BBC News | UK | The tradition of the Queen's speech Tuesday, 25 December, 2001, 16:26 GMT The tradition of the Queen's speech The Queen said 1992 had been 'annus horribilus' The Queen's message to the Commonwealth on December 25 has become as traditional a part of the British Christmas as roast turkey and Christmas pudding. Millions of people across the United Kingdom turn on the television to watch the Queen sum up the year and offer the season's greetings to her subjects. Millions more around the world listen to the speech on their radios and, nowadays, on the Internet. The tradition was begun by the Queen's grandfather, King George V, in 1932. In the early days, the message went out live but from 1960 onwards it was recorded a few days in advance. In the past, most of the speeches have been regarded as uncontroversial, even a little dull. The notable exception was the 1992 broadcast - the Queen labelled that year an "annus horribilis".

A royal Christmas In 1932 when King George V made the first royal Christmas broadcast to what was then the British Empire, it was transmitted live from his small study at Sandringham, in Norfolk, where the royal family always spend their Christmas holidays. The speech was scripted by the famous author, Rudyard Kipling, and began with the words: "I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all." Queen Elizabeth II made her first Christmas broadcast on BBC radio in 1952. Her first televised speech took place in 1957. The contents of the speech are always top secret until it is first transmitted. In 1987 the BBC hit the headlines when its royal correspondent of the time, Michael Cole, accidentally revealed some of its contents. King George V made the first royal Christmas broadcast in 1932 In her 1992 "annus horribilus" speech, the Queen, expressed her sorrow at a year which saw the break-up of two family marriages, one divorce and the fire at Windsor Castle.

That year, as in many others, she began with references to Sandringham and her own family: "I first came here for Christmas as a grandchild. Nowadays my children come here for the same family festival. To me this continuity is a great source of comfort in a world of tension and violence." She then went on to speak of how the "sombre year" had been put into perspective by the example of a close friend, who, suffering from a terminal illness had continued to put others first. This was also the year in which the Sun newspaper printed leaked details of the speech on December 23, much to the dismay of Buckingham Palace. The message in the making The speech has traditionally been filmed in great secrecy at Sandringham in the week before Christmas. But in recent years it has been filmed at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. The Queen speaks directly to camera and the package usually features royal footage from the year. It is sent in advance around the world to 17 Commonwealth countries, to be broadcast at a convenient local time. As a result of leaks in the press in previous years, many media outlets do not receive the text of the Queen's address until late on Christmas Eve.

The BBC lost exclusive broadcasting rights in 1995 The speech was traditionally produced by the BBC but in recent years the job has been shared with Independent Television News (ITN) on a rotating basis. When Buckingham Palace decided to end the BBC's monopoly on the rights to produce the speech, it was seen by some as a deliberate snub in retaliation for its Panorama interview with the Princess of Wales in November 1995, which was not sanctioned by Buckingham Palace. However the palace denied that a slight was intended and said that it had been considering for some time how to involve the ITV network as well as the BBC, "so that the arrangements reflect the composition of the television and radio industries today". Internet links: Queen enjoys record support in Guardian/ICM poll | UK news | The Guardian Guardian/ICM polls Queen enjoys record support in Guardian/ICM poll Pre-diamond jubilee surge in royalism hides bad news for Prince Charles, with almost half wanting succession to jump to William The Queen at a diamond jubilee celebration at the Royal Academy of Arts on Wednesday.

Photograph: Carl Court/PA Thursday 24 May 2012 08.52 EDT First published on Thursday 24 May 2012 08.52 EDT Close This article is 4 years old As the Queen prepares to celebrate her diamond jubilee, the royal family is enjoying record popularity, but things could get a good deal more complicated after she leaves the scene, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll. Britain would be worse off without the monarchy say 69% of respondents, while of 22% say the country would be better off. This 47-point royalist margin is the largest chalked up on any of the 12 occasions since 1997 on which ICM has previously asked the question. Pro-royal feeling is spread remarkably equally among the social classes, and across the regions of England and Wales. It is less marked in Scotland – where 36% say the country would be better off without the Windsors – but even there a solid 50% feel the opposite way. Support is stronger among the older, and especially among Conservative voters, in whose ranks it reaches 82%.

But across every age group and among Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters alike, the monarchy is enjoying solid support. But if "long to reign over us" is the diamond jubilee sentiment, that could be partly out of nervousness about what is coming next. When voters were asked what should happen when the Queen dies or if she abdicates, they remain resolutely anti-republican, with just 10% saying Britain should elect a head of state instead of having a new monarch. But if there is support for the hereditary principle, there is much less for what it means in practice. Only 39% want the crown to pass to Prince Charles in line with the succession; 48% who want it to skip a generation and pass straight to Prince William . There is no sign whatsoever of the son setting himself up as a young pretender against the father but, should he be tempted, the poll suggests he could count on solid support among younger voters, Labour supporters and the C2DE social grades which sit at the bottom of the National Statistics pyramid . An outright majority of 50% of each of these groups indicate a preference for a premature coronation of William V. The Queen continues to retain her popularity.

According to Ipsos Mori data from the 1980s and 90s, the person who most often rivalled her ratings was Diana, a finding that may excite the wilder conspiracy theorists. But in this, as in all matters concerning the length of a reign which stretches back to the very infancy of British polling, we are dependent on occasional attitudinal snapshots rather than the sort of month-in-month-out series available on voting intention. American admiration The earliest data which the Guardian could track down was not about British attitudes but American ones, in May 1953, one month before the coronation. The vast majority of respondents volunteered descriptions such as "charming" and "wonderful". A mere 6% made negative remarks about monarchs in general, and just 1% ventured anything negative about the woman herself. A few years later in a 1957 Gallup poll, 83% of Americans rated her to some degree favourably, against just 7% who leant the other way. Her stateside standing has rarely diminished, and she is by some margin the woman who has most often ranked on Gallup's annual top 10 of people Americans admire.

