(soft, majestic music) ♪ (narrator) Elizabeth II.

♪ (cheering) Queen of the United Kingdom.

Service of her country for 70 years.

There's nobody else on earth that has that experience.

♪ (narrator) Although she wears the Imperial State Crown, the political power in her kingdom is wielded by others.

14 prime ministers have held office during her reign.

Tradition demands that once a week they report to Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace.

♪ All of them come to find it one of the most treasured moments of the week.

♪ (narrator) These meetings are strictly confidential.

♪ (Michael) It is never, ever leaked from Buckingham Palace, ever, what a Queen has said to a prime minister or a prime minister to the Queen.

♪ (narrator) We take a look behind the facade, and we discover secret power games, rivalries, but also genuine friendships.

♪ (bright music) The British love their Queen, maybe because she doesn't talk about politics.

♪ It's often said she's never put a foot wrong, and that is true.

But she has understood the importance of silence, of not expressing her opinions, of not reacting.

♪ (narrator) 10 Downing Street is the headquarters of Her Majesty's government.

From here, the prime minister starts every week on a little business trip to Buckingham Palace for their weekly audience with the Queen.

♪ The Queen has already met 14 prime ministers.

♪ The first was Winston Churchill, her paternal friend.

(projector whirring) (soft music) Particularly close was her relationship with prime minister number five, the Labor lefty Harold Wilson.

♪ At the end of the '70s, the first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady.

Equally difficult was her relationship with Tony Blair.

♪ Neither he nor her latest prime minister, Boris Johnson, were born when she held her first audience in 1952.

♪ We, the rest of us in Britain, love this.

We love the idea that once a week the prime minister, even if we voted for him, has to go and bow the knee to somebody.

That's his greatest significance of all, that once a week, the powerful prime minister, with all his connections and everything, has to go and give an account.

Has to literally bow the knee to somebody who represents something bigger than him.

♪ (narrator) During the audience, the Queen listens more than she talks, but she's always well-prepared and guides the conversation by asking the right questions.

♪ ♪ During her youth, Elizabeth spends many carefree summers in the countryside.

She is a conscientious, modest, down-to-earth girl.

♪ (Robert) I think the secret to understand Elizabeth II's success is to realize she was not born to be a queen.

♪ For the first 11 years of her life, she was royal, she developed all the reverence for royalty, for her grandfather, George V, but there was no prospect of her becoming queen, so it never went to her head.

I think the fact that she is not a conceited person is the essence of her success.

♪ Suddenly, in 1936, her grandfather, whom she actually called Grandpa England, died, to be succeeded by Uncle David, as she called him, that was King Edward VIII.

And within months, King Edward VIII is wanting to marry an American divorcée.

He's being thrown out of his job by the British people.

Who is to take his place?

The stuttering George VI.

♪ He had an enormous respect for the monarchy and-- the constitutional monarchy in particular, and that's what he inculcated into his daughter.

♪ (explosions) (narrator) But then the Second World War breaks out.

Even during the Blitz, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the royal family stay in London to boost the morale of their people.

(soft, tense music) ♪ (cheering) ♪ (chanting) ♪ During the victory celebrations on the 8th of May, 1945, one million Britons celebrate Elizabeth's family and their prime minister.

(cheering) (soft music) The close relationship between her father and his people impresses Elizabeth so much that she makes a solemn vow on her 21st birthday.

(young Elizabeth) I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

(narrator) Soon, on the 6th of February, 1952, she has to fulfill her pledge.

Her father dies of lung cancer.

Elizabeth cancels a holiday trip.

Winston Churchill greets her back home.

Everybody who lived through it will remember the moment when the door opened and this, uh, young girl appeared at the top.

The first time, really, of many occasions in her reign that she brought reassurance to the country.

(soft, tense music) ♪ (Hugo) And then began the life of service.

But she was probably better prepared for it than others-- other girls of sort of 25 would have been, because--because she is such a dutiful person and she always wanted to do her best.

But it can't have been easy.

(cheering) (soft music) ♪ (narrator) Out of respect for her father, Elizabeth waits 16 months before she is finally crowned on the second of June, 1953.

♪ For months, she's prepared herself for this moment and worked through state papers.

Three million spectators cheered the young woman, who, at this moment, becomes Queen of the United Kingdom and of 15 other countries.

