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image the Palace presents and the type of advice and information he gives the
sovereign. The Private Secretary’s job, as defined by Harold Laski, requires exceptional
qualities:
He must know all that is going on; he must be ready to advise upon all… he is the confidant of all Ministers,
but he must never leave the impression that he is anybody’s man. He must intrude without ever seeming to
intrude… Receiving a thousand secrets, he must discriminate between what may emerge and what shall
remain obscure… It is a life passed amid circumstances in which the most trifling incident may lead to major
disaster… The royal secretary walks on a tightrope below which he is never unaware that an abyss is
yawning… Half of him must be in a real sense a statesman, and the other half must be prepared, if the
occasion arises, to be something it is not very easy to distinguish from a lacquey… 11
The present incumbent of this extremely tricky job is Sir Robin Janvrin (Marlborough,
Oxford, the Royal Navy, the Foreign Office), who succeeded Sir Robert Fellowes (Eton,
the Scots Guards, the City) in February 1999, after Fellowes had endured almost a
decade of the rockiest years of Elizabeth’s reign. Sir Michael Peat, with his official title
of Keeper of the Privy Purse, was the most powerful holder, in real terms, of that office
of Elizabeth’s reign, the man in charge of that most sensitive of questions, the cost of the
monarchy. The Lord Chamberlain, the third member of the triumvirate at the head of the
Palace hierarchy, is Lord Luce, a distinguished Conservative ex-Minister of the Arts, who
honourably resigned as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs over the invasion of the
Falklands.
This triumvirate are highly intelligent, professional, shrewd and well equipped with
the necessary diplomatic skills. The core composition of the court has not changed since
Altrincham attacked it as ‘a tight little enclave of ladies and gentlemen’ in the 1950s.
They are all decent, honourable, loyal people who see themselves as defenders of the
monarchy, a position which of itself implies negativity. The prevailing atmosphere,
even more marked in the junior secretarial ranks, is defensive and the most innocuous
questions take on a preternatural importance. This is partly the fault of an increasingly
intrusive press and public interest, when even a modest snippet of scandal about the
sexual behaviour of a royal detective can be worth upwards of £500, but the traditional
court attitude of not letting the light in upon the magic still rules at Buckingham Palace.
And it comes from the top. No one, except Philip, is in a position to tell Elizabeth what
she will not like to hear. After a half century on the throne, her experience of public
affairs and guarding the position of the monarchy is so superior to any of her
employees’ and her aura so formidable that no one would dare. Quite apart from
anything else all her advisers are considerably younger than she is. Sir Robin Janvrin,
born in 1946, is only two years older than her eldest son. Her present Prime Minister,
Tony Blair, born in 1953, is even younger. The relentless onslaught of the press, some of
whom are now openly republican, has, however, prompted the Palace to follow the
prevailing fashion and engage a spin doctor with a new title, Communications
Secretary. The first, Simon Lewis, was seconded from British Gas and appointed in 1998;
he returned there two years later, and was succeeded by Simon Walker from British