When the Queen worked her magic on the BBC

The Queen and Prince Philip had written their names in the visitors’ book at a country house where I was a weekend guest; my hostess, a member of a family with a long and storied lineage, had been an intimate of the Royal Family for decades. But at dinner, I nearly choked on my Beef Wellington when the grand lady turned to me and said she thought the monarchy might not – and perhaps should not – continue after Elizabeth II. This was no criticism of the monarch herself, naturally, but ‘these days, one finds the institution of a hereditary monarchy increasingly hard to defend’. If the aristos don’t believe in the hereditary principle, I thought, perhaps it really is an idea whose time has passed.

The monarch herself never displayed any such havering. Not for her the public handwringing of her heir and successor. I experienced the magic of royalty only once, when the Queen visited the BBC.