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00:01For the royals, tradition is everything.
00:04Tradition is the raison d'etre of the royal family.
00:08The human embodiment of Britishness.
00:11Spectacular.
00:13The thundering of the hooves and the banging of the drums.
00:17I defy anyone not to get thrilled by that.
00:20Sacred.
00:21It's almost as though the king is invested with superpowers.
00:25And very British.
00:27Victoria's funeral was a reminder that we were still the dogs whatnots at this game.
00:34Now we reveal the secrets of those traditions.
00:37From banquets, to christenings, to coronations.
00:42You may think it's pantomime, but no.
00:45The uniforms were handed down from servant to servant.
00:50And how some traditions can go wrong.
00:53With Elizabeth I, her body actually exploded in its coffin.
00:58It's a rich royal heritage that's been forged through duty to the nation.
01:03The British monarchy is always at the service of the British state.
01:06No matter what the task.
01:08The duty of the royals is to go and open every damn thing that's around.
01:12From a supermarket to sewage works.
01:14The Queen loved it.
01:16Prince Philip hated it.
01:17As for over a thousand years, the royals have shaped the history and the traditions we know today.
01:23They're sending out a message.
01:26This is an ancient institution and it's here to stay.
01:30These are the secrets of royal traditions.
01:33Then and now.
01:35This time, the jewel in the crown of royal traditions, the state visit.
01:46This is the best invitation you could ever have.
01:50What happens when world leaders flout centuries of tradition.
01:54Jimmy Carter meeting the late Queen Mother and kissing her on the lips and she was really shot.
01:59And how an ancient tradition was the perfect form of royal PR.
02:04It weaponises the royal family.
02:10No other occasion puts royal tradition front and centre quite like a state visit from a foreign leader.
02:18All the spectacle and ceremony of royalty is on full display and the whole world is watching.
02:25A state visit entails a lot of pomp and pageantry.
02:30The first day of the state visit is usually the state banquet.
02:35Everyone's dressed to the nines in all their sashes and medals.
02:40And there's a toast to the incoming president.
02:43There's a lot of flattery goes on, which is all intended to improve our relations with that country.
02:50It's an event where royal tradition comes out in force.
02:55And for visiting leaders, the prestige of the occasion is irresistible.
03:00To be photographed with the British royal family, the King and Queen, and with Kate and William.
03:06This is a photo opportunity which is rolled in glitter.
03:11It's the best invitation you could ever have.
03:14And it's not just an elaborate state dinner and a photo op.
03:19Over the course of three days, foreign leaders are immersed in extravagant royal tradition.
03:25From a ceremonial welcome on horse guards parade.
03:28To a carriage procession escorted by mounted soldiers.
03:32Accompanied by gun salutes.
03:34And meetings with the prime minister.
03:39Making a royal state visit a cornerstone of our international relations.
03:45To be received by the British head of state at Buckingham Palace.
03:50This is a great signifier of your international status.
03:53And it's terrific business of Britain.
03:56The tradition of the royal state visit can be traced back to 1814.
04:02When the allied sovereigns visited the Prince Regent to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.
04:08Dignitaries from Russia, Prussia and Austria were greeted by guards of honour, ceremonial parades and elaborate banquets.
04:17Traditions that continue to this day.
04:20Except these days, the royals are not in charge of the guest list.
04:25It is not the palace who dictate who is coming.
04:28It is the government of the day who have an agenda.
04:32And that means that sometimes when the government invites foreign dignitaries into their home, the royals have to grin and bear it.
04:42The family are very aware that they are being used as a propaganda machine, really, for Britain and for another country.
04:51Perhaps the most unpopular visitor was Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was welcomed to the palace for a state visit in 1978.
05:03Now that was hugely controversial.
05:06And the Queen was very nonplussed about the idea of him quartering in her palace for three days and nights.
05:13And for those who need reminded, he was the most heinous communist dictator of all the communist dictators at that time.
05:21He actually slept in the rooms underneath the Queen. Apparently, they slept with guns underneath their pillows.
