0:00:03 > 0:00:08Balmoral - the Royal Family's holiday home in Scotland.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11It is the most private of the Queen's residences,
0:00:11 > 0:00:12a romantic retreat,
0:00:12 > 0:00:16as far from the formality of state as it could possibly be.
0:00:16 > 0:00:18THE QUEEN LAUGHS
0:00:18 > 0:00:24It is here that the Royal Family enjoy Balmoral traditions their ancestors created.
0:00:24 > 0:00:26From kilts to hunting...
0:00:27 > 0:00:28The salad is ready.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30..Picnics to porridge.
0:00:30 > 0:00:34This retreat is key to the idea of monarchy.
0:00:34 > 0:00:36More than any other royal residence,
0:00:36 > 0:00:38Balmoral has become a proving ground.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40Of those who take the test,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43not everyone falls in love with Balmoral.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46If you do not like walking in the hills,
0:00:46 > 0:00:49if you do not like fishing, if you do not like shooting,
0:00:49 > 0:00:52Balmoral is not the ideal place.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56It is totally ill-designed for the jet-set.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00Balmoral is critical to the Royal Family,
0:01:00 > 0:01:02uniting a diverse kingdom.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06It is rugged, outdoors, and, in its own way, Scottish.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11It was Scottishness, Scottishness everywhere.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13It was a tribute to Scottishness in excess.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17With Balmoral's tartan vision,
0:01:17 > 0:01:22the Royal Family have helped to create Scotland, the historic myth.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26In turn, Balmoral has become a sanctuary from modern Britain,
0:01:26 > 0:01:31where the monarchy can enjoy an ancient world of royalty.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49MUSIC: 'Highland Laddie'
0:01:57 > 0:02:00The Highland Gathering at Braemar, Aberdeenshire.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05The music is Scottish, the dancing is Scottish,
0:02:05 > 0:02:08the event is steeped in Scottish tradition.
0:02:09 > 0:02:12Amidst this display, the Royal Family arrive.
0:02:15 > 0:02:17None of them was born in Scotland.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Yet they determinedly attend every year, dressed in kilts.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28For them, these Scottish ceremonies have become a crucial part of being royal.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38Ever since Queen Victoria,
0:02:38 > 0:02:41there has been a strong, visceral link, almost,
0:02:41 > 0:02:47between the Royal Family and the Scottish background.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51They were always convinced that it was a very special relationship.
0:02:52 > 0:02:57At the heart of this relationship is Balmoral Castle.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04Created as a romantic holiday home, it has come to symbolise much more.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10Balmoral celebrates deep rooted values,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14which have come to define the very essence of the British monarchy.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17Yet at the beginning of the 19th century,
0:03:17 > 0:03:20the monarchy didn't care to visit Scotland,
0:03:20 > 0:03:22let alone live in the Highlands.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27The family love affair with Scotland began with Queen Victoria.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32In 1842, she planned an exotic holiday with Prince Albert.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35It was their first trip north of the border.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39Scotland wasn't part of the mass Victorian tourism in those days,
0:03:39 > 0:03:43so Victoria was very much avant garde in going there with Albert.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46Once they arrived there, people were delighted to see them.
0:03:46 > 0:03:50It was like a monarch going to a hidden part of China today.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52People were delighted to see them.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55They'd never seen people from London before, let alone the Queen.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58The Times declaimed from Edinburgh -
0:03:58 > 0:03:59"Nothing is now spoken of
0:03:59 > 0:04:03"but the Queen's visit to her ancient kingdom of Scotland.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06"It has superseded all other topics of the day".
0:04:09 > 0:04:13Victoria and Albert were received by thousands of welcoming Scots,
0:04:13 > 0:04:16with a theatrical display of fireworks, balls,
0:04:16 > 0:04:19and exaggerated Scottishness.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24At Drummond Castle, medieval heraldry was even hired for the visit.
0:04:24 > 0:04:29She's also welcomed by 100 tenants who are carrying Lochaber axes,
0:04:29 > 0:04:32which is the traditional weapon of the country.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36That's an axe on a pole, usually about ten feet high.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38Those hadn't been used in battle
0:04:38 > 0:04:40since the very beginning of the 18th century.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43Even then they were an outmoded weapon.
0:04:43 > 0:04:45They showed the immemorial past.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48The Highlands as a location of the fey,
0:04:48 > 0:04:51the extraordinary, the supernatural,
0:04:51 > 0:04:55a strange survival who had strayed into the modern age.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58Queen Victoria noted -
0:04:58 > 0:05:01"It seemed as if a great chieftain in olden feudal times
0:05:01 > 0:05:03"was receiving his sovereign.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06"It was princely and romantic".
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Victoria was greeted by Scotland at its romantic best.
0:05:10 > 0:05:15There was tartan and she said there were maidens dressed in long gowns with flowers in their hair.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17It was a beautiful theme park,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20and even, it seemed as if the ordinary humble people
0:05:20 > 0:05:23lived in far more beauty than anyone ever could.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28Victoria immersed herself in every aspect of Scottishness,
0:05:28 > 0:05:30much to the delight of the Scots.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33She had her first taste of porridge, which she found "very good".
0:05:39 > 0:05:44As for Albert, the Scottish mountains and forests reminded him of his native Germany.
0:05:44 > 0:05:49For the Royal couple, Scotland was pure romance.
0:05:52 > 0:05:58I just think there's something so potent, so irresistible about Highland Scotland,
0:05:58 > 0:06:01especially in terms of its sentimentalised version.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04It strikes all the senses and emotions,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08it strikes the sense of the magic history.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12It strikes the human sense and awareness of grandeur of scenery.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15This is one of the last true wildernesses of Europe,
0:06:15 > 0:06:19which is, if you like, an alternative to
0:06:19 > 0:06:23the evils and excesses of urbanism.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26I mean, I feel this still today, going up there.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29After two further trips,
0:06:29 > 0:06:31Victoria and Albert were so seduced by Scotland
0:06:31 > 0:06:35that they purchased a holiday home in Aberdeenshire -
0:06:35 > 0:06:37Balmoral Castle.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42They quickly found it wasn't large enough for the entourage.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46In 1852, they began to build an entirely new castle
0:06:46 > 0:06:48with a new design.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51Balmoral gave Albert the opportunity to create his own vision
0:06:51 > 0:06:53of beauty and perfection.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57It was a vision that stemmed from a German upbringing.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02To me, this Balmoral looks very much like a German castle.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05Having been to so many German castles,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09and it looks very much like the castles he grew up in.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13It has the towers, it has a fairytale element to it.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15It's like the Brothers Grimm.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Balmoral's interior too was a romantic adventure,
0:07:20 > 0:07:22bedecked with tartan.
0:07:22 > 0:07:27This is a sitting room, with tartan carpet and upholstery.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31The ballroom was graced with Gothic chandeliers and tartan curtains.
0:07:32 > 0:07:34Albert let rip.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38It was Scottishness, Scottishness everywhere.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41It was a tribute to Scottishness in excess.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43There was tartan everywhere.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46Everyone complained about the decor, it was tasteless.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48Nothing matched.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50It was all rather excessively...
0:07:50 > 0:07:52A kind of pre-Disney version of Scotland
0:07:52 > 0:07:55and Victoria and Albert thought it was marvellous.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59Queen Victoria wrote -
0:07:59 > 0:08:01"The house is charming, the rooms delightful,
0:08:01 > 0:08:06"the furniture, papers, everything perfection".
