The royals - Kitty Kelley [255]
The Queen understood the price her grandfather had paid to save the monarchy, and she intended to protect his investment. She made her initial concession to survival when she became the first British monarch of the twentieth century to pay taxes. Then she removed most of her family from the Civil List. When her subjects would not pay to finance the restoration of Windsor Castle, she opened Buckingham Palace to the public and charged admission. She even made a gesture toward the largest religious denomination in her country by visiting a Roman Catholic church. This was the first time in four hundred years that a reigning British monarch had done so. By 1996 the Church of England represented only 2 percent of the population, while Roman Catholics represented 43 percent of churchgoing Britons.
Despite the Queen’s concessions, the monarchy looked vulnerable as it tottered toward the year 2000. Viewed as a golden coach, the institution that represented Britain to the world was tarnished and absurdly grandiose. The chassis wobbled and the wheels creaked. Shorn of its majesty, it barely limped along.
The Queen knew there would be a resurgence of fervor when the Queen Mother died. But she recognized the ardor would fade soon after the period of national mourning. As pragmatic as she was, she did not want to examine the elaborate plans for her mother’s funeral.
“I don’t need to address this now, do I?” she said, pushing aside the folder that contained the memorandum code-named Operation Lion. Its five pages outlined the procedures to be followed by the media after the Queen Mother’s death. The Queen had determined that her mother would be accorded the grandest funeral since Winston Churchill’s. She would lie in state for three days before being eulogized in Westminster Abbey. As a mark of respect, the broadcast networks had planned to suspend commercials. Their coverage of the funeral was to be solemn and stirring, featuring documentaries of the royal family during World War II. Historical footage would show King George VI and Queen Elizabeth waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace with the two little Princesses—“Us Four,” as the King had called them.
The services were designed to remind Britain of its glorious past when the country withstood Nazi bombs and the monarchy responded admirably. With full military honors, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother would be laid to rest with the extravagant title she had styled for herself after her husband died.
Ordinarily unsentimental, the Queen resisted dealing with the harsh reality of her mother’s eventual death, even after the Queen Mother reached her nineties. “My worst fear,” the Queen told a friend, “is that Mummy will die, and then Margaret. And I’ll be left alone.”
Her subjects’ worst fear was that the Queen might die and leave them alone with Charles. Resistance to her heir had grown increasingly vocal since his divorce. Polls showed that he did not have the support of his prospective subjects. Most said they did not want him to become King, and the Members of Parliament who represented them did not want to sacrifice their offices for an unpopular heir.
“Charles is unfit to be King,” declared the Labor MP Ron Davies on television. “He’s an adulterer who does not practice the precepts of the church…. He spends time talking to trees, flowers, and vegetables and… he encourages his young sons to go out into the countryside to kill wild animals and birds just for fun….”
The leader of the Labor Party, Tony Blair, who became Prime Minister in 1997, demanded the MP retract his remarks. So the MP reluctantly apologized for calling the future King a fornicating environmentalist who hugged trees and indulged in blood sports. Throughout his campaign, Blair had reiterated his party’s support for continuing the monarchy. He could not afford to jeopardize his lead by threatening the country’s natural conservatism with radical proposals. But his party, once firmly monarchist, was