The Diamond Queen (2012) s01e03 Episode Script
Episode 3
ANDREW MARR: A queen has reached 60 years on the throne for the first time in modern history.
Queen Elizabeth II is part of the background of every British life, but what matters to her? No matter where she is, who she's with, what time of day, she always has this ability to bring what I could describe as energy and fun to the occasion.
MARR: In this final episode of The Diamond Queen, we look at some of the defining moments of her reign.
So sanctify thy servant Elizabeth.
MARR: We examine how she's coped with decades of changing and sometimes tense relations between the Monarchy and the media.
What I say to you now as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.
It was a very difficult thing for her to balance.
MARR: From Silver and Gold to Diamond, we look at those unusual celebrations, Royal Jubilees.
In the run-up to every Jubilee, there's a kind of institutionalised pessimism, as if it can never be the same as last time.
But so far it always is! MARR: And for the first time ever, all of The Queen's adult grandchildren have their say about the Diamond Queen.
The nation's grandmother.
We all have massive respect for her and, you know, love her to bits.
She's led the way and long may that continue.
RADIO NEWSREADER: This is London.
It is with the greatest sorrow that we make the following announcement.
It was announced from Sandringham at 10.
45 today that the King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health, passed peacefully away in his sleep earlier this morning.
Sixty years ago, February the 6th 1952, the Queen's father, King George VI, died here at Sandringham.
The previous day he'd been out shooting rabbits, a favourite occupation, and he went to bed with his usual cup of cocoa.
He wasn't a well man, he'd survived some very serious operations, but he was all of 56 years old.
And his death came as a terrible shock.
When this defining moment, the start of the Queen's reign, happened, she knew nothing.
She was thousands of miles away in Kenya on the first leg of a Commonwealth tour.
Prince Philip was told first.
When he heard, said an aide, he looked as if the whole world had dropped on him.
He broke the news to his wife.
Delayed by thunderstorms, it took her 24 hours to get back to British soil.
She was seen sitting alone, tearful and white-faced, staring out of the aircraft window.
But by the time she landed, she was poised, already ready.
Met by Winston Churchill and Britain's political grandees, this 25-year-old mother of two young children began a life sentence, even if it was a gilded cage and a fate she accepted.
I think one of the most interesting things is as I'm sort of approaching the age that she was when she became Queen, that you think about, you know, she was 25 when she became Queen.
And you think about how young that is for somebody to take on this incredible responsibility and give up her life in service.
MARR: She took the helm from the man who had saved the Monarchy after the abdication crisis, and on the day of King George VI's funeral, the Queen, with her grandmother and mother, looked shell-shocked.
A vast weight of expectation now sat on her shoulders.
It took 16 months to plan, but on Tuesday, June the 2nd, 1953, the Queen was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
RADIO NEWSREADER: Through the grey dawn of that day came people from all over the world, making for the route of the Royal Procession.
MARR: The day had started cold and wet, with some 30,000 people estimated to have slept out overnight on the pavements and stones of the processional route, and another 20,000 trying and failing to find a good spot.
It was less than ten years since the end of World War II's Blitz.
A tough people, but people, too, who were reaching forward for better times.
The Coronation was a genuine national carnival but also a hoped-for moment of patriotic rebirth.
LORD HENNESSY: We had Coronation mugs at school.
And I bought a Dinky toy version of the golden coach.
And it seemed to me as a young boy that this was zenith, really, I was only six, and as a young six-year-old going on the trolley bus from Finchley Central to Barnet to Auntie Gwen's to watch it on this tiny little screen, wonderful.
MARR: People poured into London, a shabby post-war capital now decorated at last.
Around Britain, there was dancing and parties and a bit of silliness.
Plenty to eat.
A new dish, Coronation Chicken, was specially invented and has become a kind of British classic.
The Coronation was the most important moment in the Queen's life, certainly the most important official moment.
As a 27-year-old, she'd thought long and hard about what was ahead.
And she practised in the Buckingham Palace ballroom, using sheets pinned together as her 21 -foot long train.
She also walked around wearing the crown on her head so that her neck could get used to its very considerable weight.
As the Queen left for Westminster in the Gold State Coach, there were two small figures watching from one of the windows at the front of Buckingham Palace.
One was young Prince Charles dressed in a silk suit and the other was Princess Anne.
And one of them would soon leave to become the first British child ever to see his mother crowned monarch.
Princess Anne wasn't quite three and she was told she was too young.
The only thing that I remember, if that's the right expression, is feeling just a touch grumpy that I wasn't allowed to go.
And after that, nothing.
(CHUCKLING) So I'm not very I'm not I should have been aware of being on the balcony but you see, I'm not entirely sure whether I was aware of that or whether it's just the fact that you see photographs and you think I must have remembered it.
- Yes.
- I'm not sure that I do.
MARR: A novel aspect of the Coronation was that it was televised.
Both Churchill and Buckingham Palace courtiers had been against letting such a vulgar new medium inside the Abbey but the Queen herself wanted the cameras in.
And back then, BBC presenters could almost have been mistaken for somebody else.
We take you first to Buckingham Palace, where we shall see the departure of the Queen's procession to the Abbey.
(CROWD CHEERING) MALE REPORTER: So she goes on her way towards Westminster.
MARR: More than half the adult population, 20 million people, managed to watch.
JOHN MAJOR: I was 10 at the time, and I remember my family scraping together their savings and buying a small black and white television to watch it.
But it was hugely exciting, everybody was really uplifted.
For most of the adults present, it was the first great event since the dreary days of the war and the tough days that immediately followed.
It was symbolic of a new life, people thought.
LORD HENNESSY: And The Queen looked terrific.
She was beautiful and she had this dashing consort.
And it was one of those moments in a country where we tend to be a little bit ill at ease with ourselves, a bit nitpicky, that it was gilded and it was going to get better.
Oh, God, the Crown of the faithful, bless we beseech thee this Crown and so sanctify thyself and Elizabeth, upon whose head this day thou dost place it for a sign of Royal Majesty.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep, so help me God.
MARR: As a historian put it at the time, no monarch was ever crowned more fully in the presence of the people.
And yet there was one moment in the ceremony where the cameras were kept away, which was veiled and never seen then or since.
And it happened here, when the Queen was anointed with the holy oil because for the Queen, being called by God was not a metaphor, it was absolutely serious.
ALL: All hail the Queen! All hail the Queen! All hail the Queen! What do you think that meant to her in a direct spiritual way? I think it meant a profound sense of vocation about all this.
Not simply stepping into a role, exercising a function, but actually becoming a certain kind of person, which is what a vocation is about.
And I know that it mattered a great deal to her that in the months leading up to the Coronation, the then Archbishop of Canterbury provided her with a little book of private prayers to use, which she still has.
And clearly she took that entirely seriously as a matter of spiritual formation.
At times of difficulty, and certainly in the midst of a hugely demanding and busy life, she comes across as somebody who is at ease, serene, confident, and that gives me the impression that her faith is something that she really can draw upon and makes a great difference to her life.
So, quite a day.
Exciting but exhausting, all those hours and hours of standing and remembering and concentrating and greeting.
And the waving of hands and the noise of the crowds, a long day.
And ahead of her, a long life of much the same thing.
For the Queen, the 1950s would be the most glamorous years, when she was a young and glittering international icon, buoyed by the barely critical enthusiasm of the patriotic post-war press and the broadcasters.
She could have been viewed as some sort of global celebrity, but she represents something rather more enduring than that.
PRINCE WILLIAM: She doesn't care for celebrity and I think it is very important to be able to retreat inside and be able to sort of collect one's thoughts and collect your ideas and the way things are going, and then to sort of move forwards and to be able to project those ideas and those thoughts to other people, and I think she does that extremely well.
MARR: In order to project those ideas, the Queen began an annual tradition which has carried on to this day, one which allows her to be heard and seen.
Happy Christmas.
It's Christmas 1957, and sitting here in the library at Sandringham, at this desk, which had been used by her father and her grandfather before her, the Queen did something that no British monarch had ever done before.
She made a television broadcast.
King George Vand then King George VI had made radio broadcasts at Christmas and during the Second World War they'd been very important.
But this was something different.
The Queen was having to deal with the new medium of television.
And furthermore, she was having to broadcast completely live, which is quite an ordeal.
Twenty-five years ago, my grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages.
Today is another landmark, because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas day.
There is something wonderful in the way these old, familiar, warm-hearted words of the traditional Christmas message never seem to grow stale.
MARR: No longer live but recorded, she's now done 54 of these and she's known in the trade as One-Take Windsor.
Does it look all right with those in the background? MARR: A pro, who knows about lighting or the sound mic picking up a flight overhead.
Aeroplane.
MARR: And she's relaxed into this.
(LAUGHING) I might want something else.
As to content, it's serious and sincere rather than surprising.
This is the real Queen on what matters most to her, faith, family, the Commonwealth and the military.
This year I'm speaking to you from the Household Cavalry Barracks in Windsor, because I want to draw attention to the many servicemen and women who are stationed far from home this Christmas.
Her support for the British forces has always been fantastic, second to none.
Um, I personally, being her grandson as well as, um, her employee, is I mean, it's a huge honour, it's fantastic for me.
The guys that I spend time with at work undoubtedly have huge amounts of pride, the fact that they, um, they work for such a fantastic woman.
I mean, it really is that simple for us.
I certainly recognise that much has been achieved in my lifetime.
MARR: Like the rest of her life, the Christmas message is about just that, the message, not the personal image.
The Queen is no doubt proud of many things, especially her family.
What she doesn't seem to be is vain, even though her image is inescapable.
When she was born in 1926, the BBC had barely started.