♪ Her old friend, Winston Churchill, becomes her first prime minister.

♪ 78-year-old Churchill has known Elizabeth since she was born.

When she was only two years old, she already impressed him with her authority and thoughtfulness.

Now, during their first audience, it becomes clear that he feels a lot more than just respect for her.

♪ I think there's a sense in which all the Queen's prime ministers have been in love with her, to a certain degree, but it was most overtly displayed by Churchill.

He made no pretense at it.

There were tears in his eyes when he welcomed her.

Sentimentally, he loved the comparisons with Queen Elizabeth with Queen Victoria and the fact that this will be a sort of last act in his life.

I think the Queen valued my grandfather's experience.

And he, of course, loved the Queen, And he did love her.

I mean, he really--all his-- she aroused in him all his romantic ideas of sovereignty and monarchy and the new Elizabethan age which he referred to.

(mellow music) (narrator) But they also have their differences.

Churchill fought five wars for the empire, and he wants to retain Britain's global supremacy by force if necessary.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, favors a loose confederation of states.

Five months after her coronation, she embarks on a world tour to promote the Commonwealth.

Churchill doesn't think much of this idea.

♪ My grandfather was a child of the Victorian Empire.

And you wouldn't expect him, I think, to be overjoyed, probably, but he was a pragmatist, Churchill, and he understood the movement of events and history and time.

(soft music) ♪ (narrator) But unlike his young Queen, Churchill finds it difficult to accept Britain's new role in the world.

He fights against the dissolution of the empire.

Increasingly, he is plagued by depression.

(Nicholas) My grandmother tried very hard to get him to retire after the war and to end his-- his political career in a great wave of glory.

But he couldn't, he was like an old war horse, you know, he couldn't give it up.

♪ (narrator) Then Churchill has a stroke.

Officially, he says that he suffers from exhaustion, but Elizabeth knows the truth.

♪ She must have been very moved by the occasion because, you know, this was her first prime minister.

She had known him all her natural life.

And it was the end of an era, the end of an era, as you say, the end of-- you know, looking back, the end of the empire in a way, a signal era.

♪ (narrator) In the years after, Elizabeth settles into her position as head of state.

Each year, she opens Parliament in a lavish ceremony, and each year, she reads a speech that she hasn't written.

The prime minister puts his words into her mouth.

Today, for the first time, this ceremony is being watched not only by those who are present in this Chamber, but by many millions of My Subjects.

(narrator) Elizabeth is Britain's best ambassador.

She meets Marilyn Monroe and other Hollywood stars.

The Queen, who doesn't have a passport, makes 43 state visits during the first 10 years of her reign.

She is Britain's most important diplomat.

♪ (lively music) Back home, her kingdom is in upheaval.

The '60s usher in a new era.

The young rebel against tradition.

♪ (projector whirring) After decades of conservative rule, the Britons want somebody who's a bit more modern.

♪ The new prime minister is called Harold Wilson, the Labor Party leader.

♪ Everybody, the establishment, were absolutely terrified of Wilson when he was in power.

I mean it was, "What was he going to do next?"

(narrator) Elizabeth's conservative advisors warn her, Wilson's supposed to be a lefty and plans a social revolution.

♪ (Michael) There was quite a lot of trepidation in Buckingham Palace as to what this chap would be like, but, to their surprise, they found that Wilson himself was quite a monarchist, a royalist.

(soft music) (narrator) Elizabeth's advisors forget that Harold Wilson is not only the leader of the Labor Party but also an Oxford Don.

♪ Wilson, I think, was the first to treat her as an equal and not look down on her, and certainly to make it clear that he wasn't looking down on her.

(lively music) ♪ (soft music) ♪ (narrator) But Wilson's government is facing huge problems.

The industry is still suffering from the consequences of the war, and exports are low because trade with the former colonies has broken down.

(mellow rock music) ♪ The workers revolt against Wilson.

They want him to nationalize the coal and steel industries and go on strike.

♪ The Palace doesn't understand the rift between the workers and the Labor Party, but the prime minister can explain.

(Michael) He saw himself as teaching her a lot about whole sections of her kingdom which she didn't really know from firsthand.

You know, from firsthand, she knew the kind of things that old-fashioned conservative prime ministers did, like going shooting and having grand country house parties, but she didn't really know about the trade unions, she didn't really know about how the Labor Party worked.

