ROYALTY

See Also: ARCHES Marble Arch; ARCHITECTURE The Prince's Foundation for The Built Environment; ASSASSINATIONS & ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS Majestic Targets, His Majesty's Pleasure; CORONATIONS; DOGS Royal Dogs; ESTATES The Crown Estate; THE HOUSE OF COMMONS The Monarch and The House of Commons; MILITARY CUSTOMS Royal Salutes; MILITARY CUSTOMS Trooping The Colour; PALACES; PARLIAMENT; ROADS The King's Road; SHOPPING Royal Warrants; THEATRE RELATED The Lord Chamberlain and Stage Censorship; WALLS & GATEWAYS Temple Bar; WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Website: www.royal.uk

The Constitution

See Also: THE ROYAL PARKS Green Park, Constitution Hill

Website: www.royal.uk/role-monarchy

Emergency Powers

In an emergency, the sovereign's residual powers enable her/him to overrule Parliament and govern by means of Orders of Council.

Under the terms of the Emergency Powers Act of 1964, a state of emergency does not have to exist for the sovereign to be able to declare that such a condition is extant.

See Also: NUCLEAR WEAPONS Lovely Cuppa

The Prime Minister and The Sovereign

The prime minister has a weekly audience with the monarch.

The sovereign has two prerogative powers that are potentially of great political import - the power to appoint a premier and the power to dissolve Parliament.

See Also: DOWNING STREET No. 10 Downing Street

The Marquis of Curzon

For most of the Marquis of Curzon's adult life, it was widely assumed that his abilities were such that at some point the politician would serve as prime minister. That the peer had a high opinion of himself is testified to by a rhyme that he composed as a young man, and for which he is now best remembered, My name is George Nathaniel Curzon. I am a most superior person.

In 1923 the marquis was regarded as the frontrunner to become the next premier. However, King George V chose Stanley Baldwin M.P., the peer's Conservative colleague, instead. The monarch told Curzon that he felt it was proper that the Prime Minister should be in the same House as the mass of the opposition. The marquis sat in the Lords where, at the time, the Labour Party had minimal representation. The sovereign may have done the nation a considerable service as the peer's haughtiness meant that he was temperamentally ill-equipped to deal with the social unrest that existed in Britain in the aftermath of the First World War.

Winston Churchill is reputed to have described the career of Curzon with the words The morning had been golden, the noontide was bronze and the evening lead.

Location: 1 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y 5DG. A bronze to most superior . (blue, red)

See Also: THE FASCIST BARONET; WHITEHALL Ministers, George Brown

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher seems to have been respectful to the Queen during their meetings. They disagreed with one another over the issue of Britain's attitude towards South Africa's Apartheid regime. The monarch was of the view that a more hostile approach should be adopted. She was of the view that Thatcher's attitude was damaging Britain's relationship with the Commonwealth.

The Queen was concerned about the social damage that was being caused by the Thatcher government's domestic agenda. In 1984 the miners strike occurred. Two years later there was a newspaper report that stated that the relationship of the Queen and Thatcher was not smooth.

The Queen was capable of subjecting Thatcher to her dry humour. In 1989, following the birth of her first grandchild, the premier had declared We have become a grandmother. This was universally taken as being a presumption of the royal usage we . A few days later she had an audience with the monarch at Windsor Castle. Prior to the meeting, Sir Kenneth Scott, the queen's Deputy Private Secretary, greeted the politician. He showed her into the Royal Library where she was encouraged to look at an extract from Queen Victoria's diary that had been left open on the table. It read: I have thus become a great-grandmother.

The Queen conferred both the Order of Merit and the Order of Garter upon Thatcher. These honours were in the monarch's personal gift and their bestowal was a mark of personal respect.

John Prescott

John Prescott is a Labour politician, who in 1997 became the Deputy Prime Minister. His tendency to mangle the English language when he engaged with it publicly masked to popular view his considerable abilities as a public administrator. He was able to run a Whitehall super-department in a way that several his more media-friendly colleagues proved to be unable to do so.

Prescott is by no means a royalist although he has been known to express his appreciation of the Queen Elizabeth's political skills. Upon one occasion, to please some members of his constituency party, the M.P. went to a gathering where the monarch was present. He was placed in the receiving line. As she walked along it, the Labour Party members each bowed or curtsied to her in turn; the politician was resolute that he would do no such thing. When the sovereign reached him, she whispered something. He could not quite catch what she said. She whispered it again. He leant forward to try to hear what she was saying - a move, he realised, that was not so very dissimilar from a bow.

See Also: GARDENS Royal Garden Parties

Reassurance

Upon one occasion Queen Elizabeth II went into a shop to buy some groceries. One of the other customers looked at her and said You look just like the Queen! How very reassuring, came the reply.

David Backhouse 2024