100 years separates their reigns.
Different eras, different societies.
Almost different worlds.
Two women, Elizabeth and Victoria.
Two queens who have steered their course through periods
of extraordinary change.
In the British monarchy's 1,000-year history,
their like has rarely been seen, their longevity is unrivalled.
On the 9th of September,
Queen Elizabeth II will become the longest-reigning monarch
in British history. She will break the record
set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria,
who was on the throne for 63 years and seven months.
Yet, they became monarchs unexpectedly at a young age.
Neither Queen Victoria nor Queen Elizabeth
were born to be Queen,
and indeed there was no great expectation
that either of them would be.
I think certainly we'll look back and say
there's been the biggest changes in society
under these two female monarchs.
I think history will look back on them both and compare them,
because it's really so incredibly unique.
And both of them symbolise their country.
And that's what's so wonderful about monarchy,
it is a symbol above politics.
But what does it take to be a monarch who defines an era,
one who has the power to capture the hearts and minds of people
at home and abroad?
She is just brilliant.
At her age, to be still doing things like this, it is just fantastic.
I never really got this whole Queen thing, to be honest,
I really didn't.
But I've got it now. And I just...
OK, sorry, I posted on Facebook that I've fallen in love with the Queen!
As the Queen reaches this milestone,
we look at the long reigns of two extraordinary women,
and ask how they've managed to provide such enduring stability
in an ever-changing world.
It's March 2015 at Canterbury Cathedral.
And here she is, Elizabeth II,
the face of the modern monarchy.
She's here to unveil statues of herself and her husband,
Prince Philip...
..immortalised in stone next to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,
in this, the year Elizabeth becomes the longest-reigning monarch
in British history.
Though when she came into the world,
nobody expected that.
On April the 21st 1926,
a child was born to the Duke and Duchess of York,
Elizabeth and Prince Albert,
who was the second son of King George V.
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary came into this world a princess.
Her popular uncle, the Prince of Wales,
was next in line to the throne, followed by her father,
so no-one ever expected that one day Elizabeth would become Queen.
And she certainly wasn't born in a palace.
In fact, she was born right here...
..on Bruton Street in Mayfair. Now a restaurant.
A plaque is the only reminder that, before the bombings of World War II,
Elizabeth's home stood on this site.
And here they are, the family at their home in 1927.
A nanny and baby Elizabeth.
The young princess was expected to lead a relatively quiet life,
away from the full glare of the monarchy,
which is just what people thought at the birth of another royal infant.
Victoria was born in a palace, Kensington Palace,
on May the 24th 1819.
At birth, she was fifth in line to the throne.
And even though her mother was fiercely ambitious,
no-one could have known that Victoria
was destined to become Queen.
She too was raised quietly, away from court,
under the care of her strong-willed German mother, Victoria Marie Luise,
the Duchess of Kent.
- Here she is, Victoria. - Here she is. Victoria herself.
Victoria spent her childhood here in Kensington and she said herself,
"I had a very unhappy childhood."
And she was also a long way from the throne,
no-one thought she'd ever come anywhere near it.
Basically, when she was born, she was intended to be married
into other royal families, a very minor royal.
So no-one thought anything much of it.
By her own account, Victoria was brought up very simply
here in a suite of rooms on the first floor of Kensington Palace.
It was a privileged but isolated existence.
What we do know is that she remembered later on
this terrible, oppressive, melancholy childhood.
- We think it was a little bit more complex than that. - In what way?
Well, she was lonely, but she was also very imaginative.
She had 132 dolls
and they're all very neatly and in a very organised way
listed in her inventory which she kept at the time.
She must have had a sort of very, you know...
A dreamworld, the way she played with these dolls.
I suppose she had a lack of friends.
We wonder whether some of the costumes could possibly be made
- from fabrics that made Princess Victoria's dresses. - Really?
That's not something we're able to prove, but it's a possibility.
Before she was one, her grandfather and father died.
And when her uncle, George IV, passed away,
another uncle became King,
which meant she was next in line to the throne at the age of 11.
Life became even more restrictive.
Her mother kept her under pretty much lock and key.
They called it the Kensington System.
They wanted control of her.
So they kept her under 24-hour surveillance.
She wasn't allowed to have a single minute alone,
because what they wanted was her to come to the throne,
at, say, 10, 12, and they be the one in the power,
they be the one being Regent.
She was sheltered and protected
and she even shared a bedroom with her mother
until the day she became Queen, at the age of 18.
In stark contrast, Elizabeth's early life was happy and carefree.
