Monarchy Portillo's State Secrets

1,000 years of history under one roof,

the National Archives, a treasure house of secrets.

The records of extraordinary times and people.

These files are this nation's story, our shared past.

Documents housed here were highly classified,

intended for the eyes of only the privileged few,

protected from your sight for decades.

But not now.

I've been granted special access to files once kept hush-hush.

I'll unearth amazing tales from our hidden history.

Forget what you've been told, these documents tell the truth.

'Coming up in this programme...

'Royalty and riches.

'The secrets of one king's fabulous wealth.'

£33,000 -

more than the income to the Exchequer in a single year.

'Royalty under fire.

'A century before this assault on Prince Charles,

'how would-be assassins were braved by Queen Victoria.'

She was really stubborn and tough about it and she did say,

"It's worth being shot at to see how much one is loved."

'Royalty and Armageddon.

'The Queen's secret speech on the outbreak of World War III.'

As we strive together to fight off the new evil,

let us pray for our country.

God bless you all.

In time of war, the monarch plays an important role.

Our soldiers, sailors and airmen are Her Majesty's armed forces.

They fight for Queen and country,

as indeed have Prince Andrew and Prince Harry.

At the commencement of hostilities, it falls to the sovereign

to make that broadcast establishing national unity,

steadying our morale

and setting out the values for which we fight.

'When you hear the air attack warning,

'you and your family must take cover.'

Thankfully, this queen, unlike her father and grandfather,

has not been called upon to lead us in world war.

But there was a time

when all-out conflict between the superpowers was a real possibility.

The Soviet Union and the United States

had huge quantities of nuclear weapons

trained on each other,

which would guarantee mutual destruction.

Also involved in this standoff was America's closest ally,

the United Kingdom.

But what if the Cold War had turned into real war?

This top-secret document reveals the very words

that might be offered to Her Majesty to address the nation.

Quick! Put on the television!

It's the Queen's message!

When I spoke to you less than three months ago,

we were all enjoying the warmth and fellowship of a family Christmas.

The horrors of war could not have seemed more remote.

Now the madness of war is once more spreading through the world

and our brave country must again prepare

to survive against the odds.

That is the text of a Queen's message,

drafted by civil servants in 1983,

envisaging the possibility of war.

And everything is set out in meticulous detail and great realism.

The Queen's draft speech, for instance, continues...

"I've never forgotten the sorrow and pride I felt

"as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set

"listening to my father's inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939."

GEORGE VI: 'In this grave hour,

'perhaps the most fateful in our history,

'we shall prevail.'

"Not for a single moment did I imagine

"that this solemn and awful duty

"would one day fall to me."

At that time of tension,

people were really worried about what might happen.

Just to help put you in mind of what the situation was like...

As we strive together to fight off the new evil,

let us pray for our country.

God bless you all.

Although my impersonation of the Queen is intended to be comical,

the officials who drafted that speech

were engaged in a serious exercise.

At what was once a top-secret location in the Essex countryside,

stands this inconspicuous cottage.

It hides the entrance to an enormous labyrinth of subterranean shelters.

More than 100 feet below ground,

it is one of the centres from which the country would have been run

in the event of nuclear Armageddon.

In this bunker, deep beneath the ground,

below thicknesses of concrete and steel,

the civil servants would gather to administer Britain

during its last days of peace

and to run what would be, probably, a short conventional war.

And then, as nuclear war became inevitable

and as the bombs were about to fall on London and Londoners,

they would isolate themselves against the blast

by closing the steel door.

JEREMY PAXMAN: 'Surviving this depends upon information

'and, currently, Britain's population

'is among the most ill-informed in Europe.'

As a young Jeremy Paxman explained,

whilst the Westminster elite

was busy making arrangements for the post-apocalypse,

the public was woefully unprepared.

'The Russians estimate they can limit their civilian casualties

'to only 5%.

'Britain's precautions are somewhat further behind.'

Like most people, Jeremy Paxman was in the dark

about this place and about the draft of the Queen's message.

Dr Mike Goodman is an historian of the Cold War.

In 1983, when this speech is drafted for the Queen,

is this a time when the Cold War is hotting up?

I think it absolutely was.

Lots of people talk about the 1980s being the Cold War II.

Following a series of detente in the 1960s and 1970s,

Reagan coming into power, Andropov in power,

the militarisation of the Cold War

meant that it was a whole new era of fear, I think, going up.

What was the basis of the allied position for preventing nuclear war?

What did it rest on?

Preventing nuclear war rested on deterrence.

It was having enough of a credible threat, I think,

to stop the other side ever launching war in the first place.

So, mutually assured destruction and the idea that,

even if you were attacked first, you could still retaliate,

was very much seen in that way.

With global nuclear catastrophe a possibility,

Britain maintained its preparations for doomsday.

JEREMY PAXMAN: 'At the Home Defence College at Easingwold, near York,

'a briefing for the men who'll run Britain after the bomb.'

'Some three to four weeks is allowed for local authorities

'to implement the war emergency plans.'

To put those plans into effect,

the officials would need reinforced, secure bases like this one.

They came equipped with everything that they would need,

including coffins,

to dispose of anyone killed by radiation poisoning.

Just before an attack,

the government would order a series of films to be broadcast.

They contained advice on what people should do come the blast,

advice that was intended to promote survival.

'If the fallout warning sounds are heard,

'they will be like these...'

THUMP

THUMP

THUMP

Arrangements were made to spirit away from London

the monarchy, the Prime Minister, ministers, civil servants

to a place of safety,

if not exactly of comfort,

so that, in the aftermath of the nuclear Armageddon,

the British state could rise again

and run whatever was left of Britain.

It's hard to imagine life down here

after the devastation of Britain's cities.

Visualising the destruction and carnage outside

is indescribably harrowing.

-RADIO:

-Warning red.

Attack warning? Is it for real?

-Attack warning's for bloody real!

-Is it? Right, get to your stations!

In 1984, just a year after the drafting

of the Queen's secret speech,

the BBC screened the drama Threads,

showing the likely effects of a nuclear strike on Britain.

SCREAMING

Come on, hurry up!

Give us a hand.

No! That's wrong!

Get all that stuff off!

Come on, get it off!

We've got to get the mattress to the bottom. That's right.

Journalist Duncan Campbell was involved in making that film.

So, trying to imagine what it would have been like,

should we start by thinking about Hiroshima in 1945?

Hiroshima is a clue,

because what Hiroshima meant,

beyond the large-scale devastation,

was the long-term and short-term effects of radiation.

'The most widespread danger from nuclear explosions is fallout.'

This is the big X, the killer.

If a bomb goes off on the ground,

tens of thousands of tonnes of soil will be made radioactive

and deposited in a great plume

down whichever direction the wind is blowing at the time.

JEREMY PAXMAN: 'In a small, overcrowded island like ours,

'is there any point in trying to protect ourselves?

'How many of the missiles might be targeted on Britain?'

This place here... I mean, I'm looking at signs on the wall...

Ministry of Social Security, Home Office,

Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

For heaven's sake, what does

the Ministry of Social Security do after a nuclear holocaust?

Well, worry about how you're going to get resources to pensioners.

That's clearly important.

Each one of these headquarters across Britain

would be sending really rather pointless messages to each other,

back and forth, until their own water and food supplies ran out

or an aggressive mob got together and stormed the place,

trying to exercise some governance

over that which was intrinsically ungovernable

after a nuclear attack.

JEREMY PAXMAN: 'We asked a Yorkshire family

'to build a fallout shelter,

'following the government's recommended design.

'They found that it required 100 plastic bags

'or similar containers,

'the strength to dig and carry over a tonne of earth

'and floor joists strong enough to bear that sort of weight.

'This is to be home at least for days and possibly weeks.'

Come on, Paddy, inside.

Where was the Queen to go?

The selected location for the Queen was her royal yacht, the Britannia.

And that she was to board the Britannia with Philip

and sail for Scotland.

And having sailed for Scotland,

dive into a deep fjord, a Scottish loch,

where Soviet aircraft flying over

would find it very difficult to locate them,

wash off any radiation

that came up from the Central Belt of Scotland

and preside over what was left of her country from there.

In the event, the dreaded nuclear disaster of the 1980s

never came about.

And when the Berlin Wall came down, at the end of the decade,

the fears were lifted.

So the Queen did not have to make the kind of speech

that now lies buried in the archives.

Let's hope it stays there.

We all have family secrets.

However, the Royal Family's secrets are state secrets.

But pass through the doors of the National Archives

and you may glimpse what's gone on behind Britain's most gilded gates.

Royalty has always been associated with riches,

but a monarch might want to be discrete about them.

How he had acquired them.

Whether he had enough wealth to wage war.

Here I have a document that shows how one king

chose to itemise all his worldly possessions.

If you had to list everything you had,

how much space might it take up?

An A4 sheet?

A notebook?

A megabyte?

In the case of King Richard II,

when he came to make an inventory of all his possessions,

it turned out to be a roll 28 metres long.

And in it, he listed every jewel,

every crown,

every possession.

It's written in courtly French,

but we can make out here a description of a "couronne".

That is a crown.

It's got pearls.

It's got "diamants".

Diamonds.

And in the margin, he records the price of everything.

It's written in Roman numerals,

but here we can decipher

thirty-three thousand,

five hundred and

eighty four pounds. £33,000.

More than the income to the Exchequer in a single year.

In today's terms, Richard II was a billionaire.

But he reigned in the 14th century,

a time of warring aristocrats.

Richard wanted to make sure that his vast wealth

stayed in the right hands.

So, in his will, he set out in minute detail

not only his grand funeral plans

but also who should inherit his fortune

on the strictest of conditions.

He makes certain bequests

which will only come into effect

if his successors support each and every statute,

declaration and judgment of parliament.

Here are the seals of office

that guarantee the authenticity of the document

and here he's signed it "Le Roi", "The King".

This was signed on 16th April, 1399.

Of course a year later King Richard II was dead.

Wherein thou liest in reputation sick.

In Shakespeare's play Richard II

we learn that the King was deposed by Henry IV,

imprisoned and stripped of his great wealth.

So, his will was never enacted.

Still, six centuries after his death,

it provides us with a wonderfully detailed picture of his riches.

It seems very likely

that it was drawn up in 1398,

a year after Richard had seized a great many valuables

from some of the greatest magnates

and a year and a half after his treasure had been greatly enriched

by his second marriage to the Little Princess, Isabelle of France.

Suddenly, the treasure had been swollen.

Such documents were drawn up from time to time,

but the wonderful thing is that this one survives.

What else do you take from the will?

I think it's a really fascinating document.

Whoever drew it up,

it's in Latin and a clerk will have written it for him,

Richard's voice comes through.

And I think he was even visualising an absolutely sumptuous funeral

and himself to be buried either in white velvet or white satin

in Westminster Abbey.

As the Shakespeare play reveals,

Richard didn't get the sumptuous funeral he'd wished.

After being dethroned and thrown into jail,

he's believed to have met a grisly end.

I have been studying...

..how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world.

He was usurped by Henry IV.

After a short period of imprisonment in the Tower of London,

moved to Pontefract Castle.

Some of the chroniclers of the day believe he was starved to death,

others that he starved himself.

And Shakespeare that he was murdered.

And starving him, of course, if that were true, would amount to murder.

When we write a will,

we hope that our wishes will be carried out to the letter.

But medieval monarchs couldn't be sure of that.

Let's give the last word on Richard to William Shakespeare...

"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

"and tell sad stories of the death of kings."

The bravery of our Royal Protection Officers,

seen here in Sidney in 1994,

is, thankfully, not often called upon.

In 2014, the Metropolitan Police arrested a number of men,

who had allegedly plotted an attack on the Queen

while she performed her duties at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday.

Demonstrating, perhaps, that royal policing has improved

since the days of another monarch.

Queen Victoria lived a long and relatively healthy life.

But that was despite numerous would-be assassins,

who made repeated attempts to kill her.

This is an official report from one police officer,

who was present at one of those failed attacks.

In 1842, a man called John Francis

tried to shoot her in Constitution Hill.

Actually, he'd been spotted with a gun the previous day,

not least by Prince Albert.

And yet, the Queen was brave enough to go out in her carriage again.

A policeman called William Trounce in this document takes up the story.

"I saw the Queen's carriage coming down Constitution Hill.

"I'd just passed the prisoner.

"I was about one yard from him,

"when the Queen's carriage was opposite him.

"I was facing to the carriage,

"nearer to the Archway gate at the top of the hill.

"I heard a report of a pistol.

"The prisoner was a little in the rear of me.

"I turned round, saw a pistol in his hand.

"I took hold of him by the collar with my right hand.

"I took the pistol with my left."

Well, that sounds like model police work.

But why, exactly, was William Trounce facing forward

with the prisoner,

a man that he was keeping under observation,

behind him?

The explanation is here.

"I'd just taken my hand down from saluting as I heard the report."

He thought it more important to salute the Queen

than to keep an eye on the suspect.

Constable Trounce had only nine months' police service

and only a month with the London Police.

A mere rookie.

So, why was the protection surrounding Queen Victoria so poor?

