Queen's House (52 page)

In March 1951 the Duke of Windsor published his
A King's Story,
which sold 80,000 copies in the first month. It was innocuous enough – in fact, the Duke wrote of Queen Mary with a warmth that is absent from the bitter letters he wrote to Wallis after her death. But such publicity in those days was distasteful – even vulgar.

There was some cheer on 3 May 1951 when the King opened the Festival of Britain on a bomb site on the South Bank, near Waterloo. Masterminded by Herbert Morrison, it celebrated the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and did something to lighten the period of austerity. It was intended to be a symbol of renewal and hope. Queen Mary, however, considered the architecture ‘really extraordinary and very ugly'.
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Now in her old age she looked more to the past than the future.

The Festival did not cheer the tired King, who wrote, The incessant worries and crises through which we have been have got me down properly.'
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During May his doctors were concerned: after an attack of influenza, an X-ray showed a shadow on his lung. In July 1951, concerned at the King's increasing weakness, Prince Philip, now a Lieutenant-Commander, gave up the career he loved to support his wife in her increasingly heavy duties as heir to the throne.

The King rested as much as he could during the summer but in September caught a chill at Balmoral and returned to Buckingham Palace for a bronchoscopy. Though he was not told, this revealed a cancerous growth. Once again a room in Buckingham Palace became an operating theatre and his left lung was removed on 23 September.

From now on, in the words of Churchill, the King ‘walked with death'.
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Even in this illness the ‘cares of state' did not lighten. Attlee decided the government could carry on no longer and asked for a dissolution.
On 5 October a Privy Council was held at Buckingham Palace in a room adjoining the King's Bedroom to receive the King's command for the dissolution of Parliament. The Councillors, the Queen and Princess Elizabeth stood in the doorway while the King struggled to sign the necessary documents.

The Conservatives won the election on 25 October. In Attlee the King lost a Prime Minister whose total integrity he had learned to trust, but Churchill, who returned as Prime Minister, was a welcome and familiar figure, although at seventy-six he was no longer the vigorous war-leader. More and more the King relied on Princess Elizabeth, who in October, with Prince Philip, represented him on a highly successful tour of Canada and America.

The King's last Christmas at Sandringham was full of peace and happiness. Members of his Household noticed how relaxed and contented he seemed. He returned to Buckingham Palace at the end of January to see his doctors and to say goodbye to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, who were leaving to undertake the tour of East Africa, New Zealand and Australia that he and the Queen had hoped to make.

On the eve of their departure there was a happy family party at the musical
South Pacific.
Then came the leave-taking at London airport and the unforgettable picture of the King standing bareheaded in the chilly wind, his eyes fixed on the disappearing plane. Few who saw him doubted that this was a last farewell. He returned to Sandringham with Princess Margaret and the Queen.

The King's last days were peaceful and he seemed happier and more serene than he had been for a long time. The day of 5 February was the kind of country day he loved best – cold and bright; and he had a happy day shooting on the estate, wearing his electrically heated waistcoat.

That evening he spent quietly with the Queen while Princess Margaret played the piano for him. ‘There were jolly jokes – and then he wasn't there any more,' she remembered.
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At 10.30 p.m. he retired to his room and his servant brought him a cup of cocoa. At midnight, the watchman in the garden saw him shut his bedroom window. It was not until 7.30 the following morning that it was discovered that the King had died in his sleep during the night.

Meanwhile, unaware that she had become Queen, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip were at Treetops in Kenya. That morning was etched indelibly on the memory of every member of the royal party. Mike Parker, Prince Philip's friend and equerry, took the Princess to the observation platform at the top of the tree to watch the sunrise. ‘While they looked at the iridescent light that preceded the sunrise, they saw an eagle hovering just above their heads.'
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He guessed that it was at this time that the King died.