Films were still silent, uh, as it were, and we now live in a world where there's 24-hour news, we live in a world of IT, of Facebook, of Twitter, um, all of which means that she is the most remorselessly represented figure probably ever to have lived in human history.
It is an amazing thought.
Even when we're barely aware of her, the Queen's image is stamped on our imaginations.
Get paid, the Queen is with you.
Go and buy a drink, the Queen's there, too.
For though she may lack vanity, the Queen's been very protective of her image as monarch.
When Tony Benn tried to remove her head from British stamps in the 1960s, he was thwarted.
This rebellious decade also brought a tougher media atmosphere and satirical mockery.
Journalists were more questioning and less deferential than in the first years of her reign.
Media is a professional intruder.
It wouldn't work if it didn't That's what it's doing all the time.
(CHUCKLES) So you can't complain about it.
MARR: The Monarchy's response to the anti-establishment 1960s and the greater media curiosity was to agree to let some light in with an observational documentary called Royal Family.
What are you going to have? Good morning.
I want an ice cream.
- SHOPKEEPER: Ice cream.
- This is what he really would like.
Yes, he always goes straight for the ice cream.
Yes.
ANTONY JAY: The driving force was a member of the Royal Family, or by marriage, John Brabourne, who was a filmmaker and thought, "If only people could see what the Royal Family is like, "they'd feel much, much better disposed towards them.
" That's disgusting.
Just do your mess, it's going to be in the car, isn't it? MARR: For 75 days, the crew filmed some of the ritual and pomp of the ceremonial year, but were also allowed to capture the Royals at home.
It's fantastic, isn't it? We didn't invite them into the bathroom.
I mean, I (CHUCKLING) People have judgement.
We don't belong to a secret society.
I mean, I don't see why people shouldn't know what's going on.
Much better that they should know than speculate.
He did have some very strange habits, your father.
I remember when I used to come up to Royal Lodge.
I asked when I arrived and I said, "Where's the King?" - And they said, "He's in the garden.
" - Yes.
And I went out and there was nothing to be seen except a lot of terribly rude words and language coming out of a rhododendron bush.
So I eventually found him there hacking away, wearing a bear-skin cap.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: Oh! (LAUGHING) You know, he was getting ready to do it.
MARR: When it was shown in 1969, it became the most watched documentary in British television history, with two-thirds of the population watching.
- (PLUCKS STRING) - Oh! A triumph, except that almost at once there were second thoughts.
- Why'd you do that for? - I'm sorry.
It's all right.
Were parts of it a little embarrassing? Too much? Since the year of its release, the full version has never been broadcast again.
There was a feeling this has done all that was hoped of it.
It's restored a sort of respect and affection for the Royal Family that at least within the press and the media didn't seem to be there.
That's it, finish that, we've done it, it went very well, put it back in the box and let's not look at it again.
Very little happening to them.
ROBERT LACEY: Once you're there at the Royal barbeque and you see the sausages sizzling, there's an extra layer of penetration and expectation that's created for the future.
And the problem with all these things is not the film that gets made with careful supervision, but what happens next.
I mean, we're all greedy in the media, we want to take it a stage further.
DUKE OF YORK: The film Royal Family I don't remember a great deal about.
It was done when I was only eight, nine, I think it was.
That was the moment when the veil was lifted, to a certain extent, and the interactivity Um, and it's just got greater and greater and greater.
(CHILDREN TALKING, INDISTINCT) Come around this side.
MARR: The 1970s was a relatively easy decade for the Queen's family, with Prince Charles as a bachelor in his naval uniform or careering around on polo ponies, Princess Anne taking part in the 1976 Olympics, relatively innocent times.
But for the country, they were hard times.
Industrial strife, inflation, angst about national decline.
So that when the Queen's Silver Jubilee arrived in 1977, there was a certain amount of uneasiness.
Many socialists argued that the celebrations would be a waste of public money.
Some handed out "Roll On the Red Republic" badges and punk rockers sang God Save The Queen but not in a good way.
(CROWD CHEERING) MALE BROADCASTER: A royal salute to Her Majesty the Queen.
MARR: In the event, the Silver Jubilee was a great success.
I remember the national celebration day.
And just the staggering size of the crowds.
And the noise, the cheering.
It was the most infectious atmosphere.
And then going out onto the balcony.
And I hadn't really sort of registered particularly how important the year was.
Looking back at the pictures, you can see how it just caught everybody's imagination.
And it just became a bigger and bigger event.
MARR: But the Silver Jubilee turned out to be a prelude to the most melodramatic story of the Queen's reign.
From 1980 onwards, a more aggressive media had a fresh target to hunt.
MAN: Lady Diana? Lady Diana? MAN 2: Lady Diana? (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING) What do you think, above all, caused the change to the world that we live in now? In two words, Rupert Murdoch.
He bought The Sun newspaper.
I was there on day one and became involved in royal stories quite early on.
And it's quite clear that he didn't want to belong to that old school at all.
He wanted to treat them like ordinary people.
And most of all, with which I agreed, he wanted them treated as news stories.
His newspapers all fell in love with Diana because of course she was kind of a superstar, which of course the Queen is not.
My editors once said to me, "The trouble is with the Queen and Prince Philip, "they're not good box office.
" Now Murdoch was only interested in good box office.
MALE REPORTER: As Lady Diana entered the hall for the concert, there were audible admiring gasps from those present.
His lady had well and truly arrived in a manner a few of those present were likely to forget in a hurry.
Well, the Queen, in many ways, and Prince Charles, were very much ignored.
I mean, she was the number one attraction.
You know, this woman was just a gift for the newspapers, a gift for television.
And she was not just a great member of the Royal Family but she was a megastar.
MARR: A staggering 750 million people around the world tuned in to watch the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.
But the Queen was soon becoming uneasy about the pressure journalists were piling on her daughter-in-law.
Fleet Street editors were called to Buckingham Palace by Michael Shea, the Queen's then press secretary.
When they turned up, the doors opened and in walked the Queen, who then proceeded to give them a severe dressing down over what she thought was harassment of Princess Diana.
In particular, there had been an incident where Diana had gone into a sweet shop in Tetbury, the village where Highgrove is situated and had been pursued by photographers.
And a lone voice piped up, that of the then editor of the News of the World, Barry Askew, who said, "Well, ma'am, couldn't she have sent one of her servants for the chocolates?" And the Queen said, "Mr Askew, "that is one of the most pompous remarks I've ever heard in my life.
" MARR: The editor left his post weeks later.
And as their marriage broke down, both Princess Diana and Prince Charles turned to journalists to tell their side of the story.
LACEY: Diana, who was a child of this media culture, who takes it for granted that she should pose for the cameras and that she should know the first names of the cameramen and then the reporters, and then actually confide in them.
And then even as her marriage starts breaking down, sits in cars in Kensington Gardens, pouring her heart out to sympathetic journalists.
MARR: This is the absolute opposite of the Queen's attitude.
She is from the reticent, buttoned-up, wartime generation.
She doesn't give interviews.
The only time she's spoken about her life came in 1992, for a BBC documentary, Elizabeth R, to mark the 40th year of her reign.
This was the period of the young Diana, the young Sarah Ferguson in the family, they were attracting the attention and you tended not to get very much coverage of the Queen.
And I think there was a feeling that perhaps it would not be a bad idea to remind people of the Queen's role.
MARR: And the words we heard were about her duties.
They were about other people, not herself.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: I am always absolutely fascinated by the people who come and all the things that they've done.
I think that's been very important.
The system does discover people who do unsung things, you know, and I think that's very satisfactory.
That's nice.
Lovely.
And I think people need pats on the back sometimes.
It's a very dingy world otherwise.
MARR: But it was the absence of words which created the biggest media storm of the Queen's reign, when, in 1997, on the sudden death of Princess Diana in a Paris car crash, the Queen stayed at Balmoral for another four days.
For the Queen, I think it was a very difficult thing for her to balance, because her first priority was to look after her grandchildren and make sure that they were properly cared for and helped through this period of grieving, when there was all this huge furore going on, um, around.
But at the same time, obviously for the country, because Diana was revered and adored, there was a need for her to be there with the country.
I remember being in my room in Buckingham palace and the crowd lining Bird Cage Walk waiting for her car to come back down and there was a very quiet and quite threatening atmosphere.
- Was it almost a mutinous feeling? - Almost a mutinous feeling and the moment the car appeared, people started to clap and the whole atmosphere changed.
And the very fact of just responding and returning to the palace and becoming the public figure again, not the private grieving family, sort of did it.
(CROWD CHEERING) MARR: She took this one step further, using the media herself to talk to the nation.
What I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.
First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself.
She was an exceptional and gifted human being.
In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.
What she was saying to the country was that you have to understand, this is my family and I'm approaching this as a grandmother but I acknowledge my duty to you as Queen.
And it was interesting when she realised that that's what she had to do, she did it.
And by the way, those words and that speech were her own.
They weren't written by New Labour? Because there was They were absolutely not written by New Labour.
She was And the very personal touch was actually hers.
MARR: It was a terrible time for the Queen, as for the rest of the Royal family.
And as the media has kept changing, so has the Monarchy.
These days the British Monarchy has a Facebook page, a Royal Channel on YouTube and a Twitter page, though no tweets from the Queen herself.
That doesn't seem right or likely.
Is she in touch with what's going on in your generation much, do you think? She's on Facebook.
I mean certainly Buckingham Palace is using some of the social networking sites.
Well, I think that's the nature of the world today, that you have to be in touch to a certain extent but I think the wonderful thing about the Queen is that she's timeless.
She's in touch with every generation just instinctively, because she is this matriarch of society now.
MARR: Reading and responding to the British public mood is a daily art, but the mood in the Queen's other realms is crucial, too.
Jamaica now wants to end the royal connection, while there are republican movements in countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
As with the changing media at home, the Queen has had to cope with some tricky challenges.
