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Communist Poland should speak ‘only two words of English’. When President Walesa
and his wife came into the room where the entire royal family was assembled, however,
she treated him as head of state to head of state and there was no formality over the
introductions: ‘My mother…’ When Prince Michael of Kent attempted – rather tactlessly
– to tell Walesa in Russian, ‘I don’t speak Polish, I only speak Russian but they’re pretty
close,’ Elizabeth told him crisply, ‘Stop showing off.’
A ‘dine and sleep’ at Windsor in the spring of 1991, the royal equivalent of a houseparty,
was shown. The guests included the former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, and his
wife Glenys. Elizabeth was filmed showing the party the treasures of the Royal Library
after dinner. She pulled out an edition of J. M. Barrie – ‘We used to have tea there when
we were small children. He was the most wonderful story-teller…’ They looked at a
volume of Queen Victoria’s diaries, rewritten and bowdlerized by her prudish youngest
daughter, Princess Beatrice. Elizabeth confessed that she too keeps a diary (‘but not as
detailed’). An unfortunate bishop gushed, ‘You write it in your own hand?’ She looked
surprised, an eyebrow was raised, ‘Yes. I can’t write it in any other way…’
Bishops are very much a part of Elizabeth’s official life as constitutional monarch. As
sovereign she is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the established church. She
appoints, on the advice of the Prime Minister, the archbishops and diocesan bishops who
take an oath of allegiance to her on their appointment and pay homage to her after
their consecration. In actual fact nominations for bishoprics are made by a Church body,
the Crown Appointments Committee, which submits two names to the Prime Minister,
who makes his choice (or can ask for other names to be submitted). He then submits it to
the sovereign. Elizabeth takes a good deal of interest in church affairs and, according to
a recent authority, was dismayed by Mrs Thatcher’s promotion in 1981 of Graham
Leonard over John Habgood as Bishop of London. She apparently went to the length of
contacting the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Runcie, to see if it could be
reconsidered and was ‘told politely, “No.” ‘ 3 Constitutionally there is nothing she can do
if a Prime Minister submits a name she is not happy with, but, as she told a Dean of St
Paul’s, ‘I can always say that I should like more information. That is an indication that
the Prime Minister will not miss.’ According to Kenneth Rose, writing in 1985, there
have been at least two occasions when Elizabeth has used this technique over
controversial appointees. 4 And when it came, moreover, to an appointment closer to
home, that of a successor to the retiring Dean of Windsor, the clergyman closest to the
Royal Family, she successfully circumvented the choice of the then Prime Minister, Ted
Heath, by consulting the outgoing Dean and putting forward his suggestion, the Rt Rev.
Michael Mann.
The Home Secretary is obliged to attend the swearing-in of bishops, when the bishop
kneels and puts his hands out to be clasped by the Queen while the Home Secretary
recites the oath of allegiance. ‘It’s very complicated,’ a former Home Secretary said, ‘and
if you want to trip the bishop up you whiz through it. It’s very Erastian in sentiment and
can’t have changed much since Henry VIII’s day – it knocks out both the Pope and God
in two phrases: “I… renouncing all foreign princes and prelates [i.e. the Pope]