Macmillan
Unlike Eden, Macmillan was charming to the point of obsequiousness, treating the Queen with great deference. ‘One of the most agreeable aspects of my job is the weekly audience; the Queen is not only very charming, but incredibly well informed,’ he wrote in his diary.
Their relationship was not all plain sailing. A proposed visit by the Queen to the newly independent state of Ghana was opposed by most of the Cabinet and the press, on the grounds that it was far too dangerous, given the amount of civil unrest in that country. Macmillan, almost alone among senior ministers, believed she should go. ‘If government and people here are determined to restrict her activities, I think she might be tempted to throw in her hand. She does not enjoy “society”. She likes her horses. But she loves her duty, and means to be a Queen and not a puppet,’ Macmillan wrote. She went, and returned unharmed.
Macmillan was nothing if not a consummate schemer. Forced by ill-health to retire, he decided to become puppetmaster of his own succession from his hospital bed. Once again the Palace did its level best to stay out of the fray.
Still the Tories had no proper means of choosing a leader; this time there were at least five candidates anxious to succeed Macmillan, whose aim was to ensure that his arch-rival Butler should not be the successful one. From his hospital ward he invented his own consultation process, interviewed the candidates himself, and declined to give the Queen the formal advice – which she would have been obliged to accept – on who the next Prime Minister should be.
He tendered his own resignation, and the Queen came to his bedside for the customary farewell audience. He advised her there and then to choose Lord Home, advice which, as Macmillan was no longer Prime Minister, was now purely informal and which she could ignore if she wished. The Palace took no soundings of its own, and Home was summoned to see the Queen within the hour. Somewhat startled, the old aristocrat declined to accept immediately, saying he would have to go away and make sure he could command his party’s support.