MALE NARRATOR: Gliding through Sydney Head, the sleek white liner Gothic brings Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to the threshold of Australia.
Thousands line the MARR: In 1954, she arrived, newly crowned, in Australia, where she was an unknown quantity.
This was the first visit of a reigning monarch.
She hadn't faced a tour on this scale before.
So how would she cope and how would they react? It's reckoned that three-quarters of the adult population turned out to cheer.
About half of the three million people who cheer the Royal couple slept on the pavements all night for a glimpse of this historic scene.
MARR: The Queen is Queen of Australia only because in 1770 a bold explorer, Captain Cook, was bouncing along the coast and obeying orders, planted a flag and said, "On behalf of George III, we'll have this.
" Now, Australia has long been an independent and very powerful country full of people from all around the world, many of whom have absolutely no connection to Britain.
Even in modern planes, it's an 18-hour flight from London to here.
Put like that, it seems bizarre that the Queen reigns here.
In 1986, the Australia Act formally severed any rights of the United Kingdom to interfere in Australian politics and references to the Queen were removed from the country's Oath of Allegiance.
CROWD: Independence for Australia! In 1999, however, a hard-fought referendum came down narrowly in favour of monarchy.
Today members of the Australian Republican Movement are still calling for radical change.
We think that we've outlived the role that a British Queen can play in Australia, that in the time of the Empire and then in more traditional days of monarchy that to have a British monarch as our Head of State and to have her representative, the Governor-General, as the de facto Head of State, was probably a system that's worked well enough in the past but the time to move on has come.
MARR: So, in October 2011, how might the Queen be received on her 16th visit to Australia? The press is full of questions, asking whether this is the last time she will visit? She certainly puts in the legwork, taking in Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
And wherever she goes, the mood on the streets is sunny.
MAN: Three cheers for the Queen! CROWD: Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! She finds plenty of the old British spirit at events such as this garden party.
MARR: You've got some nice music, you've got the canapés and the little cakes, it's a little bit like Buckingham Palace.
Well, only a little bit.
Buckingham Palace they offer you a very nice cup of tea.
Here? We are in Australia and you get something rather more interesting, unless you are working.
There's no doubt that the visit of a traditionalist octogenarian monarch to this sun-baked continent will have its odd moments.
The Queen has kept her dignity travelling in many royal vehicles.
A golf buggy, complete with equerry and Royal Crest, is something else.
In the past, the Queen has explained away her dourer expressions by saying that often she's just trying not to giggle.
Well, this may be one of those moments.
In Australia's national capital, Canberra, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, holds a reception for the Queen.
And she's said to be republican-minded, but there's little evidence of that today.
Many heads of state and government are welcomed within these walls.
But in this, the home of Australian democracy, you are a vital constitutional part, not a guest.
Just as in this nation, you can only ever be welcomed as a beloved and respected friend.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) MARR: And she's not the only welcome member of the Royal Family, the Queen's grandson has made several visits, the last in March 2011, in the wake of the floods and the cyclones which hit Queensland and Victoria.
GILLARD: Prince William really touched the hearts of Australians, including talking to those who had lost family members, who had lost their mother and was able to talk to them about his own feelings about what that was like in his own experience.
So it was a very emotional, intense engagement.
MARR: His visit and his wedding has boosted enthusiasm for the Monarchy.
People stood for hours to catch a glimpse of him, there, as he was, to represent his grandmother.
When I came back, then I got a letter from her saying, you know, "Congratulations, well done.
It was a very good trip.
" And words like that, there's a lot of gravitas behind them and you feel you've done you've done a good thing and it's words like that that mean an awful lot.
MARR: The Queen ends her journey in the remote city of Perth, venue for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, held once every two years.
And as Head of the Commonwealth, the Queen tries to open every meeting.
She considers this organisation one of the greatest achievements of her reign.
Out of the way! Out of the way! (CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS) By the end of her father's reign, the Empire had been wound up and now newly independent states could reject the British Monarchy and choose republicanism, and yet stay inside the grouping as part of the Commonwealth.
Of the 54 members today, only 16 have the Queen as Head of State.
The Commonwealth is not one of the world's essential organisations but it's a very popular club, even for countries that were never part of the British Empire and don't speak English.
It is perhaps the only political passion that the Queen is allowed to express.
She's called it the original World Wide Web.
But essential or not, it's popular with members big and small.
KAMLA PERSAD-BISSESSAR: I think as a Head of the Commonwealth, she has given inspiration, she has given encouragement and indeed by her very presence on every CHOGM she came to, my country, Port of Spain, when we hosted CHOGM in 2009, she was in Port of Spain then and she's gone to any part of the Commonwealth.
She's been referred to as the glue that binds the Commonwealth together.
And I think the stability and certainty of her role and her pursuit of Commonwealth values, of democratic values, has helped bind the Commonwealth together.
MARR: These Commonwealth visits, a lot of people, particularly in Britain, I suspect, scratch their heads and wonder what they're really for.
Does it matter any more? HAGUE: Well, the Commonwealth is an amazing network.
It has more than a quarter of the world's population, more than a quarter of the world's countries.
It actually has an increasing share of the world's economic output.
And so a remarkable network is something actually more relevant as the 21 st century goes on than perhaps it was at the end of the 20th century because we live in a network world now.
From the start, she saw the value and the benefits of the Commonwealth.
And I think she's really trying to explore and expand and you know, make it more of a more of a global institution.
And you know, there's two billion people in the Commonwealth and growing, it's More people want to join all the time, don't they? Well, exactly, I mean, that is testament to her, that really is.
Her leadership, her guidance is what's really seen the Commonwealth through.
MARR: The Queen made a promise to uphold the Commonwealth and she takes it very seriously.
In 2009 the actor and writer Kwame Kwei-Armah set out to replicate the Queen's first ever Commonwealth tour for a Channel 4 series, to try to discover what its impact had been.
KWEI-ARMAH: What was very interesting for me about making this documentary about the Queen is I went in slightly fascinated by power and by how power presents itself and came out actually an admirer of the Queen's work ethic.
And actually, I don't feel ashamed to say that, being a spirited republican.
Actually, my understanding is is that she really does understand the world of high politic, really understands and cares for her position and her job.
And her work ethic seems to be absolutely magnificent.
MARR: But what of the future of the Commonwealth without her? Her heir will not automatically become Head.
It will be up to the Commonwealth leaders to decide.
Do you think the Commonwealth will survive in its form after the Queen? Absolutely, because it's almost impossible to, uh, to disentangle, because there are this myriad of connections.
It's not just about heads of government, it's not just about sport.
There are so many other different connections that you can't You cannot disassemble it now.
MARR: By the end of this trip, it's absolutely obvious that the Queen's visit has been hugely popular.
Chinese Australians, Japanese Australians, Indian Australians are among those waving flags when the Queen and the Duke arrive for what's billed as the world's largest barbeque.
Around 100,000 people turn up in Perth.
"I wish she'd stop coming!" Said one leading republican.
"She sets the cause back 20 years every time she does.
" Once again, we will return to the United Kingdom with fond memories of our time here and the warm Australian welcome we have received on our 16th visit to this beautiful country.
(CROWD CHEERING) MARR: After all those head-shaking stories about this being the last trip to Australia and perhaps the last time a monarch will ever visit, well, by the end, neither of these things seems particularly likely.
If she can make it back, she will.
And even that republican prime minister doesn't see a republic looming anytime soon.
GILLARD: Right now I think in the life of the Australian nation, it is not the question at the forefront of people's minds.
We are a wonderful democracy, a vibrant democracy and ultimately I believe Australians will have their say again on our ongoing constitutional arrangements.
But it's not the centre of national life or national debate at the moment.
MARR: The Australian visit also marked a legal change which will affect the entire future of the British Monarchy.
At that Commonwealth meeting, the leaders of the 16 realms agreed to amend the 1701 Act of Settlement.
So that the first-born of Prince William and Kate, girl or boy, will succeed to the throne, ending 300 years of monarchical male discrimination.
DAVID CAMERON: The process of change for an institution like that is constant.
You constantly have to change and adapt.
That's the best way of maintaining what we have.
And I think this was the right time to make this change.
MARR: The Queen is now the oldest lived Monarch in British history, who's reigned for 60 years.
This summer brings her Diamond Jubilee and a Diamond Jubilee is a very rare event.
This country has only seen one before.
In 1897, Queen Victoria marked hers at the zenith of Britain's worldwide empire, with plenty to celebrate.
Frail, though at 78 rather younger than our Queen, Victoria enjoyed every minute.
"The cheering was quite deafening "and every face seemed to be filled with real joy, "I was much moved and gratified.
" Today, as at earlier celebrations in the Queen's reign, times seem tough and the future uncertain.
But the historian's perspective suggests this may mean that Jubilees matter more, not less.
CANNIDINE: If you live in a republic, let's take the United States of America, and you think about the periods of history that the country's chopped up into, it's four years for a president, eight years if you're lucky, and then it's 100 years for centenaries or centennials and that's about it, really.
Whereas if you have a monarchy, especially if you have the present Queen, who has reigned for 25 years, then 50 years, then 60 years, what you get is this sequence of Jubilees which provides you with the opportunity for structured retrospection, looking back 25 years, 50 years, 60 years, that otherwise you don't have.
MARR: The 2002 Golden Jubilee saw the Queen tour the country and the weekend itself saw a million people flock to the Mall to show they still cared for their Monarch.
For the first time the Queen allowed Buckingham Palace to be the setting for a pop concert, which opened live from the rooftop.
(PLAYING GOD SA VE THE QUEEN) MARR: Was this something you particularly wanted to do for the Queen? Yes.
For me, yes.
And for many reasons, really.