05:30Every meeting was conducted in the garden because he feared the rooms were bugged.
05:36The Queen actually, when they were in the gardens at Buckingham Palace and she saw them, she hid behind a bush.
05:41So unpleasant did she find them.
05:43But whoever the guest, the British monarchy is not afraid to use glamour as a secret weapon.
05:50For example, when Xi Ping, the president of China, was hosted, there was a state dinner and that was chosen to be the Duchess of Cambridge's first state banquet.
06:01The timing behind that decision was, I think, second to none.
06:06The Chinese state-run newspapers, they all wrote that Xi wore Chinese red.
06:12That's how they received it on the other side of the world.
06:15They were flattered.
06:16Big China, Little Britain, but China, you are lucky because you are sitting next to, yes, the Queen on the one hand,
06:23but also, look, first time outing for the most glamorous player in the royal family.
06:30Lucky, lucky, Mr. Chinese President.
06:37The royal's clever seating plan was a master class in international diplomacy.
06:42This three-day visit alone generated more than £30 billion worth of trade,
06:48many times more than the cost of staging a traditional royal state visit.
06:53There are all sorts of situations in which we put our monarch for the sake of Britain's place in the world.
07:00The royal women at the centre of these official ceremonies are part of a tradition of projecting a perfect regal image to the world.
07:10But it's an image that takes a lot of time and effort.
07:15And the late Queen was careful to maintain her image at all times.
07:19In 1953, she even had a special shade of lipstick created for her by Clarins to complement her coronation robes.
07:28And in her later life was known to be a dab hand at applying her lippy.
07:33She did like her makeup.
07:35And I watched her quietly and secretly put on her lipstick.
07:39She doesn't need a mirror.
07:41But she cared a lot about her appearance.
07:43The original pioneer of this tradition of a picture-perfect appearance was Elizabeth I,
07:52who went to extraordinary lengths to create her striking look.
07:56Queen Elizabeth I was actually about 55 years old when she sat for the portrait,
08:02but you could never tell.
08:03She wears what's called the mask of youth.
08:06The mask of youth was a technique to emphasise her youthful appearance.
08:11This form of propaganda intended to show the Queen as immortal
08:16and bolster her image as a strong and stable monarch.
08:20So this is Elizabeth I's makeup box.
08:22These are recreations of the types of cosmetics
08:25Elizabeth would have used as part of her war against ageing.
08:30Are you going to try it?
08:31Let's try it.
08:32Absolutely.
08:33So cleansers, you've got several choices.
08:35There is a lovely recipe from the period,
08:38which combines distilled honey with strong vinegar, milk and the urine of a small boy.
08:44OK.
08:45Maybe give that one a miss.
08:47And the key to Elizabeth I's perfect pale complexion, a powder made from white lead.
08:54It's a very, very white powder on my finger.
08:58But when I put it onto my skin, it's actually not clown white.
09:03It's actually pretty magical.
09:04It's rather fantastic.
09:05It is.
09:06Lead is metallic pigment.
09:08Perfect whiteness.
09:09So it reflects light.
09:10Aha.
09:11And we still use all sorts of light reflecting pigments today.
09:13Light reflecting makeups.
09:14Light reflecting makeups.
09:15It's hardly toxic, isn't it?
09:17It is.
09:18What was it doing to these women when they used it every day?
09:20It could make your gums recede and your breath stink.
09:24It can affect your fertility.
09:26It can cause confusion.
09:29You're basically giving yourself lead poisoning.
09:32Absolutely.
09:33Yes.
09:34The sad thing is, they knew it was poisonous.
09:36We've known it since the Roman period.
09:38It's really comparable to how we use some dodgy substances on our skin today,
09:42because we still want to look young and beautiful.
09:44Absolutely.
09:45And we have been doing so for at least 2,000 years.
09:50Elizabeth I's finishing touch was a dusting of real pearl powder.
09:55We need a little colour in the cheeks and lips to finish up.
