Robert Hardman: ‘The Queen was enormously upset at Harry and Meghan’

Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public is Hardman’s sixth book on the Royal family. Although his latest work just about steers the right side of hagiography, his great affection and admiration for Elizabeth are evident. “I’ve always been a royalist, without ever thinking about it,” he says.

Hardman was brought up in Hampshire – his father was a lawyer, while his mother raised the four children. Hardman was the eldest and, after attending Wellington, he read classics at Cambridge. “All I ever wanted was to become a journalist,” he says. “I wrote for the school newspaper, and at university, I started doing the occasional shift for The Telegraph’s diary column.”

Later, having joined the paper full-time, he found himself dispatched to cover a royal story in Klosters, simply because he was the only reporter who could ski. “It was very telling that in 1992 there wasn’t a royal reporter, because nobody was much interested.”

Married to Diana, 57, a former solicitor, the couple live in west London and have three children in their teens, who (so far) have done the decent thing by not embracing republicanism. “We all watch the Queen’s Speech on Christmas Day, and we tuned into the Jubilee celebrations, but nothing too over the top. I did dedicate one of my royal books to the children, but to the best of my knowledge, none of them has read it.”

A host of other events are due to mark the centenary of the late Queen’s birth later this month. The King will host a party for 100-year-olds who share the same birthday (April 21), details of Lord Foster’s Queen Elizabeth Memorial will be unveiled, and the Princess Royal will open the Queen Elizabeth II Garden in Regent’s Park.

The day will be a moment of celebration – but also reflection. Where does the House of Windsor go from here? It’s four years since the Second Elizabethan era drew to a close, with her 70-year reign being the unchanging backdrop to our lives. Her likeness – the most reproduced in the history of mankind – was on stamps and currency in Britain and the Commonwealth. And when the only monarch most of us had ever known died in September 2022 at the age of 96, it was as if the world tilted on its axis.

“The Queen felt timeless,” recalls Hardman, “regardless of what it said on her birth certificate, she was always this matriarchal figure and extraordinary presence, and we believed her shoes were impossible to fill.

“But thanks to the way in which she laid the groundwork, King Charles has completely confounded his critics. There was a preconception that he would reign as Prince Charles, meddling and crossing constitutional red lines. But no, it’s a situation analogous to a barrister becoming a judge – it’s the same person but in an entirely different role, requiring an entirely different approach.”