The royals - Kitty Kelley [226]
That lack of knee-bending deference jolted the country in May 1993. More than five hundred people streamed into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London to listen to a day-long debate by royalists and republicans on the future of the monarchy. The forum mirrored the mood of national anxiety as ninety speakers assembled. They discussed the Crown and why, or even whether, it continues to matter in twentieth-century England.
“Something has died,” said Professor Stephen Haseler, “and that something is the enchantment of the British people for the monarchy.” Historian Elizabeth Longford disagreed: she argued in favor of Prince Charles becoming King. But playwright David Hare recommended abolishing the monarchy because he viewed it as the fountainhead of falseness and snobbery. In between was Lord Rees-Mogg, former editor of the Times, who called himself a royalist but acknowledged the need for constitutional reform. He observed that an institution that had survived since the sixth century could be dislodged only by war or revolution. Because neither option was desirable for the country, he urged his audience to believe in the monarchy’s ability to adapt.
But the Queen moved like moss. Less than three years after agreeing to pay taxes (on her public income, not on her private investments), she decided to fly commercial. By not using one of the eleven jets in the Queen’s Flight, she saved taxpayers about $3 million on one trip. “Her Majesty took over the entire first-class cabin,” said an Air New Zealand flight attendant, “but that’s as it should be. After all, she is the Queen of England, not some bicycle monarchy.”
But the Queen flew commercial only once. For comfort and convenience, she preferred the Queen’s Flight. So instead she decided to economize on household expenses. She received $70 million a year in public funding for her travel expenses, her security costs, and the upkeep of her eight residences. She started trimming costs by eliminating her employees’ traditional benefits: her chauffeurs, who earned $9,000 a year, had to start paying for their own shoe repair. Servants, paid $8,000 a year, no longer received free bars of soap. And the $60,000 a year courtiers who accompanied the Queen on foreign tours could no longer expect to receive a free suit. “They will receive a cash stipend in exchange,” the Palace announced. “We want to make things work better and more efficiently.”
As part of her cost cutting, the Queen reconsidered giving cash bonuses to the two hundred employees at Windsor Castle who had helped save her treasures during the 1992 fire. Instead of money, she offered them a free tour of the castle library. Few accepted.
The royal family remained aloof from the debate about their future. Lord Charteris, the Queen’s former equerry, said the idea of a republic never penetrated the Palace walls. Lady Longford, a friend of the Queen, disagreed. “They have been perfectly open about it,” she said. As far back as 1966, when they toured Canada, they discussed the possibility of Britain’s becoming a republic. If anything, they treated the subject lightheartedly. “We’ll go quietly,” the Queen said. Philip joked that he could be packed in a day, but she would need several weeks. “Too damn many corgis,” he quipped. Walking into her office at Buckingham Palace one afternoon, he looked out the window and asked: “Have they got up the guillotine?”
The Queen, too, used humor in addressing a Commonwealth conference in Cyprus. She had arrived on the island in the fall of 1993 aboard her royal yacht. After dinner she relaxed with her guests. When she said she wouldn’t wager on a similar Commonwealth conference in the next forty years, they knew she had studied the recent polls in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand that showed growing support for independence from the Crown. “The only safe bet is that there will be three absentees—Prince Philip, Britannia, and myself,” said the Queen without emotion. “But you never know…. Nowadays, I have enough experience, not least in racing, to restrain me