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00:01For the royals, tradition is everything.
00:04Monarchy is about the past, the present, and the future,
00:07and tradition is absolutely central to that.
00:10Spectacular.
00:11All of the parading, the history, it's almost a fairytale thing.
00:15Sacred.
00:16If you were royal, you had been chosen by God and very British.
00:21Meeting the queen is an experience
00:24that everyone will remember for the rest of their lives.
00:28Now we venture behind palace walls into the riches beyond.
00:33Not all royal jewels are the crown jewels.
00:35We know that this was a gift of love.
00:38And delve deep into rare royal records.
00:42Written in early January 1642.
00:44It's the equivalent of a live blog.
00:47This is right in the eye of the storm.
00:49To discover the untold secrets of Britain's most loved
00:52and mysterious royal traditions.
00:55He liked to show that he could control nature.
00:58It's a rich royal heritage steeped in war, intrigue, and scandal.
01:04In order to get your face on this wall, you had to be somebody.
01:08Perhaps even a royal mistress.
01:10But at its heart is a deep-seated duty to the nation.
01:14Queen Elizabeth II met more people than anybody else in history,
01:19no matter what the task.
01:21As I heard him, I thought,
01:23Oh, you're not going to like that, Charles, are you?
01:25This is how, for over a thousand years,
01:27the royals have shaped the history and traditions we know today.
01:33Tradition is what actually keeps them in power.
01:36It wouldn't be Britain if we didn't have these sorts of things.
01:39These are the secrets of the royal traditions.
01:52This time, the centuries-old royal tradition
01:57that was a potential death sentence for the monarch.
02:00He could be killed on the battlefield.
02:04He could be kidnapped.
02:05He could be used as ransom.
02:07The royal rituals being reshaped in the name of modern parenting.
02:12Kate and William are undoing the bad tradition
02:15of being distant from your own kids.
02:17And how the traditional royal garden
02:20blossomed to become a fully-fledged passion.
02:23Charles III is determined to reshape the landscapes
02:27in his own image.
02:28Nothing says royal tradition like Trooping the Colour.
02:36Trooping the Colour signals to the world, really,
02:41on the global stage, that we are still here,
02:44we can still do these things.
02:46This is what our monarchy is about.
02:49It may look like pantomime to everyone else,
02:53but it's rooted in tradition over hundreds of years.
02:58It's very important for the royal family
03:00to be seen on those occasions.
03:02Today, this colourful spectacle
03:04is the traditional centrepiece on the royal tourist trail.
03:11But this great royal ritual has its origins
03:14in a darker, more violent past.
03:17When the king didn't just wear a uniform,
03:19he was expected to fight.
03:22The military and the monarchy
03:24have been bedfellows since time immemorial.
03:26If you look on the walls of an Egyptian temple,
03:28you will invariably see the pharaoh commanding his armies
03:32from his chariot.
03:33And that continued right the way through into the Middle Ages.
03:35There is a very strong link between the royal family
03:38and the military, and that's for good reason,
03:41because for centuries, to be a good king,
03:44you had to be a good warrior.
03:46The crown was often won and lost on the battlefield.
03:50For hundreds of years, British monarchs,
03:53from King Harold in 1066 to William III in 1690,
03:57led their troops into battle.
04:00Sometimes they lost the throne,
04:02and sometimes they won it.
04:05The tradition died out with King George II,
04:08the last king to fight at the head of his army.
04:11But even today, the royal family's ties to the military
04:15are one of their most vital traditions.
04:18The monarch really understands the important role
04:21that the armed forces have and have had over the centuries
04:24to protect the nation, to shape democracy as it stands today.
04:29All of the male members of our senior royal family
04:33have spent time in the armed forces.
04:36But only one female royal has actively served.
04:41The late queen was a serving member
04:44of the auxiliary territorial service.
04:47Now, we know that the nearest that the queen got
04:49to fighting the Germans was a Camberley in southern England
04:53working out the difference between a spanner and a pair of pliers.
04:57But the bottom line is she was seen to serve.
05:01But perhaps the secret weapons in this great royal tradition
05:05are two royals who haven't ever been in the armed forces.
05:09All of the leading members of the royal family
05:11are associated with the military in some way or another.