Closer to home, there is little data from before the 1960s. One nugget we do have from before the Elizabethan age is from Gallup in 1946. Asked whom they most admired, 24% of voters volunteered Winston Churchill, while reigning monarch George VI and his Queen languished behind on 3%. That put them on the same level as Joseph Stalin and below Clement Attlee, Field Marshal Montgomery, George Bernard Shaw. The questions are irregular and often inconsistently framed, but when set against this sepia snapshot about the old king, the data we have strongly suggests the Queen has consistently been more popular than her father. The oldest substantial information the Guardian could find about British attitudes was from the British Election Study, which got going a decade into the Queen's reign, just before the 1964 election which brought Labour's Harold Wilson to power. It asked about whether people felt the monarchy was very, quite or not at all important. Support for the Queen was remarkably resilient throughout the 1960s, with about 60% rating the monarchy as very important and about 15% who said it was of no importance.

Only in 1969 did the anti-royal number briefly rise, to a still underwhelming 27%. A slightly more personal test of the Queen's popularity, perhaps, is the public's take on whether or not she deserved a pay rise. In 1969, Gallup found 46% felt she deserved a pay rise. By 1971, the same company found 57% were ready to double her allowance to an annual £1m, which was a good deal more then than today. Around the same time, we get the first tests of the idea of abolishing the crown entirely and making the UK a republic. In 1969, Gallup found that 18% preferred that option. The silver jubilee, the Sex Pistols, Diana and the golden jubilee all came and went without permanently altering that figure. In the week of the Queen's 50th anniversary on the throne, in June 2002, an Ipsos Mori poll found 19% would prefer a republic.

It asked the same question more than 20 times in the 1990s and 2000s and each time found the republican minority within three points of that 19% figure. Only in its most recent survey, conducted amid a mood of respect for the octogenarian woman and a sexagenarian monarch, does it dip to 13%. Swing to indifference We can track rather more of the reign if we switch to a better off/worse off without the royals question, of the sort used in our surveyon Thursday. Ipsos Mori asked that question throughout the 1980s and 1990s and, as fairytale weddings gave way to the divorces of Charles and Andrew, there was a steady swing away from the steadfast royalist "worse off" vote to a position of indifference. The "indifferents" fleetingly overtook the "worse offs" in the Queen's "annus horribilis" of 1992 (when flames at Windsor Castle followed rows about her tax-exempt status) and then again just before Diana's death.

But in neither case did the hardline "better off without them" vote get enough traction to get beyond a fifth. In both cases, the royalists soon bounced back to a modest lead, even if they never quite got back to the scores of about 70% they had enjoyed in the mid-1980s. From the late 1990s onwards, the ICM's own tracker, which forces a straight choice, has oscillated wildly, but never quite wildly enough to put the anti-royalists in the lead or even to get the margin down to single figures. ICM Jubilee question Photograph: Graphic There was a bit of a monarchist moment in 1998 as the royals regained public affection after the traumas of Diana's death, with the "worse off without them" lead surging to 44% before then falling back to about 20%.

There was a brief boost from the golden jubilee in 2002, a brief dip (as on several polling indicators) in early 2005, before Charles's marriage to Camilla, a prospect which stirred some old demons but which the polling suggests also laid them to rest, because the royal position immediately strengthened after the event. The monarchy surged further after William's wedding last year, and now the gap has widened again. The Queen's personal rating, measured as the difference between the proportion satisfied and the proportion dissatisfied with the way she is doing her job, has not been measured since 2006, but the established trend at that point was running strongly in her favour – the score was +78 percentage points. To put that into context, our Guardian/ICM poll this week gave scores to David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg of -11, -12 and -27 respectively. ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,002 adults aged 18 plus from 18 to 20 May 2012. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.

ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. • This article was amended on 28 May 2012 to clarify the date of the 1953 poll surveying American attitudes towards the Queen. After the turmoil of the 1990s, the Queen can take satisfaction that she has steered the monarchy to calmer waters Published: 24 May 2012 Horribilis, and how (From HeraldScotland) Jobs Business Directory Local Info Dating Buy Sell Book an Ad Horribilis, and how The Queen and her mother still rate highly in the public esteem but, Jane Scott reflects, the same cannot be said for her progeny and their wayward spouses TWO days before the Queen's Christmas speech in 1990, Princess Eugenie, her youngest grandchild, was christened. The event ``brought the family together once again. I hope that all of us lucky enough to be able to enjoy such gatherings this Christmas will take time to count our blessings,'' she told the nation.

Within two years her family had disintegrated, the marriages of three of her children ended, and her two daughters-in-law were involved in embarrassing personal revelations and very public relationships with other men. Loading article content Within another two years her son was to admit adultery, his confessions aggravating the public discontent characterising this decade, and allowing the accepted institutions of the monarchy - its funding, its governorship of the Church, its right to existence - to be fundamentally challenged. The Queen has accepted criticism, appealed for tolerance, made concessions to the age. But while she has sailed through the nineties with her popularity unscathed (and her private thoughts unaired), her children have blundered, with perhaps fatal consequences for the monarchy. It is fortunate that the Commonwealth, the family possibly closest to the Queen's heart, has had a better decade of it, giving the Queen a happier platform abroad for her role than at home. We know little of her views on the events of the nineties. Recent decisions show her less tolerant of the mistakes of her children but her lead in this crisis of monarchy is passive, resting on tradition rather than innovation. As has been proved time and again through the nineties, her children have been prepared to trash tradition utterly.

