Elizabeth the Queen (39 page)

Wilson yielded to the miners and disbanded the three-day week, but the malaise persisted—stagnating industrial production along with 15 percent inflation. By the mid-1970s, fully half of British adults were on government benefits. Yet Wilson charged ahead with increases in a host of social security programs. He also acquiesced when rapidly rising costs forced the Queen to request a further increase in the Civil List payment to £1.4 million annually.

While the Queen and Prince Philip were on a state visit to Indonesia on March 20, 1974, Princess Anne and her husband were the victims of a shocking kidnap attempt. An armed assailant named Ian Ball blocked their Rolls-Royce with his car on the Mall as the royal couple were returning to Buckingham Palace after a charity event. Ball opened fire and wounded Jim Beaton, Anne’s lone bodyguard (who took three bullets in his efforts to protect her and was later rewarded with the George Cross, Britain’s highest honor for bravery by civilians), as well as her chauffeur, a passer-by, and a policeman. But when Ball ordered Anne to leave the car she shouted, “Not bloody likely!” She continued to resist as Ball tried to drag her out while her husband held her other arm, until Ball was overpowered by police and arrested. Anne recounted the incident to Charles on the telephone “as if it were a perfectly normal occurrence. Her bravery and superb obstinacy were unbelievable.” The Queen and Philip were immediately notified of the incident, but they kept to their schedule and returned to London on the 22nd.

By then Anne and Mark had already left for his home village of Great Somerford in Wiltshire to plant a commemorative tree as scheduled, both brushing off their violent encounter. “It wouldn’t have been much good sitting and brooding about it,” Anne said to the villagers. “We got back to life so quickly, we’ve practically forgotten it.” The couple returned to Oak Grove, their five-bedroom house on the grounds of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where Mark worked as an instructor. Horses remained the center of their lives as they trained together and competed in cross-country jumping events, to all appearances a contented couple.

T
HE
Q
UEEN’S OWN
equine pursuits took a fortunate turn in 1974, although she mourned the death of her treasured stallion, Aureole, whose grave she marked with a copper beech in the paddock where he died. By then she had some fifty horses in training, and more than a score old enough to race. After middling success with her breeding and racing in the 1960s, she had applied a more systematic approach to the business in 1970 when she officially appointed Henry Porchester (later Carnarvon) as her first racing manager, and Sir Michael Oswald as her stud manager. “Henry was the Queen’s closest personal friend, and a very influential adviser,” said her longtime trainer Ian Balding. “One day he said to her, ‘You don’t have enough winners. Your horses are not well enough managed.’ She said, ‘You can be my manager. You can bloody well do it!’ ”

Her breeding operation at Sandringham became more complicated as she expanded it to include stallions owned by syndicates in which she had purchased shares. They would cover not only her own horses, but as many as one hundred visiting mares each year. Oswald, who lived nearby, became the on-site manager of the stallions and mares. At the same time, Porchester worked with her trainers, helped decide which races to run, advised her on buying and selling her thoroughbreds, consulted on mating, and represented her at the many races she was unable to attend because of her obligations as Queen.

Elizabeth II stayed in constant contact with her top advisers, talking to Oswald two or three times a week and Porchey nearly every day. Porchester made a strategic decision to send more of Elizabeth II’s mares to the United States for breeding “to bring in new blood,” said Michael Oswald. During the 1960s, she had sent some of her horses to France and several to the United States, but by 1970 it was clear that the best stallions were in Kentucky. Porchester advised the Queen to ship at least a half dozen mares across the Atlantic to several stud farms where they could be covered by such champions as Nijinsky. After weaning, the foals would then be transported back to England for training.

The Queen’s prize horse in 1974 was a “long-striding filly” born to Highlight, a direct descendant of Feola—the great royal broodmare who had not only run well in the 1930s but had bred a string of winners in the following decades—and sired by Queen’s Hussar, a stallion owned by Porchester’s father, the 6th Earl of Carnarvon. The Queen named the filly Highclere, after the Carnarvon stud farm. Having captured the first classic title for the Queen in eighteen years by winning the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket, Highclere was shipped to Chantilly in June to run in the prestigious Prix de Diane, also known as the French Oaks.

Accompanied by Henry Porchester, his wife, Jean, Michael Oswald, and Martin Charteris, the Queen flew from Windsor Castle to France on the 16th for lunch before the big race. France’s newly elected president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, sent a big bowl of red roses, and Elizabeth II and her party drove down the racecourse in an open car against the backdrop of the Prince of Condé’s château. The Queen knew from talking to the stable girl in the paddock that Highclere was in a “fiery mood,” but as she watched the final furlongs from the royal box, she sat smiling, hands in prayerful position, while Porchester and Oswald jumped and shouted the filly home. “I’m very excitable on the race course,” Porchester recalled, “too enthusiastic, not very British. I remember going mad and slapping the Queen on the back when Highclere won the Prix de Diane.” It was the first victory for a British monarch in a French classic race.

