Читать книгу Fifty Years the Queen - Arthur Bousfield - Страница 11
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“Lilibet”
1926–1936
Queen Elizabeth II was just 31 that mellow autumn day in 1957 when she first occupied her Canadian ThroneTn her High Court of Parliament. Life had begun for her on a drizzly spring day only three decades before. The eventual holder of many titles made her debut in history as simply Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth of York. The place of her birth was 17 Bruton Street, the London town house of her maternal grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne; the date Wednesday, 21 April 1926; the time 2:40 a.m.
The Landor portrait of the baby Princess Elizabeth in her mother's arms, painted before Christmas 1926.
Canadians read about the royal birth that day in their evening papers or heard the news by radio if they had one. “Daughter Is Born To Duchess Of York” the front page of the Toronto Globe announced. The Toronto Daily Star, knowing its readers' great interest in royalty, carried a fuller report. The baby's mother it revealed had “always loved children”. The infant's paternal grandmother had spent weeks “selecting baby clothes, buying miniature toilet articles and powder boxes and even with her own hand fashioning delicate coverlets for the baby's crib”. An especially nice touch, the paper felt, were the “numerous sheafs of daffodils from the humbler folk” among the mass of floral gifts to the Duchess from the high born and famous.
Princess Elizabeth's greatest gift at birth was the parents she received. The Duke and Duchess of York were a devoted couple determined to create a happy family life for themselves and their children.
Who was this new Princess and what would be her destiny? Her identity was simple. Princess Elizabeth was the first child of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York. Her father the Duke was Prince Albert—‘Bertie’ to his family. He was second son of the world's greatest reigning monarch, King George V, Sovereign of the global British Empire and its self-governing Dominions—namely Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Newfoundland and the Irish Free State—and Emperor of India, who had been on the Throne since 1910. The new Princess was third in line to this splendid and ancient Crown after her uncle the Prince of Wales and her father.
“Nobody thought she would one day become Queen” writes a biographer of Elizabeth II. In fact, accounts of her birth indicate just such a possibility did occur to some at the time. Taking its lead from the United Kingdom papers, the Toronto Daily Star noted “there is a possibility that today's baby may become…sovereign”. In its second report the next day it informed readers that the new Princess would likely be called Elizabeth. “Elizabeth” it said “makes a strong appeal to the popular imagination because of the possibility of the little newcomer some day ascending the throne” and bringing “another Elizabethan era”.
Such predictions were not wild ones. In the past two hundred years the Crown had sometimes failed to go from father to son. When a monarch was childless it had passed to a brother. From George Ill's family it had been transmitted to his fourth son's only child, Queen Victoria. Victoria's eldest son in turn was succeeded, not by his first born son but by his second. The chance that Princess Elizabeth's dashing, popular bachelor uncle the Prince of Wales, Heir to the Throne,—the family knew him as David—might never marry was already in people's minds. “It has become common to assume the continued bachelordom of the Prince of Wales” the Toronto Daily Star hinted portentously.
The idea that the baby Princess Elizabeth might wear the Crown was no solemn prophecy. Even those who thought about it clearly did not anticipate it could be before she reached middle age. Still, the notion remained in the public mind. The next few years would decide. Most assumed the Princess's young parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, would have more children. If they did, one would likely be a son. Sons took their place ahead of daughters in the order of succession, so Princess Elizabeth in that case would go down to fourth spot or lower.
And the subject of all this conjecture? Princess Elizabeth was a healthy baby with a well-shaped head and tiny ears. She had fair hair, a lovely complexion and “large dark lashed blue eyes”. Her grandmother Queen Mary found her “enchanting”. Her birth had been a difficult one by Caesarean section. In the 1920s that was not openly discussed but the media conveyed the fact nonetheless, telling readers that “special gynaecological treatment had to be adopted”. It was a good sign for her future that the Princess made her first impact on the world just by arriving in it. Her birth was twelve days before the British General Strike which threatened to engulf the centre of the Empire in bitter class warfare. Joy over the birth of the Princess relieved the tension and caused a temporary drop in the number of reported subversive incidents.
Elizabeth's father's family was the most famous family in the world—the Royal Family of the Commonwealth of Nations. This picture taken at the time of World War I shows them together except for the eldest son the Prince of Wales who was absent at the Front serving with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. From left: Duke of York; Prince George (Duke of Kent); Queen Mary; Prince Henry (Duke of Gloucester); King George V; and Princess Mary (Princess Royal). Princess Elizabeth quickly became the darling of her formidable grandparents King George V and Queen Mary, bringing joy into their lives and evoking a somewhat uncharacteristic affection from them in return.