1990 was troubled for Britain as a state, struggling to assert independence within Europe (a feature of the decade, enmeshed in the country's floundering notions of sovereignty) and racked by poll-tax demonstrations; Margaret Thatcher fell, and troops travelled to the Gulf. For the Royals it was relatively peaceful, although a 9% increase on the Civil List fuelled discontent that would grow as the recession continued. The Queen engaged a director of finance to make the monarchy more business-like. By 1991, however, anger at the family's fortune and behaviour was mounting. Harpers and Queen announced the Queen was the world's richest woman, estimating her assets at #6600m - a 25% increase on the previous year. In February, the Sunday Times criticised the Royals for having fun while the nation was at war; Princes Philip and Charles went shooting, Lord Linley celebrated his 29th birthday in drag, the Duchess of York went skiing and lived it up in London.

Newspaper polls found the Queen and the Queen Mother rating high approval, but the younger royals (including Edward, at this stage perceived as an ineffectual luvvie through his work with Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Company) scored horribly low. The nation's discontent crystallised in the demand that the royals pay tax (there were cross-party calls in the House throughout the year) and its disrepect was shown in the Sun's publishing nude pictures of Prince Andrew. Britain began isolating itself from Europe as Foreign Ministers supported a single currency and common foreign and defence policies, but the Queen carried the flag abroad, notably to America where she made Congress laugh, referring to an earlier White House visit where rows of microphones turned her into a talking hat. In her Christmas speech she talked of voluntary workers who quietly contribute to the community - in stark contrast, perhaps, to her own children's perceived fecklessness. ``But let us not take ourselves too seriously,'' she said.

``None of us has a monopoly of wisdom and we must always be ready to listen to and respect other points of view.'' She spoke happily of the year's Commonwealth conference in Zimbabwe, which revitalised the institution; de Klerk had freed Nelson Mandela the previous year, and Commonwealth heads decided to relax sanctions against South Africa. Commentators understood that she was reconfirming her opposition to abdicating. (``It's a job for life,'' as she was to say in a documentary the following year.) ``With your prayers and your help, and with the love and support of my family, I shall try to serve you in the years to come.'' But 1992 was to be the year of disaster, the annus horribilis. The Duchess of York kicked it off with holiday pictures of Texan millionaire Steve Wyatt, shown cuddling the naked princesses. The Queen warned her off the friendship, and Fergie faced continuing criticism for wild behaviour and for allowing a Hello! photo-shoot of the Yorks at home. The criticism had some effect; by March she had separated from Andrew, claiming the royal machine had worn her down. August brought the infamous toe-sucking pictures with American John Bryan, her financial adviser.

Diana went several times better, with Andrew Morton's book Diana, Her True Story revealing bulimia, suicide attempts, an uncaring husband and a truly unhelpful set of in-laws. It appeared Diana had sanctioned publication, wrong-footing the palace, which claimed she had nothing to do with the book, establishing her continuing defiance of the system which had comfortably served the Queen's ideal of monarchy for 40 years. The Squidgygate tapes were published, a recording of Diana's telephone call to James Gilbey, telling him her husband made her life torture. She gained instant public sympathy. Charles' friends went on the offensive and the rumour was that the palace had the knives out for her. Certainly the Queen ordered her to visit Korea with her husband in November, where desolate pictures of ``the Glums'' took speculation of an irretrievable marriage breakdown to fever pitch. Rumours of the existence of the Camillagate tapes, a recording of a telephone call between Charles and his (then alleged) mistress Camilla Parker Bowles surfaced, and the speculation was fulfilled; Charles and Diana separated in December.

Even the Queen Mother could not avoid controversy in this year, when she unveiled a statue of ``Bomber'' Harris, responsible for the destruction of Dresden during the war, while Princess Anne's marriage to Captain Mark Phillips was dissolved. The Queen, meanwhile, had to shrug off newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating's supposedly disrespectful arm, placed round her waist during a royal visit. It was explained that he was merely guiding her towards Gough Whitlam, but Keating was promising the Australian people a referendum on becoming a republic, and the British right exploded in royalist fury. The Queen's year started with Elizabeth R, the well-received BBC documentary (watched by a record 17.86m viewers, but still topped by Coronation Street and You've Been Framed) which revealed her biting sense of humour while detailing her endless constitutional duties.

(``Well, I know you did, but you're expendable now,'' she told Edward Heath, who was protesting that he went to Baghdad during the Gulf War crisis.) The documentary revealed the Queen to be more human than anyone thought possible, and brought us rare personal comments: ``If you live this sort of life, which people don't very much, you live very much by tradition and continuity. I find that is one of the sad things, that people don't take on jobs for life. They try different things all the time''. But public support for the monarchy was ultimately found wanting after a fire at Windsor Castle in November. Prince Andrew, who helped with the rescue effort, said his mother was ``absolutely devastated''; Buckingham Palace said her reaction was ``the same as yours would be if you saw your home burning''. Heritage Secretary Peter Brooke promised taxpayers' money to foot the estimated #60m bill; it proved too much for a nation still in recession, and there were bitter protests, informed by a stream of television, newspaper, and magazine investigations dissecting the Queen's wealth throughout the year.

Six days after the fire, the Queen offered to pay income tax (along with the Prince of Wales) and remove from the Civil List all royals but herself, Prince Philip, and the Queen Mother. She would pay allowances to the excluded members in ``an appropriate step for the 90s''. Two days earlier, at a speech in the Guildhall, she described 1992, the 40th year of her reign, as her annus horribilis. She again appealed for tolerance. ``There can be no doubt, of course, that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life ..... But we are all part of the same fabric of our national society and that scrutiny, by one part of another, can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of gentleness, good humour and understanding.'' The year ended on a happier note; Princess Anne married Commander Tim Laurence at Crathie, Deeside. In her Christmas speech, the Queen talked much of the family, evoking the continuity of Sandringham as the home of three previous generations, three previous kings.

