts the prince's working life at a time
when he is taking on an increasing amount of duties in support of the Queen. He
is seen on working visits to County Durham, Cornwall and the Brecon Beacons,
and at home at Highgrove in Gloucestershire and Birkhall in Aberdeenshire.
The film features behind-the-scenes footage of the Prince
with the Queen in Buckingham Palace at the time of the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in April, when the prince was named as the next head of the
Commonwealth.
Also included is the stunning ceremonial welcome given to
the prince in the Pacific island republic of Vanuatu, when he was invested as a
high chief, and his visit to three Caribbean countries struggling to recover
after hurricanes Irma and Maria a year ago.
What emerges is a revealing and intimate portrait of the
longest-serving heir to the throne, who still feels he has a lot more to do
BBC
“I Don’t Really See Any Value in Saying, ‘I Told You So,’”:
Prince Charles on His Climate-Change Fight, Life with Camilla, and Becoming
King
“I Don’t Really See Any Value in Saying, ‘I Told You So,’”:
Prince Charles on His Climate-Change Fight, Life with Camilla, and Becoming
King
“Anyone of my age knows that days pass at a far greater
speed than when they were young,” a man nearing his 70th birthday recently told
me. “But in my case there are so many things that need to be done.”
“Things that need to be done” takes on a strikingly
different quality if you are on the verge of ascending the British throne. Past
the age at which many people retire, Charles Philip Arthur George, the Prince
of Wales, is still waiting to begin the job he’s been in line for since he was
three years old, when his mother, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, began her
monarchy in 1952. As she has become the longest-reigning sovereign in British
history, he’s become the longest-waiting heir apparent. While the Queen, at 92,
still vigorously carries out the major elements of her role as head of state,
her reign is inexorably beginning to wind down. At her request, the Prince of
Wales has begun to ramp things up.
“Charles figured out a very long time ago that he was going
to be Prince of Wales for a very long time,” an English peer intimate with the
royal family says. “He planned his life accordingly, and he wouldn’t have been
able to accomplish half of what he has if he had become King earlier.”
Dodging the sovereign’s constitutionally mandated
straitjacket and muzzle, the Prince of Wales has been able to express strong
opinions on many issues—including climate change, alternative medicine, and
architectural preservation—for which he has been harshly criticized.
He has also been a prolific worker bee in the Windsor hive,
his work constituting charity appearances and other public forays for the
greater good. A tally of “jobs” attended by the royal family in 2017 attests to
the amount of heavy lifting Charles is doing. With 546 under his belt, Charles
was at the top of the list, while the Queen came in fourth (behind Princess
Anne and Prince Andrew) at 296. Prince Harry and Prince William, future King
himself, notched considerably fewer: 209 and 171, respectively.
As the United Kingdom lurches toward Brexit and relations
with the European Union fray, the royal family’s soft power may be Britain’s
trump card. They charm, they command respect; they impart a sense of stability
and continuity. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth states—home to 2.4 billion
citizens, a third of the world’s population—are ever critical. It was not just
an act of fashion when Meghan had her 16-foot veil embroidered with flora from
each of the 53 member nations. In April, the heads of these countries—which
include India, New Zealand, and Nigeria—officially voted that Charles will
succeed his mother as leader.
While his relatives and his subjects tiptoe around the mere
thought of the Queen’s death, Charles has become a proxy head of state for his
mother, while his own children have helped garner massive positive press for
the royal family. (Some two billion people around the world tuned in to watch
Meghan and Harry’s wedding and their baby news is a global preoccupation.) So,
on May 7, when I boarded a plane with the Prince of Wales and his wife of 13
years, the Duchess of Cornwall, bound for an official royal tour through France
and Greece, the couple was in high spirits.
ON THE ROAD
Since 2016 the royal family and the prime minister have
shared a jumbo jet for long-haul flights. (Previously, they had to charter
aircraft or, worse, fly commercial.) The RAF Voyager, a massive military tanker
based on an Airbus A330 capable of air-to-air refueling and missile detection,
was ordered by David Cameron and refitted at a cost of £10 million.