King George V readily approved the names Elizabeth Alexandra Mary for his new granddaughter when submitted to him by her father. The first, Elizabeth, was the name of her mother the Duchess of York. A favourite pastime of the Duchess as a child had been dressing up in romantic costumes at her family's historic Glamis Castle. On one unforgettable occasion, arrayed as the seventeenth century Princess Elizabeth—the ‘Winter Queen’ of Bohemia, daughter of King James I—she danced a set with her youngest brother to entertain guests there. Elizabeth had fond associations for her. Alexandra was the name of George V's beloved mother, the beautiful though sad Queen Alexandra, who had died the previous year. Mary was of course for his wife, Queen Mary, the child's paternal grandmother.
Water from the River Jordan was procured for the baptism of the five-week old Princess Elizabeth on 29 May in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace. Dressed in a cream Brussels lace gown, the baby cried throughout the ceremony. She had to be given an old pacifier for babies—a dose of dill water. On her behalf, six godfathers and godmothers made the first of many promises in her life, pledging the small Princess to “obediently keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same” all the days of her life. One godfather represented the oldest generation of the Royal Family. He was Elizabeth's great-great uncle, the Duke of Connaught, who had been Governor-General of Canada from 1911 to 1916.
The new Princess possessed a glorious heritage. The royal line she was born into was that of the legends of King Arthur, Saxon Common Law, Shakespeare's kings and queens and the Crown in Parliament. Yet the range and diversity of her gene pool always surprises people who think of Elizabeth II in a limiting way as “English” or “British”. On her father's side, her family had recently—in 1917—adopted the name Windsor to make their German origin less offensive in wartime. Her paternal grandmother was a Danish Princess. Farther back the roots were more multicultural—even multiracial. French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Cuman, Norwegian, Swedish and Flemish, as well as Dutch, Lithuanian, English, Arab, Byzantine Greek, Georgian, Armenian, Serbian and Welsh, were some of those to be found. Her ancestors belonging to those cultures (and others) included kings, queens, princes, princesses, saints, conquerors, warriors, statesmen, diplomats, law-givers, churchmen and patrons of the arts. Her lineage was a pathway through history. Coming partly from the international character of royalty, partly from the multi-ethnic composition of the United Kingdom, it was the right background for someone who would reign over multicultural countries in a multiracial Commonwealth.
As a princess, Elizabeth possessed ancestors in abundance, but the diversity of her roots is not really appreciated. Her forebears in fact were not only international but also interracial. Through her grandmother Queen Mary, for example, one ancestral line leads back to Genghis Khan
There were many religions represented in it too: pagans, Jews, Christians and Muslims. And of course plenty of rogues as well as heroes. Surprisingly, the staid Queen Mary provided her granddaughter Elizabeth with an exotic strain close to hand. The Consort of George V was the granddaughter of a beautiful, tragic Hungarian, Countess Claudine de Rhedey de Kis-Rhede, whose bloodline included—besides Hungarians, Croatians and Khazars—the mighty Genghis Khan himself, a grandson of whom, Kublai Khan, became Emperor of China. Another unexpected ancestral twist was not too remote either. Princess Elizabeth's great-great-great-great grandmother Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III,—the Queen after whom Charlottetown, capital of Prince Edward Island, is named—is thought to have had Black ancestry and has been claimed by the Black community as a link to the Royal Family.
The well-known Scottish heritage of Princess Elizabeth's mother, which was to be a lasting influence on her, has tended to overshadow the important strain of native Irish ancestry—an ironic endowment given the continuing Irish problem—she also inherited on the maternal side. The Duchess's mother was a direct descendant of Red Hugh O'Neill, last native King of Ulster. Not only was this Irish ancestry more recent, it was also visible. The old Minister of Glamis recalled that the Duchess as a young girl had “the traditional Irish blend of dark hair and intensely blue eyes”. Her daughter most certainly inherited the blue eyes.
Princess Elizabeth's great-great-great-great grandmother Queen Charlotte, depicted in this portrait in the New Brunswick Legislature, had Black ancestors.
Whatever ancestral genes predominate in a child, the role of the parents is decisive. Here Princess Elizabeth was exceptionally fortunate. Her father, the Duke of York, was good looking and intelligent, a decent and courageous man. He had a strong though not fully developed character. Unfortunately he also suffered from shyness, a certain lack of self-esteem and an unfortunate upbringing that had left him with a pronounced stammer. Princess Elizabeth's mother, the Duchess, formerly Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, had as the Toronto Daily Star pointed out gained the name “the smiling Duchess”. In barely three years of marriage to the Duke of York she, by her graciousness, reversed Queen Victoria's rigid rule that the Royal Family should always appear looking serious in public so as not to be thought frivolous. And the public applauded the change.