Because in a sense, the Queen was, um - (STAMMERING) - The other Queen Of course, yes.
The Queen, yeah, I mean, she presided over the birth of rock and roll, really, also, which I pointed out at the time.
So, in a sense, I was symbolising 50 years of her reign and 50 years of rock and roll.
(CROWD CHEERING) But 2002 was also a year of family sadness.
In the run-up to the Golden Jubilee weekend, the Queen's mother and her sister, Princess Margaret, died within weeks of one another, losses which struck the Queen hard.
MARGARET RHODES: We all knew that inevitably, Queen Elizabeth was going to have to die soon because of her age.
Um, but I think that the And poor Princess Margaret had become so ill with various strokes and things that in a way, it was probably almost a merciful release, you know.
PRINCESS ROYAL: There's no doubt that losing your mother and your sister in the same brief period is really hard.
Because both of them, in a way, had a very close relationship, pretty well on a daily basis.
And that's pretty hard to lose, probably your closest sounding boards in such a short space in time.
Part of getting over the experience is to keep going.
And okay, that's And in a way it sounds a bit traditional and a bit old-fashioned but, um, I don't believe that's necessarily bad, I think that gives you a way of dealing with things.
PRINCESS EUGENIE: I was 12 when she died, so I remember the last few years, we spent a lot of time together.
And she, again, was this energy, when you walked into the room you just felt she was there and everyone listened and learned and sat with her and it was just this another silent, sort of great being in the room.
PRINCESS BEATRICE: She was a very special lady.
But only as you get older do you really, do I really appreciate.
'Cause when I was growing up, oh, it was just Gan-Gan.
And then now it's like, no, oh my goodness! It sort of does It takes you by surprise a little bit.
MARR: This Diamond Jubilee year is marked with the release of new stamps and coins.
From March, the Queen will once again criss-cross the United Kingdom.
In June, there'll be an extra Bank Holiday over the central weekend of celebrations and 2,012 beacons will flare around the country and the Commonwealth.
On the River Thames, there'll be the splash and eddy of a Jubilee Pageant, a thousand boats with the Queen in a specially designed Royal Barge.
EVANS: Boats of all shapes and sizes, rowed boats and motorised boats and historic boats and working boats.
And these boats will come from not just from London and the Thames region, but all over the UK.
MARR: And the party continues when a rather surprised Queen Victoria hosts a pop concert from her memorial outside Buckingham Palace.
I hope I'm going to be around for it.
Job wise, um, I don't really know exactly where I'm going to be, but fingers crossed I'll be around.
A concert in the garden would always go down well, I'm sure, for us.
(SINGING PARANOID) What do you think the Silver and the Golden Jubilees tell us about what's going to happen this year at the Diamond Jubilee? In the run-up to every Jubilee, there's a kind of institutionalised pessimism on the part of some commentators and some papers, as if it can never be the same as last time.
But so far it always is! The people come up trumps.
The Marxists always say the masses let us down.
Well, the masses don't let the Queen down on any of these Jubilees.
I don't believe that there's any real risk of a Jubilee flopping, au contraire.
This gloomy foreplay is always confounded.
And long may it be so.
MARR: Throughout the Queen's reign, of course, she has not stood alone, beside her there's been a constant presence.
It's often said that the Queen has done everything expected of her.
But it's not quite true.
When she was young, all sorts of establishment figures had all sorts of clever ideas about who she might marry.
The sons of grand land owners, titled guards officers.
But from the time she was a teenager, she knew exactly who she wanted.
And none of the more conventional candidates proposed by friends of the family had a chance.
The man who captured her heart was of course Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
And at the age of 90, despite recent heart surgery, he has always been there to steer and steady when the water gets choppy.
In November 2011, she made him her Lord High Admiral.
Theirs has been the closest union.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years.
Trying to imagine what it is actually like to be the sovereign, where that's where the buck stops.
In many ways it can be a very lonely place to be because at the end of the day, everybody's going to defer to you.
Having somebody there with which you can share that load I think is really important, and I think the Duke of Edinburgh has been able to do that particularly well, without ever stepping across that magic line.
LACEY: I think the story of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is the unrealised success story of the Monarchy.
Here is a man, a man's man, a no-nonsense man, who has managed throughout his life, with total loyalty, not to upstage his wife.
MARR: He's been popularly known for his salty and sometimes crotchety sayings but the truth is that for a long time this was a restlessly reforming figure, once voted the most popular member of the Royal Family, chivvying British business, taking risks like letting television cameras into the palaces, appearing on television to promote wildlife and helping urban youth, from his Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme to campaigning for children's playing fields.
- We want to see the boss! - Please help me see him.
What do you want to see me about? - 'Cause we want a playing field.
- Well, you've come to the right place.
MARR: And he gave up his naval career to spend his life by her side.
Some people have said he could have gone all the way to the top as a professional.
He could have been sitting in your uniform as a professional.
I think all the indications of the manner in which he has conducted his royal duties since 1952-3 indicate that he had everything that was appropriate to doing my job.
MARR: The Queen may be head of the nation but he is still head of the family.
The support that he gives to my grandmother is, I mean, phenomenal.
I mean, I'm still doing engagements by myself.
You know, William's obviously now got Catherine.
And other members of the family, you know, have their other halves, which I think makes a huge difference.
And regardless of whether my grandfather seems to be doing his own things or wandering off like a fish down the river, um, the fact that he's there.
I personally don't think that she could do it without him, especially when they're both at this age.
MARR: So 60 years on the throne, quite an achievement for this small woman with a world-familiar face, a thousand years of history at her back, who since a twist of fate at the age of 10 has known her destiny.
I hope you don't think I've been stalking you too much in the last 18 months.
- And pursuing you.
- No, I've seen you in the background.
In the background all the time.
For her children and grandchildren, it's a different story.
Next in line of succession, the Prince of Wales is the oldest heir apparent in British history at the age of 63.
PRINCE OF WALES: Half the battle, isn't it, is how to adapt in the best way without losing that element of continuity.
Not easy, so you sort of feel your way gently.
MARR: And her legacy also of course lies in the hands of her eight grandchildren.
There's a quite a lot of pressure on someone like me, as a junior boy coming through as well, because of the example that the Queen has set while she's still there and providing such a good example.
It allows me to learn and to be able to develop and to be able to understand better what the sort of role plays and I think she defines it brilliantly.
Every time I find myself whinging about why do I have to put on a dinner jacket and go and do this and go and do that, now and quite recently I've been thinking to myself, "Actually, I can't complain.
" At the end of the day, you know, she has put this country way before way before anything that she'd ever want to do.
I mean, you know, it's her job, understandably, but she at a very young age was put in a position that I, you know, would love to see anybody handle.
Um, and I don't think they would be able to as well as she has.
TINDALL: Family is a massive thing in her life and even though she is the Monarch, she's the most caring, um Just a person that you could actually just go to and ask anything and we all have massive respect for her and, you know, love her to bits.
PHILLIPS: Just the consistency that she has shown throughout those 60 years, um, the support that she's had from the family, from Grandpa, um, the support that she's given to her family as well.
And you know, don't forget, she may have visited however many countries it's been in the last 60 years, and had so many engagements and this that and the other, she's also been a mother and a grandmother and now great-grandmother and she's To get that balance and do both so incredibly well is probably her greatest tribute.
MARR: Take a bow, 13-month-old Savannah, daughter of the Princess Royal's son Peter Phillips and his wife Autumn.
The Queens's first great-grandchild.
Queen Elizabeth II has been part of all of our lives for 60 years, doing her quiet, phlegmatic, relentless best.
During her reign she's been a witness to the most rapid changes in society.
For more than 21,000 days since the age of 25, she has dedicated her life as the servant of her people.
She has seen triumph and disaster, family heartache and family delight.
And she has come through the rapids into calmer waters.
DUKE OF YORK: I've seen the Queen over the years and I'm just awe-inspired by her ability to listen, to consider and to be able to alter things and suggest things.
That's where she's been so clever, I think.
PRINCESS ROYAL: Her ability to keep pace with the changes, understand what those changes mean but also that the role of the Monarchy doesn't change very much in that sense so that degree of continuity and common sense remains.
No reason for that not to be able to go on, I hope.
MARR: But if these are calmer waters for the Queen, they're hardly calm times for her country.
Will Great Britain survive or will Scotland leave? How will the British deal with the rest of Europe, now struggling with its greatest crisis since the Second World War? And in hard economic times, how well will we hang together as one people? That's politics.
But the state is more than its politicians.
(CHATTING, INDISTINCT) LORD O'DONNELL: One of the things you want for a prime minister is to have a safe space where they can talk to someone very openly about what's working and what's not.
And actually to have someone really senior, really independent, really discreet, who will have those discussions.
Very wise and has seen it all before.
That's priceless in my book.
You think in our lives how many mistakes we all make, politically, professionally, personally.
I mean, it is extraordinary, in 60 years, you know, she has just been an unbelievable model public servant.
And we've just been so lucky to have someone like that on the throne and for such an extraordinarily long period.
MARR: Confronted by trouble and argument, the British have someone at the top of the tree who didn't fight or elbow her way there, who's there because she's there.
Modern Monarchy is not inevitable, it's not a part of nature, it's a choice.
The Windsor dynasty was created at a time of crisis and national soul-searching and for 60 years this Queen has reigned knowing that monarchy works when it sustains and supports the democracy.
In the future, as in the past, the British Monarchy will not be made by monarchs or by princes or princesses or by politicians.
In the end, as in the past, it depends on the people who turn up and the people who don't.
It's in their hands.
It's in our hands.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family, to which we all belong.
PRINCE WILLIAM: I think she's brought life, energy and passion to the job.
She's managed to modernise and evolve the Monarchy like no other.
