Behind The Crown: How Queen Elizabeth II Made History | Our History

Few lives are as well chronicled or as elusive as the Queen's. She's been excessively criticised as the head of a dysfunctional family and overly praised as the epitome of everything great about Britain. But what's she really like? Let's start with her childhood. She was born Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of York on April 21st 1926. She was the Shirley Temple, the child star, little lacy frocks, photographs of her on chocolate boxes with blonde curls and big blue eyes. And that was the image. Her picture was splashed on the front page of newspapers around the world, still enthralled to a notion of an empire headed by a royal family. Although she wasn't expected at that point ever to become Queen, there was an enormous interest in her from birth. So she became a rather special princess, a kind of fairy princess from the moment she was born. Then, when she was just ten years old, Princess Elizabeth's life was to change forever. Her uncle the King abdicated the throne in order to marry an American woman already twice divorced. Elizabeth's father reluctantly shuffled into his place. The word divorce became inseparably linked with royal shame and family scandal. On the day of the abdication, Elizabeth and her sister heard noise going on outside and then they realised it was cheering. What was happening? God save the King! Princess Margaret said, Will you be Queen someday? Elizabeth replied, Yes, someday. Princess Margaret said, Poor you. The man who had sought the quieter part in life was crowned ruler of the greatest empire in history. Elizabeth's father had not wanted the job. He wept for an hour at the news. But the royal family is not a place for the exercise of free will. However painful, this was his duty. The little princesses play their part in the handshaking with dignified pleasure. Elizabeth was now heir presumptive, first in line to the throne. She'd seen the horror of her father when he had to take over the job and she didn't want it. She just wanted to play with her ponies and lead a normal existence. Instead, the family moved into the vast apartments and grounds of Buckingham Palace. More human than divine after the abdication, how could the new royal family restore the faith? Welcome to the world of the photo opportunity. And Moby-Town feels particularly privileged to present this study of the royal family at leisure, in quiet surroundings, doing nothing more important than feeding the ducks and playing with the dogs. Of course, it looks idyllic, but what was the reality? This was the ideal family, this was the respectable family, this was the family that they could look up to. But I think the problem with that was that people's expectation was terribly high and they forgot that, in fact, members of the royal family are human beings as well. Human beings, but how many children have this sort of spectacle in their driveway? Imagine it, few chances to meet new friends, just the closeness of a family who became each other's best friends. In touch with each other, out of touch with ordinary life. The girls were like little prisoners in the palace. There was a little hill where they could see over the wall and they used to go stand there and unobserved watch people, ordinary people going about their business. So it was like a world removed. The princesses were very much isolated from other children, hence they interacted with each other and they paradoxically would have developed an intense interest in everything ordinary. What is it like to ride on the tube? They would look at other children playing at a distance and wish that they could talk with them and make friends with them. So just as we dreamed of them, they dreamed of us. Show me the child and I'll show you the adult. True glimpses of the young Elizabeth are rare. For me, the most revealing record of these times is this book by the princess's governess, Marion Crawford, known as Crawfee. Princess Elizabeth was a very reserved child, a very good girl, a very tidy girl. Crawfee describes how she used to, every night, put the shoes neatly under the chair and put her toy horses away and feed them and water them, although they were toys, and fold her clothes very neatly and I think that's very key to her character, very organised and very disciplined. Unlike today's royal children, the girls were educated at home. Their official source of education was in many ways reliable, trustworthy, good, basic, but, I have to say, inadequate. Her education was essentially that of her mother, that is to say, her mother's views on how an aristocratic little girl should be brought up, namely to be a debutante, to be interested in country pursuits, to be able to make dinner-party conversations of not-too-high-powered kind and, emphatically, not to be a blue stocking. A teenage girl and a royal, it can't have been easy. Crawfee realised the two princesses needed to see something of the real world. She took them on excursions beyond the palace gates and the cameras came too. But to me, the princesses seemed like prisoners on day release. You have to imagine somebody living a life of great privilege, surrounded by servants. I mean, you know, you never had to fetch your own food or make it or anything like that. So any kind of normal life was manufactured. Princess Margaret Rose has feet