Game of Crowns: Elizabeth, Camilla, Kate, and the Throne (7 page)

As small children, Charles and his sister, Anne, would see their mother twice a day—at 9:00 a.m. and again shortly before dinner—for a grand total of thirty carefully allotted minutes.
(Originally, the Queen saw her children for only fifteen minutes on Wednesdays, but she moved her weekly audience with the Prime Minister from five-thirty to six-thirty so she would have time to tuck Charles and Anne into bed.)

In an apparent effort to loosen things up a bit, Elizabeth did make one significant change in royal protocol when it came to the children. Although the Queen Mother and her own sister, Princess Margaret, were required to curtsy or bow in Elizabeth’s presence, her young children were no longer required to. “It’s silly,” Elizabeth told her private secretary. “They’re too young to understand what’s going on.” Yet as heir to the throne, Charles grew up feeling unloved and essentially ignored. For the most part, all of Elizabeth’s offspring spent their childhoods in the company of nurses, nannies, and governesses in the six-room nursery on the palace’s second floor.

Charles later remembered how his mother seemed to simply vanish without any real explanation for months on end. When the Queen returned from one of her early Commonwealth tours, the little boy yearned for a hug from his mother. Instead, when he rushed up to greet her, the Queen said, “No, not you, dear,” and returned to the business of greeting grown-up dignitaries first. When it was finally Charles’s turn, she bent over, shook his hand, and—without uttering a word—resumed talking to the officials who were there to welcome her home.

Although Charles’s governess, Mabel Anderson, was a no-nonsense disciplinarian, he formed a deep personal attachment to her. “At least,” he later observed, “she was there for me.”

Charles could scarcely turn to his father for comfort. If anything, Philip was even more distant and unloving than his wife. In later years, he would go on record describing his father as rigid,
authoritarian, cold, bullying, and “undemonstrative—incapable of sensitivity or tenderness.” (The Duke of Edinburgh was apparently quite capable of being demonstrative with members of the opposite sex, however. He had a particular fondness for actresses and showgirls, and his affair with one—British theater star Pat Kirkwood—was rumored to have lasted more than twenty-five years.)

Elizabeth was well aware of her husband’s roving eye. Early on during the courtship, she was within earshot when one of Philip’s dancing partners—a particularly naive young aristocrat—proclaimed loudly that it was “terribly uncomfortable dancing with Philip. That torch [flashlight] he insists on carrying in his pocket keeps jabbing me in the stomach. I’ve heard the other girls complain about it, too.”

Although her parents’ marriage had been a close and happy one (George VI described his wife to his elder daughter as “the most marvelous person in the world in my eyes”), Elizabeth knew this was the glaring exception. After all, it was her playboy Uncle David’s insistence on marrying the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson that resulted in his abdication and led to Elizabeth’s ultimately becoming queen. Infidelity remained par for the course in royal circles, and given her husband’s Viking good looks, it was scarcely realistic to think that he would remain entirely faithful.

In any event, she was far too busy attending to the business of being a modern monarch—The Firm’s chairman and CEO. Elizabeth established her own daily schedule as soon as she returned to London from Africa as queen, and it would remain virtually unchanged for the remainder of her sixty-plus-year reign.

Her first order of business each day was attending to the infamous
dispatch boxes that required her attention whether she was in residence at Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Balmoral, Sandringham, or even aboard the royal yacht
Britannia
. Made by the discreet London-based leather goods company Barrow and Gale, the red boxes were the size of small suitcases and bore the royal insignia along with the words THE QUEEN embossed in gold. They could only be opened with the Queen’s key and three others in the possession of her private secretary and his two deputies. (All were actually refurbished boxes that had previously been used by the Queen’s father. In the fall of 2015, Elizabeth became emotional when she discovered that an anonymous Barrow and Gale craftsman had scrawled “God Bless and Keep Safe Their Majesties” inside one of the boxes made for George VI shortly after his brother’s abdication thrust him onto the throne in 1936.)

The red boxes all contained paperwork directly pertaining to her schedule—from the opening of Parliament and state visits to hospital walkabouts and wreath-layings. More daunting were the ministerial boxes that arrived on her desk each morning from the Foreign Office. Each was chockablock with confidential cables, intelligence reports, cabinet minutes, documents requiring her signature, and dispatches that were meant to keep the monarch up to date on government affairs and conditions throughout Great Britain, the Commonwealth, and the world at large.

