Not that she can’t be queenly, in her own way. Since childhood I have watched news footage of her sitting down to tea in the houses, flats and bungalows of her “subjects”, or by their hospital beds, or suddenly appearing in the middle of their local tragedies or sporting events, and I have yet to see any citizen of the kingdom remotely surprised to find their Queen amongst them. The reign of Elizabeth II has been marked not by grandeur and imperiousness – as it was with the first Elizabeth – but by a quality of intense familiarity, the by-product of the unprecedented replication of her image, for she is of course the most photographed Queen in history. Consider it: did ever a monarch seem more likely to prefer a nice flowery pelmet curtain to a white wooden shutter? Or a staycation (in front of the telly) to a glamorous Tuscan retreat or Caribbean break? Did any resident of Buckingham Palace – replete as it surely is with bone china and silver serving dishes – ever before have breakfast delivered to their table in air-tight plastic Tupperware alongside a copy of the Racing Post? There is no precedent for such a monarch in either our history books or our fairy tales. I think this is what accounts for her relative popularity, as compared to her clan – that touch of Mrs Windsor.
