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At the end of one of the royal couple’s many trips to Canada, a well-meaning if unimaginative official asked Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh: “How was your flight?” It’s the kind of mindless chat that drives the Queen’s hubby to distraction. “Have you flown in a plane,” he asked the hapless official. “Yes? Well, it was just like that.” Queen Elizabeth II, his wife of 62 years, would never be so cutting. One has to wonder, though, after 58 years on the throne, some 375 functions a year and visits to 132 nations, give or take, if the 84-year-old monarch isn’t tempted at times to let fly a zinger or two.
Inevitably, when she and Philip arrive in Halifax on June 28 for this, her 22nd official Canadian tour as Queen, someone will inquire about her journey. And over the nine days of the visit—which also include stops in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Toronto and Waterloo, Ont.—many more will comment on the weather or her hat, and inquire about her grandchildren or the corgis. To all these she’ll offer replies so sweet and innocuous that hovering reporters will shut their notebooks in despair.
It is the 89-year-old duke you want to follow with pen at the ready. He has “ably resisted the influence of political correctness and retained a fondness for a good joke,” noted the Telegraph with affection, “subsequently having to apologize to Indians, the deaf, Scots, tourists, Canadians, the unemployed, Tom Jones, British women and Cantonese cooks, to name but a few.” These supposed gaffes are just the prince speaking his mind, or kicking the stuffiness out of an occasion with an occasionally off-target quip, or, God forbid, offering an honest opinion. (“We don’t come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves,” he once said of Canada. “Bloody awful,” he said of Jones, the Welsh warbler. Hey, fair comment.)
The duke never speaks for the Queen but perhaps he acts as a relief valve, when the relentless volume of ribbon cuttings, plaque unveilings and cucumber sandwiches threatens to red-line the royal constitution. At one event, Philip sidled up to a blind woman with a seeing-eye dog and said: “Do you know they’re now producing eating dogs for anorexics?” Had the Queen said that, Buckingham Palace would still be sweeping up the mess. As it was, well, Philip was being Philip. And, really, it’s not a bad joke.
The Queen has said of her outspoken hubby, “I gave up trying to stop him years ago.” But, really, how hard does she try? By all accounts she’s not without a sense of humour. During a visit when Lech Walesa was Polish president she confided to an aide, “He only knows two English words.” Then, after a pause: “They are quite interesting words.”
Most Canadians have known no other monarch, or consort. Elizabeth and Philip have gone from the dashing young princess and duke who square danced at Rideau Hall in 1951, to a pair of royal grandparents who pop in for occasional feast days, giving us a chance to practise our manners, break out the good china, and puff out our chests. (Look, Your Majesty, she’ll hear in Waterloo, we invented the BlackBerry!)
Garry Toffoli, co-author of Queen and Consort and the Toronto-based executive director of the Canadian Royal Heritage Trust, affectionately calls the Queen “this matronly figure of stability, tradition and continuity.” Yet stability does not mean stasis. In her time, Britain and Canada have changed almost beyond recognition. Her marriage in 1947 came just two years after the war’s end. Life was hard enough that the festivities had to be scaled back somewhat. Hundreds of ordinary women offered the princess their precious nylon stockings as wedding gifts.
The multicultural Canada of today didn’t exist during her early years on the throne. In 1959, when the Queen and her consort embarked on their most ambitious cross-Canada tour, they were greeted by a monochromatic sea of faces. Canadian immigration policy still virtually excluded non-whites. It’s a vastly different country they visit now, one marking its 143rd birthday as they celebrate Canada Day in Ottawa July 1. Hard to believe it was just 84 years old when she became its Queen, or that 28 years have passed since she proclaimed its Constitution. Canada matured. She and the duke grew old.