By ten each morning, Elizabeth met with her private secretary—the first of her eight private secretaries as Queen was Sir Alan Lascelles—to briefly go over the day’s schedule. Although Her Majesty’s staff included more than 350 full-time members and around 250 part-time or honorary positions, fewer than a dozen could lay claim to having regular contact with her.

Twenty minutes after being briefed by her private secretary,
the Queen returned to the elaborately carved desk in her study, pen in hand, trying to get a head start on the day’s paperwork. One of George VI’s hobbies was needlework, and she sat on an eighteenth-century Chippendale chair with a seat cushion embroidered by her father. Her desk was cluttered with framed family photographs, boxes of stationery, and mementos—all of which staff members were instructed not to touch. There was also a large vase brimming with fresh-cut flowers brought in from the palace’s extensive gardens each day.

There were overstuffed sofas, comfortable chairs, and along one wall a large Hepplewhite bookcase crammed with volumes ranging from biographies of prominent figures in British history to Agatha Christie mysteries and books on gardening. There would be changes over the years—the wallpaper, for example, would go from a calming blue green to apricot then back to blue green—but one thing would remain constant throughout the Queen’s reign: At or near her feet there would always be at least one corgi, usually snoring.

Early in the day she methodically plucked envelopes from a basket on her desk—some of the two or three hundred letters written to the monarch each day—quickly scanned them, and then scribbled notes about how each letter should be answered by her ladies-in-waiting. In addition to feeling an obligation to respond to people who “often write such personal things,” Elizabeth believed these letters offered a valuable daily snapshot of what was going on in the minds of her subjects—a look into what was “worrying people.”

Beginning around 11:00 a.m. on most weekdays, the Queen was also called upon to receive the credentials of newly appointed ambassadors, bid farewell to departing envoys, and give what
amounted to a brief private audience to a wide range of high commissioners, senior military personnel, jurists, clerics, artists, scientists, and visiting dignitaries from throughout the Commonwealth. These always took place in the palace’s cavernous, coral-accented Bow Room, where, once the Queen gave the signal, two footmen threw open the twelve-foot-high doors to announce the next awestruck visitor.

Equerries had already briefed each guest on the proper protocol: Take a single step into the room, curtsy or bow, take three more steps into the room, bow or curtsy once more, shake the Queen’s hand only after she has extended her hand, then wait for her to begin the conversation. Elizabeth, having already been briefed on each guest, usually confined the encounter to a ten-minute standing chat, although sometimes a visitor would be asked to sit with her in one of the room’s damask-covered Louis XVI settees. She would signal the end of each conversation by extending her hand to the guest, at which point an equerry would politely lead that person away in preparation for the next visitor.

Every day just before lunch, the Queen downed the same bracing cocktail—two parts Dubonnet and one part gin over two ice cubes, with a single slice of lemon. Occasionally she hosted a half-dozen or so luminaries—“meritocrats” from the worlds of literature, religion, the arts, education, business, medicine, and sports. The brainchild of Prince Philip, these lunches were designed to keep the Queen abreast of what was going on in the world beyond palace walls. The fact that none of the guests knew each other or had anything in common added to what the noted photographer and artist Cecil Beaton described as the Queen’s “underappreciated sense of mischief.”

Usually, however, Elizabeth had her midday meal alone. Grilled
Dover sole on a bed of wilted spinach was a particular favorite, or perhaps chicken served with fresh vegetables and cheese from the royal farm at Windsor Castle. Lunch seldom lasted more than forty-five minutes, and if she didn’t have to leave the palace to unveil a plaque or make a speech (she averaged around four hundred such engagements each year), the Queen was back at her desk by 1:00 p.m., hard at work on the royal boxes. At two-thirty, she normally went for a long walk with her corgis in the palace gardens. This was the Queen’s principal “alone” time—only the royal gardeners were permitted in the vicinity when Elizabeth emerged for her walk, and even they were told not to speak or even look at her.