She had the constant companionship of her younger sister,
Princess Margaret, and her parents,
a family who affectionately called themselves "We Four".
They had the common touch.
They had ordinary Scottish nannies looking after their girls.
When it was her birthday,
Bobo MacDonald taught her how to iron the wrapping paper of her presents
and put it away in a drawer so that she could reuse it.
But she went on the bus, she went to the museums,
and, all the time, in those early years,
she was just being prepared
for the life of a young lady of the middle-to-upper classes.
But all that changed suddenly in 1936.
It was the year of the three kings.
In January, King George V, Elizabeth's grandfather, died.
Her uncle took the throne as King Edward VIII.
But his reign lasted just 325 days.
He abdicated in order to marry
the twice divorced American Wallis Simpson.
By December that year,
Elizabeth's father was King.
Elizabeth moved here to Buckingham Palace with her family
at the age of just ten.
Her father was now King
and it must have been a huge change for the young princess,
who until then had been raised in a more modest family home,
albeit in Mayfair.
It was 1937,
exactly 100 years after Queen Victoria had arrived here,
at the age of 18.
Victoria left Kensington Palace just weeks after becoming Queen.
Her first requests were for time alone at last away from her mother
and a bedroom of her own.
She got much more than that.
Victoria became the first monarch to make Buckingham Palace
her official residence.
Over the years, she transformed the place, and visitors to this day
are still met by the paintings of her nearest and dearest.
How much did Queen Victoria change Buckingham Palace and why?
Well, I think she wanted to make it a centre of court life
and court life, I think, of a very different sort.
I mean, the thing about the monarchy in the middle of the Victorian period
was that it became respectable for the first time.
And really this was a palace which was going to house a court
which was the epitome of the kind of new morality
of the family and of society.
Elizabeth has transformed this palace in another way.
In 1962, she opened the Queen's Gallery
to give the paying public access to the Royal Art Collection.
In 1993, she opened the doors even wider -
tens of thousands now take the chance to wander through
the State Rooms, with ticket and gift shop sales
going towards the upkeep of the artworks and royal residences.
This evening, 300 guests are invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace
for the Queen's Award for Enterprise,
now in its 50th year.
And each guest is greeted personally.
It means a huge amount to these businesses.
You could be in China, you could be in India and Brazil,
people will see the emblem of these awards and they will know
that you've got that because you're a very successful British business
and it actually then leads to more business,
which is great news for Britain.
It's such a boost to me personally, to my confidence,
as a businesswoman, but obviously to the business.
I've met so many fantastic other businesses.
So I look forward to a lot more business networking, as well.
The questions she was asking tonight were quite interesting.
They were very business orientated, and she obviously knows
what's going on, which is great, you know.
The Queen herself is such an inspiration for all of us.
And for women in general.
I think, you know, I mean, an inspiration of hard work,
dedication, you know, like, what entrepreneurs should look up to.
Buckingham Palace, it's such an iconic building.
It's hard to imagine that it hasn't always looked like this.
But Queen Victoria wanted to extend the palace,
and so she sold Brighton Pavilion to pay for it
and added on this whole frontage,
everything you can see now,
including of course one of the most famous balconies in the world.
Here's Victoria in 1893,
first photographed on the balcony.
And Elizabeth, her great-great-granddaughter,
making her debut, as a baby.
Across time,
the balcony became a sort of rallying point for the nation,
no more so than in May 1945, when war in Europe ended,
and the crowds called for her father, George VI,
as Elizabeth stood proudly by him in her uniform.
Growing up during World War II shaped the future Queen.
In 1940, she was the teenager who gave this radio broadcast
for children forced to evacuate their homes.
My sister, Margaret Rose, and I feel so much for you,
as we know from experience what it means to be away
from those we love most of all.
You would have thought that the Royal Family would have been
moved a long way away to safety, but instead the princesses came here.
They lived here in Windsor Castle for much of the war.
And the castle was stripped of all its finery,
the paintings were removed and hidden in caves in Wales and other places.
And it was a very much diminished castle,
except for the magnificence of the buildings.
There was a big air-raid shelter built under one of the towers,
which no-one liked using, but they did when the air-raid sirens sounded.
As the bombing raids of the Blitz hit,
it was suggested that the princesses should be evacuated,
to which the Queen Mother had an immediate reply.
She said, "The children would never leave without me.
"I would never leave without the King.
"And the King will never leave."
Indeed, in September 1940,
the King and Queen were very nearly killed when a German bomber
flew up The Mall and dropped its bombs directly on Buckingham Palace.
They concealed how nearly they came to death.
They realised instantly that they had to be
the focal point of the nation at war.