which at the age of seven cannot keep still. However, that's what you'd expect of a brownie of the leprechaun six of the Buckingham Palace pack. Even the brownie and guide pack they joined was imported into the palace. There was little chance of everyday social interaction. When war was declared, the two princesses moved from Buckingham Palace to the greater safety of Windsor Castle. The unit in which Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose lived was known, wait for it, as the nursery unit. Well, that would have been wonderful if they'd been girls of four and five. But that was not so. And the whole slant, as I say, I hope not unkindly, but the whole slant was towards keeping them small, keeping them young. For the next five years, the princesses lived at Windsor. Happy times for Elizabeth, quietly being prepared for the job to come. The Queen was trained like a soldier from a very, very early age. You know, that work came before anything. Family, pleasure, the lot. You know, her duty as monarch, as shown by her father, was paramount. At 18, Princess Elizabeth, like her grandson Prince William, had become a striking young adult. Breaking free from her castle confinement, and with another photo opportunity beckoning, she swapped her horse for an army truck. Elizabeth had badgered her parents to let her join the ATS, or Auxiliary Territorial Service. Although she drives it with apparent composure, she had no experience of driving before she commenced her training. I think the ATS was a wonderful period for her. She was allowed out, she was allowed to live a relatively normal life. Although, of course, all the other girls knew exactly who she was. And it also, to use that word, empowered her because she learnt to drive. And when it comes to checking the plugs, Princess Margaret has obviously become suitably impressed. The Queen Mother once said to a friend over dinner, we had spark plugs for dinner all last night, you know. And she learnt how to change wheels of lorries and maintain engines, and she absolutely loved it. As the war ended, the young woman had broken out of the nursery. And there was another reason for her growing self-confidence. Five years earlier, she had first met the love of her life, Prince Philip. This picture shows the first time Elizabeth recalls meeting Prince Philip, a distant relative, on a visit to a naval college where he was a student. Philip's uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was a keen advocate of the match. Both the princesses were very struck by this glamorous young man, and he showed off, rather, and jumped over the tennis net and teased Margaret and everything. And Princess Elizabeth was completely struck. And that was it. I think she was only 13. She never looked in any other direction. It was a significant decision. Philip offered an antidote to stuffy court life. Good-looking and good at games, forceful and quite irreverent, he was not like the fawning flunkies she was used to. But Elizabeth was the most eligible girl in the world, so her parents were very doubtful about the match. I'm absolutely sure they thought he was a dazzler. Anyone would. They couldn't fail to. But I think, like any parents, their first thought was, wait a bit. That's the natural thing, especially if your daughter has rarely had no experience at all. But the fascinating and wonderful thing was that their daughter knew her mind from the very beginning and never changed it. And I owed her. The romance with Prince Philip helps me detect an unexpectedly determined streak in Elizabeth's character. She was beginning to spread her wings. In 1947, she was required to accompany the royal family on a tour of South Africa. Philip was naturally left behind and the relationship was kept a secret. It was Elizabeth's first ever trip abroad. She was friendly and vibrant and joined in to the full in all the social activities on board. We played with them just as if they were ordinary girls. One couldn't obviously relax entirely all the time. One always had to remember that you were a commoner and they were princesses. The royal family arrived in Cape Town to the unquestioning applause of the empire. What strikes me about this unique colour footage of the tour is just how glamorous Elizabeth and her sister were. The South Africans were absolutely captivated by the royal family and everybody was quite charmed by them all. The royal train crisscrossed South Africa for an exhausting 17 days. Elizabeth experienced the gruelling nature of her parents' job and the necessity of the eternal smile. Thousands of people lined the routes. Wherever they were going, there were always people to welcome them and wave and cheer and the royal family didn't disappoint them. But amid the parties and receptions, clearly Elizabeth was not allowed to forget her obligation as the heir to the throne. We'll never know if she dreamt of another life. The Queen Mother came from an aristocratic Scottish military family with a deeply ingrained sense of duty, of things being right or wrong. And I think that these particular values the Queen Mother instilled in Princess Elizabeth. For me, this is a crucial point. That sense of duty was paramount. On her 21st birthday, Elizabeth had to review the troops. But on her mind was the live radio broadcast she was to make later that day. Shy like her father, it was her self-control