Queen's House

The
Queen's
House

Edna Healey

PEGASUS BOOKS
NEW YORK LONDON

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE
The Duke of Buckingham

CHAPTER TWO
George III and Queen Charlotte

CHAPTER THREE
George IV

CHAPTER FOUR
William IV

CHAPTER FIVE
Queen Victoria

CHAPTER SIX
Edward VII

CHAPTER SEVEN
King George V and Queen Mary

CHAPTER EIGHT
King Edward VIII

CHAPTER NINE
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

CHAPTER TEN
Queen Elizabeth II

Notes

Sources and Select Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Her Majesty The Queen for gracious permission to quote from documents and letters in the Royal Archives, and for giving me the privilege of access to Buckingham Palace.

I am indebted to HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother for allowing me to publish some of her hitherto unpublished letters now in the Royal Archives. I am particularly grateful that she spared time to see me. HRH Princess Margaret also kindly gave me some valuable insight into the history of Buckingham Palace.

I am deeply indebted to Lady de Bellaigue, the Registrar of The Queen's Archives, and to Oliver Everett, Assistant Keeper of The Queen's Archives, for their guidance and assistance.

I give my grateful thanks to the librarians and their colleagues of the House of Lords Library, the British Library, the Westminster City Library and Archives and the East Sussex County Library. As always, I owe a great debt to the librarian and staff at the London Library. Jessica Rutherford, Director of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, has been particularly helpful.

I have been given every encouragement from many members of Her Majesty's Household. I am most grateful to the Lord Chamberlain, the Rt Hon. the Earl of Airlie; Her Majesty's Private Secretary, the Rt Hon. Sir Robert Fellowes; the Master of the Household, Major General
Sir Simon Cooper; the Director of Finance and Property Services, Michael Peat; and the former Press Secretary, Charles Anson, and other members of the Royal Household for their friendliness and unfailing courtesy.

I am deeply conscious of my debt to Hugh Roberts, Edward Hewlett, Christopher Lloyd and Sir Oliver Millar, and all the members of the Royal Collection, not only for the time and encouragement they have given me but also for their written works. They have contributed superb introductions to the catalogues of exhibitions in The Queen's Gallery, many of them modestly unsigned. I am aware that in this book I have been able only to touch the surface of subjects to which they have given long years of profound study. They bear no responsibility for my shortcomings.

I am most grateful to all at my publishers, Michael Joseph Ltd, particularly to my editors, Susan Watt and Anne Askwith, for their patience, constant support and encouragement, and to my picture researcher, Lily Richard. Barbara Peters has given me invaluable advice and assistance.

My secretary, the late Mary Morton, continued to work with dedication until her untimely death. Cheryl Lutring has competently finished her work.

List of Illustrations

COLOUR

1. The Duke of Buckingham's Levée by Marcellus Laroon the Younger (1679–1774) – (Private Collection – photo: John Webb)

2.
George III
(
c.
1763) by Allan Ramsay (1713–84) (The Royal Collection)

3.
Queen Charlotte
(1782) by Benjamin West (1738–1820) (The Royal Collection)

4.
Princesses Louisa and Caroline Matilda
(1767) by Francis Cotes (1725–70) (The Royal Collection)

5. The Illuminations at the Queen's House for George Ill's birthday 4 June 1763 by Robert Adam (1728–92) (Bridgeman Art Library/Agnew & Sons, London)

6.
The Great Staircase at Buckingham Palace
(1818) by James Stephanoff (
c.
1786–1874) (The Royal Collection)

7.
The Apotheosis of Prince Octavius
(1783) by Benjamin West (The Royal Collection)

8.
The Queen's Breakfast Room
(1817) by James Stephanoff (The Royal Collection)

9.
The Octagon Library
(1818) by James Stephanoff (The Royal Archives, Windsor Castle)

10. Breakfronted mahogany bookcase by William Vile (The Royal Collection)

11. Ivory chair (
c.
1770) (The Royal Collection)

12. Chelsea porcelain service (1763) (The Royal Collection)

13.
Fanny Burney
(Frances D'Arblay) (
c.
1784–5) by Edward Francis Burney (1760–1848) (By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London)

14.
Queen Charlotte
(1797) by Sir William Beechey (1753–1839) (The Royal Collection)

15.
Mrs Jordan and Two Children
(1834) by Sir Frances Chantrey (1781–1841) (The Royal Collection)

16.
The Family of George III
(1783) by Thomas Gainsborough RA (1727–88) (The Royal Collection)

17.
George IV
(1791) by George Stubbs (1724–1806) (The Royal Collection)

18.
Queen Victoria and Princé Albert and the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842
by Sir Edwin Landseer (1803–73) (The Royal Collection)