And it just shows the strength of women at the top, I think it's fantastic and she's done a You know, she's really set the bar very, very high.
Queen Elizabeth II is part of the background of every British life, but what matters to her? No matter where she is, who she's with, what time of day, she always has this ability to bring what I could describe as energy and fun to the occasion.
MARR: In this final episode of The Diamond Queen, we look at some of the defining moments of her reign.
So sanctify thy servant Elizabeth.
MARR: We examine how she's coped with decades of changing and sometimes tense relations between the Monarchy and the media.
What I say to you now as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.
It was a very difficult thing for her to balance.
MARR: From Silver and Gold to Diamond, we look at those unusual celebrations, Royal Jubilees.
In the run-up to every Jubilee, there's a kind of institutionalised pessimism, as if it can never be the same as last time.
But so far it always is! MARR: And for the first time ever, all of The Queen's adult grandchildren have their say about the Diamond Queen.
The nation's grandmother.
We all have massive respect for her and, you know, love her to bits.
She's led the way and long may that continue.
RADIO NEWSREADER: This is London.
It is with the greatest sorrow that we make the following announcement.
It was announced from Sandringham at 10.
45 today that the King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health, passed peacefully away in his sleep earlier this morning.
Sixty years ago, February the 6th 1952, the Queen's father, King George VI, died here at Sandringham.
The previous day he'd been out shooting rabbits, a favourite occupation, and he went to bed with his usual cup of cocoa.
He wasn't a well man, he'd survived some very serious operations, but he was all of 56 years old.
And his death came as a terrible shock.
When this defining moment, the start of the Queen's reign, happened, she knew nothing.
She was thousands of miles away in Kenya on the first leg of a Commonwealth tour.
Prince Philip was told first.
When he heard, said an aide, he looked as if the whole world had dropped on him.
He broke the news to his wife.
Delayed by thunderstorms, it took her 24 hours to get back to British soil.
She was seen sitting alone, tearful and white-faced, staring out of the aircraft window.
But by the time she landed, she was poised, already ready.
Met by Winston Churchill and Britain's political grandees, this 25-year-old mother of two young children began a life sentence, even if it was a gilded cage and a fate she accepted.
I think one of the most interesting things is as I'm sort of approaching the age that she was when she became Queen, that you think about, you know, she was 25 when she became Queen.
And you think about how young that is for somebody to take on this incredible responsibility and give up her life in service.
MARR: She took the helm from the man who had saved the Monarchy after the abdication crisis, and on the day of King George VI's funeral, the Queen, with her grandmother and mother, looked shell-shocked.
A vast weight of expectation now sat on her shoulders.
It took 16 months to plan, but on Tuesday, June the 2nd, 1953, the Queen was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
RADIO NEWSREADER: Through the grey dawn of that day came people from all over the world, making for the route of the Royal Procession.
MARR: The day had started cold and wet, with some 30,000 people estimated to have slept out overnight on the pavements and stones of the processional route, and another 20,000 trying and failing to find a good spot.
It was less than ten years since the end of World War II's Blitz.
A tough people, but people, too, who were reaching forward for better times.
The Coronation was a genuine national carnival but also a hoped-for moment of patriotic rebirth.
LORD HENNESSY: We had Coronation mugs at school.
And I bought a Dinky toy version of the golden coach.
And it seemed to me as a young boy that this was zenith, really, I was only six, and as a young six-year-old going on the trolley bus from Finchley Central to Barnet to Auntie Gwen's to watch it on this tiny little screen, wonderful.
MARR: People poured into London, a shabby post-war capital now decorated at last.
Around Britain, there was dancing and parties and a bit of silliness.
Plenty to eat.
A new dish, Coronation Chicken, was specially invented and has become a kind of British classic.
The Coronation was the most important moment in the Queen's life, certainly the most important official moment.
As a 27-year-old, she'd thought long and hard about what was ahead.
And she practised in the Buckingham Palace ballroom, using sheets pinned together as her 21 -foot long train.
She also walked around wearing the crown on her head so that her neck could get used to its very considerable weight.
As the Queen left for Westminster in the Gold State Coach, there were two small figures watching from one of the windows at the front of Buckingham Palace.
One was young Prince Charles dressed in a silk suit and the other was Princess Anne.
And one of them would soon leave to become the first British child ever to see his mother crowned monarch.
Princess Anne wasn't quite three and she was told she was too young.
The only thing that I remember, if that's the right expression, is feeling just a touch grumpy that I wasn't allowed to go.
And after that, nothing.
(CHUCKLING) So I'm not very I'm not I should have been aware of being on the balcony but you see, I'm not entirely sure whether I was aware of that or whether it's just the fact that you see photographs and you think I must have remembered it.
- Yes.
- I'm not sure that I do.
MARR: A novel aspect of the Coronation was that it was televised.
Both Churchill and Buckingham Palace courtiers had been against letting such a vulgar new medium inside the Abbey but the Queen herself wanted the cameras in.
And back then, BBC presenters could almost have been mistaken for somebody else.
We take you first to Buckingham Palace, where we shall see the departure of the Queen's procession to the Abbey.
(CROWD CHEERING) MALE REPORTER: So she goes on her way towards Westminster.
MARR: More than half the adult population, 20 million people, managed to watch.
JOHN MAJOR: I was 10 at the time, and I remember my family scraping together their savings and buying a small black and white television to watch it.
But it was hugely exciting, everybody was really uplifted.
For most of the adults present, it was the first great event since the dreary days of the war and the tough days that immediately followed.
It was symbolic of a new life, people thought.
LORD HENNESSY: And The Queen looked terrific.
She was beautiful and she had this dashing consort.
And it was one of those moments in a country where we tend to be a little bit ill at ease with ourselves, a bit nitpicky, that it was gilded and it was going to get better.
Oh, God, the Crown of the faithful, bless we beseech thee this Crown and so sanctify thyself and Elizabeth, upon whose head this day thou dost place it for a sign of Royal Majesty.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep, so help me God.
MARR: As a historian put it at the time, no monarch was ever crowned more fully in the presence of the people.
And yet there was one moment in the ceremony where the cameras were kept away, which was veiled and never seen then or since.
And it happened here, when the Queen was anointed with the holy oil because for the Queen, being called by God was not a metaphor, it was absolutely serious.
ALL: All hail the Queen! All hail the Queen! All hail the Queen! What do you think that meant to her in a direct spiritual way? I think it meant a profound sense of vocation about all this.
Not simply stepping into a role, exercising a function, but actually becoming a certain kind of person, which is what a vocation is about.
And I know that it mattered a great deal to her that in the months leading up to the Coronation, the then Archbishop of Canterbury provided her with a little book of private prayers to use, which she still has.
And clearly she took that entirely seriously as a matter of spiritual formation.
At times of difficulty, and certainly in the midst of a hugely demanding and busy life, she comes across as somebody who is at ease, serene, confident, and that gives me the impression that her faith is something that she really can draw upon and makes a great difference to her life.
So, quite a day.
Exciting but exhausting, all those hours and hours of standing and remembering and concentrating and greeting.
And the waving of hands and the noise of the crowds, a long day.
And ahead of her, a long life of much the same thing.
For the Queen, the 1950s would be the most glamorous years, when she was a young and glittering international icon, buoyed by the barely critical enthusiasm of the patriotic post-war press and the broadcasters.
She could have been viewed as some sort of global celebrity, but she represents something rather more enduring than that.
PRINCE WILLIAM: She doesn't care for celebrity and I think it is very important to be able to retreat inside and be able to sort of collect one's thoughts and collect your ideas and the way things are going, and then to sort of move forwards and to be able to project those ideas and those thoughts to other people, and I think she does that extremely well.
MARR: In order to project those ideas, the Queen began an annual tradition which has carried on to this day, one which allows her to be heard and seen.
Happy Christmas.
It's Christmas 1957, and sitting here in the library at Sandringham, at this desk, which had been used by her father and her grandfather before her, the Queen did something that no British monarch had ever done before.
She made a television broadcast.
King George Vand then King George VI had made radio broadcasts at Christmas and during the Second World War they'd been very important.
But this was something different.
The Queen was having to deal with the new medium of television.
And furthermore, she was having to broadcast completely live, which is quite an ordeal.
Twenty-five years ago, my grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages.
Today is another landmark, because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas day.
There is something wonderful in the way these old, familiar, warm-hearted words of the traditional Christmas message never seem to grow stale.
MARR: No longer live but recorded, she's now done 54 of these and she's known in the trade as One-Take Windsor.
Does it look all right with those in the background? MARR: A pro, who knows about lighting or the sound mic picking up a flight overhead.
Aeroplane.
MARR: And she's relaxed into this.
(LAUGHING) I might want something else.
As to content, it's serious and sincere rather than surprising.
This is the real Queen on what matters most to her, faith, family, the Commonwealth and the military.
This year I'm speaking to you from the Household Cavalry Barracks in Windsor, because I want to draw attention to the many servicemen and women who are stationed far from home this Christmas.
Her support for the British forces has always been fantastic, second to none.
Um, I personally, being her grandson as well as, um, her employee, is I mean, it's a huge honour, it's fantastic for me.
The guys that I spend time with at work undoubtedly have huge amounts of pride, the fact that they, um, they work for such a fantastic woman.
I mean, it really is that simple for us.
I certainly recognise that much has been achieved in my lifetime.
MARR: Like the rest of her life, the Christmas message is about just that, the message, not the personal image.
The Queen is no doubt proud of many things, especially her family.
What she doesn't seem to be is vain, even though her image is inescapable.
When she was born in 1926, the BBC had barely started.
Films were still silent, uh, as it were, and we now live in a world where there's 24-hour news, we live in a world of IT, of Facebook, of Twitter, um, all of which means that she is the most remorselessly represented figure probably ever to have lived in human history.