``Like many other families,'' she admitted, ``we have lived through some difficult days this year.'' In 1993, Diana further distanced herself from the royals. The eventual publication of the Camillagate tapes, her identification with bulimia sufferers at an eating disorders conference, the pictures taken of her in the gym and her bowing out of public life in December brought her much sympathy as victim of the family and the press combined, although she was damaged when Press Complaints Commission chairman Lord MacGregor admitted she had been leaking stories to the newspapers. It was open season on Charles, with George Austin, Archdeacon of York, questioning his fitness to be king and thus giving a late start to the disestablishment debate, perhaps the only aspect of the monarchy left unchallenged so far in this iconoclastic decade. (Even Buckingham Palace was opened to the public, in August, to help pay for the Windsor restoration.) The former Archbishop of York, the cerebral Dr John Habgood, weighed into the debate with the assertion that sovereigns are not required to be saints; they are the visual representative of the unity and identity of the nation.

Given the tangible consequences for the Union of the devolution debate in the 1990s, his words are resonant. The Queen's Christmas speech that year made a brief mention of her grandchildren, before moving on to the role of radio and television in contracting the world to a global village of violent and upsetting images. ``If we can look on the bright side, so much the better, but that does not mean we should shield ourselves from the truth, even if it is unwelcome,'' she said. 1994 brought triumphant foreign trips; to Anguilla, the last of the Commonwealth countries (apart from the Falklands) she had yet to visit; to Vancouver, for the Commonwealth Games, where she charmed republican sympathisers, to Russia, where she was the first reigning British monarch to set foot, and to Normandy, for the anniversary of the D-Day landings. This commemoration, and those of the following year, confirmed the public's admiration of the older royals, who lived stoically through the war, while underlining the failings of the post-war, tell-all generation.

The division was further emphasised by the muted celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Charles' investiture as Prince of Wales, in contrast to the very regal and solemn ceremony when as a young man he pledged allegiance to the Queen. To mark the occasion, Charles (who gained enormous respect in January for appearing unmoved when shot at in Australia) had decided to reveal all in Jonathan Dimbleby's documentary (and accompanying book) Charles, The Private Man, The Public Role. His parents were cold, distant bullies; he felt his duties keenly; his marriage was an impossibility; he was an adulterer. The press went wild (especially as Diana came out of her shell on the night it was aired in a thigh-high dress, stealing the front pages and bringing the marriage nearer the public feud it has become). The public reacted sympathetically; Charles was seen to be trying his best in difficult circumstances. In her Christmas speech that year, the Queen looked outwards, talking of Normandy, of the changes in Russia, and viewed the future with hope; the ceasefire in Northern Ireland had been declared, and South Africa welcomed back into the Commonwealth. 1995, however, brought more family troubles and public debate.

The death of Group Captain Peter Townsend, the divorced lover forbidden to marry Princess Margaret, emphasised how Britain's moral view of marriage and royalty had changed, and begged the question of a divorced Prince Charles's future intentions. (Camilla Parker Bowles and husband Andrew had divorced in January.) The Queen visited South Africa, the first time for nearly half a century, and in New Zealand in November apologised, on behalf of Britain, to the Maori community for taking their land. The Royal Yacht Britannia was put up for sale - a cost-cutting measure widely seen as devaluing the monarchy - but the crowds in the Mall sang Land of Hope and Glory at the top of their voices as the Queen, Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother re-created the famous 1945 balcony scene on the anniversary of VE-Day. Throughout the year, scares over the Queen Mother's health and the occasion of her 95th birthday emphasised her continuing popularity. But Diana blew the royal family apart in November in a Panorama documentary, watched by 23 million people.

She had some ground to make up: embarrassing phone calls to Oliver Hoare, a too-close friendship with England rugby captain Will Carling, and the rising popularity of Prince Edward's girlfriend Sophie Rhys-Jones, given training for the job of royal spouse that Diana never had. She criticised the family, and especially her husband, for throwing her to the wolves; confirmed the Prince's adultery (and her own); and won the nation over. Her alternative court was a reality, and it was in people's hearts; within a month the Queen had asked Charles and Diana to divorce. Diana declined to spend Christmas at Sandringham; the pretence was over. The Queen's Christmas speech that year concentrated on the efforts of one humble, unknown voluntary worker, Sister Ethel, who had built a schooland clinic in South Africa out of nothing. Her message was that, after fighting, comes reconciliation and reconstruction. In 1996, Diana agreed to divorce, but her influence, at least on the public imagination, has yet to diminish.

Thus the royal scandals have continued; Diana was alleged to have had an affair with Carling; the profligate Duchess of York was found to owe millions - and the Queen refused to bail her out, as she had before (a great humiliation for the duchess, once the Queen's favourite younger royal). Meanwhile, Sophie Rhys-Jones and the rehabilitated, sensible Edward, the last hope for a successful royal marriage, are steadily making all the right, understated moves, and the Queen is seen as grooming her for the job (she has a room in Edward's Buckingham Palace apartment). At least one match this generation may not end in disaster, although that is of cold comfort when the Queen opened the decade in the heart of her family. She has fared better within the Commonwealth, for while Australia and Canada have threatened republicanism, the smaller countries have remained staunchly loyal. In March she and her daughter came to Dunblane to pay tribute to the children and their teacher massacred by gunman Thomas Hamilton. The papers showed the Queen in tears, and the visit was felt, at least for one sad day, to have achieved what the Archbishop of York claimed as the true obligation of the British monarch: to represent the unity of the nation.