09:58Okay, so we've got a choice between little dried cochineal beetles.
10:05I'm not sure about having beetles on my face.
10:08Okay.
10:09How about some vermilion?
10:10Well, that's beautiful.
10:11What an amazing colour.
10:12Gorgeous colour.
10:14This is red mercuric sulphide.
10:16Oh.
10:17Oh.
10:18So it's mercury.
10:19So it's mercury.
10:20You'd struggle not to lick it off your lips if we put that on you.
10:23So out of the two...
10:24I love the beetles.
10:26The Elizabethan look is to cover quite a bit of the cheek.
10:31That is quite bright.
10:33It's a different look, isn't it?
10:35Although the more toxic and outright lethal ingredients have been removed, it seems the Tudor Queen's cosmetic routine was not too far removed from the traditions of modern royal makeup.
10:48Was it really worth smearing yourself with urine, lead, lard and crushed beetles?
10:55So these ingredients have got an incredibly long history.
10:59Modern day cosmetics that are known to contain things like synthetic urea, carminic acid, which is the colouring principle in cochineal, refined animal fats.
11:10These are all considered perfectly suitable for a modern day monarch.
11:15Credible.
11:16Make up his power.
11:21Coming up, when royal traditions go wrong...
11:25The pictures are quite comical where he's blocking the Queen when they're reviewing troops.
11:29Make a statement.
11:30You can't get rid of the monarchy.
11:33It's here to stay.
11:34And turn the stomach.
11:36The recipe is, you grind down the skull of someone who suffered a violent death.
11:41For over 200 years, the British royal family has been using the tradition of state visits to project Britain onto the world stage and keep international relations sweet.
12:02It is my pleasure to bring from his majesty the King...
12:08In February 2025, Donald Trump was given an unprecedented second invitation to visit, this time from King Charles via Prime Minister Sakiya Starmer.
12:19It was received with delight at the White House.
12:21The answer is yes, they would afford to be there and honouring the King.
12:25If you're in any doubt about the political impact of a state visit, just look at the way Donald Trump recently responded to a second invitation to have a state visit.
12:38And that says in Windsor, that's really something.
12:42There's something unquantifiably magical.
12:44The alchemy of monarchy.
12:46Something wondrous, inexplicable, that defies logic.
12:50And it speaks to Trump.
12:53It's something Trump doesn't have.
12:54He's got every bit of bling that money could possibly buy, but he doesn't have the magic of monarchy.
13:00But we can bestow that upon him.
13:04The tradition of US presidential visits dates back around a century when, after World War I, America emerged as a new global superpower.
13:13The royal tradition swung into action to greet President Woodrow Wilson on the first official US state visit in 1918.
13:22Overseeing the ceremonial importance of this brave new world was our little king, George V.
13:31George V.
13:32And it was seen as hugely successful.
13:36It was a fusion of old and new, royal and democratic, American and British.
13:42And it may have heralded a new tradition of the royals not being in control of the invitations.
13:49The king didn't want to host the American president.
13:54He was not consulted about whether he would host the American president.
13:58He was livid.
13:59He had to forego shooting pheasants at Sandringham to come back to Buckingham Palace.
14:06Unhappy king or not, that inaugural US state visit was the beginning of a very important friendship.
14:13The American president and his wife, Edith, had a very good time and came away with acceptable ideas of Britishness, of British power, of British history, of British decorum and manners.
14:29And I think that in some ways you can see that as one of the bedrocks of today's special relationship.
14:36Subsequent visits from American presidents mostly reinforced that special relationship.
14:42With a few hiccups.
14:49Sometimes the press have picked up on moments where royal etiquette and a more relaxed approach to etiquette from American presidents have interacted.
14:58Often though, if you look more closely, you'll see the royals trying to smooth that over.
15:03There is a wonderful story about President Jimmy Carter, a very sincere man, meeting the late queen mother and kissing her on the lips.
15:13And she was really shocked. Nobody had kissed her on the lips since her late husband died, Georgia Singh.