05:15Princess Anne is colonel-in-chief of goodness knows how many different regiments.
05:19She is an admiral in the Royal Navy, she is an air chief marshal in the RAF,
05:28and she is a general in the British Army.
05:31And I think she's absolutely seen as carrying that royal
05:36and also royal female military role into the present day.
05:42And carrying that flag into the next generation is Princess Catherine.
05:51The Princess of Wales is the new colonel of the Irish Guards.
05:55She takes it very seriously, presenting the shamrock every St. Patrick's Day.
05:59She loves Seamus, the big Irish wolfhound.
06:02She always has a little word and a pat for him.
06:04Although the ceremony is quite formal,
06:06there is that informal element going into the mess hall afterwards.
06:14The soldiers afterwards will always talk about how wonderful it was
06:17to hear from their colonel-in-chief.
06:20So, really, I do think it's one of the most personal appointments
06:23that a royal can have.
06:25But even today, this royal sense of duty
06:28means much more than being just a ceremonial figurehead.
06:32Because this ancient tradition symbolises the defence of the nation.
06:37I think to the military personnel,
06:40it's very meaningful to swear your allegiance,
06:44which they do in the army and in the RAF, to the monarch.
06:48I think that acts as a focal point, a rallying point,
06:52almost like a flag when you're going into battle.
06:55It's a strength to have a monarch that isn't a politician,
06:58that isn't associated with divisive party politics.
07:01And I think that's one of those traditions
07:03that you would not want to change without really good reason.
07:06Defending the nation may be one of the most important traditions
07:16the royals follow.
07:18But as a family, there's another tradition
07:21that's almost as crucial, bringing up the next monarch.
07:25Something that, in the past,
07:28often didn't involve the royal parents.
07:31Traditionally, the royal family relied on nannies and governesses.
07:35It was perfectly all right to not see your kids all day
07:38and then have them brought to you at five o'clock
07:41for a 15-minute interview,
07:43where you check that they're still alive.
07:45And then they're taken back up to wherever it is they go in a palace.
07:50That centuries-old custom of hands-off royal parenting
07:54continued until the 1980s,
07:56when one royal mother very publicly broke with tradition.
08:01It can definitely be argued that Diana, Princess of Wales,
08:04was the one who set the tone for that more hands-on parenting style
08:08with her own children, William and Harry.
08:10Charles wanted to bring them up in the old-fashioned way,
08:13be sent to the royal nursery.
08:15But Diana, being a kindergarten teacher,
08:18knew that her approach would be different.
08:21She didn't want to miss out on bringing up her children.
08:25I think Diana very much succeeded in being a mum as well as a princess.
08:31She adored the children.
08:32She told me, I'm going to bring them up
08:34in a way no other royal princes have been brought up before.
08:38I remember Diana spending most of her days in the royal nursery
08:43and the children coming downstairs
08:46and falling asleep in their mother's arms.
08:50That would never happen at the Buckingham Palace.
08:53The royal nanny would never let that happen.
08:56In another break with royal tradition,
08:58Diana was openly and publicly affectionate with her boys.
09:03Diana smothered them in kisses.
09:07She said, I didn't have any love as a child,
09:11so I smother my boys in kisses.
09:14That's what she did.
09:15You can see clearly in the way that William and Harry talk about Diana,
09:20that they adored her
09:22and that all of the love that she wanted to give to them,
09:25they absolutely received.
09:26And Diana's modern parenting has clearly had an impact on William.
09:38According to royal insiders,
09:40he and Kate resolved to balance their royal duties
09:43to allow them to be present rather than remote parents.
09:47I think Catherine and William have adopted a very different way of parenting.
09:56They're very on message, I think, with their generation of young parents.
10:02Kate and William are undoing the bad tradition
10:06of being distant from your own kids
10:08and creating a new tradition.
10:11And they're doing it so that successive generations
10:14will bring up their children differently.
10:19Coming up, the other royal traditions
10:22of bringing up baby that have fallen out of favour.
10:26Royal women were not expected to breastfeed.
10:28It was beneath them.
10:30The traditional weekly chat
10:32between the two most powerful people in the country.
10:35It's the one meeting of that is sacrosanct
10:38in the Prime Minister's diary.
