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12
Advise, Consult and Warn
‘She [the Queen] took her Commonwealth responsibilities very seriously and rightly so, for the
responsibilities of the UK monarchy had so shrunk that if you left it at that you might as well have a film
star.’
Harold Macmillan to Harold Evans, 18 November 1961
The era of the jet plane plus her role as head of the Commonwealth had already made
Elizabeth the most travelled monarch of the House of Windsor. Her widespread tours
during the 1960s should be seen against the background of the Cold War as Britain and
the United States battled with the Soviet Union for the hearts and minds of newly
independent developing nations in Asia and Africa. As a personal symbol whom people
regarded with affection and respect disassociated from the taint of a former colonial
power, she was a potent card for her Prime Ministers to play. Macmillan was a
statesman of the old school, who thought in global terms and who found the transition
from Empire to Commonwealth an easy one. He saw Britain’s role as the leader of the
Commonwealth as giving her a degree of power and status to which her economic
resources no longer entitled her, but he was also pragmatically (some would say
cynically) preparing to change allegiances. It was during this period that Britain began
her awkward minuet with the developing European Common Market under the aegis of
the formidable General de Gaulle.
Macmillan had been looking towards Europe as a possible solution for Britain since
the end of 1959, when he wrote Elizabeth a long letter telling her that, ‘in the present
state of Europe, if we are to reach agreements helpful to this country, so long as de
Gaulle remains in power the French are the key’. A magnificently staged state visit by
de Gaulle to London took place in April 1960. It was an outstanding success; de Gaulle
knew very well how firmly Elizabeth’s father had supported him in the war years, even
against Churchill. He spoke with emotion at the banquet in Buckingham Palace of ‘the
most precious encouragements’ he had received from the royal family. ‘Where else,
Madame, better than in your presence could I bear witness to my gratitude?’ he said, as
great Crosses of Lorraine in fireworks blazed outside Buckingham Palace. At the end of
the summer parliamentary session in 1961 Macmillan wrote to Elizabeth reporting the
debates on Europe:
The great majority feel that our position in the Commonwealth should we weaken industrially and