I've come to the scene of the crime...

..Constitution Hill,

just a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace.

When I saw the documents about John Francis' attempts

to shoot her right here in Constitution Hill,

I was shocked by the shoddiness of the policing.

I mean, was there no attempt

to improve the policing around the Queen?

Well, it was all rather new.

Police was rather new at the time

and the whole idea of the monarch needing protecting

was completely new.

No-one would even think that there was a possibility

that someone like you or I might stand there with a gun

and just wave it at Victoria.

So, they really were pretty much rushing to catch up

with what was really going on.

And, as you say, the policing was very shoddy.

And, overall, the protection about Victoria,

it was all about curtsying to her at the right time,

rather than actually protecting her life.

So, you have this ridiculous position

in which the policeman can't decide whether to protect her

or to honour her and it's just insane.

The concept that the Queen should have

dedicated armed police officers to protect her was just evolving.

She frequently went out with a few royal officers

riding alongside her open-topped carriage.

It was fortunate that Queen Victoria survived so many attacks,

a number of which occurred on these avenues.

Did not the advisors say, "Ma'am, you must change your routine"?

Oh, every day. The advisers, the courtiers, everyone.

But she was determined.

The Queen was a very stubborn woman.

She was brave, she was strong, she said, you know,

"If I don't do it,

"then I'll just look like I'm giving in to these people

"who are trying to intimidate me and I won't be intimidated."

They even made her a special bulletproof parasol

and it would protect her against these guns.

And she even refused to carry that because it would be showing fear.

So, she was genuinely a courageous monarch?

She was really courageous.

I mean, there was one attempt, the second attempt,

where they knew it was going to happen and they said to her,

"Don't go out there. Please, don't go out there, we've seen this man.

"We think he's going to try again."

And she said, "I'm going to go.

"What I'm not going to do is take my lady-in-waiting.

"So, she stays. So, I'm protecting her.

"But I'm going to expose myself."

So, incredibly brave.

Queen Victoria's would-be assassins

ranged from political fanatics to the drunk and the deranged.

One botched attempt was the work of a man called...Mr Bean.

Most of those who took pot shots were tried for treason.

Four were transported to Australia.

Two were detained for lengthy periods

at what was known as "Her Majesty's pleasure".

During Queen Victoria's reign, Irish nationalism became stronger.

She was a target for those who believed

the British rule was a yoke to be thrown off.

Arthur O'Connor had her in his sights in 1871.

What he wants is Irish independence.

So, what he does is he goes there to Buckingham Palace

and he climbs over the wall,

he clambers over the wall

and he finds the Queen at the end of one of her carriage rides

and he, basically, jumped into the carriage

and holds the gun right in her face.

So, unbelievably close.

And it's only thanks to John Brown,

the Queen's beloved John Brown, who wrestles Arthur off her

and gets a medal for it, that really he protects her.

Because otherwise that really is so close to the Queen.

Completely different to these oddballs

shooting at her vaguely over here.

Britain's police did improve their royal protection.

In 1887, they uncovered another plot by Irish nationalists

directed at the Queen.

This is not a lone assassin, somebody of unsound mind.

This is a political conspiracy aiming to...

Christy Campbell has studied the assassination attempt.

What, exactly, is the plot?

It is to put a large charge of explosive

in or around Westminster Abbey

on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

What a blow to the prestige and power of the British Empire

to explode the whole thing with a great charge of dynamite.

LOUD EXPLOSION

How far does the plot get?

It gets pretty close.

Two dynamiters do actually arrive in Liverpool

with a quantity of dynamite.

Not as much as they thought,

but the Queen actually is in jeopardy.

How do the British authorities know anything about it?

-Because they penetrated it from the very beginning.

-Ah...

It's like a CIA thriller.

They knew where the bombers were. They knew where the dynamite was.

And, when the moment came, they were arrested.

In all, there were nine attempts on Queen Victoria's life.

She would die of old age.

Many thousands then lined the streets of London

to pay their respects.

King Richard II's treasure roll

is one of the most impressive documents that I've ever seen.

But he couldn't take his wealth with him when he died, aged just 33.

By contrast, Queen Victoria lived to a ripe old age,

but only because her would-be assassins failed.

Now, even her longevity has been exceeded by Queen Elizabeth II,

who's old enough to remember that fateful broadcast

by her father at the start of World War II.

We simply cannot imagine the horror that would have ensued

had she been required to address us at the start of World War III.