10:40And the royal custom of having a flutter on the Gee-Gees.
10:45If one of her horses were racing,
10:47will betide anyone who would forget
10:50to tape that race, Her Majesty,
10:52when she had time to watch it.
11:05Royal traditions are woven throughout
11:07Britain's ancient institutions.
11:10From the centuries-old historical connections
11:12that link the crown and the military...
11:14The monarch is the commander-in-chief.
11:17...to government.
11:19The role of a monarch in a constitutional monarchy,
11:22particularly in the UK, is to encourage,
11:25to warn and to be consulted.
11:27Those are the three tenets of their role.
11:30Although running the country
11:32is the responsibility of the British government,
11:34the monarch still plays a vital role.
11:37And traditionally, they meet every week
11:40with the Prime Minister to discuss affairs of state.
11:44It's the one meeting of the week
11:46where they don't reschedule.
11:48I mean, it happens at a particular time,
11:50and that is sacrosanct in the Prime Minister's diary.
11:54Good evening, Your Majesty.
11:55And discretion is key to the success of this weekly ritual.
12:01It is an occasion when the two of them are entirely alone.
12:05No-one is taking notes, no-one is listening,
12:08and if things go to plan,
12:10nothing will be said outside the room of what went on.
12:15The origins of the weekly tradition are vague.
12:18It wasn't until the Queen came to the throne in 1952
12:22that it became a regular custom,
12:24one she never broke.
12:27I think the longer the late Queen's reign went on,
12:30the more valuable her advice, her wisdom,
12:34her experience was for her prime ministers,
12:36most of whom were much younger than her.
12:39I actually think that the late Queen enjoyed that more maternal role.
12:45She was the nation's matriarch.
12:47She could give them space.
12:49She could nudge. She could guide.
12:51Tony Blair once said that he really valued those audiences.
12:56He said,
12:57There are only two people I can really tell everything to.
12:59One's the wife and the other's the Queen.
13:03But newspaper reports have suggested
13:05not all PMs have been quite so tight-lipped.
13:08Some prime ministers have come into disfavour, I think,
13:13with the late Queen because they blabbed.
13:17Those conversations are private
13:19and they should stay private.
13:21Unlike some politicians,
13:23the late Queen was always too diplomatic
13:25to say whether she liked or disliked a prime minister.
13:29But there have been rumours
13:31about one particularly powerful woman.
13:34I don't believe at all
13:37that there was a frosty relationship
13:39between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher.
13:40Bear in mind,
13:41the Queen and Margaret Thatcher
13:42were of roughly the same age.
13:44They grew up during the Second World War.
13:46They actually had quite a lot in common.
13:48And the fact that the Queen only went to two funerals
13:52of her prime ministers,
13:54Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher,
13:56should tell you something.
13:58Traditionally, the Queen was always careful
14:01to never express political opinions.
14:04But there were concerns,
14:05once Charles was on the throne,
14:07that might change.
14:09When he was Prince of Wales,
14:11he would write countless letters
14:13to cabinet ministers and effectively lobby them
14:16in the same way that a pressure group would.
14:18And the fear was that when he became king,
14:20he would continue to do that.
14:22But he hasn't done that.
14:23All the politicians I talk to say that he's been absolutely exemplary
14:28in his role as monarch
14:30and has never tried to influence anything unduly.
14:34The weekly meeting of an elected ruler
14:36and a hereditary sovereign may seem an unusual pairing.
14:40But it's a tradition that celebrates the past and future
14:44of both the monarchy and British democracy.
14:47I think that is where the role of the monarch is so vital,
14:53because it immediately humbles the prime minister in question.
14:57It immediately reminds them of their transient role.
15:01And they are only there because we put them there
15:05and the monarch signs them off.
15:08Monarchs are raised from birth to be the head of state.
15:11But traditionally, royal babies weren't looked after by their parents,
15:16the king and queen.
15:19They were expected to get that sort of loving, sentimental bond
15:22from their servants because they often stayed with them
15:25for all of their childhood.
15:27And they were meant to be deferential to their parents.
15:30It wasn't meant to be necessarily a loving, close bond.
15:34That separation between royal parents and offspring
15:37often started as soon as they were born.
