ARLENE FOSTER has paid tribute to the Queen in a special new programme remembering the life of Her Majesty.
The former First Minister of Northern Ireland said it was heartbreaking to move so quickly from the joy of seeing pictures of Liz Truss enjoying her first audience with The Queen, to digesting news she’d passed away.
Speaking to GB News’ Royal Reporter Cameron Walker in a programme being broadcast on Christmas Eve, Dame Foster said: “We all looked at the photographs because we hadn’t seen Her Majesty for a while. We looked at her and we thought, ‘Oh, she’s got small, she’s looking quite frail’. But she still gave us that lovely smile.
“I certainly was really pleased to see her and then all of a sudden, there was the note-passing in the Commons and people were looking very serious. Everybody was wondering what it was.
“And then we realised ‘the Queen’s not well’ and the fact that they had told the Prime Minister and told the Leader of the Opposition. At that point we all knew that it was a serious situation because you don’t tell senior politicians that you’ve got a cold or whatever. We knew it was serious.”
She added: “I have so much admiration for the Queen because she was a female leader at a time when there weren’t very many female leaders, and she was so young when she came to the throne.
“I had the great privilege of meeting her in a private audience when I was First Minister. That is nerve-wracking when you’re thinking about going in to meet the head of state and a lady of her stature.”
The Royal Family has endured one the most tumultuous years it has ever seen, which also included the scandal that engulfed Prince Andrew. The last 12 months have also seen the Palace
have to deal with a raft of allegations levelled by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their Netflix series Harry & Meghan.
That row could be set to get even more toxic with the publication of Prince Harry’s book Spare in January.
In light of the remarkable events, GB News has produced a special report – called A Royal Year – looking back over the past 12 months with experts giving their views on the key developments.
In it Alastair Stewart, the presenter who broke the news of the Queen’s death on GB News, says: “I think I remember most strongly the fact that it happened in the midst of a real-life political storm. She marched Boris Johnson out as Prime Minister and she marched Liz Truss in as Prime Minister. This, in itself, was quite remarkable.”
Recalling the King’s first Privy Council meeting, Alastair told Cameron Walker: “It was quite extraordinary and in so many respects had never been seen before. The other moment which I really did think was special was the number of members of parliament who chose to accept Lindsay Hoyle’s invitation as Speaker to re-take their oath of allegiance – Labour and Tory, Liberal Democrats, across the spectrum, were all lining up quietly just to declare their loyalty to King Charles and his heirs.
“I will also always remember the new King and the new Prince of Wales going down unexpectedly, unannounced, and unplanned to carry out a walkabout with the people who were still queuing to go in the Great Hall at Westminster to pay their final respects.
“The queue itself was extraordinary. I was really hooked on that, because people would queue for hours on end, they’d finally get in, and it would be over in five seconds, six seconds.”
Kinsey Schofield, GB News’ US-based entertainment correspondent, said one of the most memorable moments of the year was Prince Andrew’s settlement with Virginia Giuffre: She said: “There was a lot of back and forth and he had an incredible team that really fought back against Virginia.
“Prince Andrew kind of hid in Balmoral because he did not want to get that summons. And when he inevitably was handed that paperwork, they decided that it wasn’t worth fighting to protect the reputation of the monarchy and to protect the future of the monarchy. I think that he listened to the right people, and he decided to settle with Virginia so that they could end this controversy.”
She added: “A million dollars is nothing to the Royal Family. Also in Hollywood, it’s often a strategy that they utilise, just to make something go away and to end the conversation and to move on. But it’s a very Hollywood way of going about things.
“I think that he had counsel that said let’s make this go away right now. But it did really haunt the family at the time and I think that you saw Prince William and King Charles distancing themselves from Andrew, and starting the process of really pushing him out because they thought this person is a liability to our family and to our future.”
Recalling the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Vanity Fair’s royal correspondent Katie Nicholl told GB News the scenes of that period would live long in the memory.
She said: “There was such a global interest in this sort of mammoth four-day celebration of the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.
“And I remember speaking to many people there who weren’t even monarchists, they were people who wanted to come and soak up the atmosphere who wanted to bring their children down to be a part of history in the making, and of course, to try and get a glimpse of the Queen.
“I do remember just having that sense of almost this was the final farewell. The Queen did look very, very frail, albeit happy to be there, but very frail.
“And I do remember thinking, I wonder if we’ll ever see her on this balcony again.
Pandora Forsyth, who presents the Daily Express podcast Royal Round Up, said Paddington Bear, and his special role in the Jubilee, would be forever remembered.
She added: “In terms of engaging the younger generations, Paddington Bear is now a British icon. It also gave a very sweet moment recently with her passing, where the Queen Consort actually gave out some of those bears which were lined outside the Mall all the way through to the Palace.”