And that was transferred to Princess Elizabeth
and we have seen that, ever since,
duty is what has defined her and led her and inspired her.
Elizabeth, unlike Victoria,
was able to learn the art of being a monarch from her parents.
But both entered public life in the same way and in the same place,
each showing their commitment to the Armed Forces.
Queen Victoria came here to Windsor Castle
to review her troops for the first time when she was just 18.
A century later, Elizabeth, then still a princess,
followed in her footsteps on her 16th birthday.
It was her first official engagement.
NEWSREEL: The British Grenadiers
then marched past her Royal Highness, the Colonel.
She's back. It's April 2015.
Now 89, the Queen is presenting new colours
to the 1st Battalion, the Welsh Guards.
OFFICER GIVES ORDER
She knows the military inside out,
and played her part in the war effort
when she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service
at the age of 18.
One of the things she did was to learn how to strip down a truck.
And there are famous pictures of her doing so.
And she worked with other people who had been called up,
who were serving, from all walks of life.
And I think that was her first proper introduction
to life outside of the family.
And these were all sort of incremental steps in her training,
if you like, towards being the monarch.
OFFICER GIVES ORDER
Her Majesty the Queen knows absolutely everything
that's happening in the ceremonial state occasion.
But she knows that I'm there
to just make sure those people that don't know are led and guided
so that they can give the best performance.
I'm inspired by her. An absolutely wonderful lady.
I mean, the Queen is what we fight for,
fighting for the country
and she's sort of the head of the Army
and our regiment, so it's extremely special for the boys.
Do you think that the Queen really does understand what you do,
- what you go through? - 100%. 100%.
She... I think she probably knows more than anyone in her time
of understanding what sacrifice for the country is,
and she's an extremely, extremely special person.
Recognition from the monarch has always been highly prized.
At the end of the Crimean War, in 1856,
Queen Victoria introduced the Victoria Cross for bravery.
A medal has been created in Elizabeth's name, too,
the Elizabeth Cross,
for the next of kin of British servicemen and women
killed on military operations or by terrorism.
Two recent tours of Afghanistan have seen the Welsh Guards lose nine men.
Lieutenant Mark Evison was one of them.
- You have been awarded the Elizabeth Cross... - Yeah.
- ..in memory of your son. - Yes.
Just explain what the Elizabeth Cross is
and how important it is to you.
Most awards that are given are given to soldiers,
but this is something for the families,
which is actually saying, you know,
the families are involved in this, as well.
However prepared one is for soldier death,
it leaves a huge hole in families everywhere,
Afghanistan and the Falklands and everywhere.
And it's really important to acknowledge that.
And so, erm, this memory,
this little cross, signifies that, really.
Elizabeth is the daughter, mother and wife of military men.
By her side today, as he has been for every step of her reign,
is Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
They got to know one another in 1939,
as Elizabeth accompanied her parents on an official visit
to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.
The cadet assigned to show her around was Philip,
a prince by birth of Greece and Denmark,
also a great-great-grandchild of Victoria's.
The Queen saw him, this handsome, young Viking,
with his sense of humour.
I think right at the start his lack of reverence,
his sense of informality appealed to her,
as well as his stunning good looks.
They became pen pals,
with Elizabeth keeping a photo of a bearded Philip,
as he fought for his adopted country, Britain.
It was a love match.
And in 1946, after a holiday at Balmoral,
they got engaged and...
Though secretly,
because the King and Queen asked them to postpone the public announcement
until the following year.
- NEWSREEL: - The Royal Family and Princess Elizabeth's fiance
have permitted these special film studies
to be made in response to the rapidly mounting worldwide interest
in the forthcoming royal wedding on the 20th of November
in Westminster Abbey.
I, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary...
- ..take thee, Philip... - ..take thee, Philip...
- ..to my wedded husband... - ..to my wedded husband...
..to have and to hold...
They wed when Elizabeth was 21.
After 67 years,
the marriage of the Queen and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh,
is longer than that of any other British sovereign.
It's a cornerstone of Elizabeth's reign.
As she's said in several tributes to him,
he is the rock on which her work as a monarch has been based.
He has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years,
and I and his whole family, and this and many other countries,
owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim or we shall never know.
Queen Victoria had her rock, too.
For Victoria and now Elizabeth, a vital thread through their lives
has been the love and support of their husbands.
Both married European princes,
both met their husbands-to-be when they were very young
and then got to know them slowly through letters.
He also looked like a film star.
I mean, there's something very romantic in the fact that both
Prince Albert and Prince Philip were both sort of
gorgeous to look at, you know. That builds up the whole fairy tale.