Impressive yet discreet, the aircraft is gray and blue
inside and out, with 158 seats in three cabins on one deck. As it sits on the
tarmac of R.A.F. Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, and its two pilots and eight
cabin crew prepare for flight, what would be the business class on a commercial
plane fills up with Clarence House staff members: dark-suited, solemn-looking
private secretaries, personal protection officers (P.P.O.’s), the royal doctor,
a valet, Communications Secretary Julian Payne, and the Prince’s equerry, Major
Harry Pilcher, as well as Hugh Green and Jacqui Meakin, the Duchess’s longtime
hairdresser and stylist. In the rear cabin are dozens of uniformed military
personnel—engineers, soldiers, baggage handlers, and other tactical
officers—along with about five members of the British press who regularly
report on the royals. And me. All journalists are later invoiced for their
flights—the cost being comparable to an equivalent full-fare coach seat.
Finally, after about an hour, a large black car pulls up to the front stairs of
the plane. As soon as Their Royal Highnesses climb aboard, into the first-class
cabin, the Voyager roars into the sky and cabin attendants in blue military
uniforms offer beverages, including good Moët, to passengers. The atmosphere is
one of restrained elegance. Typically, midflight, Camilla will appear for a few
moments in the rear cabin, prompting all military personnel to immediately
stand at attention.
“He figured out a very long time ago that he was going to be
Prince of Wales for a very long time.”
Though he’s not yet a head of state, the Prince of Wales is
received like one wherever we land. In Nice, a military band plays the British
and French national anthems and an honor guard stands at attention as T.R.H.
disembark onto a red carpet at the end of which stands a long convoy of
official vehicles.
Our first stop is Villa Masséna, an ornate Belle Époque-era
art museum, where a memorial to the 86 victims of the 2016 Bastille Day attack on
the Promenade des Anglais has been erected. Payne jumps out of a car. “The
first rule of royal tours is don’t get left behind!” he cautions me as he
sprints ahead.
T.R.H. have come to meet survivors, their families, first
responders, and other Nice citizens in the villa’s garden. They lay a bouquet
composed of Camassia leichtlinii (Caerulea Group), Narcissi ‘Actaea,’ Viburnum
x carlcephalum, and lilies of the valley, all gathered from the Prince of
Wales’s garden at Highgrove, his country house.
Next, the convoy speeds off to Èze, perched in the hills
outside Nice, for a walkabout through the narrow, winding cobblestone streets.
Citizens and tourists pour out of shops, cafés, nooks, and crannies, treating
Charles and Camilla as impeccably suited rock stars, which is how it goes all
week.
While their agenda includes many stately private events at
palaces, embassies, and such, the action unfolds in open streets and squares,
where they shake hundreds of hands. (No germophobes here: I never saw any hand
sanitizer deployed.) These walkabouts are often mapped out in advance by the
Prince’s security detail, but can be unexpectedly fluid. The plan for a visit
to Nice’s bustling flower market, for example, calls for “three designated
points” for T.R.H. to visit, but allows for “some off-piste walking.” Meaning:
Charles goes wherever he wants.
“He has complete confidence in his protection officers,”
says a staff member, “so he dives right into the crowds.”
At a food market in Lyon, an urgent, almost alarming cry—“Your
Highness! Please!”—stops the Prince in his tracks, resulting in a pileup of
trailing entourage. A butcher in a white apron is desperate for him to sample
his sausages.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Charles inquires, and is quickly
passed a bit of saucisson. A hush descends; the butcher is on tenterhooks
before the royal opinion is issued: “Excellent! Incroyable!” says the future
King. The butcher’s face registers ecstasy. Charles beckons the Duchess from
the cheese aisle. “Try this, darling,” he coos, as onlookers smile and
photographers click.
“The people in the crowds are usually great, it’s just the
press who can get too pushy sometimes,” one of the P.P.O.’s tells me. “We guard
Cabinet ministers, too. They’re never a problem because they don’t want to go
out into the public. But Prince Charles really wants to.”
