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Wilson’s next Government, says that the Palace was infuriated by Heath’s suggestion,
giving as it did the impression that the monarchy was the property of the Conservative
Party, 6 but Martin Charteris, who had succeeded Adeane in 1972 on the latter’s
retirement, denied there was any such feeling. It was characteristically kind of Elizabeth
to give Heath the chance to form a government if he could. There is absolutely no
reason for thinking, as some senior Conservatives gave the impression, that she would
have preferred a Conservative Government to a Labour one; on personal terms she
probably liked Wilson the best of all of her Prime Ministers. When the Liberals refused
to join a coalition with Heath, Heath resigned and Elizabeth invited Wilson to become
her Prime Minister once again.
The Harold Wilson of 1974 was a very different man from the feisty figure who had
bounced in to No. 10 Downing Street in 1964. Eleven years of a tightrope party
leadership had worn him out although he was only fifty-eight:
He had lost none of his acuteness [his biographer wrote], but he no longer had the same energy, the same
aggression, or the same ambition. He took less exercise, drank more brandy, spoke at greater length. Rumours
about his health reflected changes in his appearance. He looked older than his years and he was slower in
gait. In his first administration it had been hard for officials to keep up with him. In his second, he gave
those closest to him an impression of being worn out, sometimes even of listlessness… He began to tell
people that he had seen it all before… 7
Elizabeth was soon made aware of the change in Wilson; she knew too that he was
already planning his retirement and that he intended to bow out of political life on or
around his sixtieth birthday on 11 March 1976. Wilson confirmed it to her in the winter
of 1975; it was a secret he kept from everyone except his closest advisers. On 5 April
1976 she and Philip attended Wilson’s retirement dinner at No. 10 Downing Street – a
signal honour since the last occasion she had set foot in Downing Street had been for
Winston Churchill’s retirement dinner twenty-one years before. On 23 April it was
announced that Elizabeth had bestowed upon him the highest honour in her personal
gift, making him Knight Companion of the Garter. The fact that she had granted it to all
her retiring Prime Ministers (Harold Macmillan had refused it) made no difference;
Wilson saw it as setting the seal on an entirely happy professional relationship.
James ‘Jim’ Callaghan, Wilson’s successor as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour
Party, had been one of Elizabeth’s strongest supporters in the Labour Cabinets of the
1960s and 1970s. A tough pragmatist with strong trade union links, Callaghan gave one
of the most perceptive summings-up of Elizabeth, fond, admiring and extremely levelheaded.
Unlike Wilson, he was never under the illusion that he was singled out in any
way for special favour. His audiences with the Queen lasted from an hour to an hour
and a half – ‘no drink – that was the rule apparently – all treated the same. But each
thinks he is treated in a much more friendly way than the one before! Though I’m sure
that’s not true. The Queen is more even-handed. What one gets is friendliness but not
friendship.’ Callaghan told Elizabeth Longford: