The Queen and her prime ministers – the favourites and the blunders
She was very fond of her first PM – Sir Winston Churchill.
No-one is supposed to talk about the behind-the-scenes relationship between the sovereign and the prime minister of the day.
But the Queen’s reign saw 15 premiers and inevitably snippets leaked out.
However, like any other individual, the Queen had her favourites among those who passed through 10 Downing Street after her accession in 1952.
She established a great rapport with Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher sometimes alarmed her, and she found Harold Macmillan too patrician.
When Churchill retired in 1955, the Queen sent him a hand-written letter telling him how much she missed him and how no successor “will ever for me be able to hold the place of my first Prime Minister to whom both my husband and I owe so much and for whose wise guidance during the early years of my reign I shall always be so profoundly grateful”.
It was something she never forgot, and she offered him a dukedom on his retirement.
Afterwards, with tears in his eyes, he said: “I very nearly accepted. I was so moved by her beauty and charm and the kindness with which she made this offer.
“But I remembered that I must die as I have always been, Winston Churchill.”
Later, he reluctantly accepted a knighthood, probably because he did not want to hurt her feelings.
He had always said he wanted no memorial “except perhaps a park for children to play in”.
The Queen’s relationship with the starchy Sir Anthony Eden was certainly more formal and she found the urbanity of Mr Macmillan not very much to her taste.
Unwittingly, she allowed herself to become involved in Mr Macmillan’s machinations over his successor, later described as “the biggest political misjudgment of her reign”.
When she got the advice to call Sir Alec Douglas-Home, rather than the expected RA Butler (“not her cup of tea”), she reportedly expressed her pleasure.
An aide said: “He was an old friend. They talked about dogs and shooting together. They were both Scottish landowners, the same sort of people, like old schoolfriends.”
“They got on like a house on fire,” one long-standing member of the Labour Party said.
Once there, the Queen, on the spur of the moment, said to Mr Wilson: “Let’s go and see Mother.”
The pair then drove off together to visit the Queen Mother, without any detectives in attendance and with the Queen at the wheel.
However, she is said to have had difficulty in warming to Edward Heath, who always found small talk a problem.
Unlike Mr Wilson, Mr Heath could not make her laugh.
James Callaghan, another Balmoral picnicker, also established a warm rapport with the Queen.
He said: “One of the great things about her is that she always seems able to see the funny side of life. All the conversations were very enjoyable.”
“I think after every weekly talk you come away feeling better, a bit more confident than you were before.
“In politics nowadays it helps a great deal if you have a sympathetic ear.”
But things were very different with Mrs Thatcher, who reportedly found the traditional September weekend at Balmoral painful.
One observer wrote: “A weekend in the country with aristocrats who enjoy riding, shooting, sports and games is Thatcher’s idea of torture.
“But her dread of the weekend receded as the two women became somewhat more comfortable with one another.”
However, others have said the two women did not get on.
Another commentator said the Queen gave the impression that Mrs Thatcher was not her favourite woman.
Anthony Sampson wrote in 1982: “The relationship is the more difficult because their roles seem confused.
“The Queen’s style is more matter-of-fact and domestic while it is Mrs Thatcher (who is taller) who bears herself like a queen.”
But when Baroness Thatcher died in April 2013, the Queen took the unusual step of attending her ceremonial funeral – a personal decision and an indication of the Queen’s respect for her first – and at the time her only – female prime minister.
Some say the arrival of the genial John Major came as something of a relief to the Queen.
After Diana’s death in 1997, he was appointed a special guardian to William and Harry with responsibility for legal and administrative matters.
Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris a few months into Tony Blair’s term of office and he coined the phrase “the People’s Princess”, as well as trying to advise the royals on how to deal with the public mood.
He was described in some Palace quarters as a “head of state-in-waiting”, and there were courtiers who were not enamoured by what they saw as his encouragement of a “people’s monarchy”.
Neither Mr Blair, who later revealed details of his private conversations with the Queen in his memoirs, nor Gordon Brown, who was reported to have a good but formal relationship with the royals, was invited to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding in 2011.
Mr Cameron was caught on camera telling New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that the monarch had “purred down the line” when he telephoned and told her the result of the Scottish independence referendum.
He vowed never again to discuss his conversations with the Queen.
The Queen was reported to have been disappointed when Mrs May declined to share details of her plans for leaving the European Union during her first visit to Balmoral.
Mr Johnson was only a few hours into his post when he reportedly broke protocol by revealing what was said in his audience with the Queen as he accepted her invitation to form the next Government and become PM.
A correspondent for Euronews NBC said the outspoken politician claimed the monarch quipped “I don’t know why anyone would want the job”.
Mr Johnson, who disclosed the remarks during a tour in 10 Downing Street, was told off by staff who warned him not to repeat such things so loudly.
In 2022 she travelled to the Queen’s private retreat in the Scottish Highlands for the historic audience.
The monarch’s mobility issues had scuppered plans for her to make the trip to London.
