During her 59-year reign, Queen Elizabeth II has faced good times and bad with a calm demeanour She certainly did not get on with Margaret Thatcher and little better with Edward Heath
EVERY WEEK Queen Elizabeth II meets the British prime minister in Buckingham Palace. In her first such encounter in 1952, she welcomed Winston Churchill. Last week, it was David Cameron. In an age when fame and position often pass quickly, her longevity in office, however much it owes to the accidents of birth and good health, is one of the few fixed features of British life.
During her reign, the United Kingdom has changed utterly. It has gone from the bleak days of postwar rationing, to the growing prosperity of the late 1950s, to the excess of the 1960s, the despondency of the strike-filled 1970s and the anger of the Thatcher years, to the conspicuous consumption of the 1980s and the credit-fuelled excess of the 1990s and later.
Equally, the population that had been influenced for centuries by the influx of foreigners - Jews, Huguenots, eastern Europeans fleeing persecution, or Irish fleeing hunger at home - has changed beyond measure with the acceleration of immigration from former colonies and the surge from eastern Europe after the European Union's enlargement.
Through it all, the Queen has sat in Buckingham Palace, conscious of the need for the British royal family to change, but hindered by her background, breeding and instincts from moving quickly enough to keep up. On occasion, events have moved close to disaster, most notably during the emotion-filled days after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.
Marriage has played a large part in the family's fortunes. Her union with Prince Philip of Greece in 1947 offered, in the words of Churchill, "a flash of colour on the hard road we have to travel". The day itself was not a public holiday, however, and more than half of the Coldstream Guards shocked senior officers when they refused to contribute to the traditional present for a royal bride.
Just days after her engagement was announced, the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers wrote to King George VI to warn that he "would be well advised to order a very quiet wedding in keeping with the times". Care was taken, after consultation with the hostile Beaverbrook-controlled stable of newspapers, to ensure that Philip became a naturalised British citizen before the marriage.
Last month's celebrations surrounding Prince William's wedding have done much to burnish the royal family's reputation, showing signs that the palace has learned some lessons from the mistakes that littered the union of his parents.
During her reign, however, the Queen has maintained a dignified silence. Her relations with her prime ministers have been private and have been kept so by occupants of that office, with the exception of Labour's Tony Blair, who disclosed more than the palace thought proper in his autobiography, The Journey, though none of it was sensational.
Before Blair, Queen Elizabeth II, despite her aristocratic birth, was always said to have got on better with Labour prime ministers than with Conservative ones, though this may have much to do with the fact that Blair's predecessors at the Labour helm treated her with exaggerated deference.
She certainly did not get on with Margaret Thatcher and little better with Edward Heath, riled by the lack of respect held by both for the Commonwealth, an institution dear to the monarch's heart.
The Queen has the right to "consult, advise and warn" occupants of 10 Downing Street.
Churchill, who spoke of the creation of "a new Elizabethan age" before her 1953 coronation, treated her with respect. His successor Anthony Eden is said by historians to have been more aloof, though he did tell her in advance of the secret deal with France and Israel in 1956 to occupy the Suez Canal, the defining event of the decade for Britain. Harold Macmillan was reverential, though he had a high regard for her political nous.
Labour's Harold Wilson, somewhat of an arriviste, adored her, a fact that was useful when the bill for the royal civil list had to be increased in 1975 because of rampant inflation. In other hands, the issue could have damaged the monarchy's standing beyond repair.
Like Macmillan, James Callaghan, who took over after Edward Heath was ousted, respected her political judgment.
The Queen is said to have loathed Thatcher, however, because of the latter's fury at the majority support within the Commonwealth at the time for sanctions against South Africa and the gaping divisions opened up in British society during Thatcher's time in office.
Through it all, the Queen has tried to play a careful hand, barring occasional mishaps.
In 1963, she went along with Macmillan, who favoured Alec Douglas-Home rather than RA Butler as his successor, while the Conservatives fought among themselves. The affair left the Queen accused of siding with "a magic circle of Tory grandees".
The experience may explain the palace's sensitivities last year before and after the May general election when it fretted about Gordon Brown's attempts to stay on in Downing Street and its apparent irritation that he went to Buckingham Palace and tendered his resignation before the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had agreed a formal coalition pact.
Before the global frenzy surrounding the wedding of Prince William and Kate (Catherine) Middleton, the Queen was the best brand the royalty enjoyed. She is respected by the majority of the British public - certainly more so than her son and immediate heir, Prince Charles.
Her second son, Prince Andrew, has been the source of more recent adverse publicity because of his links with an American billionaire who was jailed for having sex with a minor.
It has not always been so. In the aftermath of the bruising Suez experience, the Queen was criticised by Lord Altrincham, who complained that the royals were "complacent" and "out of touch", representing only the British upper classes, rather than the nation at large.
In the more deferential atmosphere of the times, Lord Altrincham, who was no republican, was roundly attacked. He was dropped by the BBC from the panel of the Any Questions radio show and he was physically attacked in the street after he repeated the criticisms he had first voiced in a letter to The Times in a television interview with Robin Day.
In 1963, thousands of protesters were infuriated by a state visit by Greece's King Paul and Queen Frederika, who they blamed for keeping more than 1,000 people in jail long after the Greek civil war had finished.
The crowd clashed violently in Trafalgar Square with police, who feared they would storm the palace if they were allowed down The Mall.
The following night, Queen Elizabeth was booed as she left the Aldwych Theatre, where she had gone with the Greek royal couple to watch Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This left her startled and dismayed.
It was said at the time to be the most public humiliation of a royal since Edward VII was booed at Epsom races in the late 1890s, after he was named in a divorce trial.
In 1992, Queen Elizabeth endured an annus horribilis (horrible year), as she described it in her Christmas Day message. Charles's marriage to Diana ended in separation, as did Andrew's marriage to Sarah Ferguson, and much of Windsor Castle was destroyed in a fire. Her popularity plummeted when it was learned that the taxpayer would have to pick up the tab for repairs at the castle.
The disclosure then that the Queen did not pay income tax served to fuel anti-royalist feeling further. The subsequent decision to do so - managed by Conservative prime minister John Major - did little to improve feelings since it looked as if it was a forced concession, rather than the result of negotiations that had been under way for months before the ancient Windsor timbers crackled into flame.
Five years later, republican sentiment increased rapidly after the royal family made repeated mistakes in the aftermath of Diana's death in Paris: failing to put the royal standard flying over Buckingham Palace at half-mast, while the Queen stayed for days in Balmoral with her grandsons, William and Harry, rather than returning to the palace to join in the public grief.
In the end, the monarchy was saved from itself by Blair, even though he was seen as an anti-establishment figure. However, relations with Blair were poor. The Queen, conscious of her privileges, had taken a dim view of his decision not to replace the ageing royal yacht, Britannia, while the palace seethed at the lack of respect shown by Blair's wife, Cherie, who refused to curtsey in her presence.
Since then, the Queen has worked to make the monarchy more approachable, even visiting a pub.
The belief that the monarchy could be in danger after her passing has lessened, if not disappeared, as the British public has grown to tolerate Charles's marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles. The affection displayed in 2002 during the Queen's golden jubilee showed that the ship had been stabilised.
Pettiness still emerges, however. The decision not to invite Blair to last month's wedding - immediately criticised even by pro-monarchists - has much to do with the palace's animosity towards him.
Though justified by courtiers on protocol grounds (since neither he, nor his successor, Gordon Brown are Knights of the Garter), it smacked of vengeance. The occupants of the palace have long memories.
London Editor