0:08:08 > 0:08:13Yet the tartan paradise they had created was packed with irony.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18Tartan was associated with the Scottish royal line, the Stuarts.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23Victoria sees herself, as she puts it, as the heir of the Stuarts,
0:08:23 > 0:08:25the heir of that unhappy race.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30Her Scotland is a Scotland where she is the inheritor
0:08:30 > 0:08:32of a long-standing past.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37Despite declaring herself a Stuart,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41it was Victoria's great-great-grandfather, George II,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45who had massacred Stuart supporters, the Jacobites, at Culloden.
0:08:47 > 0:08:53He even made the wearing of Stuart symbols of the uprising, such as tartan, illegal.
0:08:58 > 0:09:02One Government commentator had it in 1747,
0:09:02 > 0:09:04when referring to the Disarming Act,
0:09:04 > 0:09:10and particularly to the controls over traditional Highland dress,
0:09:10 > 0:09:16"This is an instrument for disarming and undressing those ruffians."
0:09:16 > 0:09:22Because these were regarded as, if you like, the sartorial manifestations,
0:09:22 > 0:09:25the manifestations in dress, of disaffection,
0:09:25 > 0:09:27of rebellion,
0:09:27 > 0:09:29of treason.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34By the end of the 18th century, as well as state oppression,
0:09:34 > 0:09:37Highland people saw massive agricultural change
0:09:37 > 0:09:40and brutal evictions from their land.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43When you go to the Highlands today,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46people always comment upon it as a beautiful wilderness,
0:09:46 > 0:09:49but it's far from a beautiful wilderness.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52It's a derelict, derelict landscape.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57In Highland Scotland, because you didn't get industrialisation,
0:09:57 > 0:10:00because you didn't get an alternative to land,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03it eventually brought distress, destitution,
0:10:03 > 0:10:05mass emigration, famine.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19Some Scots rejected the dereliction
0:10:19 > 0:10:23by romanticising the old world of the rebellious Jacobites.
0:10:23 > 0:10:27No-one did more to reinvent the past and glamorise Highland culture
0:10:27 > 0:10:30than the writer Sir Walter Scott,
0:10:30 > 0:10:33author of Waverley, Ivanhoe and Rob Roy.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38There's plenty of passages that I think it is utterly forgivable
0:10:38 > 0:10:39to let your eye glide over.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42There's some descriptions of heather
0:10:42 > 0:10:45that I don't think I've ever quite read through entirely.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48"Where glistening streamers waved and danced,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51"the wanderer's eye could barely view.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53"The summer heaven's delicious blue
0:10:53 > 0:10:55"so wondrous wild,
0:10:55 > 0:10:59"the whole might seem the scenery of a fairy dream.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04Walter Scott himself remarked
0:11:04 > 0:11:08that what makes Scotland Scotland is fast disappearing.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11Henry Lord Cockburn, the great intellectual lawyer -
0:11:11 > 0:11:15"This is the last truly Scotch age".
0:11:15 > 0:11:18So there was a hunt on, if you like,
0:11:18 > 0:11:20to retain a sense of cultural identity,
0:11:20 > 0:11:23while at the same time retaining the union.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26By the early 1800s,
0:11:26 > 0:11:30Scotland had become an intellectual and economic powerhouse.
0:11:30 > 0:11:35But Walter Scott created an intoxicating image of pastoral romance.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41In London, the young Victoria had become obsessed by Scott's vision.
0:11:42 > 0:11:47The first novel she ever read was his Bride Of Lammermoor.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49There's no question
0:11:49 > 0:11:54that Sir Walter Scott, sort of, lit the fire in Victoria's heart
0:11:54 > 0:11:57that developed into her great love of Scotland.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00We think of this, sort of, dumpy little widow
0:12:00 > 0:12:03but that wasn't the young Queen at all.
0:12:03 > 0:12:05She was passionate about everything
0:12:05 > 0:12:09and the moment she saw it, she felt she'd come home.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13I think Sir Walter Scott created in her
0:12:13 > 0:12:18a curiosity to see Scotland that led her there maybe the sooner.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25Her new husband, Prince Albert, also loved reading Scott's novels.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29In Germany, editions had been pirated they were so popular.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35Throughout Europe, a new romanticism took hold.
0:12:35 > 0:12:39One German composer, Mendelssohn, had fallen in love with Scotland
0:12:39 > 0:12:41and befriended Victoria and Albert.
0:12:43 > 0:12:48Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave is a fantasia on Scottish themes.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51And I think that phrase "a fantasia on Scottish themes"
0:12:51 > 0:12:54summarises the whole project that Scotland was going through
0:12:54 > 0:12:59in the 19th century, from the Waverley novels to Balmoral -
0:12:59 > 0:13:01these were fantasias on Scottish themes.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05By 1855, the newly-built Balmoral
0:13:05 > 0:13:08was ready to be lived in by its royal owners.
0:13:08 > 0:13:13Amidst this Scottish fantasy, Victoria's diary entries lengthened,
0:13:13 > 0:13:16reflecting her deep passion for Balmoral.
0:13:16 > 0:13:21"Every year my heart becomes more fixed in this dear paradise,
0:13:21 > 0:13:22"and so much more so now,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25"that all has become my dearest Albert's own creation,
0:13:25 > 0:13:30"own work, own building, own laying out."
0:13:30 > 0:13:35But not everyone thought it to be the paradise she did.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39Lady-in-Waiting Augusta Bruce observed with reticence -
0:13:39 > 0:13:43"a certain absence of harmony of the whole".
0:13:43 > 0:13:45Well, looking at old photographs,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47Victorian Balmoral was slightly cluttered,
0:13:47 > 0:13:50like all of Victoria's palaces and spaces.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54It was full of antlers and deers' heads everywhere,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56particularly in the hall.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58Some of the rooms were terribly small,
0:13:58 > 0:14:02so that people who went to stay there were shoved into these tiny rooms.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05Particularly at the beginning, you'd get ministers complaining
0:14:05 > 0:14:08they were forced to write their dispatches on their bed
0:14:08 > 0:14:10because there's no desk in their room,
0:14:10 > 0:14:14and you know, it's such a tiny space!
0:14:14 > 0:14:19Comparing it to another royal home, politician Lord Rosebery observed -
0:14:19 > 0:14:23"The drawing room at Osborne was the ugliest in the world
0:14:23 > 0:14:25"until I saw the one at Balmoral".
0:14:27 > 0:14:30I personally think Balmoral is a gruesome house.
0:14:30 > 0:14:32Totally charmless.
0:14:32 > 0:14:36No grandeur, no distinction.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40Big, ugly, dull, oppressive.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44But for Victoria, it was a dream house
0:14:44 > 0:14:47in which she could play out her fantasy.
0:14:48 > 0:14:54I think in Balmoral Victoria was making a Waverley novel you could live in.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59From the exterior to the decoration inside.
0:14:59 > 0:15:01I think Scott would've loved Balmoral.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03It's such a shame that he didn't live to see it.
0:15:03 > 0:15:09He would probably have made it even more romantic and slightly phoney.
0:15:10 > 0:15:15The Royal Family had also been attracted to some Spartan conditions.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19The outside cold could drop as low as -27 degrees centigrade,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22giving the monarchy the chance to battle the elements.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27One of the interesting things about Balmoral is it's absolutely freezing.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31Braemar is, which is of course very, very close indeed to Balmoral,
0:15:31 > 0:15:34is the coldest part of Great Britain.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38So it is a very, very, very cold place.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40So it was a brave place to choose
0:15:40 > 0:15:43and certainly was in its own way a struggle with nature
0:15:43 > 0:15:44on the part of the Royal Family.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49Victoria loved the cold.