(soft music) ♪ Interestingly, over the years, Harold Wilson's audiences with the Queen, with the Queen's agreement, became longer and longer.

And he would stay for drinks afterwards.

♪ (narrator) That has never happened before.

Alcohol used to be taboo during the audiences.

Now, brandy and gin are being served.

(soft country music) ♪ The prime minister spends his summer holidays with his family in Cornwall.

Picnicking and golfing, Harold Wilson loves the country life.

♪ Just like his Queen.

She traditionally spends her summer holidays up in Scotland, and invites all prime ministers for a weekend to Balmoral.

(Michael) On the second day, a big barbecue is cooked, and it's cooked by the Duke of Edinburgh.

And the Queen herself does the washing up.

And Harold Wilson thought it was great to go to Balmoral.

♪ (crowd jeering) (narrator) But in the industrial cities of the north, the riots are becoming more violent.

High inflation rates, unemployment, and endless strikes turn Britain into the "sick man of Europe."

(soft music) ♪ March 1976, after eight years in power, the exasperated prime minister requests a private audience with the Queen.

♪ He's--I did ask him myself about why he resigned.

He said, "You know, it's because I've been here so long that I've seen the questions coming 'round, and they're coming 'round again, coming 'round again, and I don't have any new answers, so I decided it was time to go."

(projector whirring) ♪ (energetic music) (narrator) Over the next three years, an ambitious grocer's daughter from Lincolnshire fights her way to the top of the conservative party.

♪ Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, and she was determined to confront what she saw as the enemies within, the enemies of the state by which she largely meant the trades unions and to try and crush union power.

And the scene was set for bloody confrontation.

Yes, I am an Iron Lady.

After all, it wasn't a bad thing to be an Iron Duke.

♪ (narrator) Margaret Thatcher's success is the result of hard work.

The advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi designed her campaign.

She employed a style consultant and a voice coach.

♪ Well, she was talkative.

Incredibly argumentative.

Loved arguing.

Fierce in argument.

Respected people who stood up to her and argued with her.

Extremely well organized.

Punctual, did her work overnight.

You might say an official's dream.

♪ (narrator) The State Opening of Parliament in 1979 sees two women who were both the same age, equally ambitious, and status conscious.

♪ (Robert) Britain was unique in these years.

We had a head of state and a chief executive who were both female.

Stuffy old Britain was ahead of the game in this sense.

And you have these two women: A woman who loved confrontation, that's Mrs. Thatcher, with a woman, the Queen, who'd do anything to avoid an argument.

I mean, one of the reasons the Queen is a successful constitutional monarch is that she much prefers to agree than disagree.

-She hates a row.

-I don't think that the Queen and Margaret Thatcher hated each other, but I think there were lots of elements, certainly in the early days of their relationship, where they rubbed each other up the wrong way.

♪ (narrator) Margaret Thatcher immediately deregulates the financial markets.

The stock market is booming.

♪ Privatization boosts the economy.

♪ But the gap between the rich and the poor widens.

♪ The lady's not for turning.

♪ (narrator) She quells protests with force.

♪ (Michael) There was more social unrest, riots, strikes, and lack of social cohesion, under Margaret Thatcher than at any other time, because--partly because she felt she had to grasp the nettle, and her style was confrontational.

And there is evidence that the Queen herself was deeply unhappy about what went on for a lot of the time under Mrs. Thatcher.

(soft music) ♪ (narrator) But when she goes to meet the Queen, she turns into the grocer's daughter again.

Thatcher always arrives a quarter of an hour too early for her weekly audience, and every week, the Queen lets her wait for 15 minutes.

♪ I think Margaret Thatcher was more nervous about everything than people made out early on.

♪ Margaret Thatcher was extremely respectful of the monarchy.

She--she is a monarchist and she was very respectful to the Queen.

You've only got to look at her curtseying to the Queen to realize just how much respect there was.

I mean, she went so low that I sometimes wondered whether she would get up again.

♪ (narrator) But Thatcher's curtsies don't impress Elizabeth.

♪ (Michael) The stage was set for quite a lot of confrontation.

And for quite a long time, they were quite sticky, the audiences with the Queen.

And I don't think they ever-- Mrs. Thatcher is not someone that you can just sit down and kick your shoes off with and sort of have a glass of whiskey late at night.