15:40And in some cases, the royal babies spent their formative years
15:46in a completely different palace.
15:49Welcome to Kew Palace,
15:53originally known as the Dutch House
15:55because it began its life in the 17th century
15:58as a merchant dwelling.
16:00A century later, the house became Kew Palace
16:03as King George III and his wife, Charlotte,
16:07turned it into the royal nursery.
16:09It was full of governesses and sub-governnesses
16:11and wet nurses and dry nurses and cradle rockers.
16:14In fact, I'm surprised there was room for the 15 children that they had.
16:17George III and his wife were a very traditional royal family.
16:22He ruled, and she produced as many potential heirs as possible,
16:2715 children in just 21 years.
16:31With so many babies at any one time,
16:33one of the most crucial roles in the royal nursery
16:36was that of the wet nurse.
16:39The wet nurse was the person who would provide breast milk
16:43for the infant prince or princess.
16:46We might think of that as quite an odd tradition to have nowadays,
16:49but royal women were not expected to breastfeed.
16:52It was beneath them.
16:53But secondly, when they didn't breastfeed,
16:56that meant they could continue performing their duties
16:59of hopefully conceiving the next heir.
17:05Very little is known about the women who cared
17:07at such a key stage of the royal baby's life.
17:10But in 1767, one such royal foster mother
17:14would make an impression that would last a lifetime.
17:17We know that the Duchess of Northumberland,
17:19one of Queen Charlotte's friends,
17:21probably recommended a lady called Anne Percy,
17:24who was appointed as wet nurse
17:27to King George and Queen Charlotte's son Prince Edward.
17:30This was a top job.
17:33And it was also a very exclusive one
17:37that gave you this direct relationship
17:39with the child who was in your charge.
17:41It could certainly be in the best interests
17:44of a prospective wet nurse,
17:46because the salary was very high.
17:48And even when they retired once the child had been weaned,
17:52they would receive for the rest of their life
17:54an annual pension that was five times the income
17:57of a skilled tradesman.
17:59Anne Percy remained in her role at Kew for two years.
18:04But once Prince Edward was weaned,
18:06she maintained a lifelong connection to the royal family.
18:10King George and Queen Charlotte come to admire wet nurse Percy immensely.
18:16They sent her gifts.
18:17The royal family sent them locks of their own hair,
18:20which is a sign of really a familial bond at the time.
18:23The tradition of royal wet nursing petered out during Victorian times.
18:32But it took another five generations before Princess Diana
18:36finally dragged royal parenting into the modern age,
18:40creating a new tradition her own children have continued.
18:44William and Kate have clearly made a decision
18:47that they are going to be recognisably normal, present, loving,
18:52attentive parents.
18:54It's very relatable.
18:56They've probably learnt from centuries of royal tradition
19:00what not to do.
19:05One royal tradition that hasn't changed for centuries
19:08and is now an unmissable part of the royal calendar
19:11is royal ascot.
19:13Royal ascot is a very important week in the royal year.
19:16There is the season, the tradition which moves us through the summer.
19:20And of those traditions, royal ascot is perhaps one of the biggest.
19:24Royal ascot, pronounced ascot, not ascot.
19:29Royal ascot belongs to the monarch.
19:32It's their race course.
19:35And that's why they are the patrons of the race course
19:39and bring their family to the races.
19:42It's become a royal tradition which is part of the social calendar.
19:47The race course itself was first founded by Queen Anne in 1711,
19:52on land leased from the crown.
19:55Today, the event spans a whole week,
19:58attracting over a quarter of a million people every year.
20:02And traditionally, the late queen would visit
20:05on every one of its five days of racing.
20:08She loved royal ascot and to have people come to dine, sleep,
20:14and go to the races the next day.
20:17There may be a lot of royal hobnobbing throughout ascot week,
20:21but it's backed by a royal passion like no other.
20:25The queen absolutely loved horses and horse riding.
20:29She is completely steeped in the tradition of being a horsewoman
20:33ever since she got her first gift of a Shetland pony as a child.
20:37And when it came to horse racing in particular,
20:41Queen Elizabeth really knew her oats.
20:44The late queen knew everything there was to know, really, about horses,
20:49and she knew about breeding them as well.
20:51She employed the finest trainers and the finest breeders.
