Queen of Our Times review – separating fact from folklore

Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II By Robert Hardman (Pan Macmillan), £14.99.

Given the vast amount of literature already devoted to the Queen (including at least three earlier volumes from this author), one might ask, do we really need another seven hundred pages of detail about her life and extraordinarily long reign.

The answer has to be, yes, we do, especially if it comes packaged with so many authoritative insights from such an impressive collection of witnesses as Queen of Our Times.

Even for those who are blasé about the royals, Robert Hardman’s account serves not just as a portrait of Elizabeth II but as a concise history of the past century, spanning Britain’s fortunes alongside the monarchy’s, from the period between the wars to the present day.

Like many journalists covering the royal beat, Hardman has had a ringside seat at many of the historical events recorded here. But it is the revelations from the people allowed behind the scenes on a regular basis that provide the best of the eye-opening content: the British prime ministers — John Major, Tony Blair and David Cameron all share their thoughts; and world leaders (including George W Bush); grandees who have had unfettered access to the Queen (in particular, long-serving Lord Chamberlain Lord Airlie and the Marquis of Salisbury); members of the family and countless courtiers speaking on and off the record.

This does not pretend to be anything other than a sympathetic lens through which to appraise the Queen’s seventy years on the throne, but it doesn’t flinch from analysing the troughs and the peaks of her service.

On the eve of her platinum jubilee, a new biography is to be expected. Still, Hardman’s motivation for revisiting HM’s life in such depth is clearly also to act as a corrective to The Crown. 

The Netflix dramatisation that has burst on the scene in the last five years has so distorted perceptions that the experts, Hardman included, feel obliged to set the record straight.

“The Crown,” writes Hardman in his introduction, “has certainly enhanced the profile of the monarchy, but at what cost to its reputation — and to public understanding of real events involving real people?”

Well publicised upheavals and controversies, such as Princess Margaret’s doomed romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend, the Queen’s relationship with Margaret Thatcher, and her reaction to the death of Diana, are all given real-life context to counter The Crown’s scriptwriters.

But Hardman’s main issue with the fictionalised Elizabeth is her portrayal as “joyless, inert and beleaguered”, an interpretation at odds with what emerges from his encounters and research. One of his key sources, William Heseltine, the Queen’s former principal private secretary (who worked in close proximity for 30 years), found Olivia Colman’s depiction of Her Majesty in middle-age completely misjudged.

“She just looks glum and disapproving all the time. The Queen very seldom had a glum look on her face.”

Hardman gives colourful personalities from the early years, such as Alan ‘Tommy’ Lascelles — played as a bully in The Crown — their historical due. 

Although the private secretary, who served four monarchs, is described by one former member of staff as “a terrifying man”, his confrontational approach — he told the future Edward VIII his playboy behaviour would cost him the throne — would have come in handy today with some wayward royals.

The shifting sands of the sovereign’s times, presented in chronological order, are reflected through her role in the wider world and Commonwealth, as well as at home. 

We see her entertaining the vile Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife eleven years before they were brought to justice by a Romanian firing squad. Recalled, by William Heseltine, as “the most repellent guest she ever had to make do with,” the Queen had no say in the visit but did warn her staff to clear the Palace suite of valuables after President Giscard d’Estaing told her the Ceausescus had ransacked the Elysee Palace. 

The Queen later told the writer Anthony Jay that when she spotted the pair in the garden while walking her dogs, she hid behind a bush to avoid them.

Other horrors over the years included lunch with the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who boasted that he was about to overrun Tanzania, a confidence the Queen wisely broke by alerting the then foreign secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

Fortunately, she has acquired “very good shock absorbers”, as her former press secretary, Charles Anson, put it. Besides, the bad eggs have been outweighed by a cast of greats, from Winston Churchill, who adored her, to Nelson Mandela, with whom she struck up a friendship that outlasted his presidency.

Barack Obama saw Mandela and the Queen as giants of the twentieth century: “They were leaders who have seen so much, whose lives span such momentous epochs, that they find no need to posture or traffic in what’s popular in the moment; people who speak with depth and knowledge, not in sound bites,” he said at the funeral of former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.

The monarchy does not follow the short-term rhythms of political life; the Queen rises above national crises, as in the recent Covid pandemic. “When we were in real trouble in the seventies,” said the Marquis of Salisbury, “it’s very striking, in spite of everything, that we still had status, partly because of her and the monarchy.”

Hardman notes that there are always somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of Britons who want to see the Queen replaced by an elected head of state, yet support for the monarchy overrides support for the alternative.

How much of this depends on the Queen personally is the big question, and fears of a “run on the Crown”, with referenda and rejections in the realms following “reign change”, are discussed towards the end of the book.

But the focus throughout rarely strays from the Queen, who has aged but, even after seven decades, has not dated; “a lesson in the prudent application of soft power”. The Queen is a monarch who, according to George Bush, takes her job seriously but doesn’t take herself seriously, and who has an “extraordinary ability, as Tony Blair said, “to balance the mystique of the monarchy whilst moving with the culture of the country over time”. 

Her own mantra, says Hardman, is that “she has to be seen to be believed”. In this magisterial biography, he has succeeded in making the most-watched woman of the age even more visible.