15:18So that was perhaps a little over familiar.
15:21And there is a chance that those presidential faux pas may happen again.
15:27President Donald Trump visited in 2019 and upset centuries of tradition by walking ahead of the queen.
15:36The pictures are quite comical in where he's blocking the queen when they're reviewing troops.
15:42So I don't think he intended any discourtesy.
15:45But obviously he always thinks that he's the most important person in the room, whoever he's in the room with.
15:52But a lack of etiquette wasn't the only disruption of tradition that Trump brought with him.
15:58When Trump arrived, the streets were aligned mostly with people protesting his visit.
16:05Donald Trumps are welcome here!
16:08To avoid the anti-Trump protesters, the president defied tradition and made a very unconventional entrance.
16:17Trump being Trump flies over the protesters, lands in the middle of the Buckingham Palace lawns.
16:23All the journalists, including myself, were stationed on the lawn, complete silence, waiting to see this momentous moment.
16:32He emerges from the helicopter. He thought he was going to meet the queen, but it was Charles and Camilla who were the first to meet him.
16:40It's not clear whether the queen was entirely on board with this very non-traditional mode of transport.
16:47I once spoke to an Air Commodore in the RAF. He said that when he sat at a dinner with the late queen shortly after Trump's state visit,
16:56she hadn't appreciated the way in which his helicopter had disturbed her emerald lawns at Windsor.
17:04But the royal traditions of grinning and bearing it meant the queen performed a masterclass in diplomacy,
17:10one that left Trump in awe of the royal family.
17:14It was incumbent upon the late queen to make sure that every head of state felt like he or she was her favourite head of state.
17:21And if Trump came away able to say with conviction that he was the queen's favourite head of state or favourite president,
17:27then the queen was doing her job well.
17:33A royal state visit is one of the more flamboyant ways that royals keep their brand prominent on the world stage.
17:39But closer to home, they have created a tradition that has kept them at the forefront of our minds for centuries.
17:45The royal tradition of commissioning statues is a way of reaching as wide an audience as possible.
17:51Now, this isn't just vanity. This is essential for showing themselves to their people.
17:58A statue was particularly helpful because it could be life-sized and it could be crafted according to what the monarch wanted to convey.
18:09That tradition can be traced back to a perfect example of royal PR and the oldest surviving bronze statue of a king in London,
18:18Charles I atop his horse in Trafalgar Square.
18:22It was commissioned in 1630, a year after the king had dissolved parliament after a series of disputes.
18:29This tension escalated into the English Civil War in 1642 and it didn't end well for Charles I.
18:37He was convicted of high treason against his people and he was executed.
18:42It was the end of the monarchy, so this statue had to be taken down.
18:48Orders were given for the king's statue to be melted down, but the metalsmith hid it away instead.
18:55Its time to shine would come 20 years later.
18:58It was brought back in the reign of Charles' son, Charles II, who restored the monarchy.
19:06And it was very symbolic because the statue shows Charles decked out in his regal finery and it's the very image of royal majesty.
19:18It was erected as a piece of royal propaganda.
19:22Even if in real life the man on the horse had his head cut off, it's like it's been airbrushed out of the story.
19:29That is one of the most effective uses of a statue.
19:34It weaponizes the royal family and any ideas of taking down the royal family.
19:39Charles II was sending a message to his people, you can't get rid of the monarchy, it's here to stay.
19:45In more recent years, the tradition of royal statuary may not have achieved such powerful aims.
19:56In 2024, a statue of the late Queen and Prince Philip was unveiled at Andrim Castle Gardens in Northern Ireland.
20:05It's been heavily criticized.
20:07A lot of people have said that the Queen looks like Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire.
20:11I think it's rather fun, the public art, and sometimes it's a bit of hit or miss, but it's still a kind of expression of love.
20:22The tradition of creating royal statues presented the monarch as immortal and in rude health, and recently the King's health has been the focus of public attention.