0:15:49 > 0:15:54There was nothing more Victoria liked than a nice chilly day.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58In fact, she would constantly throw the windows open all the time,
0:15:58 > 0:16:01leaving the ladies in waiting shivering in their fine silks.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06In fact the Tsar claimed Balmoral was colder than the wastes of Siberia
0:16:06 > 0:16:08and Lord Clarendon claimed he had frostbite in his feet
0:16:08 > 0:16:12from having to be in Balmoral, because it was just so cold.
0:16:12 > 0:16:13It's always raining there.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16It rains morning, noon and night.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19It just rains horizontally, seldom vertically.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22They have rude rain up there, as the locals call it.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24It doesn't go round you, it goes through you.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28The rain there circulates in the air for hours at a time.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32It just blows horizontally and doesn't ever touch the ground,
0:16:32 > 0:16:35so you can meet the same squall two or three times in the same day.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37Miserable place.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41Victoria relished conquering the cold
0:16:41 > 0:16:43on her frequent walks in the hills.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47Austere picnics were almost a daily occurrence.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50"We sat on a very precipitous place
0:16:50 > 0:16:53"and here, at a little before two o'clock, we lunched.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57"The luncheon was very acceptable, for the air was extremely keen."
0:17:00 > 0:17:02Well, they went out in all weather,
0:17:02 > 0:17:08on pony rides, on picnics, on these great expeditions.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10I mean, Queen Victoria wrote about it at length,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14describing these wonderful, rather romantic expeditions.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18The reality was it was terribly cold and when it wasn't cold, there were awful midges.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23On these excursions, the Royal Family would meet the locals.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26Albert thought the Highlanders looked like Germans.
0:17:26 > 0:17:31"The people are more natural and are marked by their honesty and sympathy,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34"which always distinguish the inhabitants of mountainous countries,
0:17:34 > 0:17:36"who live far away from towns."
0:17:37 > 0:17:41The locals, for their part, seemed only too happy to wear the kilt,
0:17:41 > 0:17:44to put on a display of Scottishness for their Queen.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49I think Victoria's clear, authentic love of Scotland
0:17:49 > 0:17:52plays very well in Scotland.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54It's going to be a very...
0:17:54 > 0:17:57She's bound to be a very popular figure because of that.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00And she is. I don't think there's any doubt about that.
0:18:01 > 0:18:05Scotland was also moulding Victoria and Albert.
0:18:05 > 0:18:06Within the walls of Balmoral,
0:18:06 > 0:18:09they wanted to re-invent themselves as Scots.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17The tartan extended from Balmoral's carpets to the royal attire.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19Even the workers were required to wear plaid.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26Yes, Queen Victoria and Albert were 50 years behind the times
0:18:26 > 0:18:27when it came to fashion
0:18:27 > 0:18:31and that continues in the Royal Family to this day in many ways.
0:18:31 > 0:18:36It was a sort of perhaps historical thinking or traditional thinking,
0:18:36 > 0:18:38they didn't want to be fashionable,
0:18:38 > 0:18:42they didn't want to compete with London society.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45The family apparently took to wearing kilts for dinner
0:18:45 > 0:18:50and Albert designed his own special tartans just for the pair of them.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53And this is almost a type of patriotism,
0:18:53 > 0:18:57because until then the best fashions were always French fashions,
0:18:57 > 0:19:01and here was Victoria saying, "We don't want French chefs.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04"We don't want French fashions, French lace, all this stuff.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07"I want tartan and I want porridge".
0:19:07 > 0:19:10Balmoral gave the monarchy the opportunity
0:19:10 > 0:19:12not only to create their own style,
0:19:12 > 0:19:15but reinvent the world in which they lived.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17Far from the riots and stench of London,
0:19:17 > 0:19:21they could create a new model society.
0:19:21 > 0:19:27Balmoral gives them a chance to run a sort of medieval fairytale
0:19:27 > 0:19:30in many ways because they can exert patronage,
0:19:30 > 0:19:33there are peasant people living around,
0:19:33 > 0:19:35they can visit them in their huts.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38It's escapism.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42Courtier Charles Greville remembered the daily activities of the Queen.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45"She is running in and out of the house all day long
0:19:45 > 0:19:47"and often goes about alone,
0:19:47 > 0:19:51"walks in to the cottages and sits down and chats with the old women."
0:19:52 > 0:19:58There was a huge nostalgia in the 1830s and 40s for the Middle Ages,
0:19:58 > 0:20:03for the dream of order, for the wholesome feudal loyalties
0:20:03 > 0:20:05that had existed in the Middle Ages.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07So Queen Victoria was going up
0:20:07 > 0:20:10and seeing all these marvellous Scottish epic things
0:20:10 > 0:20:14and saying, "This is what I like,
0:20:14 > 0:20:18"because it helps the whole business of loyalty to the crown."
0:20:18 > 0:20:21And the crown is part of that great tradition.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28Nowhere was this feudalism more evident than at the Highland Games.
0:20:28 > 0:20:33"Throwing the hammer, tossing the caber, putting the stone.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37"We gave prizes to the three best in each of the games."
0:20:37 > 0:20:40Victoria and Albert were great fans of the Highland Games,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43hail, hearty subjects throwing things around
0:20:43 > 0:20:46and seeming as if this was the epitome of British strength.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49They could just chuck cabers and that sort of thing,
0:20:49 > 0:20:50it was all perfect.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54Victoria herself was, kind of, almost like some kind of chieftain.
0:20:54 > 0:20:59I am the Queen, but I'm also the tartan-clad chieftain of all of you.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02I think with Victoria and the Highland Games,
0:21:02 > 0:21:05you have an idea of honorary feudalism.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09It is to an extent dressing up and playing the role.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11There's no real power there.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13I mean, if you think about it by analogy,
0:21:13 > 0:21:17it's perfectly safe to dress up as a Viking or a Jacobite
0:21:17 > 0:21:20or a knight from the Middle Ages.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25It's only in these, kind of, dead costumes
0:21:25 > 0:21:30that the ceremonial can find its chance to relive the days of power.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36Balmoral also provided another theatrical backdrop
0:21:36 > 0:21:40against which to play the role of a royal - the animal kingdom.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Victoria loved animals and nature.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46As a little girl, she'd loved her ponies.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49She'd loved her animals, as do our current Royal Family.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53And there were animals everywhere. There were stags all over the place.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55This was a place of great nature.
0:21:57 > 0:21:58As for Albert...
0:22:01 > 0:22:02HE LAUGHS
0:22:02 > 0:22:06Albert was an extraordinarily bad hunter.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10He went out on a day's deer hunting and came back with a hare.
0:22:11 > 0:22:17He got himself portrayed spearing salmon with a leister, with a fish spear,
0:22:17 > 0:22:21which is one of the most difficult ways you can have to catch fish.
0:22:21 > 0:22:23He was reliving the past in doing that.
0:22:23 > 0:22:27Once he got so frustrated that when he was at breakfast with his host
0:22:27 > 0:22:31and his tame stag came to the window to be fed, Albert shot him.
0:22:36 > 0:22:41He didn't go in for the rather more delicate British habit of just killing the occasional thing.
0:22:41 > 0:22:42He wanted a massacre.