20:55She had really quite some success.
20:57If one of her horses were racing,
20:59won't betide anyone who would forget to put in the VHS tape,
21:04tape that race for Her Majesty when she had time to watch it.
21:08She was known to bet on the horses,
21:11and, of course, there are famous images of her
21:13looking really joyful if one of her horses won.
21:17Whenever she did have a winner, then you saw the woman.
21:21The late queen's backing of the horse racing industry
21:24helped it bring in over £4 billion to the UK economy every year.
21:29But when she passed away in 2022,
21:32there was concern that the industry and events like Royal Ascot would suffer.
21:37Thankfully, King Charles has continued the royal tradition.
21:43I think everyone was quite surprised this year
21:45that Charles and Camilla went every day to Royal Ascot,
21:48but everyone's been delighted, I think, that they took such an interest.
21:52Something like Ascot is very dependent on royal support.
21:56I think Camilla's fascinated and, of course, is very interested.
22:01Zara is interested.
22:03So I think that the royal's support for horse racing
22:07certainly will last through this reign.
22:15Coming up, the etiquette of chatting to royalty
22:18at a traditional garden party...
22:20The queen found me quite amusing sometimes,
22:23but bemusing, bewildering mostly, I think.
22:26The royal ritual of dressing down a prime minister...
22:30Victoria had meetings with ministers whose policies she didn't like
22:35and chided them to do better.
22:38And how the death of Britain's most infamous king on a battlefield
22:42changed a royal tradition.
22:44He was a brave man and a gallant man,
22:47and I think he was going to win no matter what.
22:50We have had a monarchy in England and Britain for over a millennium.
23:02During that time, generations of kings and queens
23:05have introduced all manner of rituals and traditions.
23:09While many have been consigned to history,
23:12others are still very much in practice today.
23:15The monarchy is a crucial part of Britain's identity.
23:19It's part of the heritage, the fabric of Britain.
23:22It's why people come and visit to see these traditions being played out.
23:26And it's what makes the British monarchy special.
23:29At the heart of many of these ceremonies and traditions
23:33is the royal's continuing connection with Britain's military.
23:37If you look at England's medieval kings
23:40and those who are traditionally considered great monarchs,
23:44they will almost certainly have been monarchs
23:47who were successful on the battlefield.
23:49For centuries, kings had to be trained soldiers.
23:52They had to be able to go to war on behalf of their country.
23:57But it's a tradition that proved lethal for many royal monarchs.
24:02At the time, war was face-to-face, hand-to-hand,
24:07vicious, an omnipresent threat.
24:09There are risks, but it's non-negotiable.
24:12That's how crowns are won and lost.
24:14You have to know what you're doing on the battlefield.
24:17One of the most infamous monarchs to lead his troops from the front,
24:20and die in the process, was Richard III,
24:23a king who was a far better military leader
24:25than we've been led to believe.
24:27Shakespeare portrays Richard III as this hunchback,
24:32very devious, cruel murderer of his nephews.
24:38But that's in contrast to what we know of Richard
24:40as being an incredibly able military man.
24:44Richard III is a very experienced, gifted,
24:47and even his enemies would say immensely brave warrior.
24:51He has a lot of experience thanks to the civil wars
24:54that have been happening throughout his lifetime.
24:56He was incredibly skilled,
24:59and he was definitely the favourite in the Battle of Bosworth
25:03against Henry Tudor in 1485.
25:08Although Richard, a traditionally trained fighter,
25:11was the favourite,
25:13it was Henry VII's discretion rather than valour
25:16that eventually won the day.
25:18For Richard to be fully involved
25:20at the Battle of Bosworth makes sense.
25:22Here is a king who has the background
25:24and the backbone to dirt.
25:26He was willing to fight until the death.
25:28He was a brave man and a gallant man,
25:30and I think he was going to win no matter what.
25:33And unfortunately, you know, he didn't.
25:38If Richard III had won,
25:40then it would have had a profound impact on British history.
25:44Very likely we wouldn't have had the Tudors.
25:46Then the most famous dynasty in royal history would not have existed.
25:51Richard III's death on the battlefield was a gruesome reminder
25:55of the dangers of a king leading his troops into battle.