20:35Fortunately, he has a coterie of royal medical staff, including a personal doctor, physician, surgeon and apothecary, ensuring he receives the very best modern treatments.
20:49Almost 400 years ago, Charles II had a rather weirder approach to medicine.
20:54In the 17th century, the King built, under St James's Palace in Westminster, a secret underground lab, and that was where he engaged in the gruesome practice of skull medicine.
21:07Charles II loved chemistry, and when he became king, what he wanted to do was buy skulls and turn them into medicine so he'd never be ill again.
21:17The idea was that when you died a horrible death, hanging or something else that would cause fear, all the potency in your organs would rush into your flesh and rush into your bones,
21:30that if you ate these bones or ate this flesh, you would have loads of energy and loads of potency.
21:36The recipe is, you grind down the skull of someone who suffered a violent death, then you mix it with ground up deer antler and some ivory, mix it all up, and you've got the King's Drops.
21:51Charles thought that would cure himself and anyone else of all diseases.
21:56So imagine fashionable ladies dancing at St James's Palace. Little did they know that under their feet, there was a bubbling laboratory of horrors in which Charles was making medicine out of dead bodies.
22:11In 1684, the King's Drops would be put to their ultimate test.
22:16Charles becomes increasingly frail. He wakes up feeling very ill, and they immediately give him the King's Drops. Lots and lots, 40 drops, 50 drops.
22:25It doesn't work. He's dead, four days later.
22:29Bizarrely, the royal family keep pots of the King's Drops. It's a bit like when grandma dies and you keep her marmalade as a memory of her.
22:37So when Charles II's niece, Mary II, she's on her deathbed, they give her the King's Drops. Doesn't work. She does too.
22:46They are completely and utterly useless.
22:48Coming up, the royals blazing a trail with their own traditions in the 21st century. From the sublime.
22:59She very deliberately dressed down and that included minimal pale makeup. The opposite of your Elizabethan power portrait.
23:07To the questionable.
23:08I was so sad when I saw that. There's nothing in that statue that resembles the beautiful, vivacious woman that I knew.
23:16For centuries, how the royals look has been under constant scrutiny. And traditionally, it's the royal women who bear the brunt of it.
23:34Tudor Queen Elizabeth I used elaborate and deadly makeup to show the world her power. Today's royals have created a more understated tradition.
23:44The late Queen had a beautiful complexion and she didn't wear very much makeup.
23:51And actually, the Duke of Edinburgh once, he was talking to someone who said,
23:55Her Majesty the Queen, what a lovely, lovely complexion she has. And the Duke said, yes, she does. Do you know, she's like that all over.
24:03The Queen set a high benchmark for the look of modern royals. But like in many elements of royal tradition, the Princess of Wales is blazing her own trail.
24:19Her look is understated, but no less powerful than the royals of the past.
24:25In 2024, she recorded a video message revealing her cancer diagnosis. And she chose a very natural look.
24:33She very deliberately dressed down and that included minimal pale makeup. This was the opposite of your Elizabethan power portrait.
24:45This was Kate wearing her own physical vulnerability for us all to see. This was Kate sharing her pain. And that, ironically, enhanced her power.
25:00She has, I think, in the wake of her cancer hell, become almost untouchable in terms of one of our state players in this country.
25:11And by creating this powerful video, the Princess took control of the royal relationship with the media.
25:20A relationship that in recent decades has become strained to breaking point.
25:26But until the mid 20th century, there was a tradition of unquestioning deference from the press.
25:32The royals were seen as a vital pillar of a stable society that we all looked up to.
25:38The idea that our monarch might be behaving in an unbecoming, immoral, irreligious fashion, that was absolutely perceived to be persona non grata.
25:53And that's why you get this very decorous press coverage.
25:59But in the 1930s, this arrangement was pushed to its limits by the scandal emerging behind closed doors.
26:06King Edward VIII's affair with married American socialite Wallis Simpson.
26:12The world's press reported on it with glee, but not so in Britain.
26:17It's all over the French, the Italian, German, American press.
