On Monday 12th October, Boodle’s and CFCC members came together for a stimulating evening with Robert Hardman, author of Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story. Baroness Meyer chaired the event, providing illuminating observations on the success of the recent party conference, and Baroness Chalker introduced the speaker, describing his fantastic ability to bring out the human stories in royal history. The event, hosted by Billy James, included a dinner, a speech, and a book signing by the author.
Few are better placed than Hardman to write about our late Sovereign Lady. For many years the Telegraph’s royal correspondent, he has interviewed countless royals, heads of state and politicians and travelled the world on royal tours, becoming the paramount commentator on royal matters. He now writes for the Daily Mail and is a fixture of the BBC’s coverage of state occasions. His published works include Charles III: The Inside Story and Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II, in 2022 presented to President Zelensky by Boris Johnson on behalf of the British government.
The publication of this new book was sparked by Hardman’s desire to include new voices in the Queen’s story, many heard only since her death. Not only should the reading public hear ‘big stories’, like that of the Commonwealth, whose bounds, because of her, ‘grew wider still and wider’, but also the ‘little stories’, such as her teaching a new Lord Mayor of Belfast ‘the art of pretending to eat by pushing one’s food around the plate’, the only way to tolerate the dietary load of endless luncheons.
In private, Elizabeth was sometimes brusque and formal, but conversely one of her greatest thrills was when things went wrong. And at all times, as Hardman, full of admiration, observed, she was ‘sparkly’ and dignified. In public, the Queen was a monumental figure—as her diplomatic prowess at the 2021 G7 summit showed—and her currency among world leaders was demonstrated by her funeral being the largest concentration of world leaders at any event in history. Indeed, as Hardman revealed, President Trump himself keeps her portrait in pride of place at Mar-a-Lago.
For Hardman, the Queen’s greatest trait was her resilience, her ability to adapt as the conditions of her reign changed. She was not born to rule, just as her father and his father were not born to be monarchs either. In her case, all changed after the abdication of her uncle David, as Edward VIII, elevating her father to the Throne and leaving her as Heir. Her reign endured nadirs—Suez, the annus horribilis, the death of Diana, ‘Megxit’—but more often saw apogees—her coronation, the 1976 bicentennial visit to America, her development into a ‘matriarchal’ figure around the time of her Silver Jubilee and, above all, the rejuvenation of the monarchy’s popularity after her Golden and Diamond Jubilees.
Permitted by the Queen to read George VI’s war diaries, Hardman had one phrase shoot out at him: ‘this storm too shall pass.’ Nothing was more the epitome of Elizabeth II than her last photo at Balmoral with Liz Truss, only two days before her death. Nor was any description better than Hardman’s, that on her deathbed she was still working through her famous red box. Her whole life, long rather than short, was after all devoted to our service.
Angus Docherty
