During the Middle Ages, the Norman and Plantagenet kings and their successors lived at the Palace of Westminster, which was rebuilt and now forms part of the Houses of Parliament. For two centuries, from the reign of Henry VIII to that of William III, Whitehall took its place but that was destroyed by fire and in the eighteenth century the Hanoverian kings used St James’s Palace, which Henry VIII had built as a hunting lodge. And although George III bought – in 1761 – and lived in the house that became Buckingham Palace, the ceremonial centre of the court remained at St James’s, which is why foreign ambassadors are still accredited to the Court of St James two centuries later. It was George IV who decided to convert Buckingham House (where his father had lived) into a palace and employed the architect John Nash for the job. George IV died before the work was completed – and Nash was sacked for financial incompetence – and the palace completed by William IV and the architect Edward Blore. But William never lived there. Queen Victoria was the first monarch to use Buckingham Palace when she came to the throne in 1837, and soon decided to extend it. None of the rooms was big enough for a court ball and after her marriage to Prince Albert she needed nursery space and so a new wing was built, on the eastern side of the building in the space where Nash had erected a decorative marble arch at the entrance to the forecourt. The arch was subsequently moved to the top of Park Lane and is the Marble Arch of fame from which distances to London are still measured.
So although it is not as old as the Queen’s other official residences, Buckingham Palace has been home to six monarchs and the focal point of the nation for more than 160 years. It is where visiting kings, queens and presidents are made royally welcome, where sumptuous state banquets are held, the tables adorned with antique glass, gilt, silver and priceless porcelain. It is where ambassadors and diplomats come to present their credentials, where the Prime Minister comes for his weekly audience, and where investitures are held, garden parties, informal lunches and lavish receptions. It has high ceilings, wide corridors and sweeping staircases, marble columns, miles of red carpet, and sumptuous furnishings. Fabulous paintings and etchings hang on the walls, giant crystal chandeliers dangle precariously from the ceilings; even the corridors are furnished with intricate inlaid cabinets, ornate clocks, sparkling mirrors, elegant tables, gilt-framed banquettes, delicate statues and tapestries centuries old.
It is probably one of the busiest buildings in London and one of the most versatile. And the reason it is only open to the public for six weeks of the year is because that is when the Queen is away and the only time of the year when the state rooms are not in constant use. Fifty thousand people are entertained in Buckingham Palace every year and the state rooms have a fast turnaround. It requires a small army to service those kinds of numbers and exceptional organization. There can be no off-days, no slip-ups. Everyone invited to the Palace, whether it is for a meal, a glass of wine or a cup of tea and a bun in the garden, will remember the experience and it has to be perfect.
The guards are largely ceremonial these days. It’s the armed policemen on the gate who form the first line of defence and, since 9/11, security has been stepped up. Visitors now need to have photographic proof of identity when they arrive, and their appointments must be known to the footmen at the Privy Purse entrance, but otherwise it is surprisingly relaxed. The Queen is not prepared to turn her home into a fortress. She accepts security as a necessary evil of the modern world, but she doesn’t like it, any more than the rest of the family; and she takes a pragmatic view of the matter – the only sensible thing to do in her situation. If someone wanted to kill her I have no doubt they could. One former minister says he would scrap security altogether. ‘I’m very fatalistic about these things,’ he says. ‘It’s part of being royal; you are at risk. No security is absolute.’
The Prince and Princess of Wales lived in an apartment in Kensington Palace, where they were neighbours of Princess Margaret, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. After their divorce Diana stayed at KP, as it is known, and Charles moved into York House, a part of St James’s Palace, where he and the Princess had their offices. And after the Queen Mother’s death in 2002 he took over Clarence House, across the courtyard from St James’s and a four-minute walk from Buckingham Palace. Clarence House was a sentimental return for him to a house filled with good memories. He lived there until the age of three when his mother became Queen and the family had to move to Buckingham Palace. None of them wanted to go. They loved Clarence House; it was a family home but Winston Churchill, who was then Prime Minister, insisted upon it and according to Michael Parker, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Private Secretary at the time, who travelled with the family as they left for Buckingham Palace, ‘there was not a dry eye in that car’. It then became Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s home and Charles, who adored his grandmother, was a constant visitor both as a child and adult.
The Queen has five residences in all – Buckingham Palace is head office, and where over half of all the 650 or so people who work for her in these various residences are based. Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, is where she goes at weekends and the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, where she spends a week in the summer. If she is at either of those in her official capacity, the court travels with her. If it is informal, she takes minimal staff but always a Private Secretary. These three residences are all official and effectively owned by the state. Sandringham House in Norfolk and Balmoral Castle in Deeside are privately owned and the Royal Family traditionally spends several weeks after Christmas at Sandringham and two months in the summer at Balmoral.
The most senior member of the Queen’s household is the Lord Chamberlain, currently Lord Luce, a former Conservative minister, a charming, popular and clever man with perfect credentials for the job; but arguably the more powerful individual in Buckingham Palace at any one time is the Queen’s Principal Private Secretary. In an ordinary company he would be the equivalent of managing director or chief executive, and the Lord Chamberlain chairman. The Private Secretary is the one who advises the Queen, who structures her programme, who writes her speeches and who is the interface between her and 10 Downing Street; also with her governments in the seventeen Commonwealth countries in which she is sovereign. And the current incumbent, Sir Robin Janvrin, is generally agreed to be a very good thing.
The Queen has worked with eleven prime ministers in Britain and since devolution now meets the Scottish First Minister for regular audiences too, and after more than fifty years there is very little to surprise her in politics. John Major met her almost every week for the six and a half years of his premiership and spent a weekend at Balmoral each summer with his wife Norma, as prime ministers traditionally do. Insiders say she liked Major. Margaret Thatcher never seemed to relax; Tony Blair she finds easier.
‘The monarch’s power is not raw power but influence,’ says Major; ‘influence and access.’
Politicians have taken the power away from the monarchy for the last three hundred years. Charles II came back post-Cromwell with few of the powers of Charles I. It has lessened ever since. There are residual powers; if the country was deadlocked after a general election the Queen would have to decide who to send for; but that’s not to say the Queen doesn’t express opinions to the Prime Minister, delicately. She wouldn’t say ‘x is good and y is bad, you ought not to appoint them’, but she does ask questions about policy. The Queen would pose questions that other people might not necessarily