Princess Elizabeth's maternal grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, portrayed here with their ten children in the drawing room of their ancient seat Glamis Castle, were Scottish nobles who might have stepped out of a Scott novel. Public spirited, good landlords, devoutly Episcopalian and steeped in Jacobite tradition, they were hospitable, fun loving, musical and closely knit as a family.
In her person the Duchess of York was beautiful and elegant. Born with a quick intelligence, remarkable self possession and lack of self consciousness, she was also endowed with a rare kindness, common sense and genuine interest in others. These qualities had flourished in the happy environment created by her fond parents and nine brothers and sisters. She and the Duke were moreover very much in love.
Both parents welcomed Princess Elizabeth's birth. “We always wanted a child to make our happiness complete” the Duke wrote to his mother, Queen Mary, a few days after the event. They were determined to create a happy home life for their daughter—the Duchess because she had so much loved her own family, the Duke because he yearned for the satisfactory family life he had not had as a child.
But it was not to be quite yet. Soon after Princess Elizabeth was born she was called on for the first of a lifetime of sacrifices to that insatiable deity—royal duty. She found her parents suddenly snatched from her. The Duke and Duchess of York were told by the King that they must undertake a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand, a tour the Prince of Wales was supposed to have made.
The Duke and Duchess sailed for the Antipodes in January 1927. “It quite broke me up” wrote the Duchess at having to leave her baby. In their absence, care of their nine-month-old daughter was shared between the two sets of grandparents, the Strathmores and King George V and Queen Mary. When their turn came, the elderly Sovereigns who had not had much empathy with their own children were captivated by Princess Elizabeth. They developed an immediate rapport with their granddaughter, doting on her, spoiling her. But the absence of Elizabeth's parents was a long one. When the Duke and Duchess came back from their highly successful tour, the Princess did not recognise them.
The Princess at 2. A portrait photograph by Marcus Adams hand coloured in pastel. The pose suggests a modern version of a Renaissance cherub.
The day of the Yorks' return, 27 June, the Duke and Duchess appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace and Princess Elizabeth, now a year and two months old, was held up under an umbrella for the first time to the cheering crowds below. Family life was resumed. The Yorks now had a house of their own: 145 Piccadilly, a tall, narrow, austere looking building topped with a dome and not far from the Palace. Princess Elizabeth's nursery was at the top of the house. It was presided over by her nanny Clara Knight who had been nanny to the Duchess when she was a baby. Unable to say Clara, the Princess called her Ah-lah. She also invented a name for herself. Trying to pronounce Elizabeth, she came out with Lilibet. When she went to stay with George V at Bognor, where he was convalescing in the wake of a serious illness in 1929, her grandfather began calling her Lilibet. The name was adopted by the rest of the Royal Family.
Joined with Mrs Knight in the care of the Princess were Margaret—called Bobo—and Ruby, the MacDonald sisters, daughters of a Scottish railway worker. Bobo was first nursemaid then dresser to Princess Elizabeth while Ruby was subsequently attached in the same capacity to Princess Margaret, Elizabeth's sister. For Bobo it was to be a lifetime of service and friendship with Elizabeth II.
Princess Elizabeth also acquired two other homes. Birkhall on the Balmoral estate was assigned to the Yorks as a holiday residence. More important for her was Royal Lodge, a somewhat derelict hunting lodge that had belonged to George IV in Windsor Great Park, near enough to the Castle for convenience but sufficiently secluded to ensure complete privacy. The Yorks altered the Gothic style structure, added new wings and together created a beautiful garden in the grounds. The family moved there in 1932 using Royal Lodge as their weekend country house. It was painted pink to recall the rose colour brick of the Duchess' childhood home St Paul's Walden Bury. They made it a charming residence and today it is still the home of Elizabeth II's mother Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother at age 101.
1933 Newfoundland stamp showing Princess Elizabeth at 5.
The Hungarian Philip de Laszlo, one of the 20th century's great portrait painters, captured Princess Elizabeth at 7 with his customary style and elegance.
The Princess grew rapidly. Winston Churchill met her in 1928 when she was two and a half and found her “a character”. “She has” he wrote his wife “an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant”. The Princess was a good child: quiet, obedient, kind and unselfish, though she did not and would never possess the spontaneous charm her mother had at a similar age, the charm that with a glance captures the devotion of an individual or a crowd for life. Princess Elizabeth was also affectionate and good natured.
Y Bwthyn Bach or The Little House, a miniature thatched cottage eleven feet high in the garden of Royal Lodge, was given to Princess Elizabeth by the people of Wales on her sixth birthday in 1931. The Little Houses fully equipped and in it Her Royal Highness learned me rudiments of housework.