0:22:51 > 0:22:55The stag is first used as a symbol of the Stuart dynasty under siege
0:22:55 > 0:22:58in Denham Cooper's Hill, where the killing of the stag
0:22:58 > 0:23:02is symbolically seen as the killing or the attack on Charles I.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06So in actually hunting the deer in Scotland,
0:23:06 > 0:23:10was both in a sense symbolically killing off the Stuart dynasty,
0:23:10 > 0:23:15but realising the inheritance of the Scottish Royal Family
0:23:15 > 0:23:17back to its earliest foundation myths.
0:23:18 > 0:23:22Albert's conquests of nature were presented to the monarch,
0:23:22 > 0:23:24as immortalised in oil paintings.
0:23:25 > 0:23:29The English artist Landseer created the ideal stag
0:23:29 > 0:23:30in the Monarch Of The Glen.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34I think nobility, dignity, honour, integrity.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36The stag possesses all these things
0:23:36 > 0:23:41and the hunter, in pursuing them, is outwitting the creature
0:23:41 > 0:23:44and the difficulty in outwitting the creature
0:23:44 > 0:23:46is an important part of that.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49And Landseer and Victoria got on very well.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53Landseer is important in nurturing
0:23:53 > 0:23:56that Highland sensibility in Victoria.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00He instructs Victoria in drawing and watercolour.
0:24:03 > 0:24:09So Landseer's painting just becomes part of the package of the Highlands for Victoria
0:24:09 > 0:24:12that calls to mind everything about the Highlands that she values.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15STAG BELLOWS
0:24:15 > 0:24:17Balmoral has even given us a new term,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20coined in Victorian times - Balmorality.
0:24:20 > 0:24:25Signifying a combination of patronage, respectability,
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Scottishness and the great outdoors.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32Balmorality, a very important concept,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35because, as has been often said,
0:24:35 > 0:24:38the crown is the symbol of ourselves behaving well,
0:24:38 > 0:24:43and if people who have the crown upon their heads behave badly,
0:24:43 > 0:24:48it shakes the whole foundations of the throne and of the monarchy.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53It was the values of moderation and respectability
0:24:53 > 0:24:57that enamoured Victoria to the Presbyterian Scots.
0:24:57 > 0:24:59She was respected,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02because she was a mother.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05She was serious.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07She seemed to embody the values
0:25:07 > 0:25:11that particularly middle class Scotland agreed with,
0:25:11 > 0:25:15so she was very much an icon
0:25:15 > 0:25:17and she was incredibly popular.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20Balmoral's influence spread far.
0:25:20 > 0:25:26In Victoria's wake, English aristocrats adopted her rituals in Scotland.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28I remember once seeing on the front of Tatler,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32after a particularly grievous general election result in the 1990s,
0:25:32 > 0:25:34seeing this headline which said,
0:25:34 > 0:25:37"How We love Our Highland Playground."
0:25:37 > 0:25:40And, you know, this has been the attitude
0:25:40 > 0:25:43of the high British establishment to Scotland
0:25:43 > 0:25:45ever since Victoria's day,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48that Scotland is this little bit on the edge where you go in August,
0:25:48 > 0:25:53and where you shoot and where there's lots and lots of empty land with nobody much in it,
0:25:53 > 0:25:58and where one has one's shooting and hunting and fishing kind of holiday.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01As novelist Anthony Trollope would later write,
0:26:01 > 0:26:03in the shooting season, dukes were
0:26:03 > 0:26:07"more plentiful than in Pall Mall".
0:26:17 > 0:26:21The middle class English, too, were keen to explore this new landscape.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25Thomas Cook tours to Scotland started in 1846,
0:26:25 > 0:26:29with hundreds flocking to see the world of Walter Scott
0:26:29 > 0:26:31and now Queen Victoria.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37Balmoral had helped create a Highland brand.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41Rather than a modern industrialised nation,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45Scotland had become dramatic glens and Highland cattle.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52I think Victoria and Albert popularised that romantic conception of the Highlands tremendously.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55By buying Balmoral and remodelling it the way she did
0:26:55 > 0:26:58and her repeatedly coming back to Scotland,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01and the value that she placed on Scotland,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04it gave tremendous impetus to that Highland identity.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09The tartan industry also took off. By covering Balmoral with tartan
0:27:09 > 0:27:12and adorning those around her within it,
0:27:12 > 0:27:15Victoria promoted the once illegal Highland dress.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20You know, if the most famous Scotsman in the world nowadays
0:27:20 > 0:27:23is a character from the Simpsons that wears a kilt,
0:27:23 > 0:27:27has red hair, a fiery temper and drinks too much whisky,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30we can't wholly blame Scott and Victoria for that,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33but they certainly set the preconditions
0:27:33 > 0:27:39whereby that idea of Scottishness became an international brand.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43Balmoral had also become a symbol of the union of the two countries,
0:27:43 > 0:27:45empowering both the monarchy and Scotland.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51This is perhaps unique to Victoria's reign that by her period,
0:27:51 > 0:27:54the monarchy had become an additional keystone,
0:27:54 > 0:27:56an additional important support of union
0:27:56 > 0:28:00in a way in which monarchy had not been before,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04because there was this kind of symbolic representation of Britishness on the one hand,
0:28:04 > 0:28:08but the great thing for the Scots was that she was proud of,
0:28:08 > 0:28:13and tried in a sense, in a very explicit sense,
0:28:13 > 0:28:16not only by her visitation but by her love for Scotland,
0:28:16 > 0:28:20to recognise Scotland's identity within the union.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28In 1861, Prince Albert became seriously ill.
0:28:28 > 0:28:29As Albert lay dying,
0:28:29 > 0:28:34Victoria read him Walter Scott's Peveril Of The Peak.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40There's a very touching copy of the Waverley novels in the Windsor library,
0:28:40 > 0:28:42where you can see the copy of Peveril of the Peak
0:28:42 > 0:28:45that she was reading to Albert on his deathbed
0:28:45 > 0:28:49and they put a black border round the very page that he died on.
0:28:49 > 0:28:50It's not a very good page.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54You can see why he didn't want to get to the end of the book.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58While Victoria grieved for Albert,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01Aberdeen churches prayed for the Queen in her bereavement.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07Well, after Albert died, Queen Victoria was devastated
0:29:07 > 0:29:10and that meant she really refused to accept that anything moved on
0:29:10 > 0:29:12or changed after Albert died.
0:29:12 > 0:29:17And so Balmoral became a kind of museum.
0:29:17 > 0:29:19Balmoral became much more a joyless place
0:29:19 > 0:29:22and the children, certainly the Prince of Wales,
0:29:22 > 0:29:24used to rather hate going there,
0:29:24 > 0:29:29because it was all so strict and regimented and gloomy.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31Visitors were similarly ill at ease
0:29:31 > 0:29:34with the sombre atmosphere of Balmoral.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39Politician Henry Campbell-Bannerman remarked,
0:29:39 > 0:29:43"It is the funniest life conceivable, like a convent.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47"We meet at meals and when we have finished, each is off to his cell".
0:29:47 > 0:29:49For Tsar Nicholas II -
0:29:49 > 0:29:51"The weather is awful.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54"Rain and wind every day and on top of it, no luck at all.
0:29:54 > 0:29:56"I haven't killed a stag yet".
0:29:56 > 0:29:59STAGS BELLOW
0:30:01 > 0:30:05For the rest of her life, Victoria retreated more and more to Balmoral.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08Away from state and society,
0:30:08 > 0:30:10she found comfort in the world of Balmorality
0:30:10 > 0:30:12she had created with Albert.
0:30:13 > 0:30:20On 22 January 1901, the hands on the local church were stopped at 6:30pm.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22Queen Victoria had died.