It is an amazing thought.
Even when we're barely aware of her, the Queen's image is stamped on our imaginations.
Get paid, the Queen is with you.
Go and buy a drink, the Queen's there, too.
For though she may lack vanity, the Queen's been very protective of her image as monarch.
When Tony Benn tried to remove her head from British stamps in the 1960s, he was thwarted.
This rebellious decade also brought a tougher media atmosphere and satirical mockery.
Journalists were more questioning and less deferential than in the first years of her reign.
Media is a professional intruder.
It wouldn't work if it didn't That's what it's doing all the time.
(CHUCKLES) So you can't complain about it.
MARR: The Monarchy's response to the anti-establishment 1960s and the greater media curiosity was to agree to let some light in with an observational documentary called Royal Family.
What are you going to have? Good morning.
I want an ice cream.
- SHOPKEEPER: Ice cream.
- This is what he really would like.
Yes, he always goes straight for the ice cream.
Yes.
ANTONY JAY: The driving force was a member of the Royal Family, or by marriage, John Brabourne, who was a filmmaker and thought, "If only people could see what the Royal Family is like, "they'd feel much, much better disposed towards them.
" That's disgusting.
Just do your mess, it's going to be in the car, isn't it? MARR: For 75 days, the crew filmed some of the ritual and pomp of the ceremonial year, but were also allowed to capture the Royals at home.
It's fantastic, isn't it? We didn't invite them into the bathroom.
I mean, I (CHUCKLING) People have judgement.
We don't belong to a secret society.
I mean, I don't see why people shouldn't know what's going on.
Much better that they should know than speculate.
He did have some very strange habits, your father.
I remember when I used to come up to Royal Lodge.
I asked when I arrived and I said, "Where's the King?" - And they said, "He's in the garden.
" - Yes.
And I went out and there was nothing to be seen except a lot of terribly rude words and language coming out of a rhododendron bush.
So I eventually found him there hacking away, wearing a bear-skin cap.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: Oh! (LAUGHING) You know, he was getting ready to do it.
MARR: When it was shown in 1969, it became the most watched documentary in British television history, with two-thirds of the population watching.
- (PLUCKS STRING) - Oh! A triumph, except that almost at once there were second thoughts.
- Why'd you do that for? - I'm sorry.
It's all right.
Were parts of it a little embarrassing? Too much? Since the year of its release, the full version has never been broadcast again.
There was a feeling this has done all that was hoped of it.
It's restored a sort of respect and affection for the Royal Family that at least within the press and the media didn't seem to be there.
That's it, finish that, we've done it, it went very well, put it back in the box and let's not look at it again.
Very little happening to them.
ROBERT LACEY: Once you're there at the Royal barbeque and you see the sausages sizzling, there's an extra layer of penetration and expectation that's created for the future.
And the problem with all these things is not the film that gets made with careful supervision, but what happens next.
I mean, we're all greedy in the media, we want to take it a stage further.
DUKE OF YORK: The film Royal Family I don't remember a great deal about.
It was done when I was only eight, nine, I think it was.
That was the moment when the veil was lifted, to a certain extent, and the interactivity Um, and it's just got greater and greater and greater.
(CHILDREN TALKING, INDISTINCT) Come around this side.
MARR: The 1970s was a relatively easy decade for the Queen's family, with Prince Charles as a bachelor in his naval uniform or careering around on polo ponies, Princess Anne taking part in the 1976 Olympics, relatively innocent times.
But for the country, they were hard times.
Industrial strife, inflation, angst about national decline.
So that when the Queen's Silver Jubilee arrived in 1977, there was a certain amount of uneasiness.
Many socialists argued that the celebrations would be a waste of public money.
Some handed out "Roll On the Red Republic" badges and punk rockers sang God Save The Queen but not in a good way.
(CROWD CHEERING) MALE BROADCASTER: A royal salute to Her Majesty the Queen.
MARR: In the event, the Silver Jubilee was a great success.
I remember the national celebration day.
And just the staggering size of the crowds.
And the noise, the cheering.
It was the most infectious atmosphere.
And then going out onto the balcony.
And I hadn't really sort of registered particularly how important the year was.
Looking back at the pictures, you can see how it just caught everybody's imagination.
And it just became a bigger and bigger event.
MARR: But the Silver Jubilee turned out to be a prelude to the most melodramatic story of the Queen's reign.
From 1980 onwards, a more aggressive media had a fresh target to hunt.
MAN: Lady Diana? Lady Diana? MAN 2: Lady Diana? (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING) What do you think, above all, caused the change to the world that we live in now? In two words, Rupert Murdoch.
He bought The Sun newspaper.
I was there on day one and became involved in royal stories quite early on.
And it's quite clear that he didn't want to belong to that old school at all.
He wanted to treat them like ordinary people.
And most of all, with which I agreed, he wanted them treated as news stories.
His newspapers all fell in love with Diana because of course she was kind of a superstar, which of course the Queen is not.
My editors once said to me, "The trouble is with the Queen and Prince Philip, "they're not good box office.
" Now Murdoch was only interested in good box office.
MALE REPORTER: As Lady Diana entered the hall for the concert, there were audible admiring gasps from those present.
His lady had well and truly arrived in a manner a few of those present were likely to forget in a hurry.
Well, the Queen, in many ways, and Prince Charles, were very much ignored.
I mean, she was the number one attraction.
You know, this woman was just a gift for the newspapers, a gift for television.
And she was not just a great member of the Royal Family but she was a megastar.
MARR: A staggering 750 million people around the world tuned in to watch the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.
But the Queen was soon becoming uneasy about the pressure journalists were piling on her daughter-in-law.
Fleet Street editors were called to Buckingham Palace by Michael Shea, the Queen's then press secretary.
When they turned up, the doors opened and in walked the Queen, who then proceeded to give them a severe dressing down over what she thought was harassment of Princess Diana.
In particular, there had been an incident where Diana had gone into a sweet shop in Tetbury, the village where Highgrove is situated and had been pursued by photographers.
And a lone voice piped up, that of the then editor of the News of the World, Barry Askew, who said, "Well, ma'am, couldn't she have sent one of her servants for the chocolates?" And the Queen said, "Mr Askew, "that is one of the most pompous remarks I've ever heard in my life.
" MARR: The editor left his post weeks later.
And as their marriage broke down, both Princess Diana and Prince Charles turned to journalists to tell their side of the story.
LACEY: Diana, who was a child of this media culture, who takes it for granted that she should pose for the cameras and that she should know the first names of the cameramen and then the reporters, and then actually confide in them.
And then even as her marriage starts breaking down, sits in cars in Kensington Gardens, pouring her heart out to sympathetic journalists.
MARR: This is the absolute opposite of the Queen's attitude.
She is from the reticent, buttoned-up, wartime generation.
She doesn't give interviews.
The only time she's spoken about her life came in 1992, for a BBC documentary, Elizabeth R, to mark the 40th year of her reign.
This was the period of the young Diana, the young Sarah Ferguson in the family, they were attracting the attention and you tended not to get very much coverage of the Queen.
And I think there was a feeling that perhaps it would not be a bad idea to remind people of the Queen's role.
MARR: And the words we heard were about her duties.
They were about other people, not herself.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: I am always absolutely fascinated by the people who come and all the things that they've done.
I think that's been very important.
The system does discover people who do unsung things, you know, and I think that's very satisfactory.
That's nice.
Lovely.
And I think people need pats on the back sometimes.
It's a very dingy world otherwise.
MARR: But it was the absence of words which created the biggest media storm of the Queen's reign, when, in 1997, on the sudden death of Princess Diana in a Paris car crash, the Queen stayed at Balmoral for another four days.
For the Queen, I think it was a very difficult thing for her to balance, because her first priority was to look after her grandchildren and make sure that they were properly cared for and helped through this period of grieving, when there was all this huge furore going on, um, around.
But at the same time, obviously for the country, because Diana was revered and adored, there was a need for her to be there with the country.
I remember being in my room in Buckingham palace and the crowd lining Bird Cage Walk waiting for her car to come back down and there was a very quiet and quite threatening atmosphere.
- Was it almost a mutinous feeling? - Almost a mutinous feeling and the moment the car appeared, people started to clap and the whole atmosphere changed.
And the very fact of just responding and returning to the palace and becoming the public figure again, not the private grieving family, sort of did it.
(CROWD CHEERING) MARR: She took this one step further, using the media herself to talk to the nation.
What I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.
First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself.
She was an exceptional and gifted human being.
In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.
What she was saying to the country was that you have to understand, this is my family and I'm approaching this as a grandmother but I acknowledge my duty to you as Queen.
And it was interesting when she realised that that's what she had to do, she did it.
And by the way, those words and that speech were her own.
They weren't written by New Labour? Because there was They were absolutely not written by New Labour.
She was And the very personal touch was actually hers.
MARR: It was a terrible time for the Queen, as for the rest of the Royal family.
And as the media has kept changing, so has the Monarchy.
These days the British Monarchy has a Facebook page, a Royal Channel on YouTube and a Twitter page, though no tweets from the Queen herself.
That doesn't seem right or likely.
Is she in touch with what's going on in your generation much, do you think? She's on Facebook.
I mean certainly Buckingham Palace is using some of the social networking sites.
Well, I think that's the nature of the world today, that you have to be in touch to a certain extent but I think the wonderful thing about the Queen is that she's timeless.
She's in touch with every generation just instinctively, because she is this matriarch of society now.
MARR: Reading and responding to the British public mood is a daily art, but the mood in the Queen's other realms is crucial, too.
Jamaica now wants to end the royal connection, while there are republican movements in countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
As with the changing media at home, the Queen has had to cope with some tricky challenges.