The year of her fourth birthday—1930—was a milestone. For her birthday she received her first pony—Peggy—from King George V. He was the person who awakened in her a passionate love of horses. The same year her sister Margaret was born. “I've got a baby sister, Margaret Rose, and I'm going to call her Bud” Elizabeth confided to a friend of her Mother. “Why Bud?” asked the friend. “Well, she's not a real Rose yet, is she? She's only a Bud” replied the logical Princess. There was surprise and disappointment that the new child was a daughter not a son. Princess Elizabeth's place in the succession was not only unshaken, the continued bachelorhood of the Prince of Wales focused public attention more and more on her. For the first time the Duke of York, discussing how his daughter resembled the young Queen Victoria with his friend Osbert Sitwell, expressed the thought that Elizabeth might become Queen.
She was in fact the most famous child in the world. At three she appeared on the cover of Time—as a fashion trendsetter. People had found she wore yellow dresses and so all over the world little girls were dressed in yellow. When she was four a wax figure of her mounted on a pony was added to the famous Madam Tussaud's Museum. Her precocious personality began to be known throughout her grandfather's far flung realms. Looking back from the world of instant communications it is hard to imagine just how the character of a four-year-old communicated itself to people so far away. But in addition to the general interest aroused by royalty Princess Elizabeth fulfilled a yearning the public felt for the wholesomeness of children and family, a need born of the horrors of the First World War and the perceived disintegration of society in the wake of the conflict.
In some respects Princess Elizabeth became better known than her parents. At least for the peoples and parts of the Empire where the Yorks had not been seen. Her small person interested adults as well as the children who were in age her peers. Pictures were taken of her by the London children's photographer Marcus Adams, who had a rapidly growing reputation in the field, so her parents could keep up with her growth when they were in Australia and New Zealand. Once released to the public the photos became incredibly popular and found their way everywhere.
A small provincial newspaper, The Evening Examiner in Peterborough, Ontario, for example, published a picture of Princess Elizabeth in its 31 March 1930 issue, a month prior to her fourth birthday. The accompanying story told how the Photographers' Association of America decided to hold contests to discover the most attractive child “in America and Ontario, respectively”. To arouse interest in the contests, Charles Ashley, President of the Ontario Photographers' Association, telephoned Marcus Adams to ask for the loan of some portraits of royal children, Ashley knew his fellow Canadians' interest in the Royal Family and how fascinated Americans also found them. Marcus Adams sent Ashley his latest studies of Princess Elizabeth.
As she grew, the Princess developed a dose relationship with her father. Here is her father's delightful snapshot of the happy Princess at 4 among the lilies of Royal Lodge.
THE HOUSES OF WINDSOR
As the Queen of 16 realms, Elizabeth II has official residences throughout the world, where she stays when carrying out her duties in person. Unlike her representatives, who occupy them for only a few years, Her Majesty has made them her homes for more than fifty years, and her ancestors and relatives called them home decades and centuries earlier. They are truly the Houses of Windsor.
Windsor Castle, just outside of London, is the weekend home of the Royal Family, and gave the family its name.
The Royal Yacht BRITANNIA was the home shared by the whole Commonwealth, as it travelled to many lands to provide a residence for the Queen and the Royal Family. Here it is seen in the Bahamas.
Buckingham Palace, the Queen's London residence.
In Scotland the Queen's home is Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh.
When in Canadian waters the BRITANNIA flew the Queen's Canadian Banner and the Canadian National Flag.
Yarralumla, in Canberra, Australia has welcomed the Queen several times.
In Quebec City, the ancient capital of Canada, the Queen and Governor-General stay at a special residence inside the old Citadel fortress.
The New Zealand Government House in Wellington, the Queen's residence in that Pacific land, is a large, two-storeyed wooden house with attics and a flag turret, built in 1910.
Rideau Hall, in Ottawa, a rambling residence much added to over the decades, has been the Royal Family's Canadian address since 1865. Based on a house datingfrom 1838, the front facade, created in 1913, bears a resemblance to Buckingham Palace, whose facade was added at about the same time. The garden front has the intimacy of a country home. Rideau Hall first became the Queen's home in 1951, when she was a Princess.
Right: Princess Elizabeth with her father and sister on horseback in Windsor Great Park.
The Marcus Adams photos thus found their way into The Evening Examiner, the first headed “Study of Princess Elizabeth”. The paper published another portrait photo on 29 April—Princess Elizabeth with Queen Mary. The first picture carried a short story about the Princess, perhaps true, perhaps apocryphal, which showed her as a natural, endearing child. “The little princess” it ran “recently discovered, in Buckingham Palace yard, that every time she passed the guardsman in sentry-go, he presented arms to her. And before the nursemaid discovered the situation had run the poor fellow nearly ragged”. Stories like this not only appeared in newspapers. About this time G. Howard Ferguson, Premier of Ontario, addressed the Empire Club of Canada, a noted dining club for prominent professionals and businessmen, and is recorded as having begun his talk with anecdotes about the Royal Family.