26:21But Britain chooses to remain silent because of this gentleman's code that they have with the monarchy, which seems inconceivable to us today.
26:30In October 1936, Wallis divorced her husband and the king told Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that he planned to marry her.
26:40Baldwin threatened that if the king went ahead with his plan, the government would resign and plunge the country into crisis.
26:47But still, the British public were oblivious.
26:51It becomes clear that there's going to be a showdown between the king and the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin about him wanting to marry a divorced woman.
26:59The press does break its silence, but it's months after everyone else has done it.
27:04And the result was, when it finally breaks, a furore is unleashed and we know that it doesn't last long.
27:13He, PDQ, abdicates within a year.
27:16A few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as king and emperor.
27:22It was heartbreaking and shocking for the British public because they hadn't been drip-fed these doors.
27:27It arrives like a sort of tsunami.
27:29And there's also an indignation, and rightly so, that how come people overseas know more about our royal family than we know about them?
27:36There is only one statue of Edward VIII in Britain, in stark contrast to the dozens of statues of other monarchs.
27:43The tradition of creating royal statues has long been a way of commemorating dead royals, but sometimes the process doesn't go smoothly.
27:56In 2017, 20 years after her death sparked national mourning, William and Harry commissioned a statue of Princess Diana to cement her legacy.
28:07But creating a fitting tribute to Diana can be tricky to get right.
28:11There are some very, very bad Diana statues out there.
28:17They haven't really captured Princess Diana, as I think the family would want her to be captured.
28:24Whether they're made from marble or marzipan, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
28:30There's a whole army of Diana statues in China, and who can forget the incredibly tasteless half-naked one that used to be in Harrods at the bottom of the stairs.
28:40Barefoot, with her and Dodie Fayed, both releasing a bird into who knows what.
28:49Trusted not to add to this list, renowned sculptor Ian Rank Broadly was given the commission at the end of 2017.
28:56Of course we all know Mr Broadly's work because his design of the Queen adorned every British coin.
29:05The stakes were high for Mr Rank Broadly.
29:08The sculptor has to please not only every single one of Princess Diana's billions of fans, but also two royal princes who are very used to having things done their own way.
29:19After a four year wait, the much anticipated statue was finally ready.
29:26But in the meantime, the relationship between the two princes had deteriorated drastically.
29:31If you look at 2017, when it was commissioned, William and Harry were best of friends. Fast forward four years later, there is a huge rift between the brothers.
29:46William and Harry's strained relationship was at breaking point.
29:50The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had announced their intention to withdraw from the royal family and move to California.
29:59Months before the unveiling of the statue, Harry has come out publicly vilifying the royal family, not just once, but several times.
30:11So the story of the sculpture of Diana got overshadowed by the bigger question of, are the two brothers speaking to each other?
30:23The statue was unveiled to the public on the 1st of July, 2021, to mark what would have been Diana's 60th birthday.
30:32It was the first time the brothers had been seen together in public for months.
30:36The press and the public were looking for the body language between the two boys.
30:44Have they mended the rift?
30:47Diana's two sons pulled the sheet off of the statue.
30:52This mother is looking onto her two sons, and all of us looking at that knowing that they're barely speaking.
31:07The statue was reportedly inspired by a 1993 Christmas card featuring Diana and her sons.
31:13So you'll see if you look at that Christmas card, she's wearing that exact outfit, the same belt, the same shirt, the same pencil skirt, and she's got her two boys next to her.
31:23Cast in bronze, a traditional material for royal statues, it stands at one and a quarter times life size.
31:31But it divided the critics.
31:36I was so sad when I saw that.
31:38I mean, I knew Diana.
31:41And there's nothing in that statue that resembles the beautiful, vivacious, funny, stunningly handsome woman that I knew.
31:51It just doesn't work for me at all.
31:56But not everyone disliked the statue.
32:00Enjoy! Welcome!
32:02I think the public really like it, and I think they get it.
32:06This wasn't a statue of a mother and her two sons.