Charles assiduously reads the lengthy briefings that are
prepared in advance of all engagements. “So, if he’s meeting an elderly veteran
he can say, ‘I know you flew Spitfires in the war,’” a former staff member
tells me. “They’re like, ‘Holy shit, how did he know that?’” (“The bullet
points I remember,” the Duchess says.)
In Greece, there are visits to the presidential palace, a
battleship, a monastery, and the Yacht Club, for swanky cocktails with shipping
magnates. On Aiolou Street, Athens’s busiest shopping thoroughfare, the royal
couple sample koulouri, traditional Greek pretzels, then repair to an outdoor
café—a planned photo op, of course. But when the Prince declines the plastic
straw that comes with his freddo cappuccino—a cause célèbre for the likes of
Adrian Grenier, Brooklyn Decker, and Neil deGrasse Tyson—the rejection becomes
front-page news in Greece, where sipping your cold coffee from a plastic straw
is de rigueur. (A few weeks later, McDonald’s will announce plans to phase out
plastic straws across its 1,361 restaurants in Britain.)
During the foreign tour, I travel in an anonymous black van
with about a dozen of the British photographers and correspondents who are
dedicated to covering the royals at their nearly every turn. (Some are salaried
employees of news organizations and some are independent operators; the British
government does not pay any of their travel expenses.) There is fierce
competition among these fellows—and most are men. But they are great mates, addressing
one another often by nickname, and with salty language. (Which some of them
requested I refrain from printing, indicating that royals are not the only
people sensitive about their coverage.) “We sometimes have our elbows out, but
we’re like brothers,” says Shutterstock photographer Tim Rooke, who has been on
the beat for 28 years. “We’ve spent more time with each other than we have with
our wives,” says Chris Jackson, who has the clout that comes with being the
royal photographer for Getty Images.
A week before Harry and Meghan’s wedding, everybody is
champing at the bit for a sound bite from T.R.H. about the event. Word goes
around that there will be a brush-by—a quick, pre-arranged moment, often when a
royal is about to get in a car, when they answer seemingly spontaneous
questions lobbed at them. But this brush-by keeps getting delayed, leading to
frazzled nerves and vociferous complaints among the pack. “This is arse
backwards, tits up!” carps one passenger on the van, whatever that means.
At last, the brush-by transpires in Nice. “Obviously . . .
it’s going to be marvelous,” says His Royal Highness. “I’m sure it will be a
special day for everyone.” “It’s all very exciting. Can’t wait,” Her Royal
Highness adds. The press corps are always eager for a quote from Camilla.
Occasional grumbling aside, these royal-watchers esteem
Charles and Camilla. “She’s my favorite royal, by a country mile,” I’m told by
one correspondent. “She knows all our names, she fosters a sense that we’re all
in this together. She always gives you a little gleam in her eye and will find
a moment to look at our cameras,” says another. William and Kate, by
comparison, go out of their way not to look at the “fixed point” where
photographers gather. In general, this correspondent goes on, the younger
generation of royals are “control freaks” about their coverage, whereas Charles
is “far more relaxed.” As is Camilla.
“We think the world of her, we adore her. She’s an amazing
woman,” says Sun photographer Arthur Edwards. “She always shows up with a great
smile and is never, ever, grumpy.”
Edwards, 78, speaks with authority. The dean of the royal
camera corps, he’s been shooting the Windsors for 41 years. In 2003, Queen
Elizabeth bestowed an M.B.E. on him at Buckingham Palace. (“It means ‘much
bigger expenses,’” he jokes in his Cockney accent.)
Edwards shot one of the most iconic, and prophetic, royal
images ever, in February of 1992: the so-called lonely princess photo of Diana
sitting alone on a bench in front of the Taj Mahal, in India.
“All right, Arthur, where do you want me?” he recalls her
asking him when she arrived at the site. But the location was hardly as empty
as it appears in the photo. “There were 50 people around—we said, ‘Get out of
the way!’” recalls a correspondent, who was also there. Diana, they agree, was
far savvier than the public gave her credit for. “‘It’s very healing,’” Edwards
remembers the Princess commenting after the shot. “We were all trying to work
out what she meant.” “She and Charles did separate 10 months later—so we
weren’t wrong,” says Edwards.
