Our Queen’s promise puts politics in perspective
As the Queen waits to appoint her 14th British prime minister (she has had, in all her realms, more than 170 prime ministers), I have been catching up with a fascinating but too little noticed book which tells a great deal about her formation. It draws on a single royal trip. In 1947, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth sailed to South Africa on HMS Vanguard, accompanied by their two daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. This visit survives in modern British minds only because of its culmination – the famous self-dedication which Princess Elizabeth, on her 21st birthday, made to the Empire and the Commonwealth: “I declare before you all that the whole of my life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
The Last Hurrah, by Graham Viney, vividly tells the full tale. The visit to South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) was extraordinarily elaborate. A White Train was specially constructed, with such innovations as air conditioning, and the royal party travelled for nearly 7,000 miles and more than two months, making 203 stops to take on water. The trip had the public purpose of showing that British power was
back after victory in the Second World War and of thanking South Africans – hundreds of thousands fought and more than 11,000 died – for their loyalty in difficult times. Its unstated purpose was to help the prime minister, General Jan Smuts, win the general election the following year. Although he had been a heroic soldier in the Boer War against the British at the turn of the century, Smuts had returned to the Crown as a founding father of the Union of South Africa, nurturing its “Dominion” status within the Empire. In the process, he became a revered world statesman and something of a teacher to the young princess.
At home, however, his position was precarious. Most Afrikaners were anti-british and inclined to the National Party which had opposed fighting for Britain, some even favouring the Germans. Many resented the South African whites of British descent. Their ideal was a republic, free of the British Empire and of the growing possibility of votes for the majority black population. One of the ironies of history is that apartheid was part of an anti-colonial liberation struggle. It went hand in hand with republicanism.
As a morale-booster, the tour was unbelievably successful. The multiracial population hailed the Royal party in enormous numbers, often travelling for days just to see the White Train stop briefly at a station and perhaps catch a princess waving from the window. The King looked weary and drawn: he was probably already suffering from the cancer which eventually killed him; but the Queen’s tireless charm and interest melted all but the stoniest of Boer hearts.
In the black townships of Orlando and Alexandra, 200,000 turned out to cheer. At the Princesses’ Ball in Johannesburg, Elizabeth and Margaret were greeted by 6,000 gladioli and 3,000 tulips. The future Queen’s birthday broadcast was so carefully stage-managed that what the world heard on the radio as coming from Cape Town had in fact been prerecorded at the Victoria Falls Hotel in Rhodesia. It moved its global audience because she was so young, and the burden she was taking on was so great.
In its political purpose, however, the Royal tour was a complete failure. Many Afrikaners thought Smuts had become too much the courtier, preferring, it was said, smart Englishwomen to his “homespun” wife, Isie, who never wore make-up. As often happens when a national leader becomes a global figure, people back home begin to grumble that he no longer cared about their less exalted needs. Smuts was punished for this. The National Party won the 1948 election (though with far fewer votes than Smuts’s party, due to the disproportionate voting power of rural constituencies). Apartheid was introduced. In 1961, South Africa became a republic, walking out of the “great imperial family” which Princess Elizabeth had promised to serve. When the Royal party sailed out of Cape Town in April 1947, a massed choir sang “Will ye no come back again?” Throughout the decades of apartheid, the answer seemed to be “No”. It was not until 1995 that Queen Elizabeth II walked down the gangplank, again in Cape Town, to be greeted by President Nelson Mandela.
The speech moved its global audience because she was so young, and the burden she was taking on was so great
The story of the 1947 tour is a gripping one. It seems to inhabit a universe completely different from our own. The Empire it sought to uphold disappeared within 15 years. Yet, 72 years after her speech, the woman who made it is the most respected leader in the world, in large part because she has kept her promise ever since. Her continuing presence gives a certain perspective to the highly contested period which the United Kingdom is going through over Brexit. As Boris (if it is he) shambles through the doors of Buckingham Palace tomorrow, he will surely welcome the advice of someone who has survived the storms of public life for three quarters of a century.