Will the Queen Retire at 90?

I have no idea, but it is something to speculate about in an idle moment. Prince Philip was 90 last week (17 June), and told the BBC that he is "winding down" and reducing his workload as a senior member of the royal family. In an interview with the BBC's Fiona Bruce, the Queen's husband said: "I reckon I've done my bit." So might the Queen follow his example after her 90th birthday in April 2016?

Usually when the possibility of the Queen’s standing down is discussed, the idea is quickly ruled out on the grounds of the A-word. Certainly the Abdication of Edward VIII in 1936 represented a major crisis for the Royal Family at the time, but for most people who have seen The King’s Speech this year, Edward was as historically remote as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown. Very few people would begrudge the Queen’s stepping down after so many years of service, or would now regard it as being constitutionally destabilising. Although it might take a little time and effort to induce popular enthusiasm for Charles’ accession, if his sons were to make their support clear any public misgivings would probably soon disappear. All the better if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have produced an heir by 2016.

There might be political attractions too. Bruce Anderson in the FT recently described David Cameron as a man, “Absolute in his own intellectual self-confidence”. So presumably the PM is certain that coalition policies will lead to the British economy being well on the way to recovery by 2015. If so, in the election due that year the country could be expected to return a Conservative government. The PM at the time of the last Coronation, also towards the end of a period of enforced austerity, was Winston Churchill. David Kynaston in Family Britain 1951-1957 remarks (page 305) that the Coronation and the preceding period of anticipation “were not comfortable days for the British left, or indeed the progressive intelligentsia as a whole”. He goes on to quote Barbara Castle: “Winston has just introduced her [the Queen] on the radio, exploiting the romantic mood of the moment to its fruitiest uttermost.” Churchill left government two years later at the age of 80. If Cameron were to stand down in 2017, probably in favour of George Osborne, he would be only 51. But like Tony Blair he would then have time to earn a substantial amount, and he would be able to remove his children from Downing Street before their teenage years. SEE ADDENDUM 22 JUNE BELOW.

Some statistics provide another perspective. The chart below shows the lengths of the reigns of the Queen’s 10 predecessors (excluding Edward VIII) plotted against their age at accession. The data points for the Queen (QE2) and the future King Charles (C3) assume that they leave the throne at the age of 90 (ignoring actuarial considerations). Most sovereigns have been crowned in middle age or later, with only the two Queens and George III (G3) acceding under the age of 30. Queen Victoria (QV) was on the throne for more than 63 years, a record which the Queen will overtake by the end of 2015. If Charles were to accede in 2016, and follow the precedent set by his mother of retiring at 90, he would have reigned for over 15 years, longer than his grandfather and four other sovereigns in the preceding 300 years.

This all seems so neat that it is most unlikely to happen. The relevant non-conjectural data is tabulated below.

Beware of the change from the Julian to Gregorian calendar during the reign of George II!

ADDENDUM 22 JUNE: In his Daily Telegraph blog today, Benedict Brogan, who is reputedly close to Number 10, makes a good case for Boris Johnson being the other likely successor to David Cameron.  Johnson’s intimes “expect Mr Cameron to step aside some time in a second term to pursue other interests.”

ADDENDUM 20 MARCH 2012

This post still gets the occasional hit, so I should draw the attention of anyone who reads this far to the following. The Queen gave a speech to Parliament today to mark her 60 years on the throne. She said:

I have been privileged to witness some of that [nearly a thousand years of British] history and, with the support of my family, rededicate myself to the service of our great country and its people now and in the years to come.

The King’s Speech

I've finally seen the most talked-about film of the moment, The King’s Speech, which I had posted about earlier. As we are told, the acting is impressive, particularly that of Colin Firth as King George VI and Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue, although this seemed less the case for the peripheral characters. Perhaps the actors playing Churchill, Baldwin and Archbishop Lang were aware of the contortions of history regarding Edward’s abdication and German appeasement which their parts involved. Michael White and Andrew Roberts are among those who have commented on the historical accuracy of the film since its release.

The British media like to encourage pre-Oscar optimism about home-grown films, if only as a circulation booster, and the 12 nominations for The King’s Speech sound promising. Films like The Queen, Mrs Brown and Shakespeare in Love (also with Firth), where commoners “let daylight in upon the magic”, seem to go down well in Hollywood. However, the Oscars are American Academy Awards and the voters are mostly US citizens who want their country's films to succeed. True Grit looks like a fine piece of Western mythologizing – oh dear, how many who hit on this blog are disappointed to find it so far east of the old West – and The Social Network has ten nominations. Facebook is something, like Google, that only the US could have brought the rest of the world, and an achievement that China is unlikely to emulate, at least for now. A film which underlines American exceptionalism - Facebook that is, not Wallis Simpson - will surely be well regarded.

Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Queen Elizabeth, is the great granddaughter of a British Prime Minister, Asquith, and, as well as being a fine actor, is certainly well-connected.

New Year Predictions

There is a tendency at the end of the year to contemplate the recent past and to consider what could lie ahead, not always drawing optimistic conclusions. This may, of course, be a melancholic reaction to seasonal excesses of food and alcohol. Although I’m not particularly royalist or religious, the tones of King George VI in his 1939 Christmas broadcast, often rerun by the BBC in December, seem to echo this mood. In particular, the King quoted from a poem by Minnie Louise Harkins:

"I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way.'"

The speech can be listened to at the CBC archive, but is not available from the BBC. King George VI’s determination to overcome a speech impediment is the subject of an already acclaimed film, The King’s Speech, which will be released in the UK on 7 January. Apparently it closes with the King’s broadcast at the outbreak of the war in September 1939, which is on the BBC website.

1940 turned out to be one of the most calamitous years in British history, almost terminal. Hopefully 2011, for all its likely problems (the eurozone for one), will be relatively forgettable. Nonetheless, it may be timely to record three predictions which surfaced in 2010 and could prove worth revisiting in the course of time, if not in 2011.

First, in September from Tony Blair’s A Journey (page 120 of the UK edition):

“It will be fascinating to see whether the coalition conceived after the 2010 election holds. It may, since the Lib Dem desire for electoral reform is so intrinsic to them. But if that doesn’t come about, I doubt the coalition will last long. However, I may be wrong ...”

Blair is far too smart to make an unqualified prediction, but if he is right (as opposed to “wrong”), before the end of 2011 we may begin to test the second prediction. This was attributed to Mervyn King by a US economist, David Hale, in an interview on Australian TV and reported by Reuters in April:

"I saw the governor of the Bank of England last week when I was in London and he told me whoever wins this election will be out of power for a whole generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will have to be"

The third prediction – to be tested well after 2011 one hopes - resurfaced in the media in November when Prince William’s engagement was announced. It had been made by his mother to the effect that Prince Charles would never be King and that William would succeed his grandmother. At Princess Diana’s inquest in 2008, Sandra Davis, head of family law at the elite solicitors Mishcon de Reya, stated that Diana was convinced her prediction that Charles would be forced to stand aside would come true.

End note: I began this blog on 30 October, primarily to amuse myself, and certainly doubtful as to whether there would be any readers. In fact some of my 18 posts since then seem to have gone unhit. However, over 150 visitors have looked at others, coming from countries stretching from the US and Argentina to Singapore, as well as from the UK. Whether anyone has ever felt inclined to come back, I don’t know, certainly I have yet to be left any comments. Anyway, I feel mildly encouraged, and intend in 2011, all being well, to keep posting my views on the same types of topics, and some new ones.

Happy New Year and Bonne Année to anyone who reads this far!