They were both quite aware of their own status.

I mean, one of the best examples of the Queen and Thatcher not quite getting on was that Margaret Thatcher, apparently, rang up the Palace one day to say that she was going to a big dinner that night, that the Queen would be at, and she wanted to know what color the Queen was wearing so that she wouldn't clash with the Queen.

And back came the reply from the Queen, "Don't worry, the Queen never notices what other women are wearing."

So, put down, you know?

(energetic singing, clapping) ♪ (narrator) The two ladies also disagree on foreign affairs.

The Commonwealth countries want Thatcher to take a stance against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

But the prime minister doesn't want to be bothered with the problems of the Commonwealth.

(indistinct chatter) (Robert) African countries were fed up with white Britain effectively supporting slowing down the sanctions.

And they knew that Margaret Thatcher was part of this.

She had actually delayed debates, stopped debates in the British Parliament, about sanctions.

(camera shutters clicking) (soft music) (narrator) Against Thatcher's will, Elizabeth travels to a meeting of Commonwealth countries, effectively supporting their claims.

Thatcher must give in and is forced to the sidelines.

(camera shutters clicking) (church bells chiming) ♪ And at home, the royal family is more popular than ever.

On the 29th of July, 1981, Prince Charles marries Diana Spencer.

(organ music) (Judy) On the day, it was wonderful.

It was just--the whole nation celebrated, you know?

It was a lovely fairytale love story.

There's never been another wedding, in my view, that could equal it.

It was just wonderful.

The bride was the most beautiful.

The whole world was interested in that wedding.

The sad thing was that the prince wasn't.

(soft music) ♪ (energetic music) (narrator) Thatcher's popularity is tumbling as she introduces the poll tax.

A quarter of a million people take to the streets in London alone, rioting breaks out, and more than 100 people are injured.

The country is in turmoil.

(soft music) ♪ In the end, even her own party has had enough of Margaret Thatcher.

John Major succeeds her.

She leaves Downing Street in tears.

♪ Elizabeth shows sympathy towards her beleaguered prime minister.

♪ (Michael) In the end, I think they did get on, and I think that Mrs. Thatcher came to value the advice -that the Queen gave her.

-The Queen was very upset by the way in which Mrs. Thatcher was deposed by the Conservative Party, and she told somebody that, "All right, Mrs. Thatcher may have been tired and things, but it was a horrible way that it was done."

And that's why I think it was very important that there was the Queen kind of waiting in the wings.

(regal music) (narrator) Politically, Elizabeth's kingdom returns to normal, but suddenly her family life becomes a target for the tabloid press.

♪ (energetic music) In 1992, her son Andrew and his wife Sarah separate, and then Charles and Diana's marriage breaks up.

♪ The poor Queen, you know, I was thinking, "Gosh, she's been on the throne a long time, and now it's all falling apart."

She was called the mother of a dysfunctional family.

They all thought that it was her fault that her children had bad marriages.

I mean, the monarchy was under threat because people thought, "Well, what's the point of having a monarchy like that?

You know, they're all scandals going on all the time."

And it was just a disaster.

And then suddenly, in December, they announced that Charles and Diana would separate.

Everybody thought, "Why, what else can happen?

That's terrible."

And then suddenly Windsor Castle bursts into flames, it was on fire.

An electrician left some hot object around and it set fire to the curtains and then the whole place went up.

And in a funny way, although it was another disaster, it--it gained some sympathy for the Queen.

They thought, "Oh, the poor woman, what else can go wrong?," you know?

(regal music) (narrator) During a reception in November, the Queen shows her true feelings.

♪ 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.

In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, "It has turned out to be an annus horribilis."

(audience murmuring) (mellow music) ♪ (narrator) The mood in the country is bleak.

♪ (projector whirring) John Major's government seems lackluster.

Britain is yearning for a fresh start.

43-year-old Tony Blair is the Labor Party's new hope.

He promises to change things.

♪ (Tony Blair) Victory at the next general election.

(applause) ♪ (narrator) And indeed, on the second of May, 1997, Tony Blair enters Downing Street with a landslide victory.

♪ (Hugo) Blair came into office with an enormous majority, so I think it would have been quite natural that the palace might have been a little bit scared as to what he was gonna do with it, as it were.

And, you know, he was very, very cocky when he started out.

