She never stops changing
The older the Queen gets, the more she changes
Hailing the talent of Elizabeth II for dignified adaptation
Does any of this matter? Aren’t these rather trivial points in relation to a head of state? Actually, they are indicative of a changing mindset which pervades an institution commonly perceived to be utterly impervious to novelty of any kind. The man who has supervised a lot of this quiet innovation is Lord Luce, the former Lord Chamberlain, who recently retired after six years in a post which could best be summed up as non-executive chairman of the Royal Household. ‘The Monarchy cannot just exist. It depends on popular support to survive, and that means adapting,’ said the former Tory arts minister (he went on to be governor of Gibraltar) when I went to see him in his London flat. His favourite phrase during his Palace years was the line from Lampedusa’s The Leopard: ‘If we want things to stay the same, things will have to change.’
And, in many ways, nothing much had changed for the first 40 years of the Queen’s reign. Reforms were overdue and already in the pipeline by the start of the annus horribilis of 1992. The collapse of two royal marriages and the Windsor fire hastened an overhaul of the royal finances. The Queen was taxed, accounts were opened up and the Palace began admitting the paying public. Critics in political circles and the press took the credit but the plans had long been prepared by the Lord Chamberlain of the day, the Earl of Airlie. If his achievement was to change the financial structure, Lord Luce’s has been to change entrenched attitudes — with the blessing of his boss.
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Suresh Dogra
December 12th, 2007 7:07pmThe Queen is great.It is a personage of her stature that is the strongest argument for the continuation of monarchy in Great Britain.