0:30:24 > 0:30:26It was the end of an era.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29But Victoria could never have predicted
0:30:29 > 0:30:31how Balmoral would become a testing ground
0:30:31 > 0:30:33for all future royal behaviour,
0:30:33 > 0:30:35including that of the new King.
0:30:37 > 0:30:39I suppose Edward VII's main enjoyments
0:30:39 > 0:30:43were fornication and food.
0:30:43 > 0:30:45There was plenty of food at Balmoral,
0:30:45 > 0:30:47but not much in the way of fornication,
0:30:47 > 0:30:50and I think he was grateful to get back to London.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54His figure did not allow him to do anything very energetic.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58He enjoyed shooting, but very kind of static shooting.
0:31:00 > 0:31:05And to imagine King Edward VII crawling over the hills
0:31:05 > 0:31:08in search of a stag is very hard to conceive.
0:31:09 > 0:31:14Edward VII was the antithesis of Balmorality.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16He wasn't called Edward the Caresser for nothing.
0:31:16 > 0:31:21He was a prince of pleasure, he was...
0:31:21 > 0:31:24Kipling called him a corpulent voluptuary
0:31:24 > 0:31:29and I think he was the opposite of his mother in that sense.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32He lived for pleasure rather than for duty.
0:31:33 > 0:31:35Rather than reading Sir Walter Scott,
0:31:35 > 0:31:38the King described Balmoral's library
0:31:38 > 0:31:41as "the mausoleum of the great unread".
0:31:41 > 0:31:45I think that Edward VII insisted on very strict standards of behaviour
0:31:45 > 0:31:46when he became king.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49But, of course, there's always a slight sort of double standard,
0:31:49 > 0:31:52because at the same time as this is going on,
0:31:52 > 0:31:54everybody knows and it's public knowledge
0:31:54 > 0:31:58that the king has a sort of official mistress in the shape of Mrs Keppel.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00She doesn't stay at Balmoral I don't think,
0:32:00 > 0:32:03but she often comes over to lunch at Balmoral.
0:32:03 > 0:32:08So I think with Edward VII it was all about public appearances.
0:32:08 > 0:32:13Edward VII hadn't lived up to the Victorian rules of Balmoral.
0:32:13 > 0:32:18But his son, George V, was perfectly suited to uphold Balmorality.
0:32:18 > 0:32:24George V was, of all the 20th century monarchs,
0:32:24 > 0:32:29the one to whom Balmoral meant most, I think.
0:32:29 > 0:32:34He was probably the most conservative with a small C monarch
0:32:34 > 0:32:35that there has been for...
0:32:35 > 0:32:39Except perhaps for Queen Victoria in her declining years,
0:32:39 > 0:32:42there has been no British monarch
0:32:42 > 0:32:45that's come within striking distance of him
0:32:45 > 0:32:50for total rooted, dogmatic conservatism.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56"I love a gun, but I am never so happy
0:32:56 > 0:32:59"as when I am fishing the pools of the Dee,
0:32:59 > 0:33:01"with a long day before me."
0:33:05 > 0:33:08With George V, there's a big change in the atmosphere.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12Lord Esher, who is one of Edward VII's, sort of, favourite courtiers
0:33:12 > 0:33:16and was at Balmoral a lot with Edward VII,
0:33:16 > 0:33:18and he said the first time that he went there,
0:33:18 > 0:33:21"It's now totally domestic, and it's too awful
0:33:21 > 0:33:24"because Queen Mary spends her evenings knitting."
0:33:25 > 0:33:29In 1936 Balmoral was to be shaken once again
0:33:29 > 0:33:31with the new king, Edward VIII.
0:33:33 > 0:33:37He was more at home with the French Riviera and London cocktail parties
0:33:37 > 0:33:39than he was at Balmoral.
0:33:41 > 0:33:43If you do not like walking in the hills,
0:33:43 > 0:33:45if you do not like fishing,
0:33:45 > 0:33:48if you do not like stalking, if you do not like shooting,
0:33:48 > 0:33:51Balmoral is not the ideal place.
0:33:51 > 0:33:57It is totally ill-designed for the jet-set.
0:33:57 > 0:33:59King Edward VIII was a jet-set before there were jets,
0:33:59 > 0:34:01he was a walking jet-set,
0:34:01 > 0:34:04and there was no place in Balmoral
0:34:04 > 0:34:06where the jet-set could be accommodated.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11Edward also rejected the Balmoral code of respectability
0:34:11 > 0:34:13by immersing himself in a love affair
0:34:13 > 0:34:17with American socialite, Wallis Simpson.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21In contrast, his younger brother Albert,
0:34:21 > 0:34:23the future King George VI,
0:34:23 > 0:34:26loved the outdoor life, predictability and stability
0:34:26 > 0:34:29that Balmoral provided.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32Albert also loved all things Scottish,
0:34:32 > 0:34:35and in particular, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon,
0:34:35 > 0:34:36daughter of the Earl of Strathmore.
0:34:36 > 0:34:43Unlike the urban Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth was a natural Balmoralite.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47She embraced Scottish country life and everything it had to offer.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50She was taught to fish by one of her father's gillies
0:34:50 > 0:34:51when she was very young
0:34:51 > 0:34:54and she became an expert fly fisher.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58In fact she often got fish bones stuck in her throat
0:34:58 > 0:35:01and she used to call it the salmon's revenge.
0:35:04 > 0:35:09In September 1936, the clash between King Edward's world of glamour
0:35:09 > 0:35:12and the Balmoral establishment came to a head.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16Not only had Edward spent much of the summer cruising the Med,
0:35:16 > 0:35:22but he'd dared invite his American divorcee lover, Wallis Simpson, to Balmoral.
0:35:22 > 0:35:27Wallis was horrified at the tartan furnishings, declaring,
0:35:27 > 0:35:29"This tartan has to go!"
0:35:29 > 0:35:34Mrs Simpson looked thoroughly out of place in Balmoral.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36She was dressed to the nines always,
0:35:36 > 0:35:42as if she was about to walk out on to the lawns of Hurlingham or somewhere.
0:35:42 > 0:35:47It simply was so totally alien to her, the whole place.
0:35:47 > 0:35:52The mere existence of King Edward VIII
0:35:52 > 0:35:56in the mood in which he was in 1936
0:35:56 > 0:35:58was a threat to the way of life at Balmoral,
0:35:58 > 0:36:01a threat to the way of life of the Royal Family.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04When the metropolitan Wallis met Elizabeth,
0:36:04 > 0:36:06the very essence of Balmorality,
0:36:06 > 0:36:09the monarchy collided with the modern world.
0:36:09 > 0:36:15Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and Wallis Simpson were chalk and cheese.
0:36:15 > 0:36:17They couldn't have been more different.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21They disliked each other, and Wallis Simpson famously called
0:36:21 > 0:36:27Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon "that Scottish cook".
0:36:27 > 0:36:29She used to call her Cookie, in fact,
0:36:29 > 0:36:32because she thought she looked so plain and ordinary,
0:36:32 > 0:36:33she might be a member of staff.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38There's a little story about how the Duchess of York,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother to be,
0:36:41 > 0:36:46came to Balmoral with Wallis Simpson acting as hostess,
0:36:46 > 0:36:51and she swept past her and she said, "I've come to dine with the King."
0:36:53 > 0:36:57In other words she was still loyal to her brother-in-law, Edward VIII,
0:36:57 > 0:37:04but she didn't want any truck with this two-bit American adulteress, adventuress, whatever she was,
0:37:04 > 0:37:07who was cutting at the root of the monarchy
0:37:07 > 0:37:10by having this affair with the King.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14The King and Mrs Simpson would never return to Balmoral.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18The establishment had rejected them.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21They had failed the Balmoral litmus test.