He--he walked to the State Opening of Parliament holding his wife's hand, which made the state procession look slightly sort of antiquated, or at least that was the impression.

It was all New Labor, it was always, you know, Cool Britannia, it was all-- everything was going to change, things were going to, apparently, get better.

(narrator) During their first audience, Elizabeth cuts her self-confident prime minister down to size.

(Michael) When Tony Blair first became prime minister, his very first audience with the Queen, he told me the Queen said, "Ah, Mr. Blair.

Welcome to your first audience as prime minister.

Of course, my first prime minister was Winston Churchill, and you weren't even born then."

And he said, "That put me in my place straight away."

(soft music) ♪ (narrator) But after a while, Tony Blair seems to enjoy the audiences with his Queen, although large sections of his party think the monarchy is out of date.

(Mary) But on the other hand, they were also determined to show that they were now a responsible party in power, doing the things that any party with a large majority does.

And having a good relationship with the Palace and with the monarchy is part of being a responsible and powerful government.

(soft, tense music) (narrator) Just three months after Blair takes office, Princess Diana dies in a car accident.

Her death is a test for the relationship between the Queen and her prime minister.

Elizabeth is on summer vacation in Balmoral.

She hears the news of Diana's death in the morning.

(somber music) ♪ The Queen's first concern was her grandsons, William and Harry.

She said to Prince Charles, "We must take the radios out of their rooms."

Then she clicked on the television across all the channels, and, of course, every channel had pictures of the dead princess, the crash.

Her life was endlessly rehashed.

She said, "We've got to get them out.

We've got to get them up on the hills.

Organize a barbecue for them this evening."

Her preoccupation was with her own family, and she forgot that she had another family down in England, us, all weeping and laying our wreaths and feeling that we had been deprived.

And when she did come to think about us, she shrugged her shoulders and thought, "Well, you can all get on with it."

♪ (narrator) Tony Blair, however, comforts the grieving nation straight away.

Just hours after the accident, he steps up to the microphones.

♪ (journalist) Prime Minister, can we please have your reaction to the news?

I feel like everyone else in this country today.

Utterly devastated.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Princess Diana's family, in particular her two sons, the two boys.

Our hearts go out to them.

She was the People's Princess.

And that's how she will stay, how she will remain.

In our hearts and in our memories forever.

Tony Blair summed up those feelings of shock and devastation that most people in the country felt.

♪ (narrator) The grief over Diana's death turns into rage against the silent Queen.

The newspapers attack Elizabeth.

♪ The extraordinary emotions that came out in the country, the gap between that and the way the royal family seemed totally standoffish and everything like that.

And Blair did advise the Queen, via Prince Charles, as to how she, the Queen, should behave.

And this is-- he'd only been prime minister for about three months.

To be advising the monarch as to how she should behave towards her own people was quite a tricky thing.

(soft music) (narrator) The Queen her prime minister confer every day.

He urges her to address the nation.

♪ I guess history will say that the week in which the Queen was slow to come back from Balmoral was a mistake, not necessarily a personal mistake, but a mistake of the institution.

Actually, I think it's unfair because it was, for the best of reasons, to protect the grandsons at the most terrible time after their mother's death.

But it--but history judges harshly, and that will be one of the judgments.

(somber music) ♪ (narrator) Five days after Diana's death, Elizabeth finally returns to London.

♪ (Mary) The atmosphere changed at that moment as she came back.

And she and the Duke of Edinburgh walked amongst the crowds and looked at flowers and then came into Buckingham Palace.

And I remember when they came inside, I was there with the group of people sort of meeting them, and we were all talking, and they were, in some ways, as puzzled as everybody else with what had happened, with the phenomenon of so many people.

(soft music) (narrator) Downing Street and the Palace agreed that the Queen must make a speech showing that she shares the grief of the people.

The Queen's private secretaries mull over the wording.

♪ Just at the last minute, they sent it to Downing Street.

Not for approval but to see if they had any ideas.

And it was Campbell who diffidently suggested, on Tony Blair's behalf, could Her Majesty perhaps say, "speaking as a grandmother," and they grabbed it.

So what I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart, first I want to pay tribute to Diana myself.

She was an exceptional and gifted human being.

In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.

(soft music) (church bells chiming) ♪ (narrator) Thanks to Blair's bright idea, the Queen wins back the hearts of the people.