that enabled her to make a speech that defined her personal values and still does. I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong. It's a speech of self-denial, of sacrifice, a remarkable speech in someone so young. And when you think about it, these two themes ran throughout her life. Can you imagine Prince William making those vows? Or anyone that age embracing the prospect of a lifetime of royal service? There was a little change, I think, on the return voyage to England after she had made her historic broadcast. I think she probably adopted a more serious outlook on life and she was probably contemplating inwardly what lay ahead for her. Back home, Elizabeth was at last allowed to announce her engagement to Prince Philip. She really was a vision of heavenly beauty. She had complexion like the inside of a pink shell and these wonderful blue eyes. Everything about her was alive and natural. Princess Elizabeth's wedding to Prince Philip was welcome world news. Coming so soon after the war, it offered the same antidote to depression as Charles and Diana's over three decades later. I think she was absolutely in love with him. I think that's of no doubt. And I think he was very attracted by her and he appreciated her. How far he was in love, I don't know. He's not really that kind of character. Some men just are not in love. I think he loved her, yes, I do think so. At that moment, was Princess Elizabeth looking forward to an almost normal life? Marriage, kids and even maybe some privacy? She wasn't a child any more because she had been treated as a child for a very long time. She was leaving this very close family and striking out on her own and making a new life for herself. Where could Elizabeth and Philip go to enjoy a marriage shared by millions? To find out, I must follow in their footsteps to their Mediterranean hideaway. My quest for clues to the Queen's personality has brought me to Malta, where Elizabeth, not yet Queen, and with no prospect yet of becoming Queen, came before me. Her husband, Philip, was stationed here. He was a naval officer, she was a navy wife. Now she had her first real chance to be like the rest of us. So, what does she do? During lengthy visits to Malta, Elizabeth left her toddler, Prince Charles, at home. The young couple seem to have been very happy here. It was obvious that she meant to enjoy herself. She had no restrictions she could move about on her own in Malta. It was absolutely novel for her, you know. And what can be more normal than going to the hairdressers? This is the salon where the Princess came for her shampoo and set. Just like an ordinary customer. She phones for an appointment, just show her into her cubicle, do her hair, and she leaves. Just like an ordinary naval wife. And I think that's how she wanted it to be. This is a lock of hair of Princess Elizabeth, which I saved all these years. It's very precious to me. So how old is it? It's 1951. That's 50 years old. Of course, hair never dies, so it remains as it is. In Malta, the private self was not at war with public duty. Here they enjoyed simple delights, like in a young couple. This is the great ballroom of the Phoenician Hotel. This is the ballroom here. And we used to come in here, we go up there, and the balcony in there, we spent about 15, 20 minutes. Then we photographed the Princess with her party on the table in there, and then we wait for she comes out to dance, and then they send us off straight away. They were nice days. I remember the Duke of Edinburgh asked the bandleader, Jimmy Dowling, to play a favourite tune for the Queen, which was Take The Eatery by Duke Ellington. What a contrast Malta must have been to the bleak formality of her life in London. Perhaps she was even able to forget on occasions that she was a future Queen. I think officially she was the boss, but in private life, I think Philip ran the show. That's my impression, yes. He seemed to boss her around most of the time, you know. And I shouldn't say this, perhaps, I've heard him swear at her. The woman I've discovered in Malta is very different from the remote figure most of us see today. In love, in touch, lively and free. So what did happen to change that vibrant and happy young woman? In 1952, Princess Elizabeth suffered a devastating blow when her father died while she was on a royal tour. He was only 56. Stepping off the plane, Elizabeth was Queen in her own country for the first time. Even though she was distraught about her father, she realised first of all what she had to do. She was Queen, she had to do these things, she had to sign documents, she had to think in a different way. That was the end, the end of any possibility of ordinary life. Today, the silence of sorrow replaces the cheering that once would greet him. A little-known letter written by Elizabeth in early 1952 sheds a fascinating light on her state of mind. Mummy and Margaret have the biggest grief to bear, for their future must seem very blank. Will I have a job and a family to think of? A job. So the job now came first. Elizabeth's coronation was not only an historic event, but a very personal one too. Looking at these pictures, it's like watching a wedding. It's as though she's marrying the nation. Queen Elizabeth II came first, and Elizabeth the person came last. You see the Archbishop lowering this enormously heavy, duly-encrusted crown on the heads