19.
Queen Victoria's Sitting-Room
(1848) by James Roberts (1800–67) (The Royal Collection)

20.
The New Ballroom at Buckingham Palace
by Louis Haghe (1806–85) (The Royal Collection)

21.
The Family of Queen Victoria
(1887) by Laurits Tuxen (1853–1927) (The Royal Collection)

22.
The Queen's Garden Party 26 June 1897
by Laurits Tuxen (The Royal Collection)

23.
King Edward VII in Garter Robes
(1907) by Sir Arthur Cope (1857–1940) (Private Collection – photo: Nathan Kelly)

24.
Queen Mary
(1911–13) by Sir William Llewellyn (1858–1941) (The Royal Collection)

25.
George V and Queen Mary Enthroned at the Great Coronation Durbar, Delhi, 12 September 1911
by George Percy Jacomb-Hood (1857–1927) (The Royal Archives, Windsor Castle)

26.
George V with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret
by T. P. Earl (1874–1947) (The Royal Collection)

27. The Duke of Edinburgh marches on the fiftieth anniversary of VJ Day, 15 August 1995 (PA News)

28. HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (1948) by Cecil Beaton (1904–80) (Camera Press)

29. The Prince and Princess of Wales on the balcony on their wedding day, 29 July 1981 (Rex Features)

30. HM The Queen at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party (Rex Features)

31. HM The Queen with President Nelson Mandela, 9 July 1996 (Popperfoto/Reuter)

32.
‘The Greate Peece': Charles I and Henrietta Maria with Their Two Eldest Children (1632)
by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641) (The Royal Collection)

33. The Picture Gallery (The Royal Collection)

All Royal Collection photographs are reproduced © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

BLACK AND WHITE

1. Plan of Buckingham House (1743) (The Royal Collection)

2. Arlington House (© British Museum)

3. Mrs Papendiek and child by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1839) (Mrs Papendiek's
Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte,
1857)

4. King George III at Windsor (
c.
1820) (The Royal Collection)

5. Leopold, King of the Belgians, (
c.
1857) (The Royal Archives, Windsor Castle)

6. Prince Albert plays the organ for Queen Victoria (1842) (Mary Evans Picture Library)

7. A group of grooms with the little pony, Webster, Buckingham Palace (1842) (The Royal Archives, Windsor Castle)

8. Queen Victoria with the Prince and Princess of Wales (1863) (Hulton Getty)

9. Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and her youngest brother, Prince Valdemar of Denmark (
c.
1870) (Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen)

10. The Prince and Princess of Wales at the time of their Silver Wedding in 1888, with their children (Hulton Getty)

11. King George IV, Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth photographed at Buckingham Palace (1942) by Cecil Beaton (Camera Press)

12. King George and the Queen watch engineers at work following a time bomb dropped during a night raid (1940) (Topham Picturepoint)

13. King George IV, Queen Elizabeth and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret on VE Day, 8 May 1945 (Hulton Getty)

14. The Christening of Princess Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise at Buckingham Palace (1950) (Hulton Getty)

All Royal Collection photographs are reproduced © Her Majety Queen Elizabeth II

Prologue

On 4 June 1763, in the third year of his reign, George III celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday at St James's Palace. Two days later his young Queen, Charlotte, staged her own surprise present. She had persuaded her husband to remain at St James's Palace from Saturday 4 June until Monday 6 June while she completed her preparations at their new home, Buckingham House. The King had bought the red-brick mansion at the end of Pall Mall in 1763
*
from Sir Charles Sheffield, who had possessed it since 1742, and they had spent the last year watching over the rebuilding and refurbishment.

Now, on a warm June night Queen Charlotte took her husband through the darkened great house up the grand staircase to the Queen's rooms overlooking the garden. Then, at a signal, the shutters were opened and below them the terrace and lawns were suddenly, amazingly, revealed, brilliant in the light of 4,000 glass lamps. Over the shining long canal, a delicate bridge had miraculously appeared. Pavilions and a splendid colonnade had arisen, and graceful figures linked huge screens lit from behind, like magic lanterns, showing images of the King bringing peace to the world, and his enemies, envy, malice and destruction falling headlong to perdition. The Queen had commissioned the architect
Robert Adam to design this magnificent display, which dazzled the throng of glittering guests and delighted the King.
¹

Queen Charlotte's German band played ‘God Save The King' and then, while the band played music by George Frideric Handel, the King and Queen joined the assembly for a ‘supper of a hundred cold dishes followed by an illuminated dessert'. Apparently at this party a new court dress was introduced, of stiff-bodiced gowns and bare shoulders. ‘The old ladies will catch their deaths,' the gossip Horace Walpole wrote maliciously. ‘What dreadful discoveries will be made, both of fat and lean. I recommend to you the idea of Mrs Cavendish going half stark!'
²

There have been many parties since then in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, as Buckingham House is called today, but probably none has pleased a monarch more. The King', so it was said, ‘was delighted with this unexpected testimony of his consort's love and respect.' It was no small achievement for a nineteen-year-old girl, recently and unexpectedly plucked from the obscurity of a small German dukedom, Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

The King, in love and gratitude, gave Buckingham House to Queen Charlotte; the gift was officially confirmed by Parliament on 26 April 1775. During her lifetime it was known as ‘the Queen's House' and here twelve of their fifteen children were born.

The palace on this site was to be rebuilt and altered many times, but it has remained at the centre of the royal family's life and, since 1837, has been the monarch's official London residence.

*
Negotiations began in 1760 but the contract was not finally signed until April 1763.

CHAPTER ONE