But her relationship with the prime minister remains difficult.

At her 50th wedding anniversary, Blair blabs about the highly confidential audience.

For a moment, Elizabeth loses her eternal smile.

(Tony Blair) Actually, Your Majesty's closing words to me at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, at the end of our weekly session, were, "Please don't be too effusive."

(laughter) (narrator) No British prime minister can afford such a mishap, maybe one of the reasons why Blair's audiences with Elizabeth are often over after just 20 minutes.

(Tony Blair) You are our Queen, with a keen sense of humor and amenability for mimicry.

Tony Blair's own memoirs about the Queen are quite interesting in terms of how you get on with the Queen.

He said, "Sometimes you can let her be matey with you," be sort of friendly and informal with you, but you should never try and do that with her, because if you do, then you get the look.

And it's quite interesting, 'cause Tony liked to be matey with everyone.

(narrator) But in the end, Blair loses both popular and political support.

He vacates Downing Street to make room for his successor, Gordon Brown.

(soft music) ♪ (projector whirring) Brown's government is hapless, and after only three years, he has to make way for David Cameron, a Tory, the Queen's 12th prime minister.

In 2011, Prince William and Kate's fairytale wedding makes the monarchy more popular than ever.

♪ (mellow music) Politically, however, the United Kingdom is facing one of the biggest crises in its history, Brexit.

♪ Although David Cameron is against Britain leaving the EU, he promises his people a referendum.

He hopes this will strengthen his position as prime minister.

Above all, he doesn't expect to be defeated.

(chanting) (soft, tense music) But he's wrong.

In June 2016, a wafer-thin majority of 52% of Britons voted to leave the EU.

(David Cameron) The British people have made a very clear decision to take a different path.

♪ (narrator) Cameron resigns.

♪ His successor, Theresa May, has the difficult task of making Brexit happen.

(Theresa May) Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.

(mellow music) (narrator) The second female prime minister in British history has a good working relationship with the Queen, but she is unpopular within her party and with the people.

♪ After three years, she finally gives up.

♪ While the government stumbles from crisis to crisis, the royals add some glamour to the tristesse.

In May 2018, Meghan and Harry get married.

At the time, no one would have guessed that the marriage would soon spark a major family row among the Windsors.

(choir singing) (soft music) In July 2019, Boris Johnson replaces Theresa May and becomes Elizabeth's 14th prime minister.

♪ (Camilla) Well, I think she would certainly regard him as a patriot.

The last time I saw Boris Johnson in his old office, at the Foreign Office, he had a picture of the Queen and Prince Philip up on his wall.

So this is a man who is a monarchist.

So I think there'd be quite a lot of admiration, certainly from Mr. Johnson to Her Majesty.

And equally, I think, the Queen likes characters.

She was married to a character who wasn't afraid of speaking his mind, and therefore I don't think she'd have any problem whatsoever handling somebody like Boris Johnson.

♪ (narrator) When he was born, she had already been on the throne for 12 years.

Johnson's government stands for much that runs counter to Elizabeth's principles.

Nationalism, confrontation, and disruption.

And what does the Queen think about Brexit?

♪ It's complicated to even try and go into what the Queen thinks about anything of a political bent because she has spent her entire life on the throne being politically impartial and, actually, rather inscrutable.

Because she's never given any interviews, and therefore it's probably quite difficult to determine whether she was for or against leaving the EU when it came to the referendum.

(indistinct chatter) (narrator) Early 2020.

The United Kingdom leaves the EU.

The Brexiteers celebrate.

(cheering, clock chiming) But Brexit is far from over.

Johnson faces months of difficult negotiations with the EU.

The prospect of a disorderly exit exacerbates the economic crisis.

(soft music) ♪ Brexit is followed my Megxit.

Harry and Meghan retire from royal life in January 2020.

Their accusations: Too much control by the Palace, racism, too much media hype.

(soft, tense music) Meghan even speaks of suicidal thoughts.

The USA is to become their new free home without financial support from the royal family, a heavy blow for the Queen.

(cheering) (Camilla) So she's having to deal with it both as a grandmother and a great-grandmother but also as head of the monarchy.

And there is this sense that you have to preserve the monarchy.

No one or two people are bigger than the institution itself.

And that's what she ultimately did.