Princess Elizabeth's life settled into a pattern. Easter was spent at Windsor Castle with the King and Queen. In August and September she visited her grandparents, the Strathmores at Glamis Castle and the King and Queen at Balmoral. Christmas meant going to Sandringham. The rest of the time was divided between 145 Piccadilly and Royal Lodge. Her love of horses and country life continued to increase. In the hall outside her nursery at 145 Piccadilly she kept a “stable” of thirty to forty toy horses and unsaddled them all every night. At five she began formal riding lessons with Owen, the royal groom, at White Lodge, Windsor. Princess Elizabeth's favourite games all involved playing at horses. She sought every book she could find on the subject, watched the drayhorses delivering goods in the streets below her nursery windows and counted the days to the annual Horse Show at Olympia. She announced she was going to marry a farmer in order to have lots of cows, horses and dogs.
In 1930 Princess Elizabeth acquired a special responsibility, a sister to look after, Princess Margaret, born that year at Glamis Castle. Here the royal sisters are 6 and 2 respectively.
The year 1932 ushered in another phase of Elizabeth's development. In the spring Crawfie arrived as her governess and serious schooling began for the Princess. Marion Crawford's account of her seventeen years with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret was published as The Little Princesses in 1950. By writing the book the author violated the trust and friendship of the Royal Family so her memoir created a minor scandal. Its contents on the other hand in no way merited the uproar. Quite the contrary they confirmed that the future Elizabeth II had enjoyed just the happy family life the public imagined.
Marion Crawford was a product of the Moray House Training College in Edinburgh and intended to become a child psychologist. She had taught underprivileged children in the Scottish capital and knew the latest methods of progressive nursery teaching. She was a person of great energy. Her prowess at walking had been what first impressed the Duke of York. On arriving in the Yorks household she was astounded at the freedom Princess Elizabeth's parents allowed her. They “were not over concerned with the higher education of their daughters” she recalled. “They wanted most for them a really happy childhood, with lots of pleasant memories stored up against the days that might come out and, later, happy marriages”.
Riding her tricycle. Despite the world's keen interest in her, Princess Elizabeth had a normal and relatively private upbringing.
With her grandmother Queen Mary who took a close interest in the Princess's education, arranging excursions to museums, historic sites and concerts with her.
Crawfie, as Princess Elizabeth promptly named her, set up a six-day weekly programme of instruction for her nearly six-year-old charge. Her Royal Highness woke at 7:30 a.m. and had breakfast. She went downstairs at 9:00 and half hour lessons began. At the start of the week, the first period was devoted to religious instruction, other days to arithmetic. Four periods were allotted to history, two to grammar, one each to literature, writing, composition, poetry and geography. A break of an hour followed at 11:00 with orange juice and play time. Twelve to one was time for reading, half for silent reading and half with Miss Crawford reading aloud. Lunch took place at one o'clock. The afternoon was taken up with singing (the Princess had a good voice), dancing, music and drawing until 4:45 when there was tea. The evening meal was at 7:15 p.m., followed by bathtime.
Princess Elizabeth saw her parents in the morning before lessons, lunched with them if they were at home, spent the hour from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. with them and was visited by them when having her bath—a happy time of noisy splashing and general fun. So close a relationship between parents and children was unusual in any family of the time that could afford a staff of servants. It surprised and pleased Crawfie.
As the head gardener (left) gives advice, Princess Elizabeth (fourth from left) plants a tree at a birthday party for her second cousin the Master of Carnegie (third from right) in the Garden of Friendship.
Crawfie found Princess Elizabeth could already read. She had been taught by her mother at five just as the Duchess had been by hers. Bible stories, Alice, Black Beauty, At The Back Of The North Wind, Peter Pan were the books she began with. The new governess also discovered what her pupil was like. Princess Elizabeth had a high I.Q. and was an unusually observant child who at their first meeting noticed the governess's uncommon hair style. She was very self disciplined and had almost a passion for order. Even better “there was always about her a certain amenability, a reasonableness rare in anyone so very young”. Nor did it take long to discover Elizabeth's strong relationship with her father or see that she had inherited his shyness and tendency to take things seriously. Also like the Duke, Princess Elizabeth found it hard to express her emotions. She did not give her love and affection easily but when she did they were given permanently.
