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Elizabeth R
‘With the monarchy here, it is a little like Solomon’s temple. There is much to be penetrated before you get
to the centre – long passageways, both literal and figurative, and it is an elaborate circumstance for an
outsider… It’s unusual, and there’s the protocol, there are courtiers, long passageways, carpets and
chandeliers, enormous rooms and guards. That is part of the requirement and mystique of royalty. And by
the time you actually hack your way through all of this and get to the centre of it, it can be a pretty
intimidating thing. And what is so wonderful about the Queen is that when you do get through all of this and
get to the centre she’s a perfectly delightful person – natural, funny, interested, professional…’
Raymond G. H. Seitz, former US Ambassador to the Court of St James’s 1
Buckingham Palace stands, dauntingly huge and elephant grey, at an aloof distance
from the high iron railings against which the tourists press. The rows of windows give
nothing away, only the presence or not of the royal standard on its roof-top flagpole
indicates whether Elizabeth is in residence. At the gate one of two policemen checks
your identity and your appointment by telephone with someone within. Set in the
ground behind them, an iron flange is raised unobtrusively, concealed with red gravel, a
protection against terrorist attack. (In Elizabeth’s private apartments the windows are
covered by hideous ruched net curtains, designed to catch the glass splinters if a bomb
exploded. These are the everyday realities of her life.) Once you are passed, the flange
sinks back into the ground and you are waved through to the Privy Purse Entrance,
where the red carpet starts and footmen stand ready to usher you into the waiting-room
furnished with beige silk wall-hangings, gilt chairs covered in a lime-green material
recognizable as the work of a distinctly establishment decorator. On the walls are two
handsome Victorian paintings by William Frith – Life at the Seaside and Departure,
Paddington Station. Unsurprisingly, since this is Elizabeth’s territory, however remote
from her it may be, there is a horse picture, Arab Stallion, by Sperling, 1843. There is a
selection of broadsheet newspapers, no tabloids.
Outside on the hall table neatly furled umbrellas we laid out. Even when the outside
temperature is rising towards the eighties by 11 a.m. the umbrellas will still be there; on
rainy days they will be spread open round the floor like black mushrooms. Symbolically,
their permanent presence could signify that the Palace is always ready for a rainy day.
They also convey the message that the Palace is the last bastion of the English
gentleman. Waved by Neville Chamberlain at Munich, carried by Lord Halifax on a visit