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Lord St John of Fawsley: My Lords, I am very pleased to be able to speak after the most reverend Primate, in order to thank him, not only for what he has said today, but for his wonderful sermon on Easter Day at Canterbury, when he held in such harmonious balance the sorrow and joy of this occasion and spoke for the entire nation. On Sunday evening, at Westminster Cathedral, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster will be offering mass for Her Majesty and will be speaking for the Catholic community. As we are here as a community—indeed, the House of Lords is more than a community; it is a kind of family—perhaps I may be allowed to add my farthing dip at this point.
Her Majesty played a crucial part in our history. It was she and the King, and Sir Winston—that providential triumvirate—who managed to turn our darkest hour into our finest hour. Sixty years later, looking back, I shudder to think what might have been the fate of the world had that struggle been otherwise determined. Darkness would have spread over the earth. I shiver at the thought of what would have happened to our beloved Jewish brethren in this country if evil had triumphed.
It is not about Her Majesty's place in history that I wish to speak, but rather about her as a person and as a member of a family. We send our deepest sympathy and love to the Queen and to Prince Charles. The best thing that we can do to help the Queen, who must be very lonely, is to give her our loving support throughout this year of her Jubilee.
Queen Elizabeth had wisdom. She was the wise woman for the nation, the wise woman of Jung's archetypes. So, the sayings that she had—although on the surface they seemed so simple—had a resonance and reverberation which remained with everyone who heard them: "Don't cross your bridges before you come to them"; "A smile costs nothing"; and above all, "If you stop, you're done".
She carried the lasting values of the nation—not the froth of fashion that comes and goes, but loyalty, fidelity, love of family and friends and generosity. She was, as the most reverend Primate said, religious; but she was not in the least "churchy" She was brought up amidst clouds of incense: as the most reverend Primate indicated, her grandparents and parents were leaders of the Tractarian movement in Scotland. No wonder she was so familiar with the name of John Henry Newman.
Queen Elizabeth's piety was rooted in the Prayer Book. It was the Prayer Book that she loved. She did not like the kiss of peace. When she saw it winging its way towards her, she stiffened and took evasive action. Her religion was the British religion—loving kindness.
It is a jolly good religion too. At the Parousia—the Second Coming—theology will not be on the menu, but love will be.I am very glad that the Prince of Wales paid that most moving tribute to Her Majesty, and that he drew attention to the fun side of her character, as a number of noble Lords have done today. Therefore, I am emboldened to add two little stories of my own. One is a story that she loved to tell, of when she was at the Church of St Clement, in Rome—that historic church dating back to the time of the early Christians. It is run by Irish Dominicans. The wonderful prior there took her up to the high altar and said: "Madam, this is our greatest treasure, a relic of the true cross. Have you got a tip for the Grand National?" She loved that story. Another story which is told of her, is that on her 100th birthday, going up steep stairs, against the advice of all her doctors and her courtiers, there was twittering from her lady-in-waiting. Queen Elizabeth turned and said: "Don't worry, dear, if you fall, I'll catch you".
Queen Elizabeth embodied the great theological virtue of hope—the neglected virtue. To be human is to hope. Life is difficult for everyone, however auspicious our external circumstances may be. It is little known that Queen Elizabeth loved poetry. Poetry, as Bagehot said, is a deep thing, a profound thing—the most wise and humanly elevating thing. It has the searching power of the scriptures. Some of her greatest friends were poets. She was friends with all the poet laureates, and was particularly fond of Ted Hughes. She went back to the great Romantic poets: Shelley, Byron and Keats. Keats' poem, Hope, in an extraordinary way, seems to encapsulate Her Majesty:
- "O let me see our land retain her soul,
- "And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Lord Quirk: My Lords, of the many offices graced by Her Majesty the Queen Mother, there is one of special importance to a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. She presided over the affairs of the federal university as Chancellor from 1955 until, 26 years later, she was succeeded—to her personal delight and in no small measure through her discreet influence—by the Princess Anne, now the Princess Royal.