(soft music) ♪ (narrator) 2020 turns into another annus horribilis for the Queen.

Besides Brexit and Megxit, COVID hits the country particularly hard.

The NHS is overwhelmed.

Intensive care units are overcrowded.

Great Britain is recording high death rates.

Several members of the royal family become infected.

The Queen and her husband go into isolation at Windsor Castle.

♪ Initially, the audiences with Johnson are only held by telephone.

The Queen no longer leaves her home.

(Camilla) Well, I think it was a hugely worrying time for the Queen, genuinely worried for the state of the nation, the biggest national emergency since the Second World War.

(grim music) ♪ (narrator) London turns into a ghost town.

Prime Minister Johnson gets infected and governs from home.

♪ But then his condition deteriorates.

♪ He has to go into intensive care.

A government crisis is looming.

♪ (soft music) In this extraordinary situation, the Queen becomes a symbol for stability once again.

(Camilla) There's a sense that she's the mother of the nation as well as head of state, and particularly throughout coronavirus, she's been proved to be a woman of wisdom and experience and the type of person that the public turns to in a time of crisis.

(indistinct chatter) (narrator) Johnson survives.

A successful vaccination campaign saves the country and the NHS.

Nevertheless, the British continue to suffer, from COVID but also from the economic crisis.

(soft, tense music) ♪ (soft music) Politically, Johnson can finally celebrate a success.

After months of tough negotiations, London and Brussels agree on a trade deal.

(indistinct chatter, camera shutters clicking) A no-deal Brexit has been averted.

On the first of January, 2021, the UK finally leaves the EU.

(Boris Johnson) In record time.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

(soft music) (narrator) Johnson has achieved his goal, but Brexit has deeply divided British society.

All the more important that the Queen remain strictly neutral in this conflict.

♪ On top of Brexit and COVID, she now worries about her husband.

For over 70 years, Prince Philip has been the man at her side.

But in Spring 2021, his health deteriorates.

(siren) (somber music) ♪ The ninth of April becomes probably the most difficult day in Queen Elizabeth's life.

Prince Philip dies two months before his 100th birthday.

(choir singing) ♪ They had been married since 1947.

♪ The Britons mourn with their Queen.

♪ (Boris Johnson) It is to Her Majesty and her family that our nation's thoughts must turn today.

Because they have lost not just a much loved and highly respected public figure, but a devoted husband and a proud and loving father, grandfather, and, in recent years, great-grandfather.

(somber music) ♪ (narrator) The next few weeks are hard for the Queen, but with her typical sense of duty, she soon resumes her public engagements.

♪ (Camilla) Her whole reign has been characterized by this man taking a couple of steps behind her in support of Queen and country.

And she no longer has that.

However, subsequently, we see her on engagements looking really bright and breezy and smiling and clearly delighted to be out of lockdown, and we understand that is because she and her husband had a pact that whoever passed away first, you know, the other person shouldn't be like Queen Victoria, dressed in black, grieving for the rest of their lives.

They should just enjoy what time they have left.

And I think the Queen knows that Prince Philip, of all people, would not want to see her moping about.

You know, she's 95, she must just embrace life.

(soft music) ♪ (narrator) And that she does.

Whether Brexit, Megxit, COVID, or the death of her husband, her duties take priority.

♪ Two months after the death of Prince Philip, she and Boris Johnson open the G7 Summit in Cornwall.

♪ (Michael) Her greatest success is her continuity, her ability to move with the times, and not look like a fusty, fuddy-duddy old reactionary.

On the other hand, could she have moved a little bit more?

Could she have seemed a little bit more human?

But the great Victorian constitutional historian Walter Bagehot said, "Be very careful.

Don't let daylight shine in on the magic."

And it's a very, very difficult balance.

And I think she's let some daylight shine in and it hasn't spoiled the magic.

(narrator) During the past 70 years, the Queen has held more than three and a half thousand audiences with her prime ministers.

No one has more experience in office and no one talks less about it.

Elizabeth's power lies in her acts, not in her words.

(Queen Elizabeth II) My Lords, pray be seated.

(staff bangs) (narrator) She has never openly interfered with politics.

(Queen Elizabeth II) My government's priority has always been... (narrator) She has never openly interfered with politics, but every prime minister knows, governing with Queen Elizabeth is smart.

Governing against her is impossible.

♪ (bright music)