Billy Graham dead: Truth behind Queen Elizabeth II's friendship with the US evangelical preacher

As so recently portrayed on season 2 of Netflix's The Crown, their friendship has always fascinated onlookers

The Rev Billy Graham, the most influential preacher of the 20th century, shaped the modern concept of an American religious life.

Through his expansive rallies, known as “crusades”; his broadcast sermons, both on TV and radio; it seemed no corner of the United States (and perhaps even the world) was left untouched by his words.

He embraced the civil rights movement, inviting the Rev. Martin Luther King Kr. to speak at his events, while offering spiritual advice to every president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama.

He’s also become well-known for his friendship with Queen Elizabeth II, especially after their relationship was depicted in season 2 of Netflix’s The Crown, which saw Claire Foy’s monarch seek advice from Paul Sparks’ Graham in a quest to resolve several earth-shattering familial revelations.

“The Billy Graham episode is about Elizabeth wanting to deepen her Christianity,” writer and creator Peter Morgan told Vanity Fair. “She stops reflecting on forgiveness as a central tenant of Christianity at precisely the time that she’s asked whether she can or can’t forgive her uncle for [meeting with Nazis and a general inclination toward appeasement].”

However, Graham’s son, Franklin, suggested to The Washington Post that, in reality, the preacher may not have been quite the close confidant those scenes depicted. Certainly, there was a mutual appreciation: Graham would be invited to preach by the Queen whenever he came to visit the UK, while she would visit him when travelling in the US. He was even knighted in 2001.

But the private scenes The Crown sets up are unlikely considering what’s famously become known as “the Billy Graham rule“, in which he refused to meet alone with another woman, in a manner now notoriously echoed by Vice President Mike Pence. Though it’s not impossible, as Graham’s biographer William Martin notes, since he certainly would have been open to rare exceptions.

The pair first met in 1955, a year after Graham came to London for his first “crusade” in the city, a 12-week stint which attracted 12 million people in total. He returned the next year for a tour of Scotland, with a week-long stint in London ending with a rally at Wembley Stadium. The next day he preached at Windsor Chapel, by royal invitation.

More likely than a search for spiritual resolution, the Queen seems to have shared a certain affinity with Graham’s traditional approach to Christian practice. As The Crown’s historical consultant, Robert Lacey told Town & Country, “People don’t know that almost certainly every night the queen kneels beside her bed and says her prayers because that is what her mother did, we know, and her grandmother before her, and that’s how she was brought up.”

And even if she did seek his advice, it’s likely we’ll never know the content of those meetings. The Queen, of course, is explicitly a private person, and Graham’s descriptions of his interactions with her are adulatory but brief.

“Good manners do not permit one to discuss the details of a private visit with Her Majesty, but I can say that I judge her to be a woman of rare modesty and character,” he wrote in his autobiography Just As I Am, but did make mention that, “no one in Britain has been more cordial toward us than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

"Almost every occasion I have been with her has been in a warm, informal setting, such as a luncheon or dinner, either alone or with a few family members or other close friends," he continued. "Her official position has prevented her from openly endorsing our Crusade meetings. But by welcoming us and having me preach on several occasions to the royal family at Windsor and Sandringham, she has gone out of her way to be quietly supportive of our mission."

“She is unquestionably one of the best-informed people on world affairs I have ever met. Part of that knowledge comes from the weekly in-depth briefings she is given by the prime minister, of course, but I have always found her highly intelligent and knowledgeable about a wide variety of issues, not just politics.”

One detail The Crown does largely misportray is the attitude of the Queen Mother (played by Victoria Hamilton), who appears shocked that England would fall under the spell of “someone who learned their trade selling brushes door-to-door in North Carolina” and deems him “a zealot”.

In Just As I Am, Graham conversely calls her “gracious” and recalls that, “the Queen Mother also impressed me with her sensitivity. I recall how nervous I was the first time I preached at Windsor, and afterward we went to the Queen Mother’s lodge for a little reception.”

“I was talking with her and Princess Margaret when we were offered drinks. The Queen Mother saw me hesitate slightly and immediately said, ‘I think I will have tomato juice.’ I said I would have the same. I believe she had sensed that I probably would not take any alcohol and had acted instantly to avoid any discomfort on my part.”