Churchill's grandson says wartime leader 'revered' late monarch

‘She loved him and her loved her’: Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames says celebrated wartime leader – who was the Queen’s first prime minister – ‘revered’ the late monarch

• Sir Nicholas Soames said that Sir Winston had ‘revered’ the late monarch
• He had been her first prime minister when she came to the throne in 1952
• Churchill was almost 80 when the 25-year-old Elizabeth became Queen 
• Full coverage: Click here to see all our coverage of the Queen’s passing

Winston Churchill’s grandson spoke of the loved shared between the celebrated wartime leader and the Queen today.

Sir Nicholas Soames said that Sir Winston had ‘revered’ the late monarch, with whom he shared a warm paternalistic friendship.

He had been her first prime minister when she came to the throne in 1952 – in his second term – and she was to have a 70-year reign that saw him replaced by 14 more premiers. 

Sir Nicholas, 74, who was a Tory MP in Sussex from 1983 until stepping down in 2019, appeared on the BBC this morning. 

Discussing the late queen and his grandfather, he said: ‘She loved him and he loved her.

‘He’d known her since she was a child and he loved her very much indeed. He revered her.’

Sir Nicholas Soames said that Sir Winston had ‘revered’ the late monarch, with whom he shared a warm paternalistic friendship.

He had been her first prime minister when she came to the throne in 1952 – in his second term – and she was to have a 70-year reign that saw him replaced by 14 more premiers.

Sir Nicholas, 74, who was a Tory MP in Sussex from 1983 until stepping down in 2019, appeared on the BBC this morning.

Sir Winston quit power in 1955, just three years into her reign, and died in in 1965. He was the last non-royal to receive a state funeral. 

Born during the reign of Victoria, the man who won World War II was almost 80 when the 25-year-old Elizabeth became Queen, and regarded her with grandfatherly affection. 

He proclaimed a new ‘Elizabethan Age’ when she became Queen, while she offered to make him Duke of London.

Their weekly meetings were so successful that they often ran for two hours, with the unlikely couple laughing and gossiping about horse racing. 

One courtier confided that their meetings were ‘punctuated by peals of laughter, and Winston generally came out wiping his eyes’. 

Asked, decades later, which of her PMs she had most enjoyed meeting, the Queen reportedly replied: ‘Winston, of course, because it was always such fun.’

Churchill made no secret of his adulation for the Queen. He told a friend that ‘all the film people in the world, if they had scoured the globe, could not have found anyone so suited to the part’.

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