0:37:22 > 0:37:26With Edward's abdication, Balmorality remained intact.
0:37:26 > 0:37:31And with the crowning of George VI, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon became Queen,
0:37:31 > 0:37:33much to the delight of the Scots.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36The fact that George V married a Scot is very important,
0:37:36 > 0:37:41because the Scots tended to be very...acquisitive
0:37:41 > 0:37:44about who they defined as Scottish
0:37:44 > 0:37:47and of course that effectively meant
0:37:47 > 0:37:50that they could claim that the heir to the throne
0:37:50 > 0:37:52was effectively half Scottish.
0:37:54 > 0:37:56And with Queen Elizabeth's first born,
0:37:56 > 0:37:59Balmoral culture would be embraced with a passion
0:37:59 > 0:38:01not seen since Queen Victoria.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06Elizabeth II is really a countrywoman at heart.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09I think she's famous for saying,
0:38:09 > 0:38:12"When I grow up I want to marry a farmer
0:38:12 > 0:38:15"and have lots of horses and dogs and children."
0:38:15 > 0:38:19I think she identified with Queen Victoria,
0:38:19 > 0:38:25and certainly her father, George VI, used to say when she was quite young,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29"Well, we often wonder whether history will repeat itself",
0:38:29 > 0:38:34meaning that the Queen, Queen Elizabeth II,
0:38:34 > 0:38:40would turn out to be a queen in the mould of Queen Victoria.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51In post-war Britain, society changed and the country modernised.
0:38:51 > 0:38:54While in the Highlands of Scotland,
0:38:54 > 0:38:57the Queen's own castle remained just as it had ever been.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01I would say that,
0:39:01 > 0:39:05taking into account the obvious changes of modern conveniences,
0:39:05 > 0:39:10but life in Balmoral is in essentials extraordinarily similar
0:39:10 > 0:39:12to what it was 100 or 150 years ago.
0:39:12 > 0:39:14Good morning.
0:39:15 > 0:39:20That the pattern of life was laid down in the 19th century,
0:39:20 > 0:39:25what you did, when you did it, and though now they've got Land Rovers
0:39:25 > 0:39:27and now they've got electric lights,
0:39:27 > 0:39:32basically they are doing the same things in more or less the same way
0:39:32 > 0:39:35as they were doing when Queen Victoria was there.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42Since Victoria's time, Balmoral has become more than a retreat.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45It replenishes the Royal Family's identity,
0:39:45 > 0:39:48renewing their most important values.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52Photographer Ken Lennox has seized opportunities
0:39:52 > 0:39:54to see these ideals in action.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57On one occasion the Queen was on the moors,
0:39:57 > 0:40:01every inch the noble chief with her subjects,
0:40:01 > 0:40:03just as Queen Victoria had been.
0:40:03 > 0:40:10The Queen was dressed in raincoats, sturdy shoes, ankle socks and a hood
0:40:10 > 0:40:12and she would mix for the three or four hours
0:40:12 > 0:40:14amongst her own people up there.
0:40:14 > 0:40:19And at one stage she was introduced to one of her shepherds,
0:40:19 > 0:40:21or she had called on the shepherd,
0:40:21 > 0:40:24and he ends up leaning on his crook with both hands,
0:40:24 > 0:40:25as if it was anybody else.
0:40:25 > 0:40:29And they're just so natural, here's the Queen and one of her shepherds,
0:40:29 > 0:40:32just having a jaw up in the hills.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37Queen Victoria dictated that tartan was to be worn at Balmoral.
0:40:37 > 0:40:42Today, the Royal Family still wear this symbol of Scottishness.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46What you see when you see Prince Charles in a kilt at Balmoral
0:40:46 > 0:40:51is a man determined not to yield to the fads of modern Britain.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56You also see, I think, a Royal Family playing hard the Scottish card,
0:40:56 > 0:40:58trying to keep the United Kingdom together.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01'Pageantry of another kind in Scotland.
0:41:01 > 0:41:03'At Braemar there are pipers...'
0:41:03 > 0:41:09At the Highland Games the Royal Family can firmly put their Scottishness on display.
0:41:09 > 0:41:14Now attracting huge crowds, the clansmen still test their physical strength
0:41:14 > 0:41:17and hail the reigning monarch as chieftain.
0:41:17 > 0:41:23When the Queen and Prince Philip attend the Braemar Games
0:41:23 > 0:41:28it's part of a huge fantasy in which the royals are engaged.
0:41:28 > 0:41:33It's a great pageant of the past, because they're not Scottish,
0:41:33 > 0:41:36they are German mainly,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39and they are engaging in something
0:41:39 > 0:41:43which is supposed to unite them with their people.
0:41:43 > 0:41:47It's supposed to bring them together with their people.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51Like Victoria, the Royal Family enjoy escapism,
0:41:51 > 0:41:53but they are no fair-weather tourists.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55A courtier once said,
0:41:55 > 0:42:00"The Royal Family will go out in weather you wouldn't put a dog out in".
0:42:02 > 0:42:06As in Victoria's time, the Royal family avoid indulgence at Balmoral.
0:42:06 > 0:42:12Instead, Tupperware picnics are nearly a daily occurrence.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19The picnics of Balmoral are curiously like Marie Antoinette
0:42:19 > 0:42:23in the Petit Trianon, pretending to be a dairy maid.
0:42:23 > 0:42:29They are a wonderful mixture of comfort, informality
0:42:29 > 0:42:35and a wonderful, efficient machine driving them all from behind.
0:42:35 > 0:42:41You could say in a way it is the Royal Family playing at being ordinary human beings
0:42:41 > 0:42:42and there is some truth in that.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44The salad is ready.
0:42:46 > 0:42:51Lady-in-waiting Margaret Rhodes spent many holidays at Balmoral in the company of the Queen.
0:42:51 > 0:42:55Prince Philip is an extremely good chef
0:42:55 > 0:42:57and he does the cooking
0:42:57 > 0:43:02and the Queen makes the salad.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07There's nobody else there in the way of help.
0:43:09 > 0:43:13It's usually probably birds that have been shot down, you know,
0:43:13 > 0:43:16lovely roast grouse or venison steaks.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Then they have enormous sausages called Cumberland sausages
0:43:19 > 0:43:23which go on and on and round and round for ever, you know.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26What's this for?
0:43:26 > 0:43:27What's this for?
0:43:27 > 0:43:31Well, picnics are taken very seriously at Balmoral.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34Prince Philip not only designed a barbecue,
0:43:34 > 0:43:36he designed a trailer for the barbecue,
0:43:36 > 0:43:39and everything was done to strict order.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45If it wasn't done properly there'd be a lot of shouting from Prince Philip
0:43:45 > 0:43:47and sometimes from the Queen too.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51And the Queen would play her part by making the salad dressing.
0:43:51 > 0:43:53All right, I'm coming.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01Hunting and fishing remain important rituals at Balmoral.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05To conquer nature is an important part of being royal.
0:44:08 > 0:44:10Following in Albert's footsteps,
0:44:10 > 0:44:14Prince Charles often stands alone in the icy River Dee.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19Stag hunting is also a favourite pastime.
0:44:20 > 0:44:21Charles is a very serious man
0:44:21 > 0:44:24in the sense that his shooting's not frivolous.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28If they shoot a deer it will be part of the menu for the household
0:44:28 > 0:44:31and for the royals themselves.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35He is prepared to spend days at a time going after one red deer.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41Official visitors have largely played along with this lifestyle.