25:59Today, it's a risk our modern royal family wouldn't be expected to take.
26:04But those earlier sacrifices are still celebrated in the monarch's traditional role
26:10as head of the armed forces.
26:12I think that really speaks to this idea of the monarch as the chief of the army
26:18and the armed forces.
26:19It's a really historic link and relationship that has never been forgotten.
26:25Although far less lethal,
26:30another royal tradition that had turbulent beginnings
26:33is the king's weekly meeting with the prime minister.
26:36How the tradition of the royal audiences with the prime minister develop
26:41is really reflective of how the monarchy and parliament develop over the centuries.
26:46Today, it's a regular chance for the monarch
26:48to discreetly discuss matters of state with the elected head of government.
26:53But back in the 1830s, as this tradition began to take shape,
26:58there was nothing discreet about it.
27:02Victoria tried her very best to meddle in the affairs of state,
27:06directly as well as indirectly.
27:10She had meetings with ministers whose policies she didn't like
27:13and chided them to do better.
27:16Queen Victoria was served by 10 PMs throughout her reign.
27:21Many quickly learned there was an art to the tradition of handling the feisty monarch.
27:26And one prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, excelled at it.
27:30We know that with Disraeli, he was a flatterer and a bit of a charmer.
27:35He really understood that she liked to feel she was important in that relationship.
27:40Victoria essentially felt needed.
27:44She felt she was powerful behind the scenes.
27:48And whether this was a facade or the reality didn't really matter.
27:55Because what it did do was allow Victoria and Disraeli to sing from the same hymn sheet.
28:03Disraeli's tactics worked.
28:06Victoria openly adored him and everything he stood for.
28:11But William Gladstone, the PM who followed Disraeli,
28:14dispensed with the traditional charm offensive
28:17and publicly suffered the consequences.
28:20She despises Gladstone.
28:22She's rude to him at every available opportunity.
28:24She says that he addresses her as if he's lecturing a public meeting,
28:29and Victoria finds this both boring and offensive.
28:33I think Gladstone saw Victoria as very much a queen and an authority figure.
28:38Which, while being respectful and deferential to her,
28:41I think she missed out on that personal element.
28:45Following the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861,
28:53Victoria began to withdraw from public life.
28:56And political power began to move away from the sovereign to government.
29:01By the end of Victoria's reign, you really see pretty much the last vestiges of political power
29:09being relinquished and instead replaced with ideas of a popular royal family.
29:17Today, unlike their feisty ancestor, our modern royals have learned to embody discretion,
29:32providing unbiased support and guidance to whoever is in power.
29:36I think the monarch looks at things from a very different viewpoint from the public,
29:40from a very different viewpoint as any politician.
29:43And that's why prime ministers really value the council of the monarch,
29:48because there is no agenda there.
29:54The weekly prime ministerial meeting is one of the most private royal traditions of modern times.
30:01But there are other long-running traditions that allow more public mingling with the monarchy.
30:07A garden party is a mass event.
30:10It's a time when the royal family can meet people who have given public service.
30:16You can't write in and ask to be invited, but you tend to be nominated.
30:20So if you're somebody that's been of service to the state or your local community,
30:25you might be put forward.
30:27The very first royal garden party was thrown in 1868.
30:31Although Queen Victoria found the large number of people she had to engage with very puzzling and bewildering,
30:39garden parties quickly became a traditional fixture in the summer calendar.
30:44And today, very little has changed.
30:47Each year there tend to be three garden parties at Buckingham Palace.
30:52It's a strange experience because you're both in an enormous crowd, but it's also intimate for you.
30:59I do love to see the palace all decked out.
31:02The people arriving really early and queuing outside the palace gates in their hats and their beautiful dresses.
31:10Since Queen Victoria's very first garden party, the events have traditionally been held in the late afternoon and follow a strict timetable.
31:22So you go through the palace and this would be the largest number of people visiting the palace,
31:27maybe 8,000 on a summer's afternoon.
31:29Then you go into the bow room which looks out over the garden and you give it a little briefing about what you're expected to do.
31:36At four o'clock, the royals would come onto the steps and stand in a line and the national anthem would be played and then they would mingle.
31:46If you're lucky to be selected for a chat with a member of the royal family, or even the king or queen, the rule is not to stray off topic.
