Episode 1 The Diamond Queen

All countries come with a history attached and ours centres on

one of the oldest and grandest monarchies of all.

And the opinion polls show with remarkable consistency

that the British like this idea.

And in our lifetimes, the reason for this liking has been Queen Elizabeth II.

As a young girl, she didn't expect to become Queen.

Until the age of ten she could have hoped for a quiet country life.

But a crisis in the British monarchy made her father King

and 60 years ago, when he suddenly died, she became Queen.

In her Diamond Jubilee year, she reigns over a different country,

and indeed 135 million people around the world.

You know, she was 25. You think about how young that is for somebody

to take on this incredible responsibility.

But what does that mean? What does she actually do?

It's very interesting.

It's been a life of turning up

and reading official papers by our most familiar...enigma.

The Queen has provided a huge stability

and a huge wealth of experience for those that want to tap into it.

Oh, did you?

-You've had such a year, ma'am.

-Quite busy, you know.

This series follows the Queen's working life over a year and a half.

We'll hear from some of those closest to her.

As all mothers, she's put up with a lot and we're still

on speaking terms, so I think that's no mean achievement!

We explore her own history and look at just how much,

behind the pageantry, she has changed the British monarchy.

Garter and Black Rod, pray summon the Knights Companions-Elect.

She's a proper professional at her trade. You've got some young upstart like me trying to do it his way.

It's always important to look at how it's really done.

For 60 years she's been looking back at the rest of us,

understated, sometimes hard to read.

And over 60 years,

many of us have become so used to her, we've stopped asking

quite what she does or why she does it.

We've taken her rather for granted

and after 60 years, perhaps it's time we stopped.

It's spring 2010.

"Hello, Queen."

She's making a regional visit to Wales.

This is what she does, a symbol of the country on legs.

She's been on parade for six decades, seen it all,

but watching as closely as ever, remembering names, comparing.

Her role includes jobs done in other countries by presidents,

but also native traditions presidents know nothing about.

She never stops, rarely pauses.

Every day - almost every hour - is carefully planned.

We talk about veteran politicians out on the campaign trail.

This is the real endless, perpetual campaign, year in, year out,

and in terms of pressing the flesh and meeting people,

this is the real veteran.

She's here one week after her 84th birthday, but retirement - never mind abdication -

seem to be words never mentioned in her presence.

This is a typically busy schedule on a two-day visit to North Wales.

She's getting about. The Queen has a private motto.

"I have to be seen to be believed."

And this, of course, is a family trade.

She's professional in her ability

to know how to move around,

who to speak to and how to also engage with people

within a few split seconds of meeting them.

And the way she carries herself forward,

smiles constantly, able to go into a room and bring the room to life.

These are the things that at her age, she shouldn't be doing.

Yet she's carrying on and doing them -

not only in this country but all around the world.

To some extent, that's in the genes, I think.

There is an understanding of getting out and about.

-Yes.

-You actually have to go and meet people to find out what's really going on

and to give people a sense of your understanding of what is happening.

Whenever Granny walks into a room, everyone stands up,

stops and just kind of... watches her,

cos obviously it's huge when she walks into a room,

and I find that incredible. I kind of go...

Now of course, she's not ordinary. She's very rich, privileged,

protected and cherished.

Different in so many ways, big and small.

She doesn't need a passport or a driving licence, though her husband does.

But more important, she's only the fourth in what is effectively

a new royal dynasty, stamped with her personal style

but built by her grandfather in years of mayhem and war.

The First World War toppled the monarchies of Russia, Germany and Austria.

George V faced criticism that his family, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,

were somehow pro-German,

and he knew there were anti-royal murmurings at home.

When the writer HG Wells spoke of an "uninspiring" and "alien" court,

King George retorted, "I may be uninspiring, but I'm damned if I'm an alien."

In 1917, he changed all the German-sounding family names

and, not knowing what his own surname might really be,

he chose Windsor for its thoroughly British ring.

He insisted the royals criss-cross the country,

visiting hospitals, towns and barracks.

And a lot about today's monarchy comes from him.

For the Queen, this was not something that she had to read about in books.

The Queen remembers very well the man she played with when she was a small girl.

She called him "Grandpa England"

and George V really was the man who made the Windsors.

Her father was George V's second son, Prince Albert of York,

who'd married a cheerful, young Scottish aristocrat,

Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. She turned him down twice,

but it turned out to be a very happy marriage,

so that Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary

spent her early years in a private world of quiet security.

Though when she was born, it was a time of turbulence.

April 21st, 1926, and there is a really uneasy air in the country.

The general strike is just about to start.

A lot of people predict a revolution.

And a princess is born, third in line to the throne,

here in Bruton Street, a fairly posh part of central London

but in a relatively normal house owned by her aristocratic grandparents.

Later, the German bombs would remove it and it's now possibly

one of the dullest buildings in central London.

At eight months, her parents left her to take a six-month sea voyage

to Australia and New Zealand.

Her mother was very upset to leave the baby, but the Empire called.

Duty first, family feelings second.

Her parents were following the rule book

set out by her grandfather George V, "Get out there, be seen, work hard."

His wife, Queen Mary, once retorted to an exhausted princess

who complained she was tired of traipsing round hospitals,

"We are the Royal Family, and we love hospitals."

If you're looking for a motto for this Queen's 60-year reign,

it's not a bad place to start.

She loathes being late, still criss-crosses Britain

and hardly ever cancels.

On the second stage of her North Wales visit,

she's about to do it all over again.

Well, here in Llandudno, she's not due for another hour.

There hasn't been much advance publicity

and already there is a pretty substantial crowd hoping to see her.

Now, I ask you, how many politicians could draw a crowd in advance,

not only hoping to see them, but hoping to be PLEASED to see them?

SCREAMING AND CHEERING

Celebrities court the camera. They open up.

The Queen is not a celebrity. Cameras court her, and she doesn't.

Is this instinctive or something she's learned? Well, it's shrewd.

Celebrities flare and then they burn out. It's pretty remarkable that in her 80s,

she still generates the same warmth and excitement as ever.

The Queen has developed this into an absolute art form.

How to get round the maximum number of people,

make as many people as possible feel they've made some kind of contact,

some small human connection with her.

The thing is, when you're in the presence of the Queen

you are keyed up and you want to be your best.

You want the occasion to be

something you can talk to everybody about afterwards.

That, of course, is the magic of what she is, wherever she goes.

The real human exchange that happens there is not a facsimile

and is not drummed up by the press.

It's something about the best of us.

If we've come to take this for granted,

it's worth remembering that she would never have become Queen

if her uncle hadn't been a failed, unsuccessful monarch.

-REPORTER:

-On a cold, sunny January day,

the body of His late Majesty King George V

starts on its last journey from Sandringham.

Behind the coffin walks His Majesty the King,

their Royal Highnesses the Duke of York, the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent and Lord Harewood.

She was nine years old when her grandfather George V died.

As he was lying in state,

part of the Imperial State Crown fell from the top of his coffin.

His heir, Uncle David as she called him, the Prince of Wales, saw this

and wondered if it was a bad omen.

It was. 1936 would become The Year Of The Three Kings.

-REPORTER:

-Already loved and respected as Prince,

he set out to do his duty as King in the industrial areas of Britain.

CHEERING

But behind the scenes, the constitutional crisis grew.

A crisis which concerned not only politicians of Westminster

but the Church of England, and which was to prevent his coronation.

Edward VIII reigned for just 325 days,

surrendering the throne

to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.

He was the bad King, the Windsor who got it wrong.

Vain and self-indulgent, he demonstrated that charisma,

while useful in politics or entertainment,

is a dangerous confection for a constitutional monarch.

These are the unreleased stamps, designed by him,

looking like an Emperor, to mark the Coronation that never was.

He was bored by duty,

left official papers lying around with whisky stains on them.

Could the Queen's moral seriousness have been an instinctive reaction

to her uncle's short and disastrous reign?

It must have been a terribly cruel betrayal for her,

because he was such an enjoyable, relaxed member of the family

in this very stiff sort of environment.

And then suddenly she discovers - it must have been revealed to her at the time of the abdication -

that he's blotted his copybook in this terrible way,

in a way that they probably didn't want.

Her mother and father couldn't talk to her about Mrs Simpson,

divorced women, all this sort of thing.

The very silence about it,

people going quiet when she came into the room.

This must have made it all the more awful

and all the more of a betrayal.

Carefully stored away in Victoria Tower at the Palace of Westminster

are archives which record these dark days of the monarchy.

These are the papers on the abdication of Edward VIII

and they reek of misery and crisis.

This is his address to the House of Lords in which he says,

"I will not enter now into my private feelings, but I would beg that it should be remembered

"that the burden which constantly rests

"upon the shoulders of a sovereign is so heavy it can only be borne in circumstances

"different from those in which I now find myself."

You then get the Act Of Abdication, which went through both Houses of Parliament -

all of its stages - in a single day. That's a sense of crisis for you.

And then here is the Royal Assent to that and it finishes with

the great red seal. "By the King himself, signed with his own hand."

And his own hand is on the front of the document,

Edward RI, Edward Rex Imperator, "King Emperor".

And by writing that signature on this document,

he ceases to be King. So it's the only example I've ever seen -

and may exist - of a signature which destroys itself. Amazing.

With barely time for the country to take it all in,

the Queen's father was crowned King George VI.

11-year-old Princess Elizabeth was a little shocked

to realise she would have to move into the draughty Buckingham Palace.

But she caught the sense of magic, writing of the Coronation,

"I thought it all very, very wonderful

"and I expect the Abbey did, too.

"The arches and beams at the top were covered with

"a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned.

"At least, I thought so."

"Papa" was only 41 and the prospect of her own reign

must have seemed unimaginably distant.

But that quiet little family, her mother's sense of fun,

her sister Princess Margaret's mischief, what they called "we four"

would now be changed for ever.

-REPORTER:

-That's our Royal Family, and it's a family

whose joys and sorrows are much like yours and mine, I suspect.

The new King George VI moved his family

out of the comfortable and familiar house in Piccadilly

and into the grandeur of Buckingham Palace.

Imagine what it must have felt like for the young girls,

and the shift certainly pushed the father and his older,

rather serious ten-year-old daughter,

who he now knew was going to be Queen, much more closely together.

-It was a pretty intimidating, draughty, old barn of a place.

-Yes, and pretty austere

and some fairly strange working practices as well.

Mind you, the working practices have been going on a long, long time.

I think even in Queen Victoria's day, she or Prince Albert complained

that there were three different departments

that were responsible for a fireplace, so there was...

Actually, it may have been four. One was responsible for cleaning it.

Another was responsible for laying it,

because the Forestry Department had to produce the logs.

Somebody else had to light it and another department had to look after it.

It was absolutely ridiculous. It's got a lot better since then!

Her childhood was comfortable, but not exactly crowded.

No random friendships. City streets for looking down at, not for walking on.

Remarkably, even then, security issues,

including Irish Republican threats, loomed over the girls.

Elizabeth and Margaret lived in a world dominated by family jokes

and private games, often played in a kind of ante-palace

hidden away in the grounds of Royal Lodge, Windsor.

The people of Wales gave Y Bwthyn Bach, "The Little House",

to her on her sixth birthday. Here she'd play and read books,

beginning a tradition that now includes her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice.

Granny and her sister played here growing up and we've been

lucky enough to play here, and cousins and second cousins

and it's a big family treat.

It's the most glamorous Wendy house ever but it's really beautiful

and what you're seeing now

is after a year renovation process.

-Which you've been in charge of?

-Yeah. Well, I'm one of the people,

but it's been completely re-thatched and new curtains,

-new wiring, new...

-Mm.

-A bit of a spruce-up, really.

Because it's such a wonderful little place that...

If you want to have a look inside.

Can we see inside?

Have a little look.

Wow!

-So, as you see...

-Yeah.

As you see, all the little china and glass

and everything was created specially for the house.

-It's got a very 1930s feel to it, hasn't it?

-Yes, it does.

-The kitchen is very 1930s.

-Actually, the fridge in there is not supposed to be in here.

It was the fridge from the nursery, but, when all the boxes came back,

it suddenly reappeared!

So we now have the original 1930s fridge in the house.

And Granny was very clear that all the fabrics,

she wanted very little designs because it was such a little house

that she... So we've gone for very little flowers and little rosebuds.

We have some quite new, modern friends that've...

-Have arrived as well.

-..Made their appearance as well.

But she spent many, many happy hours and days here as a girl.

Yeah, she did. And still now, she likes to come back and visit

and it's wonderful that we can have...

Granny's a great-grandmother now,

so we can have Savannah come and play in here, as well.

-That's fantastic.

-And more great-grandchildren in the future.

As a child, "Granny" never went to school.

When her mother was urged to get her more books,

they all turned out to be comedies by PG Wodehouse.

But she learned French and she was taught about the constitution

by an eccentric history teacher from Eton.

More important, the new King was passing on his own advice

and despite his stammer and lack of readiness for the role,

was growing in confidence himself.

AIR-RAID SIREN WAILS

He refused to leave London during World War II's Blitz.

The Queen Mother took up pistol practice in the palace grounds

in case she had to make a last stand against German paratroopers,

and they visited the battered East End.

-REPORTER:

-Upon hearing yet another London hospital had been bombed,

Their Majesties visit the scene

to bring comfort and cheer to all those who have suffered

from this all-too-frequent form of Nazi frightfulness.

On September 13th 1940,

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

were very nearly killed when a German bomb landed right here

in the quadrangle at Buckingham Palace.

If the window in the room where they were standing

had been closed rather than open,

they would have been hideously mutilated by flying glass.

A workman nearby was killed.

Showing fine British phlegm, one of the policemen there

turned to the Queen Mother and said,

"A magnificent piece of bombing, if I may say so, ma'am."

Yards from where the King and Queen sheltered, the Royal Chapel was struck.

Tearing through the roof, the bomb completely wrecked the altar,

and hurled 20 tonnes of debris into the basement. We thank God that Their Majesties were unhurt.

During World War II, the whereabouts of the princesses was a national secret.

In fact, they were at Windsor Castle,

from where they made a radio broadcast to the children of Britain.

'Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes

'and be separated from your fathers and mothers.

'My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you,

'as we know from experience what it means

'to be away from those we love most of all.'

You only have to look at pictures of the Queen's father before

and after the war to see the toll it took on him.

A dramatic ageing,

but this was also the time when the ties were more tightly bound.

I think that was the time

when the Queen got closest of all to her father,

and to see him wasting away in front of her...

And you wonder, was she aware,

even as she's losing her father,

and can see his mortality, what that means for her,

and how that's going to limit her own personal life?

He was really the only person

from whom Princess Elizabeth could learn about how to reign -

how far to go with the politicians, how to do the paperwork.

He'd become a revered symbol of the British -

reliable, constant, still in his mid-50s.

For her, an anchor.

And then the cable snapped.

King George VI's death came on the 6th February 1952,

here at Sandringham, the private estate he loved so much.

His daughter was then 25, she had two children of her own,

but this sudden death pitched her straight into the public and private world

of remorseless meetings and duties, which she's always taken

with the same kind of dead-straight seriousness

that she learned from him.

She was considerably younger than you are now when she became Queen.

Do you ever reflect on what an extraordinary jump that must have been,

from a relatively private life, suddenly thrust into that role at her age?

Definitely, and one of the things that's also really struck me

when I look back at it now,

was also, in a very, probably, male-dominated age,

where it must have been extremely daunting to be put in that position.

And that age... You know, I still have trouble trying to be serious about certain things,

so for her at that age, it must have been incredible having that burden, that responsibility, placed on you.

She's shouldered the responsibility since then.

One day, after his father, it will land on Prince William's shoulders.

But what is the essence of that responsibility? What's the point of a constitutional monarch?

What, really, is the job for?

Well, first, the Queen is head of state,

and the state is a political creation.

One of the most important of the monarch's duties

is something the Queen has done thousands of times -

her weekly audiences with the Prime Minister.

These meetings mostly happen here in the deep privacy

of the Queen's apartments at Buckingham Palace.

The Queen's first Prime Minster was Winston Churchill,

a titanic figure she found a great speaker.

The Queen can do no wrong.

He saw things in a very romantic and literary way.

But perhaps a less good listener.

Since then, she's had 11 British Prime Ministers alone,

and at the heart of the relationship are those totally confidential conversations,

compared by one official to a weekly meeting with a therapist.

Certainly here, one can't take it in,

but there it must be even more traumatic, mustn't it?

It's simply two people sitting down talking

in an entirely relaxed and informal way.

But they cover everything.

I mean, the Queen, as head of state, has a right to know what is happening,

has a right to know what her Prime Minister has in mind to do.

I certainly found I could discuss anything with her,

in total confidence, and that included, by the way,

all sorts of Cabinet ructions and difficulties.

Early on in her reign, the Queen had to cope with Prime Ministers

who were older, wilier, and often ruthless.

Anthony Eden came close to entangling her in his deception

of the House of Commons and the wider world

during the Suez invasion of Egypt in 1956,

a disastrous adventure that divided the Queen's advisers and family.

She was said to have been upset by the dishonesty involved,

and so was Prince Philip's uncle, Lord Mountbatten.

Lord Louis Mountbatten,

very close to the Royal Family, was First Sea Lord,

and he tried to resign as that crisis deepened,

and was ordered by the First Lord, Quintin Hailsham,

to stay in his post, and he did.

The resignation, the attempted resignation letter all declassified.

So the Queen was deeply, deeply concerned.

Eden's successor, Harold Macmillan, entangled her in politics

by forcing the pace when he resigned, so that his favoured successor,

Alec Douglas-Home, got the job.

Order, please. Order.

The Queen had visited Macmillan in hospital to hear his views,

and many thought that the Conservative leader was using her for his own ends.

Oddly, perhaps, she seems to have established a very warm relationship

with her first Northern, Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

I think it was said that Harold Wilson once remarked that at particular times of crisis -

late '60s, when he was in deep trouble

and there were plots, as he thought, against him -

he used to say that he looked forward to the meeting with the Sovereign,

then on a Tuesday evening, because it was the only meeting he attended in the week which didn't leak,

and it was the only time he met somebody for a serious conversation who wasn't after his job.

As the Queen has grown ever more experienced and grown older,

and her Prime Ministers have grown younger, the balance has changed.

Perhaps the most pivotal, important premiership of all was that of Margaret Thatcher.

-Good evening, Your Majesty.

-You've had a very long day.

-Yes, it ran over just a little bit today.

In 1986, the Sunday Times suggested

the Queen thought Mrs Thatcher was uncaring and confrontational -

that the Queen was a political in-fighter

prepared to take on her Prime Minister.

This was over-briefing

by an enthusiastic Buckingham Palace press officer.

The Queen was fascinated, and sometimes amused,

by Margaret Thatcher.

And the Royal Family isn't comfortable

with too-polarised politics.

As the people at the top,

they like the idea of the country holding together.

However, the Queen always saw the point of Margaret Thatcher.

She admired her guts,

and she was intrigued by this self-made female leader.

The evidence is generally that actually, on a personal level, they got on very well.

I think they did.

I think they each thought the other was slightly strange...

-THEY LAUGH

-Which, indeed, was true.

I am the tenth Prime Minister of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.

-The Prime Minister.

-Ah.

Tony Blair's New Labour presented a different problem -

a vigorous government of self-proclaimed modernisers,

which, Whitehall insiders said,

had little instinctive feel for monarchy.

Being in power changed that.

You know, the fact is, any Prime Minister ends up

with unexpected events and happenings and crises,

and you need to be able to come through those and handle them,

and actually handle them psychologically,

as well as politically.

And I often used to talk to her about the past,

about previous Prime Ministers, what it was like,

how they handled things, and she was, you know...

She was prepared, within the context of the audience,

to be very frank and open and informative, in fact.

I think they want to do a deal if they possibly can.

-The question is whether we can get everyone through it...

-Yes.

..at the end of this week, really, but it's...

For the new countries, particularly, they want one,

and that's the best chance we've got of getting one.

I can imagine.

We now have an older, grandmotherly Queen,

who remembers so many forgotten scandals

and "got past that one" crises.

The Queen has, according to the great Victorian journalist Walter Bagehot,

the right to be consulted, to advise and to warn.

And the more experience she has, the more, perhaps, that means.

And today, it's David Cameron's turn.

We're recording this, as it happens, on Budget Day,

and at a time when British pilots are flying over Libya,

so there will be a great deal

for the Prime Minister and the Queen to talk about

once they get down to the meat of their conversation.

What will she say to him?

What will he reply? We will never know.

And that is the point.

But here's a rare glimpse,

though David Cameron is probably keeping his dynamite news

or his best gossip for when the camera has gone.

I hope what you heard last night and what you heard at the House of Commons was broadly the same.

I think it was broadly the same, yes.

It went well. In essence, I think it went well. It was an hour long,

-but it was lively. Out of all the muddle beforehand with Question Time...

-Oh, yes.

Then on Monday, we had the great Libyan...

-I hear you had the Libyan thing.

-That was, it was an amazingly...

'It's probably the only meeting...'

Apart from seeing Mrs Cameron at the end of the day,

it's about the only meeting where there's no-one else in the room.

And I feel the responsibility as Prime Minister

to try and explain my perspective

on the big issues going on in the world and the country that week.

-Does it make YOU think more clearly?

-So it makes me think, absolutely,

because there's no-one else in the room, there are no minutes taken -

I think you reveal, both to her, but also to yourself,

your deepest thinking and deepest worries about these issues,

and sometimes that can really help you to reach the answers.

-That sounds...quite sensible.

-Good, good.

Full of warnings - mainly for me.

It was a very good... Very good. And I sat in the Chamber listening.

But does all this really matter?

What's it for? Has it, in any way, changed the lives of the British?

The Prime Minister is the executive arm of the Government,

and the monarch has this extraordinarily important set of ceremonial duties,

that means that the country - whatever it thinks of its politicians -

can feel a great sense of ownership and unity

around the institution of the Royal Family,

and in particular Her Majesty the Queen.

I think gives us, not only all the advantages

in terms of people wanting to come to Britain and engage with Britain,

but gives us a huge advantage of stability.

The Queen stays on top of things.

She reads the newspapers - not just the Racing Post, the lot.

She really does.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

She listens to the radio and the evening news on television,

and every day, wherever she may be,

those fat, heavy, red Cabinet boxes arrive,

brimming with closely typed paperwork, carried to her

through the corridors of the Palace.

In these boxes have been some of the deepest secrets of the British state

over the last 60 years - what they really thought in Whitehall

during the most dangerous parts of the Cold War,

when the world was on the edge of nuclear annihilation,

what they really felt about some of the big domestic stories,

those great confrontations when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.

Or the true story of Tony Blair

and taking the country to war in Iraq and Afghanistan,

the fight between Blair and Brown.

The Queen really has had an absolute ringside seat

for everything that's most important.

They call her, in Number Ten, Reader Number One.

She uses a desk glossy with royal history.

Modern Britain's business is dispatched on furniture

which once belonged to the Bourbons of Paris,

brought down by the bloody French Revolution.

Here is British democracy's Reader Number One,

always ready for when the next box of documents arrives.

Why does she read those papers?

Is it important that she sees the secrets of the state,

and knows what's going on?

If she's to fulfil that function

of keeping Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State on their toes

in her weekly meeting with the Prime Minister,

or the bilateral she regularly has with the big ministers,

she's got to be well primed.

And she has this enormous accumulated compost

of memory and knowledge, but you have to keep it up to speed.

I suspect it's her equivalent of athletic training - it's her workout.

I've heard it said that there are only three people in government

who really, truly understand what's going on.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury,

the Prime Minister, and the Queen.

One of her former private secretaries, way back in the '70s,

said that if she wasn't on top of all of this stuff,

very quickly, people would notice.

Prime Ministers, ministers, ambassadors would realise that she didn't know what was going on,

and something soggy and soft would happen at the apex of the state.

I think that's probably true, although, to be honest,

quite a lot of the Queen's functions

are almost rubber-stamping.

I think, on a more personal level, if the Queen didn't keep up

this great discipline of having to read every single day and keep on top of things,

she might never be able to catch up again,

or she would feel under pressure,

and she has an iron discipline to read.

Iron discipline is, of course, a military quality,

and the Queen grew up often surrounded by men

with regimental instincts for timekeeping, order,

dress code and duty.

Responsibility was drummed into her.

Her South African speech, aged 21, is the speech of a true believer

in monarchy, nationhood, God and destiny.

There is a motto which has been borne by many of my ancestors,

a noble motto - "I serve."

I declare before you all that my whole life,

whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service,

and to the service of our great imperial family,

to which we all belong.

So this is the woman who became Queen.

We've seen the way her reading and her private meetings with politicians mesh

at the heart of the British state.

But what about the grand public occasions,

such as the opening of Parliament?

Britain, unlike other countries, has no written constitution,

no founding document.

Her authority is more like an ancient echo -

a half-hidden mystery.

And this is the room that you never see.

This is the Robing Room.

And the Queen will come in here, and the Imperial State Crown,

which, with the other jewellery, has arrived in its own coach

from the Tower of London, and then she gets robed.

This is not the House of Lords, and it's not the House of Commons.

This is the Queen's bit of the Palace of Westminster.

And it's really important symbolically, because the monarchy,

the state, the unending United Kingdom,

meets the day-to-day world of politicians,

arguing about the things that politicians argue about.

And when the Queen leaves this room with that great crown on,

and all the regalia, she is going to speak the words

of a "here today, gone tomorrow" politician,

the Prime Minister of the day, but she is still the Queen.

She is not the Government.

It's her Government, but she is not THE Government,

and this is a crucial distinction.

FANFARE

We don't live in a Tory country or a coalition nation.

There was never any such thing as New Labour Britain.

These are just the labels of governments,

who aren't quite squatters - that would be unfair -

but are merely lodgers.

The state is meant to represent all of us,

whatever we think of the people running things at the moment.

The state should have an acute memory

of what happened in the old days and how things used to work,

and a lively interest in the longer-term future.

Other countries represent the state with a constitution,

a book, a bit of paper, some kind of symbol -

France has Marianne -

or a clapped-out politician called a president.

We have a lady who, every year,

reads out what her Government is up to,

and - quite rightly - never lets us know what she really thinks of it.

My Lords, pray be seated.

In modern times,

the State Opening of Parliament can look like a gaudy pantomime,

or convocation of playing cards,

but its political significance is real enough.

My Lords and members of the House of Commons...

My Government's legislative programme

will be based upon the principles of freedom,

fairness and responsibility.

And yet, all the work at home is only part of what she does.

A lot of the Queen's life has been about travelling abroad.

Again, why?

Why is she the most well-travelled monarch in history?

Why has she made more than 325 overseas visits

to more than 130 countries,

going far beyond the states she reigns over,

or even the Commonwealth?

They included Russia -

where revolutionaries killed her relative, Tsar Nicholas II, and his family -

and Communist China. All of this costs money.

Does it really bring Britain much in return?

Does her presence make a real difference

to the way we sell ourselves abroad?

Well, yes, it does.

It undoubtedly adds great weight,

and it draws attention to us, selling ourselves abroad.

The Queen doesn't do trade deals -

the Queen isn't actually herself

soliciting business for the country -

but the presence of the Queen draws enormous attention.

And her travels take her deep into Republican territory, too.

If there's one place on the planet

which challenges the idea of monarchy more than any other,

it's the United States of America -

the most successful democracy of all time.

They didn't just reject monarchy, they rejected OUR monarchy,

and built a system with an elected leader

whose powers are far greater than any king or queen has ever had.

On the other hand, what they lost was continuity -

they're always remaking themselves.

The Queen remembers Eisenhower,

JF Kennedy,

Nixon, Reagan, Carter,

and there's nobody at the apex of the United States

you could say that about.

Here in the United States,

you might think that nobody thinks much about that.

You might think that in hard-boiled New York,

people don't miss continuity or a sense of history,

but you'd be wrong.

She's like an icon in the community.

Erm... Like, here in America,

you don't really see as much females of her stature.

So I think she has a great influence.

I like that she's a remnant of the past. I like that, though.

You don't see too many other monarchs still around, so I don't mind the Queen.

-We love the Queen.

-Fantastic. I didn't know she was going to be here.

-Yeah!

-High-five!

-That's really cool she's coming here though.

She's here to make a speech at the United Nations,

the organisation set up to promote world peace.

It's a speech she's worked hard on.

The four largest current providers of peacekeeping troops in the world

are Commonwealth countries.

She's head of state of 16 United Nations members,

so this matters to her.

The Queen makes speeches all the time, but she's not one of those people

who like the sound of their own voice.

She is pleased when the speeches are over.

Public speaking is a routine, familiar, well-oiled ordeal.

In less than two hours' time, the Queen will be standing there addressing the United Nations.

First time she's done it since 1957.

This assembly was born of the endeavours

of countless men and women...

Back then, she was upbeat and optimistic,

and so she will be today.

You might say, mostly her story has been

the triumph of optimism and hope over bitter experience.

But, after all, that is the story of monarchy,

and it's the story of the United Nations, too.

It has perhaps always been the case

that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all.

That was a really important speech, and she was able to go there

and talk a lot about foreign policy aspects,

talk about the successes that the UN has had,

and the issues that are still troubling it, about failed states,

so, you know, she can do an enormous amount.

..Grown and prospered by responding...

The Queen is not controversial,

and therefore, everybody feels included in...

when she goes abroad.

And there's a completely different atmosphere

when the Queen comes down the stairs, as it were.

It's different from anybody else doing it. It just is different.

In tomorrow's world, we must all work together as hard as ever,

if we are truly to be united nations.

APPLAUSE

Rousing speeches aren't really her thing.

In truth, the way the Queen connects best is with a personal touch.

She may not be a natural performer - she's never provocative -

but she has found the right words for times of grief and crisis,

and she moves people just by turning up, as she's about to do here

in the last part of her New York visit,

at the site of the Twin Towers.

Ground Zero, a decade on,

and it's messy and dirty and busy and hot.

And still very sad.

Part of the job of a monarch

is to articulate what people feel when tragedy strikes,

when things go wrong.

67 British people died here among the nearly 3,000 who perished,

and in the days afterwards, the Queen spoke very well.

She spoke through the British ambassador, just along the road,

at a church, as the rain streaked down,

and she said these were dark and harrowing times,

and she finished by saying something which is simple and true -

which is that grief is the price we pay for love.

Now, so long afterwards, she's back. She's going to be laying a wreath.

Prince Charles and Camilla have been here before,

but she's never been here, and it's going to be...

It'll be a poignant moment actually.

Among those waiting for her is firefighter John Morabito,

who survived the collapse of the South Tower.

411 emergency workers lost their lives

as a result of the terrorist attacks.

Just to be able to meet the Queen and see her human side,

that she would come down here and grace us with her presence at the World Trade Center site,

I think it lifts the spirits of Americans, especially New Yorkers.

There are times, especially in the Fire Department,

we feel like the world kinda forgot about us and what we went through,

so to have someone like the Queen of England,

which is, you know, a sister country to us - we feel very closely

a close bond to England - to come down here and to pay her respects,

it means a lot to New Yorkers especially, and, I think, to Americans.

It shows a human side of her, as well.

Watching the Queen operate abroad, even outside the Commonwealth,

you do see her differently.

People I've talked to here in New York

were genuinely thrilled and moved that she'd come,

in a way I don't think they'd feel

about a British Prime Minister or politician.

It would be absurd, however, to say

that the Queen helps to project British power.

Power seems the very last thing that she's about - or glory, or pomp.

At least here.

It's as if we have a Foreign Office, a Ministry of Defence,

a Department of Trade,

and she is our slightly mysterious Department of Friendliness.

It is a rum business.

But in a good way.

It's November 2010 in Abu Dhabi,

and the Queen is in the Gulf.

Once, the Windsors were king-emperors.

Now they travel as would-be wealth creators, promoters,

first onto the beaches with the politicians

and the businessmen at their backs.

The colour of the carpet waiting for her never changes,

but the world certainly does.

When she became Queen, this place was in British hands.

It was mostly dust and camels and old forts.

When she was last here, more than 30 years ago,

this was an independent country on its way,

and now it's one of the great mushrooming

"Jack And The Beanstalk" economies - enormously powerful.

Do they need us still?

Do we need them?

We certainly do.

It strikes me that this has become a place which matters an awful lot to...

I mean, Manchester City fans, but also to a lot of workers.

It's not just, er...

-It's not just the UAE - it's the whole region.

-Yes.

Hugely important from the business opportunities, the business case.

-There's an awful lot going on.

-Yeah.

-I've been coming to this region now for - whatever it is - nearly 12 years.

-Yes.

And developing the relationships in this part of the world

needs a continuous hand in touch.

-And personal contacts matter a lot.

-Oh, hugely. Hugely.

And the fact that Her Majesty's coming now is really, really important,

especially after the new government has given...

reinvigorated the relationship with the whole of the region.

-But, as you can see, the aeroplane is rolling up now.

-Yes.

-Back to work.

-I mustn't keep you from the Queen.

-Thanks very much!

-Thank you.

Monarchies are a minority in today's world, but they're hardly unusual.

40-odd countries have monarchs, depending on how you count them,

and there's no doubt that monarchs have a natural curiosity about one another,

which can oil the wheels of trade -

the Kings' and Queens' Club.

Tonight this Queen is greeted by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

So, straight from the airport,

her first stop is the exuberant Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque,

one of the world's largest,

and partly the work of British companies.

Shoeless, the Queen - whose range of hats is famous -

now wears her tribute to local fashion,

including her version of the traditional Abaya gown.

She meets children learning the Koran rather late at night.

One of the things that's changed in the Queen's reign,

and she is now very conscious of,

is that she is also Queen of 1.6 million British Muslims.

Ambassador, what does it actually mean in concrete terms for Britain

that the Queen comes all the way out here?

It's tremendously important for the relationship.

This is a country that counts for the UK.

It counts because 100-120,000 British people live here.

It counts because of their security.

So the defence and security relationship between the UK and the UAE,

with our troops serving alongside each other in Afghanistan,

with our law enforcement agencies

intercepting bombs on the way to the UK. It's very important.

I suppose Yemen's just round one corner and Iran's over the water,

so it's a pretty important place.

If there was no Royal Family - if we were a republic -

what would be the difference, do you think?

It would be shallow, shallow, shallow.

How big a deal is it?

This is probably the most important bilateral contact

between the UK and the UAE of the decade.

MEN SING

The official welcome is a traditional Bedouin one,

but again, this is really about corporate Britain.

A European-influenced museum, designed by a Briton,

backed by the British Museum.

A British architect, Lord Foster, produced it, so lots of money involved.

But the bigger picture is that in the Gulf, the Chinese are moving in,

and this dance of royal diplomacy

is one of the ways the British Government is trying to fight back.

The role the Queen can play

as Britain tries to find its place

with the other great powers - the great powers of the world -

is a very big one.

The fact that they have such esteem and affection for her

actually, I think, gives Britain an enormous advantage.

And, I... You know,

she is seriously interested in the project,

and in architecture, which is...

-She's done her homework.

-Which is really impressive.

-TONY BLAIR:

-One thing you have to realise when you're abroad

is that people absolutely adore the notion of the British monarchy.

They're fascinated by it, they want to know about it.

I mean, whatever part of the world I'm in,

they will always ask me about the Queen,

about what it's like, about the monarchy.

And so for us as a country, it's a no-brainer, actually,

-in terms of what they bring...

-Yes.

Cos they bring something no-one else can.

The pinnacle, of course, is the Queen's visit,

but it's what's going on beforehand -

where the political context is,

what's going on with the relationship -

and then you've then got to look at what happens afterwards.

And it's the gathering of those strands that you pull together,

and then, as it were, the Queen is the person who, sort of,

cinches them at that one particular moment.

And so these are special, and they add shine, varnish,

and, to some extent, paint to the canvas

that is the relationship between us and another country.

The Queen's visit continues to the Kingdom of Oman,

ruled by an old friend of hers, Sultan Qaboos.

At times, it feels more like Narnia -

bagpipe-playing, camel-mounted soldiers, glittering forts -

but Oman counts,

an oasis of relative peace in an increasingly angry region.

Often ignored by her people at home,

the Queen has been helping keep Britain quietly plugged in around the world for 60 years.

She seems to enjoy it - that IS the job -

but for a woman of her age,

the politicians keep on pushing her hard.

Is there any sense that sometimes it's a bit much

to ask a lady of her age to undertake some of these huge trips?

Well, not really.

Of course, one naturally thinks, "Would it be a bit much?"

But very clearly, it isn't a bit much.

-HRH THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE:

-She's extremely well rehearsed

at these sorts of things now, but having done that

for so many years, it must be incredibly tiring,

and is extremely emotionally draining.

But she's led the way in doing walkabouts and with engagements,

and long may that continue.

At a level of head of state, with the Queen as our monarch,

with the institution of the Royal Family,

even if you come at it with a, sort of, cold heart and a clear head,

it is a brilliant organisation for Britain.

The experience of following the Queen, even for a short time,

takes you to some strange places,

and involves a great deal of exotic transportation.

It's sometimes like ordinary life

with the colour balance turned up so high it's almost shrieking.

But it's hot, hard work, and underneath the clatter and glitter,

rather more hard-headed and down-to-earth than it looks.

For 60 years, the Queen has been, many people would say, an adornment.

What she ISN'T is an ornament.

It could have been done differently.

Running this monarchy in modern times,

juggling old authority and noisy democracy hasn't just happened -

it's been carefully thought through by the Queen, her father,

her grandfather, and their advisers.

They had an idea, a plan, and by and large, they've stuck to it.

In episode two of The Diamond Queen, we explore that plan further.

We look at how the Queen has been a quiet, but restless, moderniser.

She did close a circle of history.

We ask how the family have learnt from her.

She very much leaves the family to go off and find their own way.

If you get it wrong, stand by, and you'll be put back in your place.

And we hear the inside story of her grandson's wedding.

I rang my grandmother up for some clarification on the issue,

and duly got told that it was ridiculous.

She was right, as she always is!

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