1992 should have been a joyous year for Queen Elizabeth II, marking as it did the fortieth anniversary of her ascension to the throne. But, as it turned out, it would prove to be the most disastrous and humiliating year of her entire reign, thanks in large part to her children’s tangled, and sometimes scandalous, love lives.
By now, despite having two sons together, Charles and Diana’s marriage had irretrievably broken down. Although the couple had been leading separate lives for almost five years, and despite both parties having found solace in other partners, they had so far managed to avoid scandal by maintaining a charade of togetherness in public. This uneasy status quo was blown apart spectacularly with the release in June of Andrew Morton’s biography, Diana: Her True Story, which exposed the royal marriage as a sham. Having at first denied any involvement with the publication, Elizabeth was horrified when Diana finally admitted that the explosive tome was written with her secret co-operation – an admission which precipitated the couple’s highly acrimonious separation.
Sadly, Charles and Diana were not the only royal couple experiencing marital woes around this time. Earlier on, in March 1992, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson announced their separation, while Princess Anne divorced her husband, Captain Mark Philips, in April. And so, with three out of her four children now separated from their respective spouses, Elizabeth was confronted with the fact that divorce, that most feared of Windsor nemeses, had once again come back to haunt her.
Elizabeth’s trials did not end here. On 20 November – the day of Elizabeth and Philip’s forty-fifth wedding anniversary – a devastating fire broke out in the north-east wing of Windsor Castle, which all but destroyed the most historic part of Queen’s beloved wartime home. When pictures of a shocked and distressed Elizabeth staring forlornly at the wreckage of her favourite residence appeared in newspapers the following day, the nation was united in its sympathy. But unluckily for the Queen, when it was announced that the repair bill, which was estimated to be as much as £40 million, would be covered by the public purse (Windsor Castle was not insured), this compassion soon evaporated, and the backlash against the proposal was as fierce as it was sudden.
The ensuing public debate once again brought to the fore the contentious issue of the royal finances, Elizabeth, in an attempt to appease her people, announced that, for the first time in her reign, she would pay tax on her private income. She had in fact already decided to give up her tax-exempt status some months previously – the Windsor Castle fire had only hastened the announcement by a few months.
1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.
All things considered, it is hardly surprising that the Queen would refer to the trials of 1992 during a speech in November of that year. But unfortunately, the worst was yet to come for Queen Elizabeth II.