The education of Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret at home not at a school with other children has been strongly criticised. Crawfie later wrote that it seemed to her that “in those days we lived in an ivory tower, removed from the real world”. This isolation has been exaggerated. Elizabeth and her sister Margaret, when the latter joined the nursery, did see other children. Tea time was when youngsters their own age were invited—relatives or the children of friends and members of the household. Elizabeth and her sister also went to children's parties. Crawfie's attempt to initiate more outside contacts failed dismally. On a visit to the YWCA the two Princesses were recognised and mobbed and rides on top of a double-decker bus had to cease when the IRA began a letter box bomb campaign. But even without these external contacts Crawfie had to admit that her pupils “were two entirely normal and healthy little girls, and we had our difficulties. Neither was above taking a whack at her adversary, if roused, and Lilibet was quick with her left hook!”
At her studies. Elizabeth was precocious and hardworking in the schoolroom.
There were of course many occasions for boisterous high spirits too.
Of all the family, Queen Mary took the closest interest in the intellectual content of Elizabeth's educational programme. She arranged for her granddaughter to have a professional governess, Mrs Montaudon-Smith, to teach her French so that lessons would not be interrupted by Crawfie's holidays. The Princess responded well and became perfectly fluent in a language vitally important in her eventual capacity as Queen of Canada. (Her studies in French were later taken to a more advanced level by Vicomtesse Antoinette de Bellaigue.) Queen Mary also felt that more school room time should be devoted to history and had royal genealogies added to the curriculum. She made sure both granddaughters were thoroughly taught the geography of the Dominions. For Elizabeth's fourth birthday she gave her a set of building blocks made of fifty different woods from around the Commonwealth, maple from Canada, teak from Malaya and so on. The classics of literature were regular gifts from her to her granddaughter. She arranged her own outings—more successfully than Crawfie—for the two Princesses: regular cultural visits to museums, art galleries and historic sites.
Noticing Princess Elizabeth was bored during a performance at Queen's Hall, Queen Mary asked if she would like to go home. “Oh no, Granny” replied Elizabeth, “we can't leave before the end. Think of all the people who'll be waiting to see us outside”. Her grandmother promptly had her taken away unseen and sent home in a taxi. This was education of a different kind than governesses provided but just as essential for the Princess. The lesson, as Robert Lacey who tells the story in Majesty points out, was that “being royal was a matter of living out a role, not acting it”. Princess Elizabeth had now also taken on a responsibility. Integration of her young sister Margaret into family life brought out the protective side of her. Margaret was an amusing extrovert. She needed a good example and had to be saved from the consequences of her own folly when she got into scrapes. This helped Elizabeth grow up too.
Princess Elizabeth's first five years coincided with developments in family and state that settled in advance the framework of her future life and role as Queen. Six months after her birth, her father followed his wife's advice to make one more attempt—his tenth—to overcome his serious speech problem. On 19 October 1926 accompanied by the Duchess, he made his way to the consulting rooms of Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist practicing in London. Daily visits and home breathing exercises followed. The skilful Logue gave his patient hope. Prince Bertie's speech, marred by stuttering, long pauses and the inability to say certain words, slowly showed noticeable improvement. He began to feel confident about the six-month Australian and New Zealand tour that lay ahead. Of more lasting importance, his cure released the latent qualities necessary to the full development of his character. Had this not happened, it is doubtful whether he would have felt able to accept the Crown when it fell to his lot. The other family development was less happy. Princess Elizabeth's uncle David continued unwed, growing daily more bored with his job as Heir to the Throne.
The year 1926 also saw the Balfour Declaration on the status of the Dominions. The second British Empire—the first ended with the defection of the Americans in 1775–1783—came together haphazardly almost reluctantly, and reached its greatest territorial extent following World War I. Larger components of the Empire—Canada for instance in 1867, Australia in 1901, South Africa in 1910—developed selfgovernment and regional union. But was the Empire's destiny to be complete independence of its parts or federation with an Imperial Parliament and Imperial Government? The debate raged for years. If anything, voices for federation were louder from the overseas provinces than from the United Kingdom and in the end it was the British electorate that rejected federation. The Dominions meanwhile had built up sophisticated domestic economies making that option unlikely anyway. World War I spurred the growth of nationalism—Canada certainly felt the stir of nationhood with the sacrifice its troops made to win the desperate victory of Vimy Ridge in 1917—and political independence carried the day.
At the Imperial Conference held in early November 1926, a committee of the Dominion Prime Ministers headed by the former United Kingdom Prime Minister, Earl Balfour, defined what a Dominion was. “They are autonomous communities within the British Empire” it declared, “equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations”. It took five years for the Balfour Declaration to be enacted. This was done by the Statue of Westminster to which King George V gave Royal Assent on 11 December 1931.
