The Queen’s lunchtime audience was touched and responded with a standing ovation. The speech not only paved the way for the government’s announcement about the Queen’s taxes and the royal family’s incomes, it would soon be followed by another important family development.

On 9 December, John Major stood up in the House of Commons and said: ‘It is announced from Buckingham Palace that, with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate . . . This decision has been reached amicably, and they will continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their children . . . The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, though saddened, understand and sympathise with the difficulties that have led to this decision.’

The Queen was at Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate with only a handful of staff in attendance when the announcement was made. She did not watch the prime minister on television. Instead, she did what she always did when she was agitated: she took her dogs for a walk through the wintry woods and ploughed fields of Norfolk. When she returned to the back door, a member of staff approached the solitary figure of the sovereign, who was dressed in wellington boots and a loden coat and headscarf. He said how very sorry he was to hear the news. The Queen replied: ‘I think you will find it is all for the best.’

The separation did not go smoothly. On the fortieth anniversary of her Coronation, the Queen awoke to find that the morning newspapers were dominated not by happy remembrances but by the report of a speech Diana had given the night before to the charity Turning Point, in which she had talked of the ‘depression and loneliness’ felt by so many women as they battled against post-natal depression and violence at home. Philip was incensed at what he saw as a deliberate (and highly successful) attempt to upstage the Queen. It was happening too often, he argued, and on his prompting the Queen dispatched her private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, to inform the princess that her royal schedule was to be cut back. Diana responded to that rap across her knuckles by announcing her retirement from public life, thereby turning rebuke to advantage and securing another sheaf of headlines of the kind Philip had been so anxious to avoid.

Philip has always enjoyed a pivotal role in the Queen’s life. The Queen is the monarch – but it is Philip who always has the final say in family matters. And now his attitude towards his two daughters-in-law became as brutal as it was simple. It was this: Diana and Sarah wanted out of the royal family, so as far as he was concerned they could get out – and stay out. He let them both know exactly what he thought, in letters (he penned dozens to both Diana and Sarah, outlining his point of view in language both blunt and pertinent) and, on occasion, face to face.