A dark Rolls Royce slowly drives towards Buckingham Palace. On either side of the Mall, the wide avenue that runs along Saint-James Park to the Royal Palace, tens of thousands of people watch in unreal calm as the imposing vehicle stops in front of the gates. Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday September 8, 2022, is with her husband, Prince Philip, when she gets off. Under the eye of cameras around the world, the small figure dressed in black contemplates for the first time the enormous multicolored mattress made up of hundreds of thousands of bouquets of flowers, stuffed animals and drawings which has formed over the hours. in front of his royal residence.
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We are Friday September 5, 1997, five days after the death of the Queen’s ex-daughter-in-law, Princess Diana, killed in a car accident on the night of August 31 in Paris. Five days of silence both deafening and inaudible for the subjects of “Her Majesty”, many devastated by the news.
But that day, at 2:20 p.m., “The one – and simple – thing the crowds have been waiting for all week has finally happened: the Queen has returned to Buckingham Palace”, comments almost relieved, the BBC journalist who provides the live *. Elizabeth II and her family had until then walled themselves in their summer residence in Balmoral, Scotland. Back in London, the queen must fulfill the most crucial mission: regain the affection of her subjects in order to preserve the monarchy. Left to, for the first time in his reign, twist under popular pressure the use and the protocol attached to the institution.
Driven by collective emotion, the subjects of “Her Majesty” spontaneously find themselves near the royal residences. In front of the chapel where Lady Di’s body rests, you have to wait ten hours to write a word in the condolence books. In these endless lines, the British are crying and, with the help of waiting, blow their exasperation into the strained microphones. “We don’t hate the Queen, but we love Princess Diana, says a woman to an Australian journalist*. She was our princess and we want to know if the queen cares and if she too is grieving.”
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Cloistered at Balmoral with her husband and, above all, her two grandchildren William and Harry, Elizabeth II did not react to the tragedy. Through this silence, she is not just 800 kilometers from the capital: she levitates 800 light years from the concerns of her subjects.
But since her divorce from Charles in 1992, Diana is no longer a “royal”. Barely tolerated in the entourage as the mother of the two young princes, here lies the “princess of hearts”, in the protocol nothingness. On Thursday September 4, 1997, when public buildings all flew the Union Jack at half mast, there was Buckingham Palace “a huge pole totally empty and people don’t understand why”deplores a passerby interviewed by CNN *. “They say [qu’il n’y a pas de drapeau] because the queen is not present, but what is the connection?, cuts through the grieving passerby, summing up the national (res)sentiment. Maybe the queen should be there.”
“Tell us ma’am. Your people are suffering”, pleads The Mirror in its edition of the same day. “Where is our queen? Where is the flag?”, adds the London Sun. “Do the Windsors have a heart?”, wonders the DailyMail.
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Elizabeth and Philip, expected in London for the funeral scheduled for Saturday, decide to bring their arrival forward by a few hours to try to repair the damage. The palace communicates : the flag will be hoisted for the funeral and, before that, the queen will speak to the nation. On Friday morning, Charles and his two sons get on a plane for London, Elizabeth and Philip on another. The couple fly out of Aberdeen airport and introduce themselves to the crowds early in the afternoon.
“The attitude of the crowd was unpleasant and that is something I had never, ever seen during a royal appearance”remembers Enid Jones, a Briton who came from Brighton on purpose with her granddaughter Katie, and interviewed in the documentary Diana: 7 Days That Shook The Windsors.
“You know, usually when the queen comes by, people are clapping, cheering, waving. They don’t just stand there.”
Enid Jonesin the documentary “Diana: 7 days that shook the Windsors”
The queen approaches the little girl who brandishes a bouquet of flowers. “She asked me if I wanted her to drop them off with the others. I said: ‘No madam, they are for you’. There, she took my hand, she was shaking”recalls Katie. “You are sure ?”asks the monarch, incredulous. “I think you deserve them. I think you were right to stay with your grandsons. (…) If my mom had just died, I would want my grandmother to stay with me”, continues the child. Elizabeth II “had tears in his eyes”remembers Enid Jones, quoted this time by the BBC*.
