It beggars belief that the Queen did not know that John Kerr was planning to sack Gough Whitlam. She may not have known the detail of the coup in progress, but she knew the substance. But like Lord Nelson she pretended she did not see anything. Nonsense.

There are many reasons to reject the Queen’s cover-up and the cover-up done on her behalf. Importantly, the Queen is formally responsible for what her staff do in her name. Martin Charteris was her alter ego. We also know that the Queen was extraordinarily close to Charteris.

• If the Queen had nothing to hide, why were she and her courtiers so determined that we should not read the Palace Letters?
• She cannot imply that Charteris was running a rogue operation in the Palace. He was not an independent agent. He was employed by the Queen.
• The Queen and Charteris had a very close relationship. The Charteris obituary in The Independent newspaper of 27 December 1999 told us that he “was, by some distance, the Queen’s favourite private secretary”. They had a long and close relationship. Charteris was private secretary to Princess Elizabeth from 1950-52, assistant private secretary to Queen Elizabeth from 1952-72 and private secretary and Keeper of Her Majesty’s Archives from 1972-77, and Lord in Waiting to the Queen from 1978-99. As a loyal member of the British upper class, he went on to become Provost of Eton 1978-91. That was an appointment made exclusively by the Queen.

For his service and loyalty to the Queen, he became Sir Martin Charteris and later Lord Charteris of Amisfield. That was, in turn, topped when he became Baron Charteris of Amisfield. There is nothing here to suggest anything but a very close relationship between the Queen and Charteris. He was rewarded every step of the way for his loyal service.

• Charteris shared an upper-class background with the Queen. He was educated at Eton, went on to Sandhurst and then to Army Intelligence before joining the Palace. With that sort of background, it is not surprising that in the Palace Letters he refers to the Australian Labor Party as the “Radical Party”. Clearly a lot of undesirable people!
• Jenny Hocking has informed us of the numerous ways in which the Palace was informed and involved in Kerr’s thinking and plans. Kerr went out of his way in quite an extraordinary manner to keep all the royal apparatchiks informed of his thinking, including even Lord Mountbatten.
• Jenny Hocking in her Gough Whitlam: His Time ,told us that Kerr’s archival papers " include a hand written note setting out key points on the dismissal which refers to his discussions with Prince Charles and to ‘Charteris advice to me on dismissal’…he(Kerr) then discussed with both Prince Charles and Charteris how the Palace could protect his position of governor-general should Whitlam recall him while Kerr was ‘considering having to dismiss the government’ as Prince Charles described it".
•  Kerr  confided to Sir Walter Crocker, the Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia, about his consuming fear of recall by Whitlam; ‘entre nous, for good reasons, I never had any doubt about what the Palace’s attitude was on this important point’.
• As Tim McDonald, the senior DFAT official in London at the time of the Dismissal pointed out in Pearls & Irritations, “It is clear, however, that Charteris, an experienced, wily and polished public servant, who exuded the air of effortless superiority, which is the hallmark of the British aristocracy, knew immediately that he was dealing with a naïve, vain and insecure personality who could be manipulated to British advantage.” And that is what Charteris did for the Queen: assert British superiority over dependent Australians.
• But Charteris was not just keeping up with the avalanche of correspondence from Kerr, he went out of his way to give him some clear advice and direction. On 24 September 1975, as set out in the Palace Papers, Charteris pointed Kerr to the dodgy work of Canadian Senator Eugene Forsey on the Reserve Powers. Charteris quoted Forsey, “If supply is refused, that always makes it constitutionally proper to grant a dissolution.” On 4 November 1975, Charteris told Kerr very clearly that that power to dismiss a government did exist. Charteris was not just listening to Kerr, he was giving the obsequious Kerr clear counselling on what he could do.
• Jenny Hocking revealed just last month that in 1979 Kerr told the former Canadian Governor General Jules Leger that,“the Queen approved of his position, as did Lord Charteris…Kerr insisted that " he had served the monarchy well in Australia”
• The Queen may not have known the hour or the day when Kerr would strike, but she knew what was happening. If she didn’t know, she was not doing her duty. No one could seriously accuse her of that.After the dismissal, the Queen gave Kerr a right royal welcome and reception in London. She then bestowed on him the honour of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George – “kindly call me god”. A strange way for the Queen to show her displeasure for an act done in her name.
• The Queen  and her favourite courtier carry joint responsibility for encouraging the sacking of a government that had a majority in the Australian House of Representatives. A foreign power intervened in our political processes. It says a lot about our lack of national pride that we let that continue, keeping a foreigner as our Head of State.

Charteris wrote to Speaker Scholes after the Dismissal that “The Queen had no part in the decisions which the Governor- General must take in accordance with he Constitution”. The  Queen’s Deputy Private Secretary,Sir William Heseltine added ‘The Palace was in a state of total ignorance". The same gentleman later recalled that the Queen would have adopted a “policy of political delay “if  Whitlam attempted to sack Kerr. How is all that for upper class deception?

A gaggle of royals were all involved, the Queen, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles and Lord Mountbatten, the most foolish of all of them. All were aided and abetted by Charteris.

Not only did the Palace hide the truth. So also did The National Archives of Australia. The NAA  doggedly refused to co-operate in the release of the Palace Letters to Hocking and the Australian community. We had a right to know. It sought to hide the role of the Palace in the sacking .Hocking and supporters had to go as far as the High Court to force the NAA’s hand. Even on the day of the release of the Palace Letters, the NAA continued to obstruct and mislead. It tried to spin the contents of the letters to the Murdoch Media. As The Monthly put it, “The NAA put its own interpretation on the documents to selected journalists before Hocking was able to see even one of them. As a result, the first headlines obediently relayed the message; the Queen ‘had no role’ in sacking Whitlam, and ‘was not told in advance’.”

We know that is nonsense. Elaborate constructions of plausible denial will just not wash. The Palace went to extraordinary lengths to whitewash the role of the Queen and the gaggle of royals around her including Charles.

Tomorrow: The Prince and the Dismissal

See also:

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2017/10/jenny-hocking-a-royal-green-light-the-palace-the-governor-general-and-the-dismissal-of-the-whitlam-government/