Prince William’s granny is going global… via the World Wide Web.
Britain’s 81-year-old royal matriarch is entering foreign territory, but the queen says she is up to the task.
Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s oldest-ever monarch and an icon of traditionalism, launched her own special Royal Channel on YouTube today. Which just goes to prove that it is never too late to join the YouTube generation.
The queen’s introduction to the popular video-sharing website comes a little more than 36 hours before she sends out her 50th annual televised Christmas message, which will be streamed on her YouTube site.
The queen’s 2007 Christmas message will be added Tuesday and it will join a catalogue of royal video archives including Her Majesty’s first televised Christmas speech, which was broadcast over the British airwaves in 1957. Buckingham Palace has also posted some recent footage of the queen and other royals on the site and plans to add new clips regularly.
Palace officials say they hope the new medium will make the queen’s Christmas message more personal, more direct, and “more accessible to younger people and those in other countries.”
I visited the site today. It’s very regal. The page bears a scarlet lettered heading, which reads: “The Royal Channel – The Official Channel of the British Monarchy.” It features a photograph of Buckingham Palace flanked by the queen’s Guards in their traditional garb–tall bearskin hats and red tunics.
Some of the more modern video clips show shots of garden parties, state visits, the queen, and several British prime ministers who have served during her reign. There’s also a montage of photos depicting a royal day in the life of the queen’s son Prince Charles. (I would have preferred seeing a day in the life of Prince William.) There are also excerpts from Lord Wakehurst’s film “Long to Reign Over Us,” which has never been publicly released. The older footage includes silent video of the 1923 wedding of the queen’s parents, then known as the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.
Wonder what Prince William and Prince Harry make of their grandmother’s new site?