Victoria was 16 when she met Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
He was her first cousin from Germany.
It was determined more or less from childhood onwards
that Victoria would marry one of those Coburg children.
There were some other candidates for her to marry,
but that was the obvious one.
And it was her great luck that she fell in love with him, besottedly,
it was a real love affair, and love match, from the beginning.
They kept in touch by letters and she described him
as "so sensible, so kind and so good, and so amiable too."
She really hadn't had a chance to have anyone to love.
She and her mother had been at loggerheads,
she had no sister, no friend,
no father, so she had been a very lonely child
and all this passion had really pent up inside her.
Obviously, Victoria's wedding to Albert
on a grisly February day is essentially
a private service.
Victoria herself said that she noted every detail - indeed,
she does appear to have noted every detail in her journal afterwards.
I think for Victoria it was a wonderful day in every way.
The couple were married in 1840.
Victoria was already Queen, so she had to propose to him.
They went on to have nine children.
Albert brought an experience of the world Victoria had never known.
He developed a strong interest in arts and culture,
and built the Italian Gardens in Kensington
as a testimony of his love for her.
She rejoiced in her marriage to Albert
and it had for her a significance only rivalled by her coronation day.
Victoria's coronation came after the death of her uncle, William IV.
It's one of the quirks of the hereditary system
that one is expected both to mourn and rejoice at the same time -
mourn the death of one sovereign, rejoice in the accession of the next.
I think in 1837 there is a definite imbalance.
There is notably more rejoicing than mourning.
She loves being Queen at the age of 18.
She tells the wife of her courtier that she woke up one morning
afraid it might all turn out to be a dream.
She thoroughly enjoys the dream.
400,000 people flocked to London for her coronation,
helped by the transport revolution, the railways,
and the hopes of a nation resting on youthful shoulders,
something shared by only two women in more than 100 years.
Elizabeth's path to accession came in 1952. In January,
she and Philip were waved off at the airport by her father,
King George VI, as they began a Commonwealth tour in his name.
It was the last time they would see one another.
He was only 56.
- ARCHIVE: - On February 6th, 4,000 miles away from London,
Princess Elizabeth was brought the news the world was soon to hear.
It was announced from Sandringham at 10:45 today
that the King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health,
passed peacefully away in his sleep earlier this morning.
People were shocked by the death of the King.
It wasn't anticipated,
except in an inner circle, who knew just how ill he was.
Elizabeth returned to London in mourning,
a young woman who now held the future of the monarchy in her hands.
For four days, King George VI lay in state in Westminster.
I remember walking past the catafalque of King George VI.
My mother took me and my brother Rory, and I was only three,
and we queued for hours - you can't imagine that now, can you?
Queuing for hours outside Westminster Hall,
but she said, "You will remember, you will remember this all your life,
"and this is something we owe him."
The nation mourned for the man who had saved the British monarchy.
He passed on the essential value of duty to his daughter,
something his great-grandmother Victoria understood well herself.
In 1838, Queen Victoria, at the age of 19,
came here to Westminster Abbey for her coronation.
Just over a century later,
her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth followed in her footsteps
and was crowned right here in the very same place.
More than 8,000 people packed the abbey that day
and millions were watching on the television around the world.
Elizabeth was 27 years old and the mother of two young children.
ORCHESTRA PLAYS AND CHOIR SINGS: I Was Glad by CHH Parry
How was Elizabeth received at the Coronation?
We all became romantics on a huge, collective scale
and of course, the setting in this abbey, where the very stones talk,
with the old statesmen in marble looking down on her,
Disraeli, Gladstone, Peel,
we were right in the middle of this wonderful combination
which the Brits pride themselves on, or did, of juxtaposing
tradition and modernity and making the two work together,
but above all, the young woman sitting just over there.
FANFARE PLAYS
It's seared across the Velcro of memory
and it's a very dazzling searing
because post-war London was very drab.
We had lost a third of our wealth in the war
and there was still rationing. Very few people had any new clothes
and yet suddenly in amidst this heroic drabness,
there was the starburst of the Coronation,
of the new beautiful young queen.
CHOIR: Zadok The Priest
I remember it. I was on Victoria Embankment
and it was a kind of magic moment when the great golden coach went by
and then this smiling figure,
it was one of the moments of the reawakening of the country
after a long and tense and deprived period.
And for those who weren't there,
thanks to the revolution of television, the nation could watch from their living rooms.
27 million people in Britain in June 1953
watch at least half a day's television coverage.
The number of BBC licence holders doubles that day, so there is
this sense of what newspapers referred to as "Coronation fever".