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip returned to Sagana Lodge, the house given to them as a wedding present, ten miles away. Martin Charteris (now Lord Charteris), who was later to become for many years Private Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II, remembers picking up the news from a reporter. He telephoned Mike Parker, who heard it confirmed on the BBC Overseas Service, and told the Duke of Edinburgh. It was 11.45 a.m. London time before Princess Elizabeth knew that she was now Queen. Parker watched the Duke of Edinburgh take his wife ‘up to the garden … and they walked slowly up and down the lawn while he talked and talked and talked to her'.
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Martin Charteris remembers that day. Unashamedly he says, ‘I was in love with her.' Now as he saw her at the Lodge, ‘sitting, erect, no tears, colour up a little, fully accepting her destiny', his admiration was profound.
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The radiant girl in blue jeans was now a sad young Queen in mourning. She sat, as Charteris remembers, still and grave. Below, the vast African landscape unfolded, here and there bush fires flared. She called Charteris to join her. ‘What happens next, Martin?' she asked. She had not been unprepared: her father, the King, had been so clearly a sick man. But she had then, as now, the ability to take each time in its season. There had been a time for pleasure; now was the time for duty. When Charteris was asked how the Queen had taken her loss. ‘Bravely, like a Queen,' he replied.
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Churchill and Attlee were lined up on the tarmac at London airport: two old men who bowed to the slight young woman veiled in black.

The King's limousine took the Queen and the Duke not to Buckingham Palace but to Clarence House. Queen Mary came over from Marlborough House: she must be, she said, the first to offer her duty
to the new Queen, and the old lady's deep curtsy was the most moving moment of the homecoming. Queen Mary had lived through five reigns, and now she could go in peace, knowing that the monarchy to which she had dedicated her life was safe with Elizabeth.

Later she joined the widowed Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and The Queen for the lying-in-state at Westminster Abbey. Immortalized in an unforgettable photograph, three Queens stood veiled and frozen in grief.

Queen Mary did not go to the burial at Windsor Castle. Instead she watched the funeral procession from her window in Marlborough House. She had sent for Mabell Airlie to be with her.

As the entourage wound slowly along, the Queen whispered in a broken voice, ‘Here he is', and I knew that her dry eyes were seeing beyond the coffin a little boy in a sailor suit. She was past weeping … My tears choked me. The words I wanted to say would not come. We held each other's hands in silence.'
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At Windsor, as the coffin was lowered into the tomb, the Lord Chamberlain broke in two his White Wand of Office as tradition demanded and dropped it into the grave. It was the last act of reverence for a King who against all odds had won the respect and admiration of all who knew him.

The words Churchill inscribed on his wreath were rightly chosen:
‘FOR VALOUR'.

On 11 February 1952 the House of Commons met to pay their tributes. Churchill had seen the death of Queen Victoria and had lived through the reigns of Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII and now that of King George VI. As he could witness,

No British monarch in living memory had a harder time … Never in our long history were we exposed to greater perils of invasion and destruction than in that year when we stood alone and kept the flag of freedom flying … The late King lived through every minute of this struggle with a heart that never quavered and a spirit undaunted.
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Attlee, for the Labour Party, spoke of the ‘noble example that both George V and King George VI had set to the world and showed what true Kingship meant in a democracy'.
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People had not realized the

time and care the King gave to public affairs … with this close study went a good judgement and a sure instinct for what was really vital … No two people could have done more to strengthen the influence of the crown than King George and Queen Elizabeth. That throne is firmly established in the hearts and homes of the people.

All spoke that day with genuine love and admiration for a man who was, in the words of Attlee, ‘a great King and a very good man'.
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*
John Colville was bewitched by the owner of the lovely voice. He later married ‘Meg' Egerton.

CHAPTER TEN

Queen Elizabeth II

‘The generations pass but the green shoots live.'
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LADY AIRLIE

The Age of Change

The Queen and Prince Philip did not move immediately back into Buckingham Palace. Together they had turned the dilapidated Clarence House into a charming family home, which they had been able to enjoy for less than three years; it had been Prince Philip's first real home and The Queen's first symbol of independence; it was with real sadness that they exchanged it for the chilly grandeur of Buckingham Palace. But The Queen accepted the move as part of her royal duty. It was not a showcase, as it had been for George IV, nor a ‘mausoleum', as Edward VII had called it, nor a prison, as it had been for King Edward VIII. It became her place of work, the headquarters of her establishment as Head of State and the backdrop for ceremonies.