0:44:41 > 0:44:44Prime Ministers are exposed to Balmorality
0:44:44 > 0:44:46when they trek to Scotland every year.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51I think at the start always a Prime Minister goes with trepidation.
0:44:51 > 0:44:53"Yikes! A weekend with the Royal Family,
0:44:53 > 0:44:55"how is this gonna be socially?"
0:44:55 > 0:44:56Nice to see you.
0:44:56 > 0:45:00They're people whose whole life revolves around the written word,
0:45:00 > 0:45:02behind gossip, behind ideas,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05and they go up to Balmoral and find a world
0:45:05 > 0:45:10where really ideas aren't regarded as particularly exciting
0:45:10 > 0:45:12unless it's the idea of what's gonna be for lunch.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15He keeps it very tidy, too. This is their shed.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20One prime minister, in particular, was never entirely comfortable with Balmorality.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24I think her sister wrote that she'd never had any shoes
0:45:24 > 0:45:27apart from patent leather court shoes,
0:45:27 > 0:45:29and they went with her to Balmoral.
0:45:29 > 0:45:31And there used to be an absolute struggle
0:45:31 > 0:45:35between the ladies in waiting and Thatcher,
0:45:35 > 0:45:38how they could get her into country shoes.
0:45:38 > 0:45:44I think they even managed to get her into green Wellington boots.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46There is this terrible cliche
0:45:46 > 0:45:49when people think about Mrs Thatcher and the Queen,
0:45:49 > 0:45:50that they didn't get on.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53There is strong evidence to suggest that actually they got on,
0:45:53 > 0:45:57because Mrs Thatcher once gave the Queen for Christmas
0:45:57 > 0:45:59a set of washing-up gloves, a pair of Marigolds,
0:45:59 > 0:46:02and that's because she'd seen the Queen at Balmoral
0:46:02 > 0:46:04washing up without gloves.
0:46:04 > 0:46:06And Mrs T, being Mrs T,
0:46:06 > 0:46:08thought you can't wash up without washing-up gloves,
0:46:08 > 0:46:12and so she sent Her Majesty a pair of yellow gloves, plastic.
0:46:12 > 0:46:18I think she found the whole thing boring, and beyond belief.
0:46:18 > 0:46:20She kept saying "I must govern", you know,
0:46:20 > 0:46:23and when Rupert Murdoch heard that she was going up to Balmoral
0:46:23 > 0:46:25he said, "Oh, how boring for her."
0:46:25 > 0:46:28I'm sure that that reflected her own feeling.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31I mean, it's notorious that when it was time to leave
0:46:31 > 0:46:35she'd been packed and ready to go hours before the off,
0:46:35 > 0:46:38because she was so eager to get away from the place.
0:46:41 > 0:46:46As for Cherie Blair, she was the very antithesis of Balmorality
0:46:46 > 0:46:50as encapsulated in an unfortunate pose.
0:46:50 > 0:46:51What a photograph it is.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54It is of a moose in its maternity throes.
0:46:54 > 0:46:56It is of, I don't know,
0:46:56 > 0:47:01a cross-Channel ferry opening its cargo gates,
0:47:01 > 0:47:07and she plainly is bored rigid by the Balmoral weekend.
0:47:07 > 0:47:13Here were the Blairs, they had sprung from metropolitan Islington,
0:47:13 > 0:47:19they were people whose whole life had revolved around urban conceits
0:47:19 > 0:47:22and fantasies and interests.
0:47:23 > 0:47:27Cherie, if told she had to go out in the pouring rain -
0:47:27 > 0:47:31"We're going for a walk, Mrs Blair." "What, in that?!"
0:47:31 > 0:47:32You can just imagine it.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37And then the thought of a barbecue, the, sort of, burnt sausages,
0:47:37 > 0:47:42it's not easy, is it, to see how this could have been overcome.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46But this is part of the comedy of our rulers, isn't it?
0:47:46 > 0:47:49Urban politicians have never been expected
0:47:49 > 0:47:53to understand the royal rituals in the great outdoors.
0:47:54 > 0:47:58But royal family members are still required to pass the test
0:47:58 > 0:48:00that is Balmoral.
0:48:01 > 0:48:06I came across Prince Charles fishing and I saw there was a girl with him.
0:48:08 > 0:48:13Later on in the day, we found out it was Diana Spencer,
0:48:13 > 0:48:17who was the younger sister of a former girlfriend,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20so we didn't really pay too much attention.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23Coming back down the plane that weekend
0:48:23 > 0:48:27there was a member of the royal party on the plane who said,
0:48:27 > 0:48:28"Don't ignore her."
0:48:28 > 0:48:31That's all he said, "Don't ignore her."
0:48:31 > 0:48:35The following year, Diana and Prince Charles married.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38They spent part of their honeymoon at Balmoral.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41Diana joined in the traditions, even shooting a stag.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49Diana never liked Balmoral, but she pretended to.
0:48:49 > 0:48:51She pretended to like it so much,
0:48:51 > 0:48:53that Prince Charles really believed she loved it
0:48:53 > 0:48:54and thought this is terrific.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58But Diana was absolutely miserable.
0:48:58 > 0:49:00She hated the formality,
0:49:00 > 0:49:04she hated the fact that she was actually having part of her honeymoon
0:49:04 > 0:49:05with her mother-in-law,
0:49:05 > 0:49:07she hated the picnics,
0:49:07 > 0:49:10she hated the weather,
0:49:10 > 0:49:12hated the rain,
0:49:12 > 0:49:16and, you know, she went into a real deep depression.
0:49:17 > 0:49:22Initially, Diana passed the royal test with a facade of Balmorality.
0:49:23 > 0:49:27She turned up in this tartan dress
0:49:27 > 0:49:30with a little Glengarry hat on
0:49:30 > 0:49:33and arrived at Braemar Games.
0:49:33 > 0:49:35She looked sensational, she looked happy.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39She looked everything a princess should look like.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42And she had bowed to the royal bit,
0:49:42 > 0:49:46Charles was there in his kilt and she was there in this tartan dress.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48She looked sensational.
0:49:48 > 0:49:53But it wasn't long before her deep rejection of Balmoral began to show.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57She didn't get on really at all
0:49:57 > 0:50:01with the kind of rather Spartan existence that they lived up there.
0:50:01 > 0:50:05Diana was an English rose really,
0:50:05 > 0:50:10and I suppose she thought Charles was a Scottish thistle.
0:50:10 > 0:50:12She described it as, "Boring, boring, boring,"
0:50:12 > 0:50:14and she clamped her Walkman on her head
0:50:14 > 0:50:17and tried to keep away from the whole thing.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21At the Braemar Games, with Balmorality on view,
0:50:21 > 0:50:25Diana's impatience with the rigid mechanisms of monarchy
0:50:25 > 0:50:27increasingly revealed itself.
0:50:27 > 0:50:32Well, as a Scot, even as a Scot, Braemar Games are boring.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34If you've ever seen a film of the Braemar Games,
0:50:34 > 0:50:38the whole day is condensed into about three minutes.
0:50:38 > 0:50:39And none of that's very exciting.
0:50:39 > 0:50:43If you've seen one man tossing a caber,
0:50:43 > 0:50:46it's quite exciting the first time and maybe even the second time,
0:50:46 > 0:50:50but after that it's not very exciting to be there.