We've only known in recent years that it was in fact the Queen
who said yes, it ought to be televised,
an acknowledgement that the...
..the monarchy, as it were, belongs to the people,
you've got to, with the new means of communication.
CROWD CHEERS
And then this smiling figure,
just all the diamonds refracting and with the Duke of Edinburgh, I mean,
I remember it so absolutely vividly.
Five months after her coronation,
Elizabeth returned to the Commonwealth tour she had begun
before her father's death.
Now she was Queen, and also Head of the Commonwealth of Nations,
which from small beginnings has expanded during her reign
to take in 53 countries.
She has visited almost all of them.
I think historians will look back
on the reign and achievements of Elizabeth II
and pick out the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth is a real family.
It's so successful that countries that are not former British colonies
have asked to join and been allowed to join.
For Victoria, she was Empress of India,
with the reach of a global superpower, the British Empire.
Not that she saw much of it.
Britain did rule half the world and it stretched everywhere,
from Canada to Australia
and included great tracts of Asia and Africa,
and it's true that Queen Victoria didn't visit any of these places.
She was very much in touch and thinking about them a lot.
She became besotted with India and Indian culture in her later years.
She taught herself Hindustani
and she could speak a little bit of Urdu.
She would have loved to go to India but they didn't let her,
so in her mind and her spirit, she travelled,
completely unlike Queen Elizabeth, who actually travels.
Queen Elizabeth II has crisscrossed the globe for more than 60 years.
Here and abroad, she has shaken the hands of history.
It's June 2015 and once again
the red carpet is laid out on foreign soil.
This is Berlin's Tegel Airport, where the Queen's plane is
touching down at the start of her four-day state visit to Germany.
It's been pouring with rain here all day.
It's going to be a soggy reception,
but that will not faze the most well-travelled monarch in history.
The Queen first came to Germany on a state visit in 1965.
It was a country still divided by Cold War Communism.
Her visit was a gesture of solidarity and a step towards
normalising relations with Germany in the decades after World War II.
People still remember the impact of that historic visit.
I thank you warmly for your welcome.
For my husband and me, it is a deeply moving experience
to be with you here in this courageous and famous city.
CHEERING
50 years on, Germany, now a unified country, has changed dramatically.
The welcome for the Queen hasn't.
- WOMAN IN CROWD: - Oh, my God!
CHEERING
Wherever the Queen goes, she brings with her a sense of occasion, and
there's been real excitement here in Germany in the run-up to this visit.
She's on every front page today and the papers are full
of what to do, what to wear if you meet her,
and German television has been running British-themed programmes,
and that's the thing about the Queen - wherever she goes,
she brings with her an indefinable something that no-one else can.
The Queen is our big differentiator in the eyes of many
of our foreign partners and friends.
They deal with other governments, they deal with other heads of state,
but the Queen is something completely unique
and you see that in the reaction of the crowds lining the streets.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Two of the most powerful women in the world - one a monarch,
the other the German Chancellor, who has been dubbed the Queen of Europe,
and given the question mark over the future of Britain in the EU,
the timing of this state visit
is being seen as something of a diplomatic coup.
CAMERAS CLICK
I think for many people, for many different reasons,
this is a very important visit, a very important moment,
and it brings Britain and Germany closer together
at a time which is, for us,
actually, very important for there to be good and close relationships.
As a constitutional monarch,
the Queen must remain politically neutral.
Hers is more of a personal power.
Arriving at the state banquet, she is wearing Queen Victoria's rubies
as she delivers words echoing a lifetime of experience.
We know that division in Europe is dangerous and that we must guard
against it in the west as well as in the east of our continent.
That remains a common endeavour.
Flying the flag for the United Kingdom at the British Ambassador's
residence in Berlin.
Every year a garden party is held to honour the Queen,
but this is the first time
she and the Duke of Edinburgh have actually been able to attend.
The interest in Germany in the Queen is already big.
People have been thinking about the institution of the monarchy
and about the overall relationship
between Germany and the United Kingdom.
In diplomatic speak, we would call it "soft power".
It's what the Queen stands for, it's the values that she embodies,
and that has deep impact.
With all those disputes we do have at the moment in Europe
about Britain and Europe and the rest of the world,
it's important that we do have this unifying personality.
She's there and she stands for something
and a value that is not changing, so it's like an authority.
All the emotions here at this garden party that show that there is
a very strong belief in Germany that, "Please stay in the EU, we need you."
- I never... - Very smiley and talkative, actually.
Yeah, and I never really got this whole Queen thing,
to be honest, I really didn't, but I've got it now and I just...