The Statute of Westminster transformed the most developed part of the Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations. George V became separately King of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland and the Irish Free State, just as he was of the United Kingdom. The Governor-General of Canada became solely his personal representative without reference to the British Government. His coat of arms for the Dominion of Canada became the Royal Arms of Canada. And so on. This new Commonwealth was what Princess Elizabeth would reign over, Queen individually of most of its monarchies and Head of the Commonwealth for all the realms and the parts that became republics. Her reign would largely be the story of the transformation of the Empire that remained into full Commonwealth membership. Though the public did not quite grasp the new relationship for some time, the framework of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II had been established.
On 29 November 1934 Princess Elizabeth acted as bridesmaid at the marriage of her Uncle the Duke of Kent to Princess Marina of Greece, The wedding photo at Buckingham Palace. From left, back row: King George V; Princess Nicholas of Greece; The Bride Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent; The Groom Prince George, Duke of Kent; Queen Mary; Prime Nicholas of Greece. From left, front row; Princess Elizabeth and Lady May Cambridge (daughter of Queen Mary's brother the Earl of Athlone, Governor-General of Canada 1940–1946, and his wife Princess Alice).
Before passage of the Statute of Westminster the old state of affairs intervened again. Seeing the future of the Crown lay with the Yorks, the Canadian Government in the second half of 1930 asked to have Princess Elizabeth's father as Governor-General of Canada. Ever since the Princess's great-great-great grandfather Prince Edward the Duke of Kent had lived among them for nearly ten years at the end of the eighteenth century, Canadians had wanted—and repeatedly asked for—members of the Royal Family to come and reside in Canada's fair domain. Several had done so. This time the desire was frustrated by the British Minister for the Dominions, J.H. Thomas. With Princess Margaret just born, the Duchess of York may have been relieved not to have to move her home again, but it remains one of history's might-have-beens to wonder how events would have unfolded if Princess Elizabeth had been reared at Rideau Hall. One thing is certain: Canadians would have been cheered by the Royal Family's presence as they suffered through the bitter years of the Great Depression.
Although the most famous child in the world, Princess Elizabeth still lived a completely unpublic life. This was to change soon. On 29 November 1934, at eight, she was a bridesmaid for her uncle Prince George the Duke of Kent's wedding to beautiful, exotic Princess Marina of Greece. Her real debut in royal public life only came when she was nine however. By temperament and training she was ready for it. King George V and Queen Mary celebrated the Silver Jubilee of their reign, twenty-five years on the Throne, on 6 May 1935. For this great event Princess Elizabeth took her place as the main representative of the third generation of the Royal Family in the moving festivities.
At age 9. Another Marcus Adams portrait photo.
George V's Jubilee was a great Commonwealth event. Princess Elizabeth made her first appearance on a Canadian stamp for the occasion.
Frank Salisbury's famous painting shows the Royal Family entering St Paul's Cathedral for the Jubilee Service. Princess Elizabeth is seen in flowered pink hat, pink coat and pink shoes, resting her hand reassuringly on Princess Margaret's shoulder. She looks straight out of the canvas with a frank open face as the procession moves along. In the painting of the scene inside the cathedral, a sight of great splendour and beauty, Princess Elizabeth stands at the bottom left of the canvas near the King with her sister, their diminutive size somehow indicating that they, the only two children to be seen in this exclusively adult gathering, must be important. When she joined the King and Queen and the rest of the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace afterwards, Princess Elizabeth appeared surprisingly grown up compared with Princess Margaret whose “attempts to raise her chin above the level of the parapet” amused the correspondent of the Canadian Mail and Empire.
Princess Elizabeth's real debut as a working Princess took place in 1935 when her grandfather's twenty-five years as King was celebrated. She attended the Silver Jubilee service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral and can be seen in the Salisbury painting of the service.
Afterwards she appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace (at Queen Mary's right)
The Silver Jubilee was a great Commonwealth festival. The Premiers of the Dominions arrived in London for it and took part in the royal procession through the streets. Princess Elizabeth appeared on a special green and white one cent stamp with maple leaves, one of a set of five stamps issued by the Canadian Post Office for the Jubilee which included the King and Queen, Prince of Wales, Duke of York, Windsor Castle and the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert III. Princess Elizabeth had already been depicted on a Newfoundland stamp some years earlier.
The Princess's next official public appearance was barely a year later. It was a sad one. On 28 January 1936 she watched as her grandfather's coffin was lowered into the grave at Windsor. George V had not long survived his Jubilee. Elizabeth had dearly loved the grandfather who terrified the rest of the Royal Family. And it had been a mutual affection. The old King had even been seen down on his hands and knees on the floor allowing Princess Elizabeth to pull him along by the beard. Every morning after breakfast the Princess would go to the window of 145 Piccadilly which could be seen from Buckingham Palace. At the Palace the King, binoculars trained on 145, would wave to her. Before the funeral Elizabeth went to the lying-in-state of the King when her father and his brothers held the Vigil of the Princes, taking their turn standing on guard by their father's coffin. She felt the loss of her grandfather deeply—in the way of children who soon recover of course—and grooming her toy horses at home paused and asked “Oh, Crawfie…ought we to play?”