“Everything that is too political he is transitioning out
of.”
Among this troop, there is unanimous agreement that since
Camilla has come aboard, “the boss” is a helluva lot easier and happier. “She’s
made a massive difference in him,” a longtime correspondent observes. “He’s
much more relaxed now. They are always laughing and chatting, they have great
affection and humor between them.”
Photographer Alexi Lubomirski, who shot Harry and Meghan’s
official engagement and wedding pictures, says as much, when Charles and
Camilla greet him in the morning room at Clarence House to pose for the
portraits in this story. “As soon as they looked at each other, there was a
sparkle in their eyes—that’s when the magic happened,” he says. “You feel like
they are a young couple in love.”
THE FUTURE QUEEN
Friends agree that, 13 years on from their wedding, Charles
and Camilla have never been in a better place. “They’re a rock,” says a
longtime friend of the couple’s.
Their saga, told by every tabloid, is well known: They met
in the summer of 1971 and were smitten with each other. But according to the
customs of the time, Camilla Shand wasn’t considered a royal-bride candidate,
having been the on-and-off girlfriend of Andrew Parker Bowles for more than six
years. Camilla married him and they had two children before they divorced.
Meanwhile, the public fairy tale of the royal romance between Charles and Lady
Diana Spencer was privately in tatters from the start.
Though they were pilloried in the press, Charles and Camilla
just couldn’t quit each other. And on April 9, 2005, almost nine years after
the dissolution of Charles’s marriage to Diana, he and Camilla were married in
a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall. At the time, it was announced that when
Charles does accede to the throne she will be given the title princess consort.
In subsequent years, public opinion of her has turned around. According to
recent reports, she will eventually become queen consort, the customary title
for the wife of a reigning king.
“They’re in a very good place right now,” says Mark Bolland.
As deputy private secretary to the Prince of Wales from 1997 to 2002, Bolland
masterminded the campaign to win public acceptance for Camilla and rehabilitate
Charles’s reputation.
“We have a prime minister and government distracted by the horror
of Brexit,” says Bolland. “It makes the monarchy stronger, as it is a beacon of
stability and hope.” Meanwhile, Camilla has brought to the House of Windsor
refreshingly natural warmth and taste. The Duchess’s father was a wine expert
and her son is a food writer, Bolland points out, so when Charles becomes King
“the flowers at Buckingham Palace will be a lot better, and the food and wine
too.”
Camilla seems constitutionally suited to being Queen. “She
never complains, she never explains,” says a London man-about-town who
socializes with the royals. “She’s not an intellectual, but there’s nothing
lightweight about her. She’s not a bullshitter and she doesn’t take any
bullshit.”
The shadiest comment comes from an aristocratic dowager, who
says that “she’s a bossy woman.” But this source hastens to add that “she’s
been very good for him. She gives him all the love and support he needs.” Payne
seconds that. “She can change his mind in a way nobody else can,” says the
communications secretary. “Every so often, I can go to the Duchess, cap in
hand. She’s your last card. If she thinks it’s the right thing, she’ll say,
‘Leave it with me. . ..’”
“They are both clearly great on their own. But two and two
makes five in a big way here,” says Camilla’s nephew, Ben Elliot, a co-founder
of the Quintessentially Group. “You can see it when they are together. They
enjoy each other’s company so much. You can see it best when they are dancing
together—such genuine, deep-down affection and love. They both get the giggles—she
first, then he tries to hold it together.
“She knows that he is the boss, the star. She does
everything she can possibly do to support him. At the same time, he’s very
proud of her. She’s very sharp and perceptive,” Elliot adds. And no need to
worry that the future King and Queen won’t be able to keep up with their
duties, notwithstanding their septuagenarian status: “They are both—he
particularly—unbelievably physically fit. I’ve never seen a man his age who is
as strong as he is. I’ve gone stalking with him in Scotland. He walks soldiers
off the Highlands.”
The Duchess has retained her old house, Ray Mill, to which
she escapes periodically. “She doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking about
what her title will be,” Elliot adds in jest. Instead, she likes to cook simple
English fare, keep her bees, and enjoy visits from her five grandchildren.