31:56Most members of the public are polite enough and pleased enough to be there, not to veer into any embarrassing areas or questions they know wouldn't be very welcome.
32:06With the queen, I used to try and tell the silly stories most of the time because I thought,
32:10I'll brighten up your day and I'll tell you some story or I'll ask you some wacky question.
32:15And she found me quite amusing sometimes, but bemusing, bewildering mostly, I think.
32:21The whole event lasts for just under three hours, but that's ample time to experience another royal tradition,
32:31one that usually only the royal family enjoys, a stroll around the palace gardens.
32:36The gardens of the palace are beautiful and they are huge.
32:43It's not really a garden, it's a bit more like an exquisitely kept park.
32:47It's 39 acres and it's a varied landscape.
32:51So there's woodlands, thousands of trees, a very, very long herbaceous border with lovely ornamental flowers designed to be at their best for the garden party.
33:02And right at the bottom there's a stunning lake.
33:05It's very beautiful and peaceful and quiet with all the bustle and hustle of London life around you.
33:11You could be in the countryside, really.
33:17Today's gardens at Buckingham Palace were first laid out in 1825 by George IV.
33:23And they followed in a long tradition of royal gardens stretching back centuries.
33:30The tradition of having gardens is really very much associated with wealth and the monarchy.
33:40You know, they were the only ones in the past who had the money to buy land and to use garden and royal landscaping to display their wealth and their expertise.
33:56Coming up, why the tradition of royal gardens began to bloom.
34:01The gardens were all about exerting his control.
34:05So he liked to show that he could control nature.
34:08And how the royal family's traditional links to the armed forces helped Prince Harry.
34:14I think anyone who served in the armed forces, it gives them a sense of purpose.
34:19And I think that was particularly the case for Prince Harry.
34:22The royal tradition of creating grand parks and gardens dates back centuries, with successive monarchs adding to the legacy.
34:39All the royal parks like Windsor Great Park, Holyrood, these all have the stamp of monarchy and monarchs determined to imprint their character on the landscape
34:50and reshape the landscape in the fashions of the time.
34:54Our own king is said to never be happier than when he's pottering around in his own garden.
35:00Highgrove, he's created one of the great gardens of the last 50 years by consulting widely, by studying, you know, he really knows his stuff,
35:12and by doing lots of actually hands-on gardening.
35:15It's really, I think, his biggest passion.
35:19The tradition of creating palatial royal gardens really began to bloom in the 15th century.
35:26Before then, royal residences had to be more for defence and protection.
35:33This was a period before the Tudors when England was almost constantly at war.
35:38Whereas during the Tudor period, palaces were more for pleasure.
35:43And that's why you get the rise of the manicured, beautifully designed gardens.
35:50Henry VIII kick-started the trend for opulent royal gardens.
35:55And among his most impressive outdoor spaces was his private, or privy, garden at one of his favourite palaces.
36:02Hampton Court was really Henry VIII's pleasure palace.
36:06He came here to relax, to have fun, and he spent a lot of time in the gardens.
36:11As with so many other things, the gardens were all about exerting his control.
36:16He liked to show that he could control nature.
36:19So the gardens were well-structured, well-manicured, and he had mounds built, which were sort of mini hillsides.
36:27And literally, so that he could go to the top and kind of survey all that he owned.
36:33The gardens are about showing off his intellect, his wealth, and his sophistication.
36:39His second wife, Anne Boleyn, was educated in France.
36:42There are some European influences coming in.
36:44And keeping up with the French does seem to be a major part of early English royal gardens.
36:50But the traditional royal rivalry with the French meant that within 150 years,
36:56Henry's magnificent privy garden was seen as old hat and redesigned.
37:04William III, when he becomes king in the 1690s,
37:07is determined to constantly one-up Louis XIV's renovations at Versailles.
37:13William decides to give the British royal palaces a garden that can keep up with,
37:18or hopefully eclipse, the royal family across the Channel.
37:22They brought in this very formal style of gardens from the Dutch Republic,
37:28with neatly manicured hedges and precise symmetry, but utterly spectacular.
37:34Today, that royal tradition of both maintaining and creating royal gardens is still going strong.