Top Gear boss admits the show had an 'annus horribilis' (From The Argus) Top Gear boss admits the show had an 'annus horribilis' Top Gear boss admits the show had an 'annus horribilis' / Press Association 2014 Top Gear boss Andy Wilman said last year was “an annus horribilis” for the controversial motoring show after it came under fire over claims of racism and caused a near-riot while filming in Argentina. Presenter Jeremy Clarkson had to apologise when unscreened footage emerged of him mumbling the n-word while reciting the children’s nursery rhyme “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” to choose between two cars and the show was also censured by Ofcom for breaching broadcasting rules after Clarkson used a “racial” term during the programme’s Burma special. The year ended with the motoring show’s crew forced to flee Argentina after trouble erupted when it emerged they were using a Porsche with the registration number H982 FKL, which some people suggested could refer to the Falklands conflict of 1982.

Jeremy Clarkson (Ben Stansall/PA Wire) Protests were organised by Argentinian veterans and stones were thrown at vehicles being used by cast and crew. Andy told Broadcast Magazine’s Talking TV podcast: “We’re knackered after last year because last year was a horrible year. I think it was a, what did the Queen say, an annus horribilis, I think it was.” (BBC) The Queen famously used the phrase in a 1992 speech after the fire at Windsor Castle. Andy, who was in Argentina when trouble erupted, also criticised the country’s ambassador to the UK who has demanded an apology from the BBC. He said: “She had every right to protect her country’s good name, but she really now needs to have a good think about the accusations she is throwing around.” (BBC) Asked if he thought the BBC trusted the programme’s makers, he said: “Sometimes yes, sometime no”, adding: “Sometimes I feel they don’t trust us at heart and actually apart from the very odd occasion we can be trusted.” Andy said the team behind the show were in talks with the corporation about signing a new deal. The latest series of the show starts on BBC2 on January 25.

'I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind leaving you for Camilla' - Telegraph UK News 'I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind leaving you for Camilla' Prince Philip tried to save the royal marriage but his letters could not quell Princess Diana's anger at Camilla. Caroline Davies reports 12:01AM BST 22 Oct 2003 The Queen and Prince Philip "never dreamed" that Prince Charles would choose his mistress over his wife and strongly disapproved of his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, according to letters allegedly written by Prince Philip to Diana, Princess of Wales. Their shock at the "War of the Waleses" was so great that Prince Philip bombarded the Princess with correspondence desperately hoping to help heal the rift between her and Prince Charles. Extracts from the letters, obtained by Paul Burrell, the former royal butler, and published in the Daily Mirror, show that Prince Philip assumed the role of mediator during the marriage breakdown in 1992 - the year the Queen would later refer to as her "annus horribilis".

Much of the correspondence was sympathetic and signed "with fondest love, Pa", while others were fired off in exasperation, according to Burrell. "We never dreamed he might feel like leaving you for her. I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind leaving you for Camilla. Such a prospect never even entered our heads", said one. Another, however, asked: "Can you honestly look into your heart and say that Charles's relationship with Camilla had nothing to do with your behaviour towards him in your marriage?" Burrell writes that Prince Philip assumed the mediator's role following the publication of Andrew Morton's book, Diana, Her True Story, and the Princess's less-than-candid denials that she had helped contribute to the controversial publication. A family summit was held, following Royal Ascot in June 1992 and attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales as well as Prince Philip and the Queen. In his book, A Royal Duty, which is being serialised in the Mirror, Burrell says the Princess vented her fury against Mrs Parker Bowles. Separation, she said, was the only answer.

"Both the Prince and the Princess were told that they must learn to compromise, be less selfish and try to work through their difficulties for the sake of the monarchy, their children, the country and its people," Burrell writes. The Princess declined to go to another such meeting, he said, and it was then that Prince Philip began his correspondence with her. "She never shredded the letters," writes Burrell. "Instead, she tied them into a bundle and kept them, a deliberate preservation of the truth, and she made several photocopies that she dispatched to friends she trusted." What stunned the Princess was when, according to Burrell, Prince Philip wrote that she should have been grateful that her husband had, initially, cut himself off from Mrs Parker Bowles. Prince Charles felt he had made "a considerable sacrifice" and the Princess had "not appreciated what he had done". Then, writes Burrell, "came the knock-out blow" that left the Princess sobbing - the letter that accused her of driving Prince Charles into the arms of Mrs Parker Bowles. One letter began: "Phew!!!. I thought I might have gone a bit too far with the last letter . .

." Burrell wrote: "The remarks kept punching away at the Princess's ego, delivered by the man she had held in great respect ever since she married into the family, and that was what bothered her most." What is evident from the extracts is that Prince Philip tried hard to reconcile the couple. When there were spiteful briefings against the Princess in the media, he wrote sympathetically about how he understood her problems with bulimia. "In one letter he recognised that bulimia could affect a sufferer's behaviour and said she could not be blamed for the behavioural patterns that the disease caused," wrote Burrell. "That admission was of huge significance to the Princess. "The Duke even made numbered lists of common interests and activities which might bring the couple together again." She remained a "great admirer" of Prince Philip and admired his honesty. "In meeting each other head-on, the Princess and the Duke of Edinburgh had broken down barriers and brought many unspoken issues into the open," he wrote. Burrell has delivered a series of bombshells since his acquittal on charges of stealing hundreds of items belonging to the Princess.