of this solemn young woman. You have some sense of the enormous burden of expectation that's been placed upon her, and also the enormous seriousness with which he regarded that event. Until you are crowned, OK, you can call yourself king, queen, whatever, but for yourself, you don't really feel that you are until you've been through this ceremony. It's all the age-old meaning of ritual. The new queen seems to be embracing ceremony and tradition, is predictability a protection? I'm beginning to think that this was the moment when she grasped her destiny, finding its rituals not a burden, but an unexpected comfort. One gets the feeling that she actually enjoys the state occasions in which her role is clearly prescribed, rather than to put herself in informal situations where she has to make decisions as to how her personality will be manifested, because then it could go terribly wrong. As the weight of monarchy fell on her shoulders, Philip had to take a step back. Now he had to kneel before her. Elizabeth was, however, the mother of two small children, Charles and Anne. Never to be forgotten days for this family so sturdily united. Prince Philip made the major decisions on almost everything regarding the children, where they were educated, everything. The queen really liked him to take a more proactive role, in order to compensate for the fact that he was, in public life, a genius. Not many women of her generation were heads of state at the same time as bringing up a family. The ultimate working mother was already used to the demands of state duty abroad. Now her children would have to get used to it too. It was really the queen mum who stepped into her shoes. Prince Charles was a sensitive little boy, and suddenly mummy had virtually disappeared off the scene. And so I think the queen mum provided the sort of emotional stability and security, certainly in the early years. She was a devoted mother, but wasn't able to devote that much time to them. And of course her own personality is a kind of reserved one. Undoubtedly, Prince Charles adores his mother, but at a distance, because it was just the circumstances of fate that dictated that, whereas with the queen mum, it's a much more huggy sort of relationship. But the sacrifices the queen made left its scars. Princess Diana even told me that Charles wanted them to have a home life, but he hadn't been taught how. And the demands of the job meant that the queen had to wait ten years before she had more children. She was much easier with Andrew. A relationship's a much easier one than, say, with Prince Charles. And again, the Duke of Edinburgh's relationship with Prince Edward. Much easier. It seems to me that the queen has always felt she must indulge her children to compensate them for her absence. So when it comes to family matters, she's not as strict as she is with state affairs. Let me give you an example. Look at the fiasco of the television game show It's a Royal Knockout, which did real damage to the image of the monarchy. Have you been watching it? Yeah. What did you think of it? LAUGHTER Thanks. Prince Edward's behaviour contrasts vividly with his mother's iron self-control in public. So why did she let it happen? She feels a need to compensate, and therefore, hence this dreadful error. She should have, as a monarch, put her foot down and said, this is most undignified and what the heck do you think you're doing? But she didn't. It did great damage and, in a way, it was a kind of turning point after which people started getting rather irritated with the younger members of the royal family. Is it this weakness, this indulgence, that caused the problem? It certainly damaged the image of the royal family and, of course, the image of the queen as monarch is very important to us. We expect her to behave in a certain way. She doesn't show her emotions often in public. Let's see if this is strong enough to... Get on, get on. And like her mother before her, the queen has a tight grip on her image. There were previously broadcast programmes about the royal family which no-one now can have access to without the queen's express permission. For some reason, all the palace would allow me to see was this trailer for a film made years ago. So, 25 years after she ascended the throne, the portrayal of a close family with the queen at its head was still the public image. Never more than in 1977, when the country and Commonwealth enthusiastically celebrated the queen's silver jubilee. I think it meant a great deal to her because of the welcome she saw on all the faces wherever she went. And I think she felt, well, these people really like me. With hindsight, it was the high point of her reign. But even then, I got a sense that the tide of unquestioning reverence was rapidly ebbing away. A world that was changing, and a queen who was not. Soon, the epic tragedy of Diana would expose how far from her people the queen had grown. In my search for a deeper understanding of the queen, I've come to a favourite holiday home, Balmoral Castle in Scotland. It's where the queen seems closest to being herself, in a headscarf and tweed skirt. She's a country woman at heart. There was the queen who was on the stamps, and there was a queen who went up to Scotland to be a real person again. She was relaxed with people. People around the estate were relaxed with her. I've seen her talking to a