32:10It was a woman who'd helped a lot of people, particularly children, in her charitable work.
32:16It's not meant to be overly complicated.
32:18Unfortunately, the unveiling of the statue didn't bring the brothers back together.
32:23Don't think that Prince Harry spoke to William at all, turned up for the unveiling 20 minutes before,
32:30pulled the rug off the statue and left 20 minutes later.
32:36So it really was, it was very sad to see that that relationship had not been fixed at all and wasn't fixed during that event.
32:46Coming up, the royal tradition of putting your foot in it.
32:49He said, oh, you look as if you're ready for bed.
32:52I'm not sure that really was the right thing to say.
32:55And how the tradition of respect between the royals and the press changed completely.
33:01There are many invasions of their privacy, and it reaches its nadir when Diana, princess of Wales, is quite literally chased to her death.
33:08Traditionally, the royal family have played a central role in maintaining foreign relations, whether on state visits at home or abroad.
33:27And Queen Elizabeth II made it seem effortless.
33:34The late queen was the ultimate diplomat.
33:37I mean, she was more experienced as a head of state than any other head of state alive.
33:43And she knew so many of them, both past and present.
33:46So she had this wealth of experience and knowledge.
33:51Her husband, Prince Philip, however, created his own tradition when dealing in foreign affairs.
33:59Putting his foot in it.
34:00The Duke of Edinburgh sometimes did cause a few diplomatic ruffles of the feathers, I suppose.
34:13I remember there was an occasion when he was in Nigeria.
34:19He saw the president who was in his traditional robe, and he said, oh, you look as if you're ready for bed.
34:24I'm not sure that really was the right thing to say.
34:29Prince Philip's job, I think, was meant to be a clown or a warm-up man for the serious act, which was his wife, really.
34:40But not appropriate.
34:46But it seems Prince Philip wasn't the first royal to cause offence.
34:50He may have been following a centuries-old tradition of diplomacy going out of the window.
34:57James VI of Scotland, when he became James I of England on the death of Elizabeth I in 1603,
35:03even by the low standards of 17th century hygiene, was reputed to be rather a grubby king.
35:11James, apparently, had an aversion to water, never washed, didn't wash his hands before eating, never changed his clothes,
35:18and even his lover wrote that I, kiss your dirty hands.
35:23James I's personal hygiene may have left a lot to be desired, but when it came to entertaining a foreign head of state, it could be a riot.
35:32One night in particular at Theobald's palace, a night to commemorate the visit of King Christian IV of Denmark.
35:39You'd think this would be so dignified, so strict. Instead, it was, apparently, an orgy of drunkenness.
35:47It's about as far away as you can get from a modern state banquet, but it was a success for international relations.
35:56Both kings were heavy drinkers, and the evening's entertainment would be a performance of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
36:02But unfortunately, when it began, everyone was completely drunk.
36:07The actor playing the Queen's part fell over and dropped an entire tray of cream and jelly and cakes all over King Christian.
36:18King Christian said, I'm fine, and got up to dance, and then fell splat on his face,
36:23and had to be carried to bed completely drunk, senseless, and covered in cream and jelly.
36:31For centuries, there was a tradition that the press would not report on scandalous behaviour like that of James I.
36:39But by the 1980s, everything had changed.
36:42Previously, the quality papers and the mass newspapers had been quite deferential in their coverage.
36:48In the 1980s, the monarchy became tabloid fodder, and perfect fodder for them was the disintegrating marriages of the Queen's children, and all sorts of stories appeared.
37:01The gloves were now off, and while dozens of new stories are published about the royal family each year,
37:08sometimes the royals use the press to send a message.
37:11There aren't many photos that you can say are genuinely iconic, but I think you can say that about this photo.
37:21The now iconic picture of Diana at the Taj Mahal was snapped by then royal photographer for the Daily Mirror, Kent Gavin.
37:30I would think I've taken over two, maybe two million frames of the royal family over the years.