0:50:50 > 0:50:52CHEERING
0:50:52 > 0:50:56When she'd got to Braemar Games for a second visit
0:50:56 > 0:51:01she had spent quite some considerable time at Balmoral Castle
0:51:01 > 0:51:04and had been there solidly without a break,
0:51:04 > 0:51:08so she was stuck around the castle playing ludo with Prince Andrew,
0:51:08 > 0:51:11which, you know, couldn't have been a lot of fun.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13The royals can be deadly dull at the time,
0:51:13 > 0:51:17and Diana was, as everyone knows, was a bright, cosmopolitan girl.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24Diana, like Edward VIII before her,
0:51:24 > 0:51:27had refused to re-invent herself as a Balmoral woman,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30embracing metropolitan values instead.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35For Charles, as his marriage disintegrated,
0:51:35 > 0:51:39Balmoral became a refuge, as it had been for Victoria.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43In 1987, Charles spent several weeks at Balmoral
0:51:43 > 0:51:46without seeing Diana or the children.
0:51:47 > 0:51:49It was this very isolation
0:51:49 > 0:51:54that would haunt the Royal Family after the 31st August 1997.
0:51:54 > 0:51:59The Royal Family, including Charles, William and Harry,
0:51:59 > 0:52:01were in Balmoral the night Diana died.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07The week after, as public emotion poured out in London,
0:52:07 > 0:52:11the English people were dismayed that the Queen stayed in Scotland,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15while so many grieved in London.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19500 miles north,
0:52:19 > 0:52:24the Royal Family eventually made it outside to Balmoral's gates.
0:52:29 > 0:52:31I think, just for a moment, for a week or so,
0:52:31 > 0:52:34they just couldn't understand what was happening.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38They were sitting in another country in a tartan castle
0:52:38 > 0:52:41with all their own iconography about them,
0:52:41 > 0:52:47not responding to the cries of the, kind of, people of London really
0:52:47 > 0:52:48who are always the more...
0:52:48 > 0:52:53You know, the crowd on whom a British monarchy first depends.
0:52:54 > 0:52:59And they couldn't understand that those people too
0:52:59 > 0:53:03had a different set of needs from what they'd had in 1950.
0:53:03 > 0:53:08You know, they weren't any longer a class of people in bowler hats,
0:53:08 > 0:53:10going to the City with stiff upper lips
0:53:10 > 0:53:14and accepting the old British way, they had totally changed.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21It was really a close thing.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31Diana's death illuminated Balmoral's place on the British stage.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35Just as Victoria's love of Balmoral had once symbolised the Union,
0:53:35 > 0:53:41now the castle represented isolation and two nations growing apart.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45The monarchy, once shaped by Scotland,
0:53:45 > 0:53:49now faced an increasingly independent nation.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52One of the reasons I would argue why the union
0:53:52 > 0:53:56is not quite as strong as it was in this new millennium
0:53:56 > 0:54:02is because the monarchy doesn't have the same influence today
0:54:02 > 0:54:06as it had perhaps in previous generations.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10Within two years of Diana's death,
0:54:10 > 0:54:13Balmorality was challenged once again.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17In a historic moment,
0:54:17 > 0:54:21the Queen opened the first Scottish Parliament for nearly 300 years.
0:54:24 > 0:54:29Scotland is all this and so much more.
0:54:29 > 0:54:33The grit, determination and humour, the forthrightness,
0:54:33 > 0:54:38and above all, the strong sense of identity of the Scottish people,
0:54:38 > 0:54:43qualities which contribute so much to the life of the United Kingdom.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47And these qualities reflect a Scotland which,
0:54:47 > 0:54:49if I may make a personal point,
0:54:49 > 0:54:56occupy such a special place in my own and my family's affections.
0:54:56 > 0:54:57CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:55:12 > 0:55:15I remember seeing her later in the day.
0:55:15 > 0:55:17I don't think I've ever seen a woman look more exhausted.
0:55:17 > 0:55:19She was fine and she was doing her duty
0:55:19 > 0:55:22and going round the reception and everything,
0:55:22 > 0:55:24but she looked completely drained,
0:55:24 > 0:55:26and it occurred to me that at that moment
0:55:26 > 0:55:28she had been holding in herself.
0:55:28 > 0:55:30I suppose, for her it was a matter
0:55:30 > 0:55:33of holding together the whole history of the family
0:55:33 > 0:55:36and the monarchy over the last 300 or 400 years,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39that she had to not put a foot wrong, she had to say the right thing,
0:55:39 > 0:55:41she had to not create a situation
0:55:41 > 0:55:45that would actually blow the whole kingdom apart.
0:55:51 > 0:55:53One of the interesting things in the last few years
0:55:53 > 0:55:58is the extent to which the monarchy has adjusted
0:55:58 > 0:56:02to the devolutionary settlement, more successfully perhaps
0:56:02 > 0:56:06than the Westminster political parties have adjusted to it.
0:56:06 > 0:56:08And that adaptability and flexibility
0:56:08 > 0:56:13and responsiveness to Scotland has been a mark of the Royal Family
0:56:13 > 0:56:16throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20But in the 21st century,
0:56:20 > 0:56:23Balmoral and the monarchy that depends on it
0:56:23 > 0:56:27face further adaptation as Britain continues to change.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31I would say that as the Queen's generation fades away,
0:56:31 > 0:56:34the Balmoral imagery will begin to fade away as well.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38Prince Charles will sustain it to some extent.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40The next generation won't sustain it in that form.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44If they come to Scotland, for the same sort of reasons and to do the same things
0:56:44 > 0:56:46they'll do it in a different style,
0:56:46 > 0:56:49they'll look different when they're doing it, I think.
0:56:49 > 0:56:51And as for the political future,
0:56:51 > 0:56:55they will have to continue to play a very, very subtle game,
0:56:55 > 0:56:59if they want to remain monarchs of all four of these bits of the UK.
0:57:01 > 0:57:07Over 200 years, Balmoral has shaped both the monarchy and Scotland.
0:57:08 > 0:57:11Whatever Balmoral's future,
0:57:11 > 0:57:14Victoria's fantasy Scottishness has become a tradition,
0:57:14 > 0:57:16an invented history.
0:57:16 > 0:57:21The nation, in turn, has reaped vast rewards from a powerful brand.
0:57:22 > 0:57:27I think the reason why the Balmoral vision of Scotland has survived
0:57:27 > 0:57:29is that that is Scotland.
0:57:29 > 0:57:31Whether we like it or not,
0:57:31 > 0:57:34the idea that tartan,
0:57:34 > 0:57:35whisky,
0:57:35 > 0:57:37bagpipes,
0:57:37 > 0:57:40mist, romanticism
0:57:40 > 0:57:43are the things that we recognise as being peculiarly Scottish,
0:57:43 > 0:57:45is still the case.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49And our tourist industry would collapse without that.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53The very fact that we go over to New York to do Tartan Week
0:57:53 > 0:57:56as a way of promoting Scottishness I think speaks volumes.
0:57:56 > 0:58:00I mean, the French tourist board don't have Beret Week,
0:58:00 > 0:58:02nobody sends out for Lederhosen Week,
0:58:02 > 0:58:05those things are Scottishness.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09After 200 years, it is the thing it pretends to be.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17"The romance and wild loveliness of everything here,
0:58:17 > 0:58:20"the absence of hotels and beggars,
0:58:20 > 0:58:23"the independent simple people,
0:58:23 > 0:58:25"all make beloved Scotland
0:58:25 > 0:58:29"the proudest, finest country in the world."
0:58:52 > 0:58:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:56 > 0:59:00E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk