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Elizabeth was always well briefed. Not only did she see state papers delivered to her
daily in leather-covered boxes whose colours denoted the different departments, but she
also saw copies of minutes of Cabinet meetings and received a daily abstract of
proceedings in Parliament. ‘I was astonished’, Harold Macmillan, her Prime Minister in
1960, was to note in his diary, ‘at Her Majesty’s grasp of all the details set out in various
messages and telegrams.’ ‘He was struck’, wrote royal biographer Robert Lacey, ‘by her
remarkable skill in not taking too much out of herself. She never reacted excessively.
She never used a phrase carelessly. She would never give away an opinion early in the
conversation, but would always ask first of all for his opinion and listen to it right
through.’ ‘You couldn’t have had a better person to work for,’ one of her former private
secretaries said. ‘Prompt, great common sense, decisive. Didn’t leave things in abeyance.
If you asked a question you got the answer. If you left work for her it would always be
ready next morning. Very open to suggestions but not by any means accepting them…
And she was frightfully accessible – when problems came up she would never say –
“Don’t bother me now.”’ ‘The Queen never reads a book,’ said another, ‘but when it
comes to State Papers she is a very quick and absorbent reader – doesn’t miss a thing.
She impresses all the Prime Ministers.’
Elizabeth dislikes dictating letters, preferring her secretaries to draft letters for
correction and discussion. She likes to scribble little notes, often humorous and always
to the point, as for instance on the state visit of the King and Queen of Thailand: ‘Please
tell the band under no circumstances to play excerpts from “The King and I”…’ ‘No more
hospitals – we’ve had quite enough this year…’ On a biography of Prince Charles: ‘Very
gooey and sentimental but quite nice. There are 4 inaccuracies [listing the page
numbers].’
In one area of her work Elizabeth did lack confidence and ability. ‘She was not very
good about speeches,’ an aide said. ‘Not a natural composer of them. Relied a good deal
on Prince Philip. The draft would be put up by one of the private secretaries and then
she would alter it, or rather Prince Philip would. Speeches by Committee don’t turn out
very original.’ ‘She’s a very honest person, it’s difficult to make her say something or
quote something particular unless she really knows about it,’ another said. ‘For instance,
if you suggested she should say “We are very pleased to be here in Hull today”, she
would cross out the “very”.’ Since she doesn’t find public speaking easy, Elizabeth
always reads her speeches, which contributes even more to the general impression of
lack of spontaneity which she gives. She just cannot memorize the words or improvise,
any more than her mother does. Maybe it is inherited; there is a story, perhaps
apocryphal, of Queen Mary going to the launch of the liner, the SS Queen Mary, and
telling her lady-in-waiting beforehand, ‘Oh, dear, I’m sure I’m not going to remember
the name.’
In 1956 Elizabeth was thirty; still young, lovely and popular, an object of adulation
across a world which still seemed largely unchanged since her father’s day; but her
uninterrupted four-year honeymoon with her people would soon be over. Eden had been
in office less than a year when he initiated a disastrous post-imperial adventure which