37:36This was not the first time a royal had been photographed in exactly the same spot at the Taj Mahal.
37:43Twelve years earlier, as Charles and Diana's relationship was starting to gather pace,
37:49the Prince of Wales visited India, and Kent took an almost identical image.
37:53In 1980, I was sent to cover the Prince of Wales trip to India. It was a year before the wedding.
38:01He agreed to visit the Taj Mahal.
38:06And during that trip, he said, do you know, the Taj was built from a man that loved a woman so much.
38:14One day, I'm going to bring my wife back here to visit this monument.
38:18The opportunity arose in 1992 when the now married couple visited India.
38:25But instead of bringing his wife to the Taj Mahal, he met with business leaders.
38:30Diana sat isolated on a bench in front of the monument.
38:36Charles did not fulfill his promise because Diana came alone.
38:40The World Press captured the iconic image. It told the story of a marriage that was falling apart.
38:48It's the framing of the photograph in so many ways which makes her look so small and vulnerable.
38:54If you look at all the pictures, she never smiles. God knows what was going through her mind.
39:00I genuinely think that she was extremely upset about it.
39:03Diana understood the power of the image she created.
39:07I think many people suspected that Diana was unhappy, but that photograph did feel like a message that she was sending the world.
39:17It just became such a totemic image of Diana's unhappiness.
39:21The picture hit the headlines, and the press criticised Charles for abandoning Diana, cementing the idea that their marriage had already run its course.
39:32The relationship between royals and press soured even further, culminating in one of the most shocking events in royal history.
39:42The criticism moves into an obsessive, intrusive interest in them.
39:48There do start to be articles that are wildly speculative.
39:52There are many invasions of their privacy.
39:55And it reaches its nadir in 1997, when Diana, princess of Wales, is quite literally chased to her death by people in search of a photograph of her.
40:04Despite this tragedy, stories continued to be published about the royal's private lives.
40:15And in 2006, a story in the news of the world broke a scandal wide open.
40:21It related how Prince William had left a message for Harry, in which he, William, had pretended to be Harry's then girlfriend, Chelsea Davie, reprimanding him for visiting a lap dancing club.
40:34All very jolly and joshing and all the rest of it, and very amusing in its way.
40:39But the fact that the news of the world quoted his actual words and his message really did set alarm bells ringing.
40:46The police had all the evidence they needed, and in August 2006, journalists were arrested and charged with intercepting private phone messages involving the royal family.
40:59By now, the issue went far beyond the princes and their royal aides.
41:04It turned out that phone hacking of celebrities, politicians, policemen, soldiers, victims of crime was going on on an industrial scale.
41:19Within a few years, more journalists from other newspapers were prosecuted for conspiracy to intercept communications without lawful authority.
41:29Some received jail sentences.
41:30Fast forward to 2013, and a whole host of others from the news international titles were in court at the Old Bailey.
41:41William's phone had been hacked, Harry's phone had been hacked, Kate Middleton's phone had been hacked.
41:46We now know that William used to call Kate babykins because of the evidence that was presented in the Old Bailey.
41:52The only reason that Charles and the Queen hadn't been hacked was because they didn't have mobile phones.
41:57That was the only reason.
41:58Princess William and Harry, as well as hundreds of other victims, reached out-of-court settlements with the newspaper publishers, as well as damages.
42:07It's a stark reminder that from world stage and public statues to their most personal moments, the royals have to fight to preserve their traditions.
42:19And in an ever-changing world, the great public traditions, like the state visit, matter more than ever.
42:29Next time, the mystical traditions at the heart of the King's coronation.
42:33Older than England, older than Christianity, back to the Bronze Age.
42:39How the royals dealt with the traditional tensions of taking the press pack on tour.
42:44Prince Philip hated the press. He called them reptiles.
42:47And how centuries of tradition gifted the royals vast swathes of Britain, and the right to eat some of its wildlife.
42:53None of them have recently availed themselves of the opportunity, so the swamp population continues unharmed.
43:00Some such, the
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