I arrived in London on August 27, 1997 for a one-year journalistic training at the headquarters of the Reuters news agency. Three and a half days later, Princess Diana died in Paris in murky circumstances.
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
My training at Reuters started on Monday 1er September 1997, but obviously I had to work all day Sunday, August 31 and the following weeks to provide reports to various Quebec media that needed a correspondent in London. I was in the right place at the right time.
This experience led me to see to what extent the royal family and Queen Elizabeth II were at the center of the country’s social and media life. It was out of proportion. London tabloids and magazines were having a blast covering the smallest details of the life of the royal family, with the help of paparazzi photographers and reporters. They have also been accused by the popular court of being responsible for the death of Lady Di in the tunnel of the Alma bridge in Paris.
Media pressure on the Queen was so strong in the wake of Lady Di’s death that the Sovereign was forced to make a televised statement to calm things down and “save face” for the royal family, deemed unsympathetic at the time. for the cause of the princess.
This uneasy relationship between London’s populist media and Buckingham Palace has remained a constant over the past decades.
Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday after a reign of more than 70 years, experienced telex, telegraphs and news agencies in the early 1950s. She ended her life with social networks and the internet which considerably changed the circulation of the flow of news. And rumors.
The centralization of communications at Buckingham Palace’s press service has been the trademark of the Queen, who leaves her son Charles, now King Charles III, a house in order, but destabilized by her death and the departure of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle a few years ago.
Speaking of Charles III, I had the chance to cover one of his public events in 1998 at Cardiff Castle in Wales. A man with a deadpan, relatively easy-to-reach sense of humor. I was there for Reuters, then British, and being “The Reuters Man” let’s say that the conversation that followed was very pleasant.
Despite all this, we can say that Charles III will have a hard time getting his mother forgotten and that his personal popularity is not very high.
He will have a lot to do to change that over the next few years if he does not step down by then to make way for Prince William.
Media-wise, British newspapers and media will never forget his adultery with Camilla Parker while he was married to Princess Diana. His cold, haughty look didn’t help.
The fixation of the British media towards the royal family is far from being a thing of the past, as we could see on Thursday during the announcement of the death of Elizabeth II. The royal family remains at the center of the country’s media ecosystem and continues to fuel the craziest rumours.
On a more personal note, Château Windsor ordered two copies of my most recent book published by Presses de l’Université Laval (PUL) last February on the life of an unknown British royal painter (Henry Daniel Thielcke) who lived at Buckingham Palace from 1788 to 1820 during the reigns of George III and George IV, the ancestors of Queen Elizabeth. He was also active in Quebec from 1831 to 1854.
I dare to hope that the Queen, who was a regular visitor to Windsor Castle, found some solace or interest in this essay, which bridges the history of the British Royal Family with the history of art and painting in the United Kingdom and Quebec at that time. She was a great Francophile and I am happy that the Royal Collections Department at Buckingham Palace worked closely with me for the publication of this book.
The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen ! And good luck to Charles III. He will need it.