The swarm of racegoers shouted “Vive la Reine,” and when the Queen went to see Highclere, she was nearly mobbed by the crowds, protected only by Porchester, Oswald, and some gendarmes. That evening she invited the royal party, including her trainer Dick Hern and the winning jockey, Joe Mercer, to dinner at Windsor Castle with the Queen Mother, Prince Philip, Princess Anne, and Dickie Mountbatten. In the place of honor at the table’s center was the Queen’s new gold trophy. Highclere went on to win the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot, and contributed to most of the Queen’s £140,000 in winnings that year.

The Queen’s triumph in France came on the eve of Royal Ascot, which in those days involved more elaborate entertainment than in later years. As many as sixty guests would be invited for the entire week at the castle. “I was assigned a valet, and every day we would be given a program with several options for activities,” recalled a man who attended when he was in his early twenties. “I had to have morning dress for lunch and Ascot, and white tie for dinner every night. No one could ever be late, and the valets ensured that we were dressed correctly and showed up on time.”

The Queen typically did her boxes in the morning while her friends opted for more vigorous pursuits such as riding, tennis, swimming, and swatting balls into nets from Philip’s wooden polo pony (set up in a cage near the castle’s indoor swimming pool). Others stayed indoors to read, do jigsaw puzzles, or play scrabble. Sometimes she would invite several young male guests to ride with her for an hour before the luncheon, where she would appear looking thoroughly refreshed and pulled together after only a half hour in which to change. Every afternoon was devoted to the races. On Wednesday night there was a big formal dinner for 150 in the Waterloo Chamber, and on another night guests would be taken to a nearby theater followed by dinner. As with her dine-and-sleeps, the Queen devoted one evening to tours of the library and the royal art collection. Patrick Plunket organized everything to the minute.

Early in 1975, the Queen’s great friend and consummate impresario was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer. Plunket was admitted to King Edward VII hospital in mid-March, but after several days he insisted on leaving to attend an important reception at Buckingham Palace, saying, “I have to put on my white tie and medals.” His pain dulled by morphine, he was driven to the Palace, where he retrieved his evening clothes from his room and announced all the guests. He finally returned to the hospital at 2
A.M.
Hours later he found a letter on his breakfast tray from the Queen saying, “Patrick, I’m deeply grateful for what you did last night, Yours sincerely, Elizabeth R.”

Patrick Plunket died ten days later on Easter Sunday at age fifty-one. The Queen honored him with a funeral in the Chapel Royal inside St. James’s Palace, with plangent music sung by boy choristers. It was a small group—just members of the Plunket family along with the Queen and Philip. The royal couple also attended the standing-room-only memorial service in the Guards’ Chapel across St. James’s Park, where Philip read the lesson. At the funeral, Annabel Goldsmith glanced at the Queen and “caught a look of deep sadness.”

According to Plunket’s brother Shaun, the Queen had a hand in the
Times
obituary. “She certainly helped,” he said. “It was quite light. There was a quotation that referred very much to his service.” But she sent no condolence note, as is her custom. “I don’t think we would have expected her to write,” said Shaun Plunket. “We knew she missed him and that we missed him. She didn’t have to put it on paper.” His will designated that one of his favorite possessions, a seascape by the nineteenth-century English artist Richard Parkes Bonington, be given to the Queen. After his brothers presented it to her in her study at Buckingham Palace, she wrote them a gracious note of thanks.

She further expressed her gratitude by approving a distinctive memorial, a white pavilion atop a hill above the Valley Gardens in Windsor Great Park, with an engraved plaque saying, “In memory of Patrick Plunket for his service to the Royal Family.” It was built with funds from his relatives and friends, including the Queen, Philip, and the Queen Mother. Elizabeth II took an interest in the design as well as the landscaping. “I’m sure I told the gardener I don’t care for variegated hostas,” she told Shaun Plunket on one inspection tour. “I can’t think of why he put those there.” Since the memorial is only minutes away from Smith’s Lawn, where the Queen often comes to watch polo, she has walked over occasionally to sit on the bench and reflect.

With Plunket’s death, the Queen lost not only a confidant but the sprightly tone he brought to court life. Her entertainments seemed more conventional, her guest lists less venturesome. Some even believe that if he had lived, he could have managed Diana, Princess of Wales, more effectively than anyone else in the royal household. A year after his death, someone asked the Queen, “Have you given some thought to who will replace Patrick Plunket?” Replied the Queen, “No one will ever replace him.”

She restated the pledge of lifelong
service that she had made
on her twenty-first birthday
“in my salad days when I was
green in judgment. I do not
regret or retract a word of it.”

The Queen wearing a hat trimmed with twenty-five small fabric bells, greeting the crowds celebrating her Silver Jubilee, June 1977.
Getty Images

TWELVE

Feeling the Love

P
ATRICK
P
LUNKET’S PASSING WAS THE
Q
UEEN’S FIRST MAJOR LOSS
since the death of her father twenty-three years earlier, and she dealt with it by drawing on what one of her longtime friends calls her “profound religious existence,” dating to her childhood, and reinforced by her consecration in 1953.

As the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the monarch is the defender of the faith—the official religion of the country, established by law and respected by sentiment. Yet when the Queen travels to Scotland, she becomes a member of the Church of Scotland, which governs itself and tolerates no supervision by the state. She doesn’t abandon the Anglican faith when she crosses the border, but rather doubles up, although no Anglican bishop ever comes to preach at Balmoral.