An unprecedented intervention by the Queen, suddenly remembering a conversation with Burrell five years previously in which he told her he had some items for safe-keeping, led to the dramatic collapse of his trial just as he was to enter the witness box. He subsequently sold his story to the Mirror for £300,000. He has criticised the Prince's former bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, and her former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, for breaking confidence and writing books about the Princess. Yesterday he justified his actions, saying: "I have watched and listened as many individuals claimed to know the truth about the Princess. What was claimed to be the truth is actually far from it. "I decided to write this book because someone has to stand up in the Princess's corner. People who loved her deserve to know the truth." On Monday he disclosed a letter said to be written by the Princess 10 months before her death in a car crash in Paris, and given to him, in which she voiced fears that her car brakes would be tampered with. The disclosure led Mohammed Fayed, whose son Dodi also died in the crash, to repeat his calls for a full public inquiry.

Yesterday the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "There has been an exhaustive investigation by the French authorities and there will be nothing to be gained from repeating that. There will be a routine coroner's inquest in Britain once the French legal processes are completed." The Queen at 90: across the decades | UK news | The Guardian The Guardian The Queen at 90: across the decades As Elizabeth II marks her milestone birthday, we chart her life from horse-mad child to UK’s longest reigning monarch The Queen at 90: across the decades Thursday 21 April 2016 01.00 EDT Pinterest The Duke and Duchess of York with their first daughter, Princess Elizabeth, at her christening in 1926. Photograph: PA When the home secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, is torn away from the pressing matter of the looming General Strike to witness the birth of Princess Elizabeth in 1926, in a tradition now mercifully consigned to history , no one imagines the newborn girl will be queen. Elizabeth is born third in line to the throne with her debonair uncle David, the Prince of Wales, the heir apparent.

Horse-mad from the earliest, Lilibet – as she is known – has her first riding lesson aged three, and acquires her first mount – a Shetland pony called Peggy – when she is four. The little princess ties dressing gown cords to her nursery bed posts as reins to drive her pretend horses. Some 30 toy horses are fed, watered, groomed and then “stabled” in a corridor each night. Such innocent revelations about Elizabeth and her sister Margaret, born in 1930, are later serialised in the US publication Ladies’ Home Journal, courtesy of royal governess Marion Crawford. Publication leads to the hapless former servant being ostracised by the royal family and the phrase “doing a Crawfie” is thereafter used to refer to unwelcome disclosures by royal staff. Crawfie later publishes The Little Princesses, confiding startling nuggets such as that when roused “Lilibet was quick with her left hook” while Margaret was “more of a close-in fighter, known to bite on occasions”. The former governess also documents how Lilibet once tipped a full ink pot over her own head while bored in a French lesson.

1936-1946: abdication and war Pinterest King George VI and Queen Elizabeth with their daughters after the king’s coronation in 1937. Photograph: PA Archive/Press Association Images Uncle David becomes Edward VIII, but Princess Elizabeth’s dreams of life as a country wife are shattered when the government balks at the prospect of American Catholic divorcee Wallis Simpson as his choice of queen. With the abdication crisis of December 1936, and her shy, stammering father crowned George VI, she becomes heiress presumptive. Only primogeniture can save her now, and she is seen on her knees before bedtime “ardently praying for a brother”, according to Countess Strathmore, her maternal grandmother. Queen photographed with youngest royals to mark 90th birthday Read more During a summer encounter with 13-year-old Elizabeth at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in 1939, distant cousin and dispossessed Prince Philip of Greece, 18, impresses with his agility by jumping over the college tennis nets several times. “I thought he showed off a good deal,” Crawfie sniffs later.

Elizabeth spends much of a decade dominated by war ensconced at Windsor, shielded from the blitz. In 1945 she joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service to become No 230873 second subaltern Elizabeth Windsor. On her 18th birthday Elizabeth is given Susan, her first corgi and the founder of her own canine dynasty. 1946-1956: motherhood and the crown Pinterest The royal family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace after the Queen’s coronation in 1953. Photograph: PA On a tour of South Africa with her parents, 21-year-old Elizabeth makes one of her most famous radio broadcasts. In a cut-glass accent she pledges: “I declare before you that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of the great imperial commonwealth to which we all belong.” Officially engaged on her return, she and newly naturalised Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten marry in November 1947. The New York Times declares the nuptials “a welcome occasion for gaiety in grim England, beset in peace with troubles almost as burdensome as those of the war”.

As a postwar bride Elizabeth is eligible for 200 extra clothing coupons. Philip’s sisters, who have married Germans, are not invited. Neither is the former Edward VIII and his wife, Wallis, both of whom have flirted with Hitler. Prince Charles is born in 1948 and sister Anne follows in 1950. Elizabeth enjoys the relatively carefree life of a young naval wife with Philip, who is stationed in Malta. But, while on an official visit to Kenya, she is told of the death of her father . She flies back to Britain and is proclaimed Queen on 8 February 1952. Churchill is prime minister, the first of 12 to have served her. 1956-66: politics and stamps Pinterest The Queen with the then prime minister, Harold Macmillan, in Oxford in November 1960. Photograph: Terry Disney/Getty Images The Suez crisis and Britain’s subsequent climbdown culminates in the resignation of the prime minister, Anthony Eden, on health grounds in 1957.

The Queen is placed in a tricky situation regarding his successor when she is forced to choose between “Wab or Hawold” – Rab Butler or Harold Macmillan – as Lord Salisbury, with his speech impediment, famously put it in cabinet soundings. After taking advice she asks Macmillan to form a government, to the astonishment of Fleet Street, which has widely expected Butler. She is sucked into another ugly Conservative party squabble in 1963, when an ailing Macmillan sneakily convinces her to choose Alec Douglas-Home as successor over Butler, the deputy prime minister. Feeling obliged to take his advice, she makes, according to the late historian Ben Pimlott, “the biggest political misjudgment of her reign”. The row that ensues leads the Conservatives to adopt Labour’s example and establish a leader selection process that will not embarrass the Queen again. The silver lining, according to aides at the time, is that Lord Home is much more her cup of tea than Butler, and the two can happily chat about dogs, shooting and Scottish estates. In 1960 Andrew is born, followed four years later by Edward . John F Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, are guests at the palace.