MALE NARRATOR: Gliding through Sydney Head, the sleek white liner Gothic brings Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to the threshold of Australia.
Thousands line the MARR: In 1954, she arrived, newly crowned, in Australia, where she was an unknown quantity.
This was the first visit of a reigning monarch.
She hadn't faced a tour on this scale before.
So how would she cope and how would they react? It's reckoned that three-quarters of the adult population turned out to cheer.
About half of the three million people who cheer the Royal couple slept on the pavements all night for a glimpse of this historic scene.
MARR: The Queen is Queen of Australia only because in 1770 a bold explorer, Captain Cook, was bouncing along the coast and obeying orders, planted a flag and said, "On behalf of George III, we'll have this.
" Now, Australia has long been an independent and very powerful country full of people from all around the world, many of whom have absolutely no connection to Britain.
Even in modern planes, it's an 18-hour flight from London to here.
Put like that, it seems bizarre that the Queen reigns here.
In 1986, the Australia Act formally severed any rights of the United Kingdom to interfere in Australian politics and references to the Queen were removed from the country's Oath of Allegiance.
CROWD: Independence for Australia! In 1999, however, a hard-fought referendum came down narrowly in favour of monarchy.
Today members of the Australian Republican Movement are still calling for radical change.
We think that we've outlived the role that a British Queen can play in Australia, that in the time of the Empire and then in more traditional days of monarchy that to have a British monarch as our Head of State and to have her representative, the Governor-General, as the de facto Head of State, was probably a system that's worked well enough in the past but the time to move on has come.
MARR: So, in October 2011, how might the Queen be received on her 16th visit to Australia? The press is full of questions, asking whether this is the last time she will visit? She certainly puts in the legwork, taking in Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
And wherever she goes, the mood on the streets is sunny.
MAN: Three cheers for the Queen! CROWD: Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! She finds plenty of the old British spirit at events such as this garden party.
MARR: You've got some nice music, you've got the canapés and the little cakes, it's a little bit like Buckingham Palace.
Well, only a little bit.
Buckingham Palace they offer you a very nice cup of tea.
Here? We are in Australia and you get something rather more interesting, unless you are working.
There's no doubt that the visit of a traditionalist octogenarian monarch to this sun-baked continent will have its odd moments.
The Queen has kept her dignity travelling in many royal vehicles.
A golf buggy, complete with equerry and Royal Crest, is something else.
In the past, the Queen has explained away her dourer expressions by saying that often she's just trying not to giggle.
Well, this may be one of those moments.
In Australia's national capital, Canberra, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, holds a reception for the Queen.
And she's said to be republican-minded, but there's little evidence of that today.
Many heads of state and government are welcomed within these walls.
But in this, the home of Australian democracy, you are a vital constitutional part, not a guest.
Just as in this nation, you can only ever be welcomed as a beloved and respected friend.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) MARR: And she's not the only welcome member of the Royal Family, the Queen's grandson has made several visits, the last in March 2011, in the wake of the floods and the cyclones which hit Queensland and Victoria.
GILLARD: Prince William really touched the hearts of Australians, including talking to those who had lost family members, who had lost their mother and was able to talk to them about his own feelings about what that was like in his own experience.
So it was a very emotional, intense engagement.
MARR: His visit and his wedding has boosted enthusiasm for the Monarchy.
People stood for hours to catch a glimpse of him, there, as he was, to represent his grandmother.
When I came back, then I got a letter from her saying, you know, "Congratulations, well done.
It was a very good trip.
" And words like that, there's a lot of gravitas behind them and you feel you've done you've done a good thing and it's words like that that mean an awful lot.
MARR: The Queen ends her journey in the remote city of Perth, venue for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, held once every two years.
And as Head of the Commonwealth, the Queen tries to open every meeting.
She considers this organisation one of the greatest achievements of her reign.
Out of the way! Out of the way! (CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS) By the end of her father's reign, the Empire had been wound up and now newly independent states could reject the British Monarchy and choose republicanism, and yet stay inside the grouping as part of the Commonwealth.
Of the 54 members today, only 16 have the Queen as Head of State.
The Commonwealth is not one of the world's essential organisations but it's a very popular club, even for countries that were never part of the British Empire and don't speak English.
It is perhaps the only political passion that the Queen is allowed to express.
She's called it the original World Wide Web.
But essential or not, it's popular with members big and small.
KAMLA PERSAD-BISSESSAR: I think as a Head of the Commonwealth, she has given inspiration, she has given encouragement and indeed by her very presence on every CHOGM she came to, my country, Port of Spain, when we hosted CHOGM in 2009, she was in Port of Spain then and she's gone to any part of the Commonwealth.
She's been referred to as the glue that binds the Commonwealth together.
And I think the stability and certainty of her role and her pursuit of Commonwealth values, of democratic values, has helped bind the Commonwealth together.
MARR: These Commonwealth visits, a lot of people, particularly in Britain, I suspect, scratch their heads and wonder what they're really for.
Does it matter any more? HAGUE: Well, the Commonwealth is an amazing network.
It has more than a quarter of the world's population, more than a quarter of the world's countries.
It actually has an increasing share of the world's economic output.
And so a remarkable network is something actually more relevant as the 21 st century goes on than perhaps it was at the end of the 20th century because we live in a network world now.
From the start, she saw the value and the benefits of the Commonwealth.
And I think she's really trying to explore and expand and you know, make it more of a more of a global institution.
And you know, there's two billion people in the Commonwealth and growing, it's More people want to join all the time, don't they? Well, exactly, I mean, that is testament to her, that really is.
Her leadership, her guidance is what's really seen the Commonwealth through.
MARR: The Queen made a promise to uphold the Commonwealth and she takes it very seriously.
In 2009 the actor and writer Kwame Kwei-Armah set out to replicate the Queen's first ever Commonwealth tour for a Channel 4 series, to try to discover what its impact had been.
KWEI-ARMAH: What was very interesting for me about making this documentary about the Queen is I went in slightly fascinated by power and by how power presents itself and came out actually an admirer of the Queen's work ethic.
And actually, I don't feel ashamed to say that, being a spirited republican.
Actually, my understanding is is that she really does understand the world of high politic, really understands and cares for her position and her job.
And her work ethic seems to be absolutely magnificent.
MARR: But what of the future of the Commonwealth without her? Her heir will not automatically become Head.
It will be up to the Commonwealth leaders to decide.
Do you think the Commonwealth will survive in its form after the Queen? Absolutely, because it's almost impossible to, uh, to disentangle, because there are this myriad of connections.
It's not just about heads of government, it's not just about sport.
There are so many other different connections that you can't You cannot disassemble it now.
MARR: By the end of this trip, it's absolutely obvious that the Queen's visit has been hugely popular.
Chinese Australians, Japanese Australians, Indian Australians are among those waving flags when the Queen and the Duke arrive for what's billed as the world's largest barbeque.
Around 100,000 people turn up in Perth.
"I wish she'd stop coming!" Said one leading republican.
"She sets the cause back 20 years every time she does.
" Once again, we will return to the United Kingdom with fond memories of our time here and the warm Australian welcome we have received on our 16th visit to this beautiful country.
(CROWD CHEERING) MARR: After all those head-shaking stories about this being the last trip to Australia and perhaps the last time a monarch will ever visit, well, by the end, neither of these things seems particularly likely.
If she can make it back, she will.
And even that republican prime minister doesn't see a republic looming anytime soon.
GILLARD: Right now I think in the life of the Australian nation, it is not the question at the forefront of people's minds.
We are a wonderful democracy, a vibrant democracy and ultimately I believe Australians will have their say again on our ongoing constitutional arrangements.
But it's not the centre of national life or national debate at the moment.
MARR: The Australian visit also marked a legal change which will affect the entire future of the British Monarchy.
At that Commonwealth meeting, the leaders of the 16 realms agreed to amend the 1701 Act of Settlement.
So that the first-born of Prince William and Kate, girl or boy, will succeed to the throne, ending 300 years of monarchical male discrimination.
DAVID CAMERON: The process of change for an institution like that is constant.
You constantly have to change and adapt.
That's the best way of maintaining what we have.
And I think this was the right time to make this change.
MARR: The Queen is now the oldest lived Monarch in British history, who's reigned for 60 years.
This summer brings her Diamond Jubilee and a Diamond Jubilee is a very rare event.
This country has only seen one before.
In 1897, Queen Victoria marked hers at the zenith of Britain's worldwide empire, with plenty to celebrate.
Frail, though at 78 rather younger than our Queen, Victoria enjoyed every minute.
"The cheering was quite deafening "and every face seemed to be filled with real joy, "I was much moved and gratified.
" Today, as at earlier celebrations in the Queen's reign, times seem tough and the future uncertain.
But the historian's perspective suggests this may mean that Jubilees matter more, not less.
CANNIDINE: If you live in a republic, let's take the United States of America, and you think about the periods of history that the country's chopped up into, it's four years for a president, eight years if you're lucky, and then it's 100 years for centenaries or centennials and that's about it, really.
Whereas if you have a monarchy, especially if you have the present Queen, who has reigned for 25 years, then 50 years, then 60 years, what you get is this sequence of Jubilees which provides you with the opportunity for structured retrospection, looking back 25 years, 50 years, 60 years, that otherwise you don't have.
MARR: The 2002 Golden Jubilee saw the Queen tour the country and the weekend itself saw a million people flock to the Mall to show they still cared for their Monarch.
For the first time the Queen allowed Buckingham Palace to be the setting for a pop concert, which opened live from the rooftop.
(PLAYING GOD SA VE THE QUEEN) MARR: Was this something you particularly wanted to do for the Queen? Yes.
For me, yes.
And for many reasons, really.
Because in a sense, the Queen was, um - (STAMMERING) - The other Queen Of course, yes.
