The queen and the pain (secret) for the divorces of her children Carlo, Anna and Andrea

The temper of the Queen Elizabeth it’s proverbial. His Majesty he remained impassive, at least in appearanceeven when the Crown in the 1990s was overwhelmed by the scandalous (at the time) divorces of three of her four children: Carlo, Anna And Andrew. Behind the stoic attitude of her Majesty, however, hides a whole different story. Robert Hardman tells us about it in the forthcoming book Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II. In the volume, of which People read some passages in preview, Hardman reveals that The Queen was “upset by the divorces of the children“. A former royal staff member told the writer that at the time he tried to lift the queen’s mood by saying: “Majesty, they are all divorcing now. All over the world”. She, desperate, replied: «Three out of four!“. The source emphasizes that the sovereign, when she pronounced those words, “she was very sad, and exasperated”: “We must not underestimate the pain he experienced“.

The first it was Anna who separated. The wedding with great fanfare with the first husband Mark Philipswith whom he had two children – Peter (born in 1977) e Zara (in 1981) – staged a Westminster in 1973. In 1989 the two announced the separation, in 1992 the divorce became official. Anna became like that the first of the Windsor brothers to cause scandal by breaking up their marriage. A hard blow for mother Elizabeth II, whom she saw family affairs slammed into the front pages of the tabloids of half the world. «The formal divorce will not change the agreements made by the two former spouses in various fields, such as the financial one (including the division of 1524 wedding gifts) and custody of the children, Peter aged 14 and Zara aged 10, who will continue to live with their mother in the Gatcombe residence, a few kilometers from the farm bought three years ago by Mark “, he wrote for example the Republic in April 1992.

That, for the sovereign, was one of the worst years ever. In March the third son Andrew of York and Sarah Ferguson said goodbyein December the separation of the eldest son was announced Carlo And Diana. “It will not be a year of those that I will remember with pleasure. To use the words of one of my collaborators, it really was a annus horribilisThe queen herself will say publicly. but yet in that annus horribilis no one saw her lose her temper. Despite the inner hell, the sovereign showed herself unperturbed. Charles Anson, at the time of her press officer, is still amazed that during her frequent visits he never found The Queen in a bad mood: “She has never shown herself irritable, she seemed serene, firm and strong as ever“. On the other hand, even his mother, the Queen Mother, whatever happened went straight on her way. An attitude which, among Buckingham staff, had earned her the nickname of “imperial ostrich.” The Queen wasn’t actually hiding. She was only faithful to the motto inherited from her father George VI, who compared adversity to the fury of the ocean: “The storm, however devastating it may be, sooner or later will pass.”

The queen has gone through, and overcome, many storms – in her family and not. And among so many storms she has always been able to count on an oasis of peace. The marriage of the fourth child Edward with Sophie of Wessex. Almost twenty-three years have passed since the two said “yes” and their union, from which two children were born – Lady Louise Windsor18 years old and James, Viscount Severn, 14 – is more solid than ever. To the delight of the queen Elizabeth. Partly because the sovereign has a soft spot for Sophie (“to her it is like another daughter») Partly because the” little one “of the house, the 58-year-old Edoardo, is the only one of her children who has never divorced.