Britain: God Save the Queen, Fast

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A palace intruder gives new urgency to an old refrain

God take care of this monarch as well, especially since her protectors last week seemed astonish ingly inept at doing so. In an incident that London's Daily Express scathingly called "the most gross and scandalous lapse of security in her 30-year reign," Queen Elizabeth II was abruptly awakened by an intruder early one morning and forced to spend an eerie ten minutes conversing with him. The visitor had evaded guardsmen, bobbies, servants, surveillance cameras and electronic devices to reach the royal bedroom, one flight up from the palace grounds.

Britons were for once uniformly outraged. Thundered the Times indignantly: "So much for the guards at Buckingham Palace. The ceremony of changing the Guard will never seem quite the same again ... All that array of scarlet tunics, burnished brass and polished leather, and still an intruder could stroll into the palace and up to the Queen's bedroom without being detected."

Police arrested Michael Fagan, 31. He had apparently scaled a 10-ft. wall topped by spikes and barbed wire, shinnied up a drainpipe, and climbed through a window to roam the vast palace corridors. Fagan must have given Her Majesty quite a start. Reportedly, he wore jeans and a dirty T shirt, and dripped blood on the royal bedclothes from a lacerated hand. He cradled a broken ashtray as he sat on her bed. But he made no threatening moves against the 56-year-old monarch, preferring instead to chat about the coincidence that each of them has four children. Pagan's mother Ivy told the Daily Mail, "He thinks so much of the Queen. I can imagine him just wanting to simply talk and say hello and discuss his problems."

The Queen displayed regal presence under pressure that would have impressed even her great-great-grandmother Victoria, the stoic object of seven assassination attempts over 42 years. As Elizabeth talked with Fagan, she managed to telephone the palace police switchboard twice, in a calm voice, to summon help. No one came immediately because the urgency of her situation was not realized An attendant who might have helped her was out walking the royal Corgis. She was finally saved when a maid entered the bedroom, took a stunned glance at the visitor and blurted, "Bloody hell, ma'am! What's he doing in there?"

Incredibly, according to the intruder's lawyer, Fagan had been inside the palace once before, although he never made to the twelve-room royal apartment. He was arraigned last week in London's Bow Street court on a single charge from his earlier visit: stealing half a bottle of wine. There was speculation that authorities had hoped to hush up Fagan's ultimate incursion, but the incident was revealed three days later when a tipster alerted the Daily Express. The intrusion led to a bruising question period in the House of Commons. Home Secretary William Whitelaw, lamely blaming the incident on technical and human error, was badgered by opposition members when he stressed earlier security improvements at Buckingham Palace and declared that security is "still not satisfactory, and more needs to be done." At week's end three police officers were transferred away from palace duty, and one of them was subsequently suspended.