OK, sorry, I posted on Facebook
that I've fallen in love with the Queen!
In Germany's modern democracy,
sections of the wall which once separated East from West
in the Cold War now stand only as symbolic fragments.
And this is a country which remembers its deeper past,
those who were killed in one of the most dreadful persecutions in history.
70 years ago, British forces liberated this camp
and they discovered, much to their horror, that on this very soil,
tens of thousands of people had died in a most horrific fashion.
It was liberated by World War II Allied troops in April 1945.
70 years later, it is the Queen's request that
she and the Duke of Edinburgh end their German state visit by paying
their respects at the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
And for some, the memories are very personal.
To me, it was just one huge horror story...
..how any human beings could treat other human beings in this way.
Just incredible.
I don't think there was a sort of screaming of joy,
because everybody thought, "We must be dreaming.
"We hear an English voice. What?" You know, that wasn't...
That wasn't what we were preparing us for, we were preparing us to die.
Her visit shows that she takes human suffering seriously,
she identifies with the pain and deep suffering of the Jewish people,
and together with so many other people,
she's absolutely determined to guarantee that the horrors
that took place here in Belsen will never happen anywhere else again.
In Britain, religion and the monarchy are forever intertwined.
Since King Henry VIII famously separated the English Church
from Rome, every monarch has become Defender of the Faith
and Head of the Church of England.
Victoria - she was devout, outspoken on church matters,
she even wrote about her views on sermons in her diaries.
I think that sincerity of faith
is something that Queen Victoria shares with Elizabeth II.
I feel absolutely sure that both women, in what is unquestionably
a very lonely position, have felt upheld at moments,
many moments, possibly, in their reign,
by a very strong Christian faith.
Many have found the practice of quiet personal reflection
surprisingly rewarding,
even discovering greater spiritual depth to their lives.
In her Christmas broadcasts, she talks often about how
the teachings of Christ are what inform and inspire her.
The Christmas message shows us that this love is for everyone.
There is no-one beyond its reach.
Elizabeth II has always had her feet very firmly on the ground,
but spiritually she's got this dimension in which
her personal faith is linked to her duty as a monarch.
And each monarch also has
formal duties in relation to the government of the day.
It was during Victoria's reign
that political power moved away from the sovereign,
but she still kept a keen interest in the details of political life,
as does Queen Elizabeth, who at the start of her reign
decided to change the monarch's regular meetings
with the Prime Minister into a weekly affair, the Audience.
When Parliament sits, the Prime Minister arrives for
their regular meeting, where the Queen has what has been described
as "the right to be consulted, to encourage and to warn"
with an accumulated wisdom
gained over the course of 12 British Prime Ministers.
The Prime Minister, Your Majesty.
Good evening, ma'am.
Her first PM was Winston Churchill,
who'd known Elizabeth since she was a child, and was the only
elected Member of Parliament under both Victoria and Elizabeth.
Well, Churchill was in love with her. There's no other way of putting it.
A member of his private office said that he was dotty about her,
and felt very protective of her
and wanted to ease her into the duties of monarchy.
And she receives the red boxes daily
containing cabinet and foreign and Commonwealth papers.
She's been terribly well informed. When you think about it,
the first weekly intelligence summary
she got from the Joint Intelligence Committee in February 1952
would have had at least a section on it, I'm sure,
of Stalin's capabilities and military intentions. Can you imagine it?
The long reigns of Elizabeth and Victoria mean they have
had to steer their way through periods of extraordinary change.
Queen Victoria's reign saw the Industrial Revolution,
economic progress and the growth of the British Empire.
Scores of grand buildings went up during the Victorian age,
many of which are still with us today, like this one,
the Victoria and Albert Museum.
It houses one of the largest collections of decorative
art and design in the world.
So, what is Victoria and Albert's legacy in terms of art and culture?
It's fundamental. I mean, this museum, as you know,
is the Victoria and Albert Museum, and that name is not an accident.
It was renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899
and it was one of Queen Victoria's last public appearances
when she came to lay the foundation stone of the front of our museum.
How big a role did Victoria and Albert have in
bringing the arts to the people?
Throughout her life, and indeed throughout Albert's life,
they were actively promoting education and culture,
art and science. This whole complex at South Kensington
is thanks to the way they supported and promoted these activities.
So much so that this area became known as Albertopolis,
also taking in the Albert Memorial,
Victoria's vast tribute to the man she adored,
who died at the age of 42.
The great expansion seen in the Victorian age
has not been repeated during Elizabeth's reign.