It would take some time for Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother to adjust to her new life: she had been in command at Buckingham Palace for fifteen years and now must leave. In May 1952, when the new Queen and consort moved into the Palace, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were installed in Clarence House. For both of them the death of the King had been unexpected and a profound shock. Princess Margaret, who adored her doting father, was numbed with grief. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was ‘engulfed by great black clouds of unhappiness and misery',
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as she wrote to Edith Sitwell, thanking her for a consoling book of poetry.

The Queen and Prince Philip moved into the apartments on the first and second floors of the north side of the central courtyard of the Palace. Their children, Prince Charles and Princess Anne, were in the care of their two Scottish nurses in The Queen's old nursery on the second floor. Helen Lightbody was an old-fashioned martinet who ran the nursery like an empress dominating her empire. Mabel Anderson, warm and loving, was to become a major influence on Prince Charles: she made their nursery a bright, welcoming place to which even the grander courtiers came with pleasure, to sit by Mabel Anderson's fire and chat.

The importance of the nurses and governesses who have cared for royal children should not be underestimated. They were often closer to their charges than their parents, sometimes remaining with the family until death. They could do lasting damage – as in the case of the excessively cruel nurse of the Duke of Windsor; but the present royal family has been singularly fortunate in their children's nurses and governesses. Alah Knight, Margaret and her sister Ruby MacDonald, Mabel Anderson, Marion Crawford and many others deserve their places in the history of Buckingham Palace, as do the German nurses and governesses of Queen Charlotte and Queen Victoria.

Margaret MacDonald (‘Bobo') was a classic example of the devoted personal servant, totally trusted, with whom kings and queens are perfectly at ease as with no one else. Like Queen Charlotte's ferocious Mrs Schwellenberg or Queen Victoria's Lehzen, Miss MacDonald became possessive and imperious, and in her last years a terror to the rest of the Household, but her complete dedication and love made her an invaluable comfort to The Queen in the inevitable loneliness of royal life. Daughter of a Scottish railway worker, she had come to 145 Piccadilly as a nursery maid, accompanied the Princesses to Windsor during the war, shared Princess Elizabeth's bedroom in the early years and on her accession moved into the Palace as The Queen's dresser and remained with her until death. On the morning of The Queen's own Coronation, she was the one unflappable member of the Household.

Miss MacDonald was in charge of The Queen's clothes – and responsible for her hats and handbags. She attended The Queen at fittings with Sir Norman Hartnell, the royal dressmaker, insisting that while he
designed the outfits, she was responsible for the accessories. In spite of her humble origins, like many royal servants of the past she was a firm champion of protocol, precedence and hierarchy, which, as Mrs Roosevelt had noted, was rigidly observed below stairs. Together with Ernest Bennett, The Queen's Page of the Presence, she kept The Queen in touch with Palace news and gossip. Knowing that she had The Queen's ear, even heads of departments were wary of crossing Miss MacDonald.

Although The Queen was now surrounded by courtiers from ancient noble families, their influence was balanced by young Scots women from ordinary backgrounds. This has undoubtedly been an element in the making of Queen Elizabeth II. In the early days, however, it must have been comforting to be able to call on the experience and knowledge of tradition of the old guard. Her adoring courtiers were mostly elderly, and all of them were steeped in Palace tradition, with long years of experience. Her Prime Minister, Churchill, was now seventy-seven, had fought in the Boer War and had lived through the reigns of five monarchs. The Earl of Clarendon, her first Lord Chamberlain, was the son of a Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria. He was seventy-four and had been a Lord-in-Waiting to King George V. He had broken his leg at Eton and was badly crippled all his life. He was too frail to take part in the Coronation and retired after six months.