In the first of Hardman’s two-part series, Queen of the World, 18 months in the making and which begins tonight on ITV, he charts Elizabeth II’s bond with the Commonwealth – 20 per cent of the world’s land mass and 2.4 billion of the global population. “I have never heard her use the word legacy,” he argues, “but that’s what we are talking about.”
On the death of her father, George VI, in 1952, the post-colonial “family of nations” was in its infancy. The new Queen’s coronation robe the following year contained the emblems of its then just eight members.
“Everything else was inherited – the Crown, the jewels, the army, the Church of England – but,” says Hardman, “the one thing that wasn’t inherited was the Commonwealth. Her appointment as its head wasn’t, and over 70 years she has earned it. That’s the key to understanding how she feels about it.”