shepherd who leaned onto the back of his crook with his head down and jaw-jawed with the queen like he would with anyone else on the estate and had this philosophical conversation about dogs and the weather. She was trained to have that guard up, and it's not easy for her to let it down. These are priceless glimpses of a queen we rarely see. There was a private queen which is very sharp, very witty, talks almost like a machine gun in rapid sentences, is a very good mimic, makes people laugh, and actually does let her hair down. That is a version of the queen that is not publicly visible. Of course, one thing we all do know about the queen is that she loves dogs, especially corgis. It's quite conceivable that a person in this rather constrained position of the monarch would feel more comfortable interacting with horses and dogs because they are less of a threat. You don't have to pose for them, you don't have to worry about whether you're properly dressed or what you say to them. You can interact with them as true and natural friends. Family relationships are perhaps the most difficult of all, even with the woman she's closest to, her sister Margaret. Long before Elizabeth's coronation, Princess Margaret had fallen in love with a married man, Group Captain Peter Townsend, her father's aide. When Townsend was divorced, their romance intensified. No one in the royal family chose to notice. I think that probably the queen just didn't want to believe what she, even if she thought it might be possible. To royal watchers, the practice of denial is a familiar trait. The royal family call it ostriching, sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich, hoping the problem will go away or someone else will cope with it. Even when it became clear that Margaret and Peter Townsend were intimate, the new queen let the drama drift into a crisis. When Princess Margaret tried to raise the subject with her, she escaped. She dodged out. She took the dogs for a walk when they were about Balmoral, when she was afraid that Princess Margaret was going to say something. I believe this pattern of ignoring emotional problems resurfaces in the 1990s, causing the queen intense personal anguish when the marriage of Diana and Charles starts to fall apart. In the 1950s, it was a very different period from today. The family meant a great deal. Divorce was terrible. The idea of going out with a married man was frowned upon. A married man with children who was going to divorce to marry a royal princess. It was just unheard of. Remember the abdication? Don't mention the D word, divorce. The queen, after all, is head of the Church of England. She's a real Christian, and the values, spiritual values, are important to her. And that again runs through her life of her lifelong disapproval of divorce. Princess Margaret's personal message issued from Clarence House, After much heart-searching, Princess Margaret agreed to stay in the royal world. The queen mother and the queen had influenced her decision. So ultimately, then, the queen was responsible for her sister's happiness. You're saying that. What would you say? She obviously played a part in it, an important part. And it could not have been done without her agreement. It's always issues of the heart, rather than issues of state, that expose the queen's uncertainty of touch. So how has she dealt with the dynamic and proud husband who forever stands in her shadow? And how has she coped with unsubstantiated rumours that he's had extramarital romances? She knows that he would never, ever contemplate leaving her. She's number one. What does that attitude tell you about the queen herself as an individual? I think, again, it shows a terrific stoicism. It shows great humanity and understanding. It seems, however, that after more than 50 years of marriage, their mutual understanding and tolerance has worked for them. All too often I fear Prince Philip has had to listen to me speaking. He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments, but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years. Years of cautiously playing by the book make it difficult to act spontaneously. The queen is more inclined to wait and see and then react. But there's one place where her hidden passions burst through, at the races. At times, her love of the turf takes over from the cares of state. She had a horse called Oriole in coronation year with a real chance in the derby. The question of the moment was, could Oriole, the queen's colt, win? And one of her ladies-in-waiting in the week before the coronation said something like, How are things going, ma'am? And Princess Elizabeth said, Oh, it's all right, they're going fine. Oriole went really well this morning. And that was two days before the coronation, but to her it was five days, I think, before the derby. Her Majesty was obviously most excited, even if victory had eluded her. Likes winning, just like everybody else, loves winning. Many a time when I've spoke to her after winning, she's very, very happy. You can get that glow in the voice that she's just pleased. And the queen isn't just playing. She takes it all very seriously. It's her one passion and escape, and she's very, very knowledgeable about her racing horses. Her breeding, she's very, very much into breeding. It's virtually her life. She really loves horses. Little tiny things make her happy. You