Simon Heffer
Contrary to an impression some in the media liked to foster, the late Duke of Edinburgh’s main function was not to provide light entertainment. They absurdly depicted him as just a crusty retired naval officer, discharging volleys of offcolour remarks in the great saloon bar of life. This disregarded the scale of his public service, his patronages, his charitable work and his range of intellectual interests.
Worst of all, the public was seldom encouraged to recognise his greatest contribution to his country, one universally applauded since his death on Friday: his unstinting support of Her Majesty the Queen and the institution of monarchy, and the sacrifices that required.
Others, however, were not to blame for that chronic lack of esteem: the Duke himself was. His modesty, and his refusal to blow his own trumpet, were typical of him and of his generation. He did not expect or seek acclaim, thanks or approval; he just did, without complaint, the job he signed up for when he married the Heir Presumptive, more than 73 years ago.
It was the same attitude that millions like him took to the life-and-death struggle of the Second World War: victory could only ever be a collective effort, with every man and woman playing his or her part. The Duke played his, and went on playing it for another 75 years as a naval officer, the son-in-law of a king and the husband of the Queen. He chose a life of service, and performed it in exemplary fashion: and that meant playing down his crucial role in the continuation of the monarchy.
His service was never for self-advertisement or aggrandisement. That, too, symbolised his generation. There was always a cause higher than the individual.
For him, the war to preserve the liberties and way of life of his adopted country was the first. The second was to do everything to support his wife, the head of state, in fulfilling her duties in a way that sustained her people’s confidence in her and, more to the point, their confidence in the institution of monarchy that she embodied.
The Duke had no constitutional position; and after a difficult moment in the early years of Her Majesty’s reign, when he famously referred to himself as being treated by senior courtiers as though he were “just a bloody amoeba”, he accepted that reality, and effectively designed his own purpose. He stood in the shadows, literally or metaphorically, while the Queen occupied the limelight. Her success and the respect she attracted were the reward for the correctness with which he acted.
He had his own programme of official engagements, more than 22,000 in his lifetime, but even then acted for what he christened “the Firm” – the Royal family and the institution of monarchy – never for himself. He had his flagship causes, notably the award scheme for young people named after him, and the World Wildlife Fund (now the World Wide Fund for Nature). But in those, and the other interests to which he lent his name, stature and reputation, he worked for the cause, and beyond that for the institution of monarchy, never for himself. That, too, was second nature to many in his generation.
Whether they realise it consciously or have simply absorbed it subliminally, the British people’s affection and respect for the Duke were founded on this embodiment of the values of the now-vanished and often lamented world in which he grew up. The same is true of their feelings for the Queen. Both set an example of duty.
It has perhaps been easier for Her Majesty. From the age of 10, it seemed certain that she would be Queen, and she was bred to it. When the Duke married the then Princess Elizabeth in 1947, his father-in-law, King George VI, was just 52. He must have banked on a decade or two more as a career naval officer before settling down as consort. However, the King died just over four years later, and the Duke’s chosen career had to end to support his wife and sovereign.
That had always been the deal: but he was barely 30, and would play second fiddle for the rest of his life. Any difficulties were aired in private. He would not have dreamt of seeking attention, or risking damage to the institution, by doing it in public.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme was highly appropriate to him: not just because he was a man of action, but because of its psychological effect on those who took part in it. It bred character, and character had been central to his own success and the respect in which he was held. Character – a moral strength, absence of self-pity, values founded in decency, a wish to serve others and the country – was, again, central to his generation.
It was about setting an example, and not searching continually for what could benefit oneself. And, with the Queen, he was the great exemplar of strength of character to generations still unborn when she and the Duke were tested, and their service called upon.
The Duke set that example as much to his own family as to others. Sadly, an adjective often applied to the Royal family is “dysfunctional”. Like every other family in the land, the Mountbatten-Windsors have had their troubles; and, regrettably, the Duke’s and the Queen’s children have all except one, the Earl of Wessex, suffered broken marriages, also all-too common among the Queen’s subjects. Yet the Duke’s children have said explicitly that their father recognised how difficult life would inevitably be for them as they grew up, forced into a career from which there was no opt-out – until the advent of his rather tragic grandson, Prince Harry, and his wife.
The Duke did all he could to impart character and the importance and rewards of service and duty to his children. He largely succeeded, and his success will become more apparent when the time comes for his son, the Prince of Wales, and his grandson, the Duke of Cambridge to sit on the Throne.
Walter Bagehot, in The English Constitution over 150 years ago, wrote about the importance of “a family on the Throne”. A family, even a Royal one, was easily comprehensible to the humblest of the sovereign’s subjects; everyone could identify with it and it provided a model for the social units that comprised the nation.
Behind the scenes over nearly 70 years, the Duke, influenced by his own unstable upbringing, made it his job to see that the wheels of his particular family kept turning, while the Queen concentrated on the matters of state
It was about setting an example, and not searching continually for what could benefit oneself
History will treat the Duke well, almost certainly better than even we, in our sadness at his death, can realise
that her constitutional role demanded and that the Duke’s lack of one denied him the right to share.
His wisdom was always considerable and practical. But it was his lack of side, his attachment to reality and above all his own difficult childhood and adolescence that made him such a steadying influence within “the Firm”. If anyone doubts this, consider how much harder the Queen, for all her immense qualities, would have found the business of monarchy had she had a lesser husband, and what that would have meant for the happiness and international reputation of the United Kingdom.
History will treat the Duke well, almost certainly better than even we, in our sadness at his death, can bring ourselves to realise. He will be credited with modernising “the Firm”, not least at times against the instincts of his innately conservative wife and sovereign, with her high regard for precedent within the strictures of the constitution.
He brought the Queen, and more to the point, their children, closer to the people, while taking care not to commit the sin identified by Bagehot to “let in daylight upon the magic”. When crises came – as they do in all families and indeed all systems of government – his own levelheadedness was central to their being weathered. This was not least true in the mood of public hysteria after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, a mood that threatened to undermine the consent by which the monarchy continues.
In the intervening quarter-century the popularity of the Royal family has risen as that of politicians has consistently sunk. That is in great part down to the steady, discreet and pervasive influence of the late Duke. His values and approach could not be further from those of some contemporary politicians.
The monarchy he helped shape will endure for decades yet. He understood that evolutionary change and hard work were the keys to “the firm’s” success; radical change and the idle pursuit of cheap celebrity end up offending a public intelligent enough to know what it likes in a monarchy, and that likes what it currently gets.
The best tribute his family can pay to the Duke of Edinburgh is to stick to those values – his values. They may date from a different age, but so far as the relationship between the monarchy and the people is concerned, they have yet to go out of fashion.