`She's a constant in our lives'

AS THE QUEEN TURNS 96, A LOOK AT HER LIFE AND LEGACY

The Queen, who was 25 when she ascended to the throne, turned 96 on Thursday. There won't be parades or a pageant or a pudding competition. Those big bashes are planned for June, to celebrate the ceremonial birthday and Platinum Jubilee of Britain's longest-serving monarch. But after a year of health scares for the Queen, a year in which she mourned her husband and acknowledged “none of us will live forever,” 96 seems a moment worth marking. The Washington Post's Karla Adam spoke about her long life with royal biographer Robert Hardman, author of a new book, Queen of Our Times. Covering her evolution from a young girl who was never supposed to be Queen to a monarch addressing her subjects in a pandemic via Zoom, it's the first major biography of the Queen to come out since the Netflix series The Crown, which Hardman says “gets a lot of things wrong.” What follows are lightly edited excerpts from a conversation that touched on the Queen's legacy, her family's controversies and the U.S. presidents she seemed to get along with best.

Q The Queen is turning 96. In your book you say she is “aged but dated.” What do you mean by that? A She's a constant in our lives. She's been ever present and maybe it's subliminal. The fact that she's just there on the coins and stamps, the bank notes pictures, government buildings, even the national anthem at sporting events — it's about her. And there she is on the TV on Christmas Day and whenever there's any sort of national coming together for a happy or sad reason, she's usually at the heart of it.

She has changed a bit since the pandemic and her recent mobility issues.

Maybe it's just dawning on people now that she's an old woman, but we didn't really think of her like that. We think of her as the Queen.

Q You stress that the Queen likes being Queen.

A Yes, she likes being Queen. … When you look at The Crown, there are times she doesn't like being the Queen — it's all trial and tribulations. But the Queen we are seeing more and more of is someone happy with what she's doing. For example, with that G7 summit last year, the government was very worried that she just buried her husband, she just turned 95. It's all quite stressful. Let's leave her alone, and we won't include her in anything. And the palace sort of peacefully knocked on the door of Number 10 and said, `Excuse me, all these world leaders, the Queen wants to be part of this.' Number 10 had to basically sort of be prodded into it. They didn't want to trouble her. But she said, I want to do this, we have a U.S. president coming. So Biden gets invited for tea the following day.

Q Will the Queen ever quit? You write about an ongoing “transition” from the Queen to Prince Charles, as well as the avoidance of “regency,” which conjures up images of an incapacitated George II, and “abdication,” which is something her Uncle Edward did.

A We've always said, up until very recently, absolutely no question will she ever quit. I think in recent weeks or months, she does look more vulnerable. And really, it almost looks sort of unkind to expect her to carry on doing these things. But she loves doing it. And I think as long as she loves doing it, and she's capable of doing it, she will.

One senior private secretary said, `There is no master plan. There is not a sort of wall chart saying, “OK, by 2025, we want Prince Charles doing this and, you know, the Queen will hand over this.”' As long as she's still getting her red boxes, she's putting her signature on the legislation that comes before her, as long as she's still talking to the prime minister, there's no real reason to change anything.

Q Her cousin touched on this, didn't she?

A The Queen has never discussed it publicly but her cousin Margaret Rhodes, who wrote a charming memoir that the Queen helped her with, has said on more than one occasion that the Queen will go on unless she gets Alzheimer's or has a stroke. If she is mentally impaired, then it's not even her choice. The regency will effectively kick in.

Q You write that Queen Elizabeth II'S reign will always be compared to that of Queen Victoria. How do the two Queens differ?

A Queen Victoria was very much into celebrating Victoria. You've just got to wander around Windsor or through the royal estates and you'll find large statues of Victoria looking very imperious, many of which were unveiled while she was alive. … It's really only in the last few years that things have started to be named after Queen Elizabeth. … She's an extraordinarily understated figure, but her legacy will be vast.

Q What kind of king do you think Charles will make?

A He will be a different sort of monarch. Charles is a deep thinker, romantic, sentimentalist. He's very warm. His staff always say his investitures always take a lot longer than the Queen's, because she's quite good at having a few words and the handshake and then, right, that's off you go. Whereas Charles is much more prone to start having conversations, and go, `Oh, you're a sheep farmer. What sort of sheep do you farm?' It's just a different approach.

Q In this jubilee year, we're reflecting on that legacy. How might her reign be remembered?

A She is the first Queen to come to the throne in the full expectation that she is going to shrink the domain. For all previous monarchs, it's been about consolidating power, expanding the reign, getting bigger, stronger, being the

No. 1 Top Dog Nation. And that all came to an end in 1947, when the British Empire formally wound up, when India became independent. So she's the first monarch who comes to the throne with absolute writing on the wall that your reign is going to be spent handing all this stuff back. The empire is over. And you've got to get rid of it in a nice way with a smile and a handshake and try and keep everyone happy. The Commonwealth is the result of that.