know, getting to know all about her babies. Really, that's what they are, they're her babies. She brought them into the world. And indeed one of her close friends said, if the queen had spent even half as much time on the mating of her children as she does on the breeding of her horses, all these troubles of the 90s might never have happened. It's much easier to see the events of the 90s in a different light because I now understand the queen's character more clearly. Looking back, the crisis seems almost inevitable. She looked like a princess from a fairy tale, radiantly happy, accompanied by her proud father, the 8th Earl. The eyes of the world were on her, and she knew it. Remember that wedding day? The nation fell in love with Diana, just as it had with Princess Elizabeth more than 30 years before. Diana and Charles were now front-page international news, but the arrival of Diana highlighted the queen's old-fashioned style. Basically, they were chalk and cheese. The queen just simply didn't really understand Diana, and she didn't understand an urban girl who hated the country. She didn't understand the princess's approach to what the princess saw as her job, which was famously to be queen of hearts, to empathise with people, to go out, to be popular, in a personal sense. That was anathema to the queen. You don't do that. You just stand there and be yourself, but you don't reach out to people. Diana struck an international chord and captured the changing public mood, but in private, Charles and Diana's relationship was falling apart. And what happened? Just as in previous emotional troubles, the queen did nothing and hoped it would resolve itself. It didn't. It was rather like an ostrich just sticking her head in the sand and hoping a problem would go away or that somebody else would deal with it. That word ostriching again. The fairy tale came to an end, and the collapse of her eldest son's marriage was very painful to the queen. She did know about Camilla, and, you know, the whole situation was allowed to spin out of control. It has turned out to be an annus horribilius. Then the very public war of the Wales has forced the queen to react and request their divorce. The whole episode of the Wales divorce was the most damaging thing since the abdication of Edward VIII. Undoubtedly, because it brought into question the reality of the monarchy, the queen's personal attributes as a mother and as a monarch, and contrasted, you know, what seemed an outdated way of behaving with a modern way of behaving. We have a flash here from the Press Association newswire saying that Diana, Princess of Wales, has died in a car crash in Paris. Even today, Diana is not forgotten. Three years later, this spot above the crash site in Paris is still adorned with bouquets. During the awful aftermath of her death, the queen and her family came under close and angry scrutiny. Did the queen's actions, or lack of them, finally expose to the world the limitations of her upbringing and the flaws in her character? The queen was told of Diana's death while on holiday at Balmoral. That morning, while the nation was in shock at the news, the royal family went to Crathie Church for the usual Sunday service. Prayers were said for members of the royal family, but no mention was made of Diana. Tributes flowed in from world leaders and Prime Minister Tony Blair. They regarded her as one of the people. She was the people's princess. But at Balmoral, the public silence was deafening. A short written statement was released saying the family was shocked and distressed. Then nothing. The image of the queen took a serious dent in that first week. They seemed to misjudge the mood of the nation and I think that the silence from the royal family for those early days and nothing happening, no mention of Diana at Crathie Church at the service, no flag coming down at Buckingham Palace, that in itself caused probably a lot of anger with people. It's extraordinary, isn't it, that someone whom we regard as being very wise and very able in all sorts of matters of state should prove so astonishingly inept at judging the mood of her own people. I have talked to a lot of people behind the scenes about the days after Diana's death and a clearer picture of what happened can now be pieced together. As part of the divorce settlement with Charles, Diana had given up the title Her Royal Highness. For the queen, royal protocol meant that Diana, as a commoner, was no longer entitled to a state funeral or to lie in state in a royal chapel. The fact that she was one of the most famous women in the world, that she was the mother of the future king and the former wife of her son, really cut no ice with the queen and it would have been far easier for her had Diana been dealt with in that way. By contrast, Charles followed his instincts and to hell with protocol. He took the royal standard and flew here to Paris. When he arrived at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, he immediately went to see Diana's body. I was very surprised at Prince Charles' manner. On this side of the channel, we thought him to be rather conservative, stuffy, awkward, rigid in royal protocol, and yet the person I met was very warm, deeply moved and rightly concerned over the details. The hospital staff found a photograph of William and Harry in the princess's handbag. So the photo of her children was