Instead there have been huge leaps in science, technology,
medicine, even space travel, and far greater freedom and tolerance.
In an age of rapid innovation and cultural change,
the Queen recognises pioneers from every field.
At Windsor Castle,
she has a gathering of the holders of the Order of Merit.
It's a celebration of the elite from music, art, medicine,
astronomy, architecture, theatre.
Queen Victoria may have been the first monarch to try the telephone
with none other than the inventor, Alexander Graham Bell,
but it was Elizabeth who in 1958
made the first direct-dialled long-distance telephone call.
PHONE RINGS DOWN THE LINE
This is the Queen speaking from Bristol.
Good afternoon, Lord Provost.
Good afternoon, Your Majesty.
She was the first British monarch to send an e-mail, in 1976,
and has a Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr account in her name.
CROWD CHANTS: We want the Queen! We want the Queen!
In the monarchy's 1,000-year history, only two British sovereigns
have marked their Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees...
CHEERING
..Victoria and Elizabeth.
To mark her 60 years on the throne, Elizabeth chose to be photographed
in front of the Queen Victoria Memorial
with the diamonds worn by Victoria more than a century earlier.
And if a Jubilee celebration is a test of popularity,
it's one the Queen easily passed.
Hundreds of thousands turned out to celebrate.
BAND PLAYS: God Save The Queen
Her speech that year
seemed to recognise her unique place in the world.
I have been privileged to witness some of that 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.
Hip-hip!
Hurray!
- Hip-hip! - Hurray!
Hip-hip!
Hurray!
APPLAUSE
And then, that same year, for the London Olympics,
the Queen was cast in a brand-new light.
Mr Bond, Your Majesty.
The first royal Bond girl.
CLOCK CHIMES
HE CLEARS HIS THROAT
Good evening, Mr Bond.
Good evening, Your Majesty.
A long reign can bring challenges.
Unlike Elizabeth, Victoria had to spend almost four decades
without her beloved husband by her side.
Queen Victoria did flag after the death of Prince Albert,
not for the rest of her reign, as some people mistakenly think,
it was really for about ten years that she was much more in retirement,
and she worked all the way through it. I mean,
there's a fantasy that she was just lying on her day bed in sobs.
I mean, in fact, she did work,
but she found the public, the performance role of the monarch
too difficult in those years.
The politicians constantly feared, because she was so reclusive and shy
and didn't like waving from balconies and didn't wear crowns,
that somehow or another she was out of touch,
and in a very mysterious way, she wasn't.
In June 1897, Queen Victoria was persuaded to make an effort
for her Diamond Jubilee.
She was captured in this rare footage
and she had an empire to call upon.
London had never seen anything like it,
the Bengal Lancers, people from all over the world, African warriors,
parading through the streets
with all their wonderful costumes and uniform.
It was partly a demonstration of this extraordinary
political stability, that this...
institution which had been so fragile in 1837 was now
going stronger than ever in 1897,
thanks to this very eccentric, clever but strange woman sitting in
an open carriage riding through the streets of London in a black bonnet.
The whole place was alive with excitement.
Both Victoria and then Elizabeth came here to St Paul's Cathedral
to mark their Diamond Jubilees.
For Victoria, who by then was 78, it was a rare public appearance.
She was still mourning Albert decades after his death,
and she was frail, too - too frail to climb these stairs and go inside,
so instead, when her carriage drew up here in front of jubilant crowds,
she remained in it and the whole service came out to her.
But we do know what Queen Victoria thought about her Diamond Jubilee.
She wrote about it in her journals
and just a few years ago, Queen Elizabeth had them all put online.
Victoria wrote, "A never to be forgotten day.
"No-one ever, I believe, has met with such an ovation
"as was given to me passing through those six miles of streets,
"including Constitution Hill. The crowds were quite indescribable
"and their enthusiasm truly marvellous and deeply touching.
"The cheering was quite deafening,
"and every face seemed to be filled with real joy.
"I was much moved and gratified."
As well as being visible,
the monarch must connect with every part of the United Kingdom.
OFFICER GIVES ORDER
Today the Queen, a direct descendant of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots,
arrives in Edinburgh for Holyrood Week.
It starts with the ancient Ceremony of the Keys,
unchanged since Victoria's time.
I think it's a very significant process
because it's the presentation of the city's keys to the monarch
but also, you know, for people of the city, it's a meaningful event
because it's about the Queen's authority in the city.
It's also about a welcome for garden party guests
in the spectacular grounds of the palace.
Royal garden parties were introduced by Victoria
at Buckingham Palace in the 1860s
and brought here to Scotland by Elizabeth's grandfather, George V.