With the exception of the occasional fitting or primping by her hairdresser, the next two hours would often be devoted to brief meetings with members of her Privy Council followed by another stab at the seemingly bottomless royal dispatch boxes. At 5:00 p.m., the Queen dropped everything for teatime. A butler wheeled in the silver cart heaped with scones, muffins, gingerbread, and tiny cakes as well as crustless, round-cut sandwiches—usually watercress, egg mayonnaise, ham with mustard, and cucumber.

The Queen insisted on brewing and pouring her own Darjeeling, then nibbled on one or two sandwiches as she crumbled pieces of the muffins in her hand and placed them on the carpet for her ever-present corgis. Not that she neglected her own sweet tooth; Her Majesty had a weakness for honey and sponge teacakes, as well as “jam pennies”—tiny raspberry jam sandwiches cut into circles the size of an English penny.

After she saw the children off to bed and then had her weekly meeting with the Prime Minister, the Queen was presented with
a brief summary of the day’s activities in Parliament, written by one of the government’s Whips. Elizabeth, determined to keep abreast of all political developments in her country, read these six-hundred-word reports on the spot.

Before dinner at 8:00 p.m., the Queen enjoyed another Dubonnet and gin cocktail. Occasionally, she would opt for a gin martini, neat. In her liquor preferences, Elizabeth was following the example set by the Queen Mother, who reluctantly moved out of Buckingham Palace and into her own quarters at nearby Clarence House.

In the course of a day, the Queen Mother usually consumed a Dubonnet and gin, a martini, two or three glasses of wine, champagne (usually Veuve Clicquot), port, and even the occasional beer. When she traveled, her ladies-in-waiting hid bottles of gin in hatboxes so that the Queen Mother could take a nip before each public appearance. (Many years after her daughter became queen, at a luncheon thrown at the Windsor Guildhall to celebrate her hundredth birthday, the Archbishop of Canterbury made the mistake of accidentally picking up the Queen Mother’s wineglass. “Hey!” she snapped. “That’s mine!”)

Early in her reign, Elizabeth often dined in the evening with Philip, the Queen Mother, or other family members. But as time progressed, if she wasn’t hosting a state dinner or attending a glittering command performance, Her Majesty often settled on supper served on a tray in front the television set in her sitting room. The cuisine remained fit for a Queen, regardless of the setting. A typical dinner might consist of pheasant shot at Sandringham, or perhaps salmon or venison shipped in from Balmoral Castle. The Queen’s favorite desserts: chocolate biscuit cake, and especially the white peaches grown in her greenhouses at Windsor.

After dinner, she returned to the dreaded dispatch boxes, often working on them until well past midnight. Whenever she felt overwhelmed, she often called her closest confidante, her mother. It was a standing joke inside the Royal Family that these phone calls placed through the palace switchboard required operators to say the following words to the Queen Mother: “Good Evening, Your Majesty. Her Majesty is on the line for Your Majesty.”

IF WINSTON CHURCHILL INITIALLY HARBORED
doubts about Elizabeth’s ability to handle the job, they were dispelled virtually overnight. During their weekly meetings in the opulent Bow Room—Churchill always showed up in a top hat and frock coat—the young Queen not only charmed the crusty statesman, but she impressed him with her grasp of important issues and her eye for detail. Once, when she asked him what he thought about that day’s urgent dispatch from Britain’s ambassador in Iraq, Churchill realized he had overlooked it. Dashing back to his offices after the meeting, he finally read the cable—and was mortified to discover that its contents were in fact extremely important.

The young Queen and the aging Prime Minister went on to develop a deep and lasting bond, in large part due to their shared love of horses. While both the Queen and her prime ministers were sworn to secrecy about what was said during these weekly audiences—no notes were ever taken and no one else was present—Churchill conceded that they talked “mostly about racing, and polo.” For her part, the Queen conceded decades later that of all her audiences, the ones with Churchill were by far her personal favorite. Winston was, she said, “very obstinate” but “always such fun.”

To postwar Britain and the world outside its borders, Elizabeth was an entirely new breed of monarch: a vibrant, poised, intelligent wife and mother who, along with her beguiling young family, was already breathing new life into a musty, male-dominated institution. “It was a thrilling time,” Paul McCartney remembered. “I grew up with the Queen, thinking she was a babe. She was beautiful and glamorous.”