37:41Our current king is said to have inherited his love of gardening from the queen's mother.
37:47And it has now become one of the great passions of his life.
37:51His interest in gardens is kind of central to who he is,
37:56because it goes with his views on sustainability and conservation.
38:01So gardening for him, it's a great pleasure for him,
38:04but it's kind of central to his work and his vision.
38:08Gardening is one royal tradition that allows our current king to revel in getting his hands dirty.
38:16But sometimes, a hands-on approach isn't advisable,
38:22especially when it comes to the ancient custom of a monarch leading their troops into battle.
38:28Part of the problem is not just the fact that the heir could be killed on the battlefield,
38:34but also that he could be kidnapped, he could be used as ransom.
38:38Despite the obvious risks, it's still a royal tradition for the men of the family to join up.
38:45Some have even seen action.
38:47The queen's father, George VI, did actually serve in the First World War.
38:52Of course, one of the reasons was he didn't know at the time he was going to become king.
38:56His brother, Edward VIII, was kept well away from the front line.
39:01The most recent royal to follow that tradition with a stint in the military was Prince Harry,
39:07who joined the British Army in 2005.
39:10I think anyone who served in the armed forces, it gives them a structure to their lives.
39:15It gives them a sense of purpose.
39:18And I think that was particularly the case for Prince Harry.
39:21I think to go into the military for the young men of the family is liberation in a way.
39:27It's where they are treated almost as equals.
39:30He became one of the boys.
39:33There was no Heirs and Graces.
39:35Oh, there it is!
39:38His surname was Windsor.
39:40And he really fitted in.
39:42I really think, in so many ways, that was the high point,
39:46if not just of Harry's young life, but of his life today,
39:49where he really felt this sense of belonging.
39:54During his ten years in the army, Harry saw two tours of Afghanistan,
39:59trained as an Apache helicopter commander, and rose to the rank of captain.
40:04And although he was deployed to the front line, it was short-lived.
40:11Harry was sent off on his first tour to Afghanistan after a few weeks.
40:15His location, his whereabouts, and his role were spilt out in the international press,
40:20and he had to be withdrawn.
40:22Inevitably, if you have a public profile, you are going to be more of a target than anybody else.
40:29If you're a target on enemy terrain, that doesn't only imperil you,
40:34it imperils the men and women serving around you.
40:37I think the fact that he had to effectively abandon his compatriots in Afghanistan wasn't his choice,
40:44but I think he understood why it had to happen.
40:46He didn't want to put them in any more danger than they were already in.
40:49The prince left the army in 2015, but he has started a new royal tradition,
40:59supporting former colleagues across the services who have been injured in the line of duty.
41:05Look how Harry, even though he no longer serves as a full-time royal,
41:10has worked to embolden the role of the military to lionize those injured men and women
41:15who come back from military service.
41:17Invictus Games, really, I think, will go down as his most impressive legacy.
41:28From leading troops into battle to becoming a ceremonial commander-in-chief,
41:33establishing some of Britain's greatest public parks,
41:37to spearheading conservation and sustainability,
41:42the monarchy is constantly evolving to stay relevant to British life
41:46by maintaining old royal traditions and creating new ones.
41:52They really fully understand the importance of tradition and heritage
41:57and what that means for them as they operate in society today.
42:01They really hark back to trying to connect the past with the present.
42:06They try to remind us of where they came from and why they still exist today.
42:10Next time, the extravagant royal tradition that cost a king his head.
42:21He wanted to send a message, I'm here and I'm powerful.
42:25The gruesome rituals of royal medicine.
42:28Plunging him into icy cold baths or rub corsic soda onto his legs or hot glass cups on his back.
42:35And the custom of keeping it in the family, no matter what the consequences.
42:40George I turns up with all the charm of a wart. I mean, no one is happy to see him.
42:45Those secrets, next Saturday at 7.30.
42:52And for the latest goings on behind palace gates,
42:54catch up with the royals with Reverend Richard Coles,
42:57next Saturday lunchtime, new at 5 to 2.
43:00In a mo, she's come a long way since TV punditry on Pebble Mill.
43:04What makes Claudia Winkleman one of a kind?
43:07Five goes behind the fringe.
43:09New after the break.
43:10New after the break.
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