The queen then goes to Saint-James Palace, where she spends fifteen minutes meditating in front of Diana’s coffin, before returning to greet the British. Angela Powell, a young Welshwoman who had come from Swansea on purpose, remarked that “the Queen [parle] very slowly and says she [est] very sad“, she tells the New York Times*. ”She was so moved that she had trouble speaking”adds a Londoner, Caroline Berry. “It’s brave of him to come here after having suffered so much criticism”concedes Charlie Hurst, of Staffordshire.
Courageous, but essential. Because by choosing, despite pressure from the government and the media, to stay at Balmoral with his grandsons, “This is the first time in a long reign that the Queen has put her family before her subjects”writes biographer Tina Brown in The Diana Chronicles. The sovereign must now explain herself. Because “She knows better than anyone that if she or the royal family loses the public’s affection, then their days are numbered”, explains the journalist DailyMail Richard Kay, in the documentary devoted to this crucial week of his reign.
The Queen is to address the nation from Buckingham Palace at the end of the afternoon. In itself, this speech is already a historic event. Apart from the traditional Christmas message, the monarch almost never speaks like this. At the time, this only happened once, in 1991: a prayer addressed to soldiers engaged in the Gulf War. The Queen’s private secretary (and husband of Diana’s sister) Robert Fellowes, her press secretary Geoffrey Crawford and court adviser David Airlie are working on drafting a first draft. They propose it to Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, who in turn amend it.
Then the text goes to 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s residence, and lands on the desk of Alastair Campbell, head of communications for the Labor government. Here we find the tone “chilly” and “impersonal”says the biographer Robert Lacey in his book Monarch: the life and reign of Elizabeth II.
A few days earlier, Alastair Campbell came up with the formula “people’s princess” to describe Diana. A flash adopted by Prime Minister Tony Blair in one of the most significant speeches of his career. Alastair Campbell has a new idea: what if the monarch spoke out “as queen and as grandmother” ? The annotation goes to Buckingham Palace, which approves this revolutionary formulation. And for good reason: it places the queen in the rank of an ordinary woman. Monarch and Granny.
In the office of Elizabeth II, at Buckingham Palace, camera and microphones are installed. The queen stands ready, with her back to the window, in her black suit, large transparent-rimmed glasses on her nose. She will read her speech live. Again, an unprecedented fact, which gives cold sweats to the sound engineer of the BBC. In this huge room, high under the ceiling, he tears his hair out. The tension is growing.
A few minutes before the live, we open the window to get some fresh air. The murmur of the crowd, calm and comforting, reaches the ears of dozens of technicians. It’s perfect. When Elizabeth begins her speech at 6 p.m., 32 million viewers see and hear the people gathered behind their sovereign, united in the face of tragedy.
“It’s not easy to express the loss, when the initial shock is accompanied by such a mixture of emotions: disbelief, misunderstanding, anger and concern for those who remain”, begins the queen.
“We’ve all felt those emotions, over the past few days. So what I have to say to you today, as Queen and as Grandmother, I tell you from the bottom of my heart.”
Elizabeth IIduring his speech
“First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being,” she continues, paying tribute to her smile, her kindness and her devotion to others, including her two sons.
The speech immediately bears fruit. “She turned the situation around. I had a lump in my throat, I thought: ‘Thank God she’s back in charge’“, testifies to biographer Robert Lacey a journalist from Sunwho is watching the speech in a pub in the capital.
The BBC* hands its microphone to the British. “It was a very good speech. I hope she is telling the truth when she says those are her words and I hope they [les Windsor] learn to communicate with people. This is what the public wants”, reacts Joan McSweeny, from Essex. Reassured, the people accepted the discreet hand extended by Elizabeth. In his biography, Robert Lacey analyzes: “The leader of a thousand-year-old monarchy had just rallied the troops in the traditional sense of the term, while managing, in contemporary language, to tell the people that she shared their pain.” A slightly more modern queen.
* Content marked with asterisks refers to content in English.