Charles and Camilla’s happy place, though, is Birkhall, the Scottish estate
formerly owned by the Queen Mother. “It’s a lodge—not particularly grand. It
has a wonderful, warm coziness,” where the couple can indulge in the
“relentless” reading they enjoy, and watch some TV, Elliot elaborates. He begs
off the million-pound question as to whether they watch The Crown. But the
chatty London man-about-town quoted earlier says Camilla has privately
confessed to having enjoyed the program, though she hastened to add that she
“wasn’t looking forward to the bits to come.” The young Camilla will be
introduced in Season Three, which covers the royals from 1964 to the early 70s.
Elliot was an adolescent when wall-to-wall coverage of
“Camillagate” made his aunt the most unpopular woman in Britain. “Her children
are like brother and sister to me—we’re all very close,” he says. “It was
bloody hard. She was a prisoner in her own house. For everyone involved it was
not a happy time. In the breakdown of any marriage, you want privacy to deal
with it, but they didn’t have any of that.”
WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK
Camilla’s popularity turnaround may have been strategic, but
it would have fallen flat without a genuine personality underneath. Maintaining
the dignity of the royals while trying to engender affection for them, and
keeping them dutifully engaged—that’s the tightrope on which Palace staff walk.
Not only did the Duchess burn rubber, but she also delivered
a winning message during the event, at Hampton Court Palace, where awards were
given to schoolchildren for short stories they had written. Another day found
the Duchess at the Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace, with none other than Her
Majesty. Any joint engagement between the Queen and another royal signifies
that the other royal is in her good books, and also that she approves of the
cause. Read into that everything you want about the Duchess of Sussex’s
giggle-filled jaunt with Her Majesty to Cheshire in June.
The sovereign and the Duchess of Cornwall have teamed up for
an event to mark the 10th anniversary of Medical Detection Dogs. The
organization has been at the forefront of a nascent field that trains dogs to
recognize the odors of various diseases. The theory holds that dogs are such
extraordinary biosensors, they have the ability to detect diseases at very
early stages, which could aid treatment options.
A day later, T.R.H. visited the Royal Cornwall Show, which
is something of a Coachella of British country life: heifers, horses,
sheepshearing, tractors, chainsaw-carving, flowers, Cornish wrestling,
blacksmithing, bees and honey, ferret racing, a pig-of-the-year contest,
fly-fishing. T.R.H. worked their way through jam-packed crowds for about three
hours, and there wasn’t a man or woman who didn’t appear to be hugely admiring.
A fearsome-looking big guy of around 30, covered in tattoos and holding a baby,
beamed when the Prince shook his hand and the baby’s. The mass affection for
Charles isn’t just a product of public-relations efforts. His vast charitable
endeavors have personally touched a huge portion of the British population.
Charles has long been a champion of traditional
craftsmanship and rural values. “Traditional crafts have always defined the
character and beauty of a civilization’s particular culture. They underpin the
rich tapestry of cultures that make up the world,” he says. “So if you think
them irrelevant and worth abandoning, then you abandon the richness of human
civilization. You submit to the dehumanized, reductive approach of the lifeless
machine. . .. What a sorry world that would be!” As for the charities, last
March, Charles created a new umbrella entity, the Prince’s Foundation, to
oversee and streamline his vast empire of them. Since it was set up in 1976,
the Prince’s Trust has helped more than 870,000 disadvantaged people aged 11 to
30 move into work, education, or job training. In the past decade, the Prince
of Wales Charitable Foundation has given away more than £52 million in grants.
“As he nears his 70th, it’s all to do with making things leaner, neater. . ..
The tidying-up process has started,” says his cousin David Linley, the Earl of
Snowdon, who is vice president of the Prince’s Foundation.
“He’s a great connector—the ultimate networker,” says Dame
Julia Cleverdon, the former C.E.O. of one of Charles’s outreach initiatives.
“He creatively swipes ideas from all over the world. Then he’ll say, for
example, Why hasn’t this one been implemented in Dorset?”
“There’s a lack of dot-joining today,” Prince Charles says
to a group of young people in Athens. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to join
the dots.”
CHANGE AGENT
Charles puts a lot of elbow grease into connecting the dots.
He adheres to a strict schedule: He’s at his desk at 8:30 A.M. and spends two
hours on correspondence. Then it’s steady meetings until breaking for tea at
five—he doesn’t eat lunch—followed by a walk. After dinner, he generally goes
back to his study to write letters or read for a couple hours.
In years past, many of those letters might have been to
harangue politicians or editors, venting his opinions or dispensing advice on
his pet issues. “He’s been expressing his views less and less,” a former
Clarence House courtier says. “Everything that is too political he is
transitioning out of.” Nevertheless, in written correspondence to me, Charles
elaborated on climate change and other crises that “keep me awake at night.”
“I don’t really see any value in saying, ‘I told you so,’”
he wrote. “As a teenager, I remember feeling deeply about this appallingly
excessive demolition job being done on every aspect of life. . .. In putting my
head above the parapet on all these issues, and trying to remind people of
their long-term, timeless relevance to our human experience—never mind trying
to do something about them—I found myself in conflict with the conventional
outlook which, as I discovered, is not exactly the most pleasant situation to
find yourself.
“One of [my] duties has been to find solutions to the vast
challenges we face over accelerating climate change. . . . However, it seems to
take forever to alert people to the scale of the challenge. Over forty years
ago I remember making a speech about the problems of plastic and other waste,
but at that stage nobody was really interested and I was considered
old-fashioned, out of touch and ‘anti-science’ for warning of such things,” the
Prince wrote. “If we don’t engage with these issues, and many other related and
critical problems that they inevitably compound, we will all be the victims.
Nothing escapes.”
SUCCESSION
Charles has outspokenness in common with his new
daughter-in-law. According to an attendee at the Sussexes’ wedding, Charles and
Camilla’s presence was very much felt and appreciated: “He seemed like the
settling hand on the whole day—he carried the thing together, while she seemed
like she had been doing this forever.”
He escorted Meghan Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, during
the ceremony, and it was Charles who suggested that the phenomenal Kingdom
Choir perform at the service. Meanwhile, the Duchess of Cornwall and the
Duchess of Sussex get along “aces,” according to a close family friend. “They
clearly really like each other. There is real warmth and support. Camilla has
been very helpful to Meghan.”
It is verboten for the royal family or anyone who works for
them to address what will happen when the Queen dies. But there is a
meticulously detailed secret plan: Operation London Bridge will be activated to
steer Britain for 10 days, down to the moment, following her passing. According
to The Guardian, it takes effect when the Palace informs the prime minister:
“London Bridge is down.” At the BBC, a cold-war-era alarm system, the “radio alert
transmission system” (RATS), will be deployed, and its correspondents will don
black suits. Meanwhile, blue “obit lights” will flash at radio stations,
signaling them to begin playing solemn music and to switch to news. Charles
will address the nation on the evening of his mother’s death and then will
immediately tour the country, visiting Edinburgh, Belfast, and Cardiff to
attend services and meet leaders.
Operation London Bridge will be followed by Operation Golden
Orb, the top-secret plan for Charles’s coronation. Preparation for both stepped
up after Christmas 2016, when the Queen did not appear for church services at
Sandringham. “A heavy cold” was the reason given by Buckingham Palace, but
according to a Palace insider, her condition was quite grave. As that source
said, “It put everybody on notice that they have to be ready whenever it does
happen.”
The Queen recovered, though, and enjoys robust health.
“She’s absolutely marvelous—better than the two of us put together,” says a
friend of the Queen’s who has been her guest in the past year at both
Sandringham and Buckingham Palace. “She never sits down! Before dinner in the
salon, she stands the whole time with a drink in her hand, while we’re
collapsed on the sofa. And her mind still works so fast. At the table, she was
listening to three different conversations going on—jumping back and forth
between them.” This source also recalls the Queen saying after the Pope
resigned, in 2013, something that may mean Charles has a long wait yet: “I
would never do that.”