Some of the races of the Commonwealth depicted in the Silver Jubilee window at St James' Cathedral, Toronto.
Her uncle David was now King Edward VIII and Princess Elizabeth was second in line to the Throne. Her parents tried not to let the change alter her routine. But Elizabeth sensed that everything was not right. Uncle David no longer came to tea for one of their riotous card games as he used to. She did not know it but her parents had been excluded from the new King's private circle. The King's circle and the Yorks' represented completely different ways of life. Edward VIII believed the pleasure he took in society and the night club and cocktail party circuit put him on the side of the younger generation of his subjects but in reality the young people were more attracted by the family life at Royal Lodge.
Long before his death George V knew about his son the Prince of Wales' affair with the American adventuress and divorcee Wallis Simpson, then the wife of London businessman Ernest Simpson. “After I am gone, the boy will ruin himself within six months” George V had predicted of his son to the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, in Jubilee Year. To a friend he said he now hoped the Prince of Wales would not marry and have a family, adding “I pray to God that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the Throne”. On one occasion the Prince brought the notorious Mrs Simpson to the Yorks for tea. Tension must have been in the air for, when they left, Princess Elizabeth said “Who is she, Crawfie?”
Queen Mary's belief in the Crown and her rigid sense of duty were important influences on Princess Elizabeth. Pane of the Silver Jubilee window depicting Her Majesty at St James' Cathedral, Toronto.
A crisis, personal, family and constitutional shaped up. Edward VIII determined to marry Wallis Simpson, who was now divorcing Mr Simpson, regardless of the consequences. He found the United Kingdom government led by Stanley Baldwin adamantly opposed. As the King was Monarch separately of Canada and the other Dominions his governments there had to be consulted too. Instead of exercising his right to consult them directly Edward VIII, as neglectful of his royal prerogatives as of his royal duties, allowed Baldwin to do this for him. Opposition in the Dominions to such a marriage however was even more implacable than in the United Kingdom. Canadians hated the idea of having an American as their Queen. And thanks to the American newspapers which were filled with news of the King's affair, Canadians were better informed about events than the King's subjects in the United Kingdom, where the press had only just broken its silence on the affair.
Elizabeth's favourite uncle, the still popular Prince of Wales, held the key to her future. He was the Heir to the Throne. If he ever married and had children she would be unlikely to inherit the Crown. The fashionable Prince had quite different ideas about duty than those held by his mother Queen Mary. A section of the Silver Jubilee window at St. James' Cathedral, Toronto, showing the Prince with the Royal Arms of Canada below.
Her parents said nothing about the crisis but Princess Elizabeth picked up enough of what was going on to be confused by it. She was overheard explaining the situation to her sister. “I think Uncle David wants to marry Mrs Baldwin and Mr Baldwin doesn't like it” she said. The crisis peaked. From their upstairs nursery, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret heard numerous people arriving at the house and leaving. The Duke of York was faced with the prospect of inheriting the Crown and all his personal misgivings about himself returned. To make it worse his main support, the Duchess, came down with severe influenza and was confined to bed. Looking worn and tired, the Duke, in the final days of the crisis, passed from meetings and unpleasant scenes with the King to disagreeable conferences with lawyers. He begged his brother to reconsider. “I've never seen a state paper” he told Lord Louis Mountbatten in despair. But only once did he give way and that was after his last session with his brother when he went to see Queen Mary and “broke down and sobbed like a child”.
King Edward VIII signed the instrument of Abdication at 1:52 p.m. on Thursday, 10 December 1936. Princess Elizabeth heard the noise of people gathering in the street outside 145 Piccadilly. There was cheering. She went downstairs and asked a footman what was going on. He told her that the King was abdicating and the Duke of York would be succeeding him. The Princess ran back upstairs and told her sister. Princess Margaret asked Elizabeth if that meant she, Elizabeth, would one day become Queen. “Yes, some day” her sister replied. Crawfie was summoned by the still sick Duchess and told what had happened. According to the governess's account, when their father returned from his proclamation as King George VI on 12 December, Princess Elizabeth and her sister made him a formal curtsey. “He stood for a moment touched and taken aback. Then he stooped and kissed them both warmly.” At ten Princess Elizabeth had become the daughter of a King and Heir Presumptive to the Throne.
