The Queen of England did not approve of the legalisation of same-sex marriage, the Daily Mail can reveals.
Daily Mail, UK reports that while in favour of civil partnerships, as a woman of deep Christian faith she took a different view on the legislation allowing same-sex couples to ‘marry’.
She expressed her frustration to a friend at the height of the controversy, but admitted she was powerless to intervene, saying: ‘I can only advise and warn.’
The friend said: ‘It was the “marriage” thing that she thought was wrong, because marriage ought to be sacrosanct between a man and a woman.’
It is the first time her anxiety over the controversial issue has become known. The revelation is among the insights in a ground-breaking series starting in the Mail today to mark her 90th birthday next month.
Following extensive interviews with courtiers past and present, friends of the Queen and family members, we can also reveal one of her most senior former aides believes it was a mistake not to lower the Buckingham Palace flag after Princess Diana’s death – and that he is convinced the Queen now shares this view.
The Queen has also changed her attitude towards Diana to one of gratitude.
She turns 90 on April 21, and events to celebrate her remarkable reign – she became Queen aged 25 – are being organised up and down the country, including an official pageant at Windsor Castle.
The Mail’s series – The Unknown Queen – unearths fascinating fresh insights into one of the most written-about women in the world.
It explores what she really thinks of the Duchess of Cambridge’s family, the Middletons, and her surprisingly saucy relationship with Prince Philip.
We reveal how the Queen clung to the hope Charles and Diana could be reconciled, but eventually her ‘deep love’ for her eldest son led her to pave the way for him to marry Camilla. Other revelations include:
- Her intriguing ‘deal’ with Prince William;
- How she planned for Princess Anne to be ‘first lady’;
- Why, in her 40s, the Queen decided to raise her skirts fashionably above the knee;
- The extraordinary day she was locked out of her own palace;
- When she went swimming in the sea, and;
- The time she mentioned the IRA’s new rifle while out riding.
We reveal the episode that most upset the Queen during her ‘annus horribilis’ of 1992, and report how she was deeply hurt by hostile public reaction to the suggestion the taxpayer would pick up the bill to repair fire-ravaged Windsor Castle.
But more recently it has been same-sex marriage that has caused her to worry.
The issue split the Conservative Party and, despite a revolt by Tory backbench MPs, it came into force in 2014 after the PM relied on support of Labour and the Lib Dems to get the measure through Parliament.
The Queen’s frustration emerged at the height of the controversy, during a conversation at the home of one of her oldest friends.
The friend said: ‘I said to her, couldn’t she do something about it, and she replied: “I can’t. I can only advise and warn.”’
Intriguingly, she was quoting the great Victorian constitutionalist Walter Bagehot, who set down the accepted limit by which the monarch can influence Parliament’s decisions.
Same-sex marriage was legalised nine years after civil partnerships came into effect in 2005, which gave same-sex couples similar rights and responsibilities as marriage.