taken and placed in her hands and when Prince Charles arrived, he seemed to think that it was a lovely idea. I was really surprised when I was told about one phone call the hospital received. It was from the queen's office to the British government. I recall the consul general coming out of the room he'd been given and he went over to talk to one of my colleagues, who's the reception manager, and he said to him, Balmoral wishes to reclaim the jewellery. And, taken aback, the person there says, who at Balmoral? And he says, the queen wants to know if there was any jewellery and if so, it should be retrieved. And he was explained to them that the Princess of Wales, if there were any jewels, they'd probably still be in the car, but that the medical staff had been primarily concerned with saving the princess's life and not with locating any missing jewellery. It's difficult to know why this call was made. At its best, it may simply have been an example of confusion over who was responsible for Diana's belongings. The coffin of the princess, draped in the royal standard, was flown back to London. Although flags around the world were flown at half-mast in honour of Diana's memory, no flag was on show at all at Buckingham Palace. I know it's tradition that the flag flies at Buckingham Palace when only the royalty are there, but I really would have liked to have seen the flag fly in half-mast there as well. They're the most cold people on this earth. Courtiers can explain till they're blue in the face that it couldn't fly at half-mast, but people looking at that building and looking at all the surrounding buildings where flags were at half-mast would again form the impression that this was a disrespectful act to a dead princess who was, we all know, very much loved. The dead hand of protocol had paralysed the Queen, but the public were in no doubt about what they wanted. All these people here today are showing the strength of the nation and she hasn't said anything, the Queen. We wanted the Queen to take the lead, to act and to speak to us as a mother and a grandmother, not as a remote head of state. The Queen is perhaps tightly wrapped, if one can put it that way. It doesn't mean she doesn't feel things, it means she just doesn't show it and she feels it wouldn't be appropriate to show emotion in public. At last, five days after Diana's death, the Queen and the royal family did come to London and then, with the crowds behind her, the Queen did speak to the nation about Princess Diana. First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. Sixty years before, the abdication had united the nation behind its new monarch. Princess Diana's funeral divided the nation from its Queen. The public just didn't understand her remoteness. Whispers of criticism had become a chorus. It was a seismic shift in our relationship with our monarch. The public, I think, have probably been left with an image that, rather than the Queen caring for Diana, the actions that took place in the second half of the week were as a result of the grief being displayed by the public, as opposed to the Queen doing it of her own volition. And I think that is where the damage has been left. Now the Queen faces a new challenge, how to deal with her son and his new partner, Camilla Parker Bowles. Once again, the issue of divorce is at the heart of the dilemma. We've all moved on so much. Is it possible for the Queen, now in her 75th year, to join us? I think it's been very characteristic of the Queen, that she's kind of edged up to it, that it's been a sort of drip-drip, testing the water kind of approach. And I think we'll see that process continue. Looking again at these pictures, I feel a little closer to understanding how difficult it was for the Queen when Diana died, and why. We all knew Diana, but will we ever really know the Queen? All of us play roles, to some degree, a variety of roles throughout our life. What is characteristic of the Queen is that the role of monarch is very powerfully imprinted on her behaviour. And what we see of her, at least, is determined more by the role than by the individual who is fulfilling it. It's almost as though she's an actress who cannot escape the typecasting that's been imposed upon her. Uniquely privileged and uniquely restricted, the Queen has hardly ever put a foot wrong. Her dutiful and cautious character has made her ideally suited for a role where sacrifice and emotional reserve were vital qualities. But even if it has to be this way, and I seriously doubt that it does, will future monarchs, her son and her grandson, be able to attain that high standard? And I wonder, too, if we want them to make that same sacrifice. At the close of the 20th century, the Queen, who had ruled for 45 years, faced one of the most testing times of her reign. Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a terrible car crash in Paris. The nation was inconsolable and laid bare its feelings. And yet the Queen remained silent, concealing her emotions. The television pictures that week provoked a string of questions. Why couldn't the Queen react spontaneously to that shocking event like other people? Why didn't she seem to understand how many felled? And what did her reaction, or lack of it, tell us about her? This programme is my journey through the Queen's life to try and find some answers to those questions. I'm a biographer.