This is the very public gesture Queen Elizabeth II made to show she wanted princesses to be equal and I don’t know why we’re all forgetting it

A new book on the relationship between Buckingham Palace and politicians has raised a big question. In Power and the Palace, Valentine Low reports that Queen Elizabeth II was seen as being somewhat ”lukewarm” when the idea of altering the succession laws to make women equal with men. This has been interpreted as her being somewhat ambivalent to equality. However, her actions around that moment in monarchical history show otherwise.

The big change – which said that succession was by birth order and that girls couldn’t be overtaken by younger brothers in the list – began to take shape in 2011 when the then relatively new Prime Minister, David Cameron, began talking about making the laws equal.

For this to take place, every single realm where Elizabeth II reigned would have to agree at the same time. For that reason, Elizabeth II left her politicians to get on with it and the book reports that the involvement of Palace officials in the discussions and events that led to the alteration was minimal.

It also says that there was some awkwardness when the now Charles III found his aides weren’t being given all the details of the debates that led to the law change.

This has been seen as a sign that, at best, the Palace was hands off about the whole thing but has led to headlines claiming Elizabeth II wasn’t giving her whole hearted backing to the idea.

However, one action that came as soon as the law was changed shows that wasn’t the case. On December 31st 2012, the London Gazette published a notice from the Crown Office which made all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales an HRH and Prince or Princess. Previously, their titles had been governed by Letters Patent issued in 1917 (the famous ones which have been cited so often in recent times) when George V decreed that only the eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales should be an HRH.

As things stood, had the first child born to William and Kate been a girl, she would have been styled as Lady. A younger brother would have been HRH and Prince but would always have been behind her in the succession. Elizabeth II was straight out of the blocks with a change that showed she gave full backing to the alteration, the biggest to succession laws in centuries.

Her Letters Patent were also an echo of those issued by her father in 1948. When Elizabeth announced she was expecting a baby, everyone knew that the child would be second in line to the throne. A baby boy would definitely be in line to be monarch. But the 1917 Letters Patent stipulated that only the grandchildren of a Monarch in the male line could be HRH and Prince.

The then Princess Elizabeth’s children, under those rules, would take their style from their father, the Duke of Edinburgh. Without a change, the baby born on November 14 1948 at Buckingham Palace, would have been known as the Earl of Merioneith, taking his father’s subsidiary title. George VI granted HRH and Prince or Princess to all of Elizabeth’s children born in his reign. Those born in her reign were automatically given that title.

However, perhaps the most telling thing about Elizabeth II’s attitude to the proposed law change is how she managed it. In her reign, constitutional monarchy had become very much about advice and guidance, never telling politicians what to do. The government is elected by the people who are its ultimate masters and Elizabeth II was always keen to be seen to not interfere. Her decision to stay out of the succession debate follows that pattern to the core. And perhaps she, more than anyone else, understood the importance of not being seen to be involved in a political decision that affected her own family so directly.

Besides, it’s bizarre to ever think that the longest reigning Monarch in British history, who led from the very start even when she knew that some of the politicians bowing to her as she arrived in England as their queen thought a woman wasn’t up to reigning, would ever think the job wasn’t for a fellow female. Elizabeth II knew, better than anyone, of the power of a queen and there’s no doubt she had every confidence in the women of her line who followed her as well as in the men.