This decade also sees the failure of the then postmaster general, Tony Benn , to remove the Queen’s head from stamps, though he does manage to get it shrunk on some later designs. 1966-76: Aberfan and public scrutiny Pinterest From left, Prince Philip, Andrew, Charles, the Queen, Edward and Anne at Windsor. Photograph: Reginald Davis/Shutterstock Eight days after the Aberfan disaster , which saw 144 people, including 116 children, killed by the collapse of a tip of coal waste, the Queen visits the Welsh village. A small girl presents her with a posy and card reading “from the remaining children of Aberfan”. The fact it took so long for this royal visit is something the Queen later regrets. “Aberfan. She got that wrong and she knows it,” Lord Charteris, her former private secretary, once replied when asked if she had ever put a foot wrong. It is a less adoring public now, and Buckingham Palace believe cooperating with the 1969 fly-on-the-wall documentary The Royal Family will allow the monarch to connect more.

Footage includes her having a barbecue at Balmoral with the soon-to-be invested Prince of Wales on salad dressing and Philip on sausages. Philip does little to enhance this image of ordinariness, however, when he lets slip to the US broadcaster NBC that the civil list funds are so inadequate “we may have to move into smaller premises”. He’s already had to sell a small yacht, and may have to give up polo, he adds. A furore ensues leading to a parliamentary committee on the civil list, which serves to highlight that the Queen pays no tax and no death duties. 1976-86: the Thatcher years Pinterest The Queen talks to well-wishers in Greenwich during the silver jubilee celebrations, 1977. Photograph: ANL/Shutterstock The silver jubilee sees a million crowd on to the Mall in London, street parties and an exceptional period of popularity – despite the Sex Pistols – as the Queen renews her 1947 pledge: “Although that vow was made in my salad days when I was green in judgment, I do not regret one word of it.” Charles’s fairytale wedding to Diana Spencer adds to the excitement surrounding “the Firm”.

The palace is shocked to the core in 1979 when the IRA assassinates Philip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten, along with a local boy, Mountbatten’s grandson and the dowager Lady Brabourne , by blowing up his fishing boat in Sligo, western Ireland. The same year Anthony Blunt , her former surveyor of pictures, is unveiled as a Soviet spy. Two years later Marcus Sarjeant, 17, fires six blanks at Elizabeth during the trooping the colour ceremony. The Queen wins accolades for her skill in handling her startled mount, Burmese, and Sarjeant is prosecuted under the Treason Act and sentenced to five years. Palace security is found seriously wanting when unemployed decorator Michael Fagan manages to make his way into the Queen’s bedroom, where he comes face to face with the monarch. The election of Britain’s first female prime minister brings a different dynamic. While the women are cordial to each other, some courtiers carp that Margaret Thatcher acts more queenly than the queen. There is serious embarrassment all round when the Sunday Times runs a sensational story headlined “Queen dismayed by uncaring Thatcher”, which says Elizabeth disagrees with many of Thatcher’s policies.

The story is subsequently explained away as being a misunderstanding by a reporter of a palace press officer’s briefing. The opposition leader, Neil Kinnock, refusing to capitalise on political gold, puts it down to “loose-lipped courtiers and wide-eared reporters”. Nevertheless, Thatcher’s reluctance to impose sanctions on apartheid South Africa causes problems for a queen who is also head of the commonwealth. 1986-1996: decade of her annus horribilis Pinterest The Queen surveys the scene at Windsor Castle after the fire in 1992. Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA Three of the Queen’s four children get divorced, with Charles’s fairytale marriage imploding into “the war of the Waleses”. Andrew Morton’s sensational book Diana: Her True Story fuels the press. “Squidgygate”, an intimate call between Diana and gin heir James Gilbey, and “Camillagate”, an excruciatingly personal call between Charles and his then lover Camilla Parker Bowles, end up in the tabloids. Then Windsor Castle burns down. A desolate Queen, in raincoat, sheds a tear for her favourite residence.

In her 40th anniversary speech to guests at London’s Guildhall, she admits: “1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.” There is uproar when the government suggests paying for Windsor Castle’s repairs. The Queen ends up paying tax on her income, slimming down the civil list and funding the repairs by opening Buckingham Palace to a paying public. 1996-2006: mourning and jubilee Pinterest The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh ride in the Golden State Carriage at the head of a parade celebrating her golden jubilee in June 2002. Photograph: Sion Touhig/Getty Images Courtiers are shaken as a baying public decries the Queen as uncaring for staying at Balmoral, with grandchildren William and Harry, in the immediate aftermath of Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Anger dissipates when she returns to London, lowers the Buckingham Palace flag and makes an unprecedented TV address.

During her golden wedding celebrations, she praises Philip as “my strength and stay all these years”. Britannia, the royal yacht, is decommissioned, and rare royal tears are shed. She loses the two women who know her best when her sister, Margaret, dies on 9 February 2002 and the Queen Mother weeks later on 30 March. Golden jubilee celebrations continue, including a palace pop concert to which she and Philip wear earplugs. Pinterest The Queen’s speech in 2009. Photograph: Getty Images The Queen’s 80th birthday is widely celebrated and the BBC commissions Rolf Harris to paint an official portrait. The whereabouts of the picture today is a mystery. At 81 Elizabeth overtakes Victoria as the UK’s oldest monarch. She is hailed when she becomes the first British monarch to travel to the Republic of Ireland in 100 years, in 2011. The following year she puts any personal feelings over Mountbatten aside when she shakes the hand of former IRA commander and now Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness . She makes a visit to Bergen-Belsen, her first ever to a former concentration camp.