The Queen, yeah, I mean, she presided over the birth of rock and roll, really, also, which I pointed out at the time.
So, in a sense, I was symbolising 50 years of her reign and 50 years of rock and roll.
(CROWD CHEERING) But 2002 was also a year of family sadness.
In the run-up to the Golden Jubilee weekend, the Queen's mother and her sister, Princess Margaret, died within weeks of one another, losses which struck the Queen hard.
MARGARET RHODES: We all knew that inevitably, Queen Elizabeth was going to have to die soon because of her age.
Um, but I think that the And poor Princess Margaret had become so ill with various strokes and things that in a way, it was probably almost a merciful release, you know.
PRINCESS ROYAL: There's no doubt that losing your mother and your sister in the same brief period is really hard.
Because both of them, in a way, had a very close relationship, pretty well on a daily basis.
And that's pretty hard to lose, probably your closest sounding boards in such a short space in time.
Part of getting over the experience is to keep going.
And okay, that's And in a way it sounds a bit traditional and a bit old-fashioned but, um, I don't believe that's necessarily bad, I think that gives you a way of dealing with things.
PRINCESS EUGENIE: I was 12 when she died, so I remember the last few years, we spent a lot of time together.
And she, again, was this energy, when you walked into the room you just felt she was there and everyone listened and learned and sat with her and it was just this another silent, sort of great being in the room.
PRINCESS BEATRICE: She was a very special lady.
But only as you get older do you really, do I really appreciate.
'Cause when I was growing up, oh, it was just Gan-Gan.
And then now it's like, no, oh my goodness! It sort of does It takes you by surprise a little bit.
MARR: This Diamond Jubilee year is marked with the release of new stamps and coins.
From March, the Queen will once again criss-cross the United Kingdom.
In June, there'll be an extra Bank Holiday over the central weekend of celebrations and 2,012 beacons will flare around the country and the Commonwealth.
On the River Thames, there'll be the splash and eddy of a Jubilee Pageant, a thousand boats with the Queen in a specially designed Royal Barge.
EVANS: Boats of all shapes and sizes, rowed boats and motorised boats and historic boats and working boats.
And these boats will come from not just from London and the Thames region, but all over the UK.
MARR: And the party continues when a rather surprised Queen Victoria hosts a pop concert from her memorial outside Buckingham Palace.
I hope I'm going to be around for it.
Job wise, um, I don't really know exactly where I'm going to be, but fingers crossed I'll be around.
A concert in the garden would always go down well, I'm sure, for us.
(SINGING PARANOID) What do you think the Silver and the Golden Jubilees tell us about what's going to happen this year at the Diamond Jubilee? In the run-up to every Jubilee, there's a kind of institutionalised pessimism on the part of some commentators and some papers, as if it can never be the same as last time.
But so far it always is! The people come up trumps.
The Marxists always say the masses let us down.
Well, the masses don't let the Queen down on any of these Jubilees.
I don't believe that there's any real risk of a Jubilee flopping, au contraire.
This gloomy foreplay is always confounded.
And long may it be so.
MARR: Throughout the Queen's reign, of course, she has not stood alone, beside her there's been a constant presence.
It's often said that the Queen has done everything expected of her.
But it's not quite true.
When she was young, all sorts of establishment figures had all sorts of clever ideas about who she might marry.
The sons of grand land owners, titled guards officers.
But from the time she was a teenager, she knew exactly who she wanted.
And none of the more conventional candidates proposed by friends of the family had a chance.
The man who captured her heart was of course Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
And at the age of 90, despite recent heart surgery, he has always been there to steer and steady when the water gets choppy.
In November 2011, she made him her Lord High Admiral.
Theirs has been the closest union.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years.
Trying to imagine what it is actually like to be the sovereign, where that's where the buck stops.
In many ways it can be a very lonely place to be because at the end of the day, everybody's going to defer to you.
Having somebody there with which you can share that load I think is really important, and I think the Duke of Edinburgh has been able to do that particularly well, without ever stepping across that magic line.
LACEY: I think the story of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is the unrealised success story of the Monarchy.
Here is a man, a man's man, a no-nonsense man, who has managed throughout his life, with total loyalty, not to upstage his wife.
MARR: He's been popularly known for his salty and sometimes crotchety sayings but the truth is that for a long time this was a restlessly reforming figure, once voted the most popular member of the Royal Family, chivvying British business, taking risks like letting television cameras into the palaces, appearing on television to promote wildlife and helping urban youth, from his Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme to campaigning for children's playing fields.
- We want to see the boss! - Please help me see him.
What do you want to see me about? - 'Cause we want a playing field.
- Well, you've come to the right place.
MARR: And he gave up his naval career to spend his life by her side.
Some people have said he could have gone all the way to the top as a professional.
He could have been sitting in your uniform as a professional.
I think all the indications of the manner in which he has conducted his royal duties since 1952-3 indicate that he had everything that was appropriate to doing my job.
MARR: The Queen may be head of the nation but he is still head of the family.
The support that he gives to my grandmother is, I mean, phenomenal.
I mean, I'm still doing engagements by myself.
You know, William's obviously now got Catherine.
And other members of the family, you know, have their other halves, which I think makes a huge difference.
And regardless of whether my grandfather seems to be doing his own things or wandering off like a fish down the river, um, the fact that he's there.
I personally don't think that she could do it without him, especially when they're both at this age.
MARR: So 60 years on the throne, quite an achievement for this small woman with a world-familiar face, a thousand years of history at her back, who since a twist of fate at the age of 10 has known her destiny.
I hope you don't think I've been stalking you too much in the last 18 months.
- And pursuing you.
- No, I've seen you in the background.
In the background all the time.
For her children and grandchildren, it's a different story.
Next in line of succession, the Prince of Wales is the oldest heir apparent in British history at the age of 63.
PRINCE OF WALES: Half the battle, isn't it, is how to adapt in the best way without losing that element of continuity.
Not easy, so you sort of feel your way gently.
MARR: And her legacy also of course lies in the hands of her eight grandchildren.
There's a quite a lot of pressure on someone like me, as a junior boy coming through as well, because of the example that the Queen has set while she's still there and providing such a good example.
It allows me to learn and to be able to develop and to be able to understand better what the sort of role plays and I think she defines it brilliantly.
Every time I find myself whinging about why do I have to put on a dinner jacket and go and do this and go and do that, now and quite recently I've been thinking to myself, "Actually, I can't complain.
" At the end of the day, you know, she has put this country way before way before anything that she'd ever want to do.
I mean, you know, it's her job, understandably, but she at a very young age was put in a position that I, you know, would love to see anybody handle.
Um, and I don't think they would be able to as well as she has.
TINDALL: Family is a massive thing in her life and even though she is the Monarch, she's the most caring, um Just a person that you could actually just go to and ask anything and we all have massive respect for her and, you know, love her to bits.
PHILLIPS: Just the consistency that she has shown throughout those 60 years, um, the support that she's had from the family, from Grandpa, um, the support that she's given to her family as well.
And you know, don't forget, she may have visited however many countries it's been in the last 60 years, and had so many engagements and this that and the other, she's also been a mother and a grandmother and now great-grandmother and she's To get that balance and do both so incredibly well is probably her greatest tribute.
MARR: Take a bow, 13-month-old Savannah, daughter of the Princess Royal's son Peter Phillips and his wife Autumn.
The Queens's first great-grandchild.
Queen Elizabeth II has been part of all of our lives for 60 years, doing her quiet, phlegmatic, relentless best.
During her reign she's been a witness to the most rapid changes in society.
For more than 21,000 days since the age of 25, she has dedicated her life as the servant of her people.
She has seen triumph and disaster, family heartache and family delight.
And she has come through the rapids into calmer waters.
DUKE OF YORK: I've seen the Queen over the years and I'm just awe-inspired by her ability to listen, to consider and to be able to alter things and suggest things.
That's where she's been so clever, I think.
PRINCESS ROYAL: Her ability to keep pace with the changes, understand what those changes mean but also that the role of the Monarchy doesn't change very much in that sense so that degree of continuity and common sense remains.
No reason for that not to be able to go on, I hope.
MARR: But if these are calmer waters for the Queen, they're hardly calm times for her country.
Will Great Britain survive or will Scotland leave? How will the British deal with the rest of Europe, now struggling with its greatest crisis since the Second World War? And in hard economic times, how well will we hang together as one people? That's politics.
But the state is more than its politicians.
(CHATTING, INDISTINCT) LORD O'DONNELL: One of the things you want for a prime minister is to have a safe space where they can talk to someone very openly about what's working and what's not.
And actually to have someone really senior, really independent, really discreet, who will have those discussions.
Very wise and has seen it all before.
That's priceless in my book.
You think in our lives how many mistakes we all make, politically, professionally, personally.
I mean, it is extraordinary, in 60 years, you know, she has just been an unbelievable model public servant.
And we've just been so lucky to have someone like that on the throne and for such an extraordinarily long period.
MARR: Confronted by trouble and argument, the British have someone at the top of the tree who didn't fight or elbow her way there, who's there because she's there.
Modern Monarchy is not inevitable, it's not a part of nature, it's a choice.
The Windsor dynasty was created at a time of crisis and national soul-searching and for 60 years this Queen has reigned knowing that monarchy works when it sustains and supports the democracy.
In the future, as in the past, the British Monarchy will not be made by monarchs or by princes or princesses or by politicians.
In the end, as in the past, it depends on the people who turn up and the people who don't.
It's in their hands.
It's in our hands.
QUEEN ELIZABETH: I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family, to which we all belong.
PRINCE WILLIAM: I think she's brought life, energy and passion to the job.
She's managed to modernise and evolve the Monarchy like no other.
And it just shows the strength of women at the top, I think it's fantastic and she's done a You know, she's really set the bar very, very high.