This is the Queen attending as a child.
8,000 people have been invited to this garden party
at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It's an annual event
that has been hosted here throughout the Queen's long reign
and it's all about celebrating Scottish achievement and heritage.
BAND PLAYS: God Save The Queen
She's just brilliant.
At her age to be still doing things like this, it is just fantastic.
I think today has been a very good example of exactly what
we as a country do well and I think she's at the very heart of that.
And the fact she visits our islands, you know, she embraces it all,
the parts of Scotland that we love.
Her and the Duke have done a marvellous job over the years
and I hope they'll have many more.
APPLAUSE
What, over the six decades of her reign, has been done
is the knitting together, I think,
of an extraordinarily, ever richer tapestry of Scottish life.
My lot are part of the older threads
but every year, through this great gathering,
new, fresh threads are added.
The Queen has deep personal connections to Scotland.
Her mother grew up here. Her sister, Princess Margaret, was born here.
In fact, she was the first royal baby to be born in Scotland
for more than 300 years, and since she was a child,
Scotland is where the Queen has always come on her family holidays.
NO SOUND
During late summer and autumn, the Queen still enjoys her longest
spell of privacy in the place she has visited since childhood.
It's a tradition started by Victoria, who in her 20s was only
the second reigning British monarch to venture north of the border
since the days of Charles I.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert fell in love with Scotland.
Prince Albert saw Germany in it, he was reminded of Germany,
the sort of forests of firs and all that kind.
Queen Victoria was privy to a kind of ordinary life up there
that was more difficult in Windsor or in London.
Victoria did deerstalking and watercolours
and long walks in the heather and getting rained upon and all that.
I think there is something about its sort of vastness
when you get up into the Highlands,
that sense of being far away in this kind of mountain kingdom.
Victoria and Albert bought land here
which they developed, building the magnificent Balmoral Castle.
Balmoral was very carefully chosen up on a bluff
with the forest quite far back and the water very much below and so on,
and it became their own place,
you know, it wasn't a house of the British monarchy,
it was the house of Victoria and Albert,
and that meant a great deal to her.
The home lovingly designed by Albert for Victoria
now belongs to Elizabeth.
A private residence but no longer just a royal idyll,
for 18 weeks of the year, it's open to the paying public.
As she grew older, Victoria spent much of her life at Balmoral.
She was here on Wednesday the 23rd of September 1896,
the day she overtook her grandfather King George III's record.
She wrote, "Today is the day
"on which I have reigned longer by a day than any English sovereign."
Just days after Victoria had become the longest-reigning monarch,
she was pictured right here beneath the terrace at Balmoral.
It was a very special moment and that's because
it was the first time that Victoria had ever been captured on film.
Here she is, surrounded by dogs, children and grandchildren,
Victoria, a focus of national unity,
who chose to mark her momentous day quietly.
Elizabeth will also be in Scotland
but will carry out some official engagements.
This is where Queen Victoria was on the day that she became
the longest-reigning monarch in British history,
and this is also where her great-great-granddaughter,
Queen Elizabeth, will be when she passes that record
on the evening of Wednesday September the 9th.
She will have been on the throne for 23,226 days.
There will be no fuss, no grand celebration,
it's business as usual, we're told, but all the same, it is a remarkable
achievement and something none of us will ever again see in our lifetime.
Even for those that don't think about the monarchy
or don't follow it particularly, the fact that she is there
and it's there as an institution and she never puts a foot wrong...
CHEERING
I don't think we should withhold our gratitude to both women
for keeping this institution, which I think many people cherish
in spite of all the jokes they make about it.
By being inscrutable, untouchable, unfashionable and unfaddish,
the Queen remains a concept that all people potentially can connect with
and I think that's a very important
and valuable aspect of our national life.
And she simply is always out there, meeting people,
speaking to people and very much identifying herself with
the whole population, not just one certain group of it.
Politicians come and go when they talk about the big society.
The Queen and the Royal Family have practised it
and continue to practise it in all sorts of ways, and that stems
totally from the sense of duty
and religious convictions of Elizabeth II.
This is a great country and one of the reasons it's great
is because we have had this continuity of kings and queens
for so many centuries, and this queen is probably going to be seen
as one of the greatest of all.
I think what she has done is
she has made us all believe again in the viability of the institution
she represents, and to me, that's a great achievement.
I declare before you all that my whole life,
whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service
and to the service of our great imperial family
to which we all belong.
But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone
unless you join in it with me
as I now invite you to do.
I know that your support will be unfailingly given.
God help me to make good my vow
and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.