Her 2012 diamond jubilee is declared a success as she survives being buffeted and soaked on a barge during the Thames river pageant, though Philip ends up being taken to hospital with a bladder infection. The Queen surprises the world during the London Olympics by pretending to parachute into the opening ceremony, uttering the immortal line: “Good evening, Mr Bond.” For monarchists it’s a job well done when her grandson, William, and his wife, Catherine, produce an heir – and a spare . She becomes the UK’s longest reigning monarch but it is business as usual on the day she surpasses Victoria’s 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes. Elizabeth II: accidental queen turned beloved monarch Elizabeth II: accidental queen turned beloved monarch Denis Hiault Share View photos Britain's Queen Elizabeth II has posed for 139 portraits and given thousands of speeches, though never an interview, during her reign (AFP Photo/Robert Michael) More London (AFP) - She only became queen by a twist of fate but now, aged 89, Elizabeth II is about to become Britain's longest-serving monarch in a reign spanning the post-war era to the digital age.

A constant in an ever-changing world, she is at the height of her prestige and "embodies the history of the 20th century", according to historian Kate Williams. The queen has met most of the major figures in recent history, from India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Japanese emperor Hirohito and French general turned statesman Charles de Gaulle. South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela called her "my friend", while her reign has seen the construction and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. The sprawling British empire of the Victorian era, on which it was said that the sun never set, has shrunk to a few remnants during her reign. Most recently, Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997. Yet even in far-flung parts of the world, "when people refer to the queen they almost always mean our queen," said John Major, one of the 12 prime ministers to have held office during her reign. Britain's slender republican movement condemns a system based on inherited privilege. But for many, the queen is a mainstay in a multi-ethnic country increasingly riven by regional divisions, including in Scotland, which voted against independence last year.

- The ascent of 'Lilibet' - Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor's birth on April 21, 1926 was a relatively minor event for a world teetering between two world wars and just three years away from the Great Depression. The curly-haired "Lilibet" was destined for marriage, not the throne. But after reigning for just 325 days, her childless uncle Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. Princess Elizabeth's father inherited the crown as George VI and she suddenly became heir to the throne. When the young Elizabeth and her sister Margaret had to move to Buckingham Palace, she asked her nanny: "What -- you mean forever?" On her 21st birthday, she vowed to spend her life serving her country. On November 20, 1947 she married Philip -- a distant cousin who renounced his titles as prince of Greece and Denmark and his career in the Royal Navy to be with her. She has described him as "my strength and stay".

When George VI died at the age of 56 in 1952 she became queen aged just 25 and with two young children: Charles (born in 1948) and Anne (1950). Two others came later -- Andrew (1960) and Edward (1964). Her role is highly ceremonial and she remains above the fray of politics. Every year, she reads out the programme of the government of the day at the State Opening of Parliament. Her voice remains neutral and high-pitched, even when the proposals include measures she is suspected of opposing, such as banning the traditional sport of fox-hunting. "Ma'am" as her subjects address her, also presides over the Commonwealth composed of 54 members, including 15 former colonies where she is still the sovereign, such as Australia and Canada. Usually dressed in bright colours so as to be seen by everyone despite her petite size, she has carried out some groundbreaking and exotic visits including to China, the Vatican and the Cocos Islands. "The primary role of the monarchy is to sell the British brand and the queen is very good at it," said royal biographer Robert Jobson.

- 'Annus horribilis' to revival - Despite the widespread respect she now commands, her reign has had plenty of ups and downs. In 1981, her heir Charles married Diana in a fairytale wedding that quickly turned sour despite the birth of their two sons William and Harry. She called 1992 her "annus horribilis" when the marriages of three of her children -- Charles, Anne and Andrew -- fell apart and her castle in Windsor was badly burnt in a fire. In 1997, the queen was accused of being out of touch as her subjects wept for the death of Diana in a Paris car crash while she remained at her country estate in Scotland for days before coming to acknowledge the crowds of mourners in London. In the two decades since, though, there has been a remarkable turnaround for the monarchy -- helped along by a powerful communications machine. The queen has cut palace budgets and William's marriage to commoner Kate Middleton has helped create the image of a more modern monarchy.

Her 66-year-old son Charles is increasingly taking her place at public engagements but experts agree that she will most likely hold on to the end and not follow her Dutch and Spanish royal peers by abdicating. "It's possible going forward if she wasn't feeling particularly well or was physically infirm that her son Prince Charles could act as regent," said Jobson. "Nobody is saying she would abdicate." She has visited 132 countries, posed for 139 portraits and given thousands of speeches, though never an interview. Her private life is largely a mystery. The monarchy's official website says she still goes horse riding and has 30 Corgi dogs in her palaces. Rare indiscretions from palace insiders have revealed her love of the "Racing Post" newspaper's horse racing tips, a Dubonnet and gin before lunch and crossword puzzles. Reblog Queen Elizabeth's bad year | The Japan Times SHARE The year of Princess Diana’s death, 1997, was not Queen Elizabeth II’s “annus horribilis” as noted in the April 13 movie review “ Interpreting a right royal mess.

” Queen Elizabeth used this phrase in her Christmas message of 1992 to refer to the year in which Prince Charles’ and Prince Andrew’s marriages had both ended in disaster and a fire had devastated a large part of Windsor Castle. “1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.” peter mallett

Question: To which year in the 90s did the Queen refer as her annus horribilis?
Answer: 1992