During that quarter-century, Her Majesty chaired the ceremonies (usually in the Albert Hall) for the award of first degrees to tens of thousands of young men and women—well over 25,000 doctors of medicine alone. At the annual Foundation Day ceremony in the Senate House, she listened to a series of public orators almost as long as the series of Archbishops that she experienced. She listened to them proclaim the merits of honorary graduands as various as Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Cardinal Basil Hume, Peggy Ashcroft and John Gielgud, Ernst
Gombrich and Dorothy Hodgkin, Isaiah Berlin and Jean Roche, Lord Denning and Lord Todd, Isaac Wolfson and Lady Plowden, Noam Chomsky and Jacqueline due Pré. And none of them did she hood without engaging in lively conversation.But of course it was more than just ceremonial occasions. Her tenure as Chancellor saw some perilous moments and she was always ready with a quiet word of guidance. Moreover, the University of London is a vast and exceptionally complex institution, with dozens of colleges and institutes not only from Egham in the west to Mile End in the east, but also from the very capital of France to the Scottish Isle of Cumbrae. She regularly visited all these institutions, repeatedly, once indeed steaming up the Clyde to the Marine Biological Station on the "Britannia", no less. And I recall her gracious presence in Paris when, in October 1976, she opened the new premises of the Institut Britannique in the rue de Constantine.
It goes without saying that, whether with young undergraduates, nervous dons, or self-confident foreign dignitaries, she brought her unique magic of dignity, charm, and warmth. And she took delight, I recall, when, having opened the new Australian Studies Centre in Russell Square, she heard Bob Hawke confess that this magic always made him start to question his long-held republican convictions.
One final anecdote came to my mind when I heard the Prince of Wales a day or so ago speak of his grandmother's deliciously mischievous sense of humour. We all remember, no doubt, the rumours that circulated about Lady Churchill's reaction to Graham Sutherland's interpretation of Sir Winston in 1955. Well, at about the same time we commissioned a similarly eminent artist, Pietro Annigoni, to paint our Chancellor, and I regret to say that it had a rather similar outcome, inasmuch as the Queen Mother was less than overjoyed by a picture that gave her, she felt, an enigmatic Mona Lisa look. So after her retirement she was persuaded to sit in all the splendour of the Chancellor's robes for a full-length portrait by Michael Noakes.
When she unveiled it her pleasure was obvious and immediate, as was her ever-youthful sense of fun. Despite the encircling press and national television crews, and risking any over-intrusive microphones, she turned to me, those beautiful eyes sparkling, and whispered, "Now let's go and do a Lady Churchill on the Annigoni".
In the event, of course, both pictures are treasured and on permanent view on the first floor of the Senate House in Bloomsbury, reminding all who see them of an ever beloved Chancellor.
12.30 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, among the many tributes to her late Majesty have been those which pointed to her versatility with peoples and institutions. I should like to speak for a few moments on behalf of Portsmouth—"Dear Portsmouth" as she was wont to call the city.
First, as a compassionate Queen Consort she visited Portsmouth with the late King during the Blitz and took time to comfort stricken and bereaved families and give encouragement to those who were working so hard to make the devastated city habitable after successive air raids. Portsmouth is a tightly-knit community, a vast urban village on an island, and those people who came in direct contact with her in their time of need never forgot what she became for them during those visits. The word got around very quickly that she came and she cared.
Secondly, she retained right to the end a deep interest in the Royal Navy. No one will forget the determination with which she visited the "Ark Royal" last November, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, mentioned earlier, for the rededication ceremony following the recent re-fit. It was a vessel she herself had launched. She took an active interest in the captain and the whole of the crew. But she had come to Portsmouth many times before then to unveil the naval memorial in 1953; she had toured HMS "Dolphin" submarine base in Gosport; and she opened the D-Day Museum in 1984. She made countless visits and the Royal Navy owes her a deep debt of gratitude.
Thirdly, as a faithful daughter of the Church, she took an active interest in the completion of St Thomas's Cathedral, not a straightforward business by any means. When the diocese was founded in 1927 the old parish church near the dockyard was made the cathedral and it was given an inadequate extension—inadequate for the cathedral's growing needs and it was also becoming increasingly unsafe. By November 1991 the new west end was completed and she herself attended the thanksgiving service, well into her 92nd year, a gesture that was hugely appreciated. It is locally reported that she actually tripped over on her way down the nave. She was rapidly found a seat. But it was obvious that she sat on the seat to compose the vast congregation rather than herself.
No era or person has a monopoly on public virtues, and although many have rightly remarked that her death marks the end of an era, in the Easter faith—how wonderful to die on Easter eve—there are new eras yet to be born. But we rightly mourn her passing and thank God for every remembrance of her.
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