Читать книгу Royal Transport - Peter Pigott - Страница 8

Detail of photo from page 101.

When I told my aunt that a title I was considering for this book was One’s Royal Transport (said with an upper-class British accent), she warned me not to be facetious about the royal family. At the age of eighty-five, she had grown up in Imperial India, and the trappings of majesty, whether car, ship, or train, were traditional, reassuring, and immutable.

In the years I was posted to the Canadian Embassy in The Hague, members of the Dutch royal family famously got around by bicycle. There is a (probably apocryphal) story of the Queen of Sweden, who, because she travels without pomp and circumstance, carries in her handbag, in case of accident, a card that reads: “I am the Queen of Sweden.” But this pared-down approach that European (i.e. continental) monarchies take in the twenty-first century is not for the House of Windsor — at least not yet. No longer able to send those who disagree with them to the Tower or claim distant countries as Crown colonies, when it comes to what they ride in and how, this royal family can still give us a lesson in majesty. Each year they carry out about 2,900 official engagements in the United Kingdom and overseas. These involve a significant amount of travel that has to be undertaken in a way that meets presentational, efficiency, and security requirements. The family has successfully accomplished this since the steam engine was invented, and that is what this book is about.

In pre-railway, pre-steamship days, royalty rarely went far from the palace. Contrary to what we see in movies, Queen Elizabeth I did not attend the Globe theatre to enjoy Shakespeare’s plays — spectacle was brought to the palace. To leave it meant moving the entire royal household, which was a major undertaking and rarely done. Although when taken the royal progress lived off the local nobility for food, shelter, and entertainment — in effect bankrupting them and thus ensuring their loyalty — it still entailed a large number of horses and carriages for courtiers and their baggage. Even in the early years of Victoria’s reign, the monarchy was never popular and had to be escorted by troops, on foot and mounted, to provide security as well as pageantry. As for travel away from Britain, whether by land or sea, it was wholly unsafe and uncomfortable, and no dynasty was about to risk its sovereign or the presumptive heir to the throne on a foreign tour.

The first member of the royal family to come to Canada was Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence, the third son of King George III. Serving in the Royal Navy, he arrived in Halifax in 1786 and behaved much as any seafaring officer of the period did — brawling publicly, drinking to excess, and visiting brothels on Halifax’s Water Street. His younger brother Prince Edward Augustus, the Duke of Kent, was hardly an improvement. Banished to Canada in 1791 because he flogged his soldiers incessantly (even for those times), he brought with him his mistress, Alphonsine Thérèse Bernadine Julie de Montgenet. But while in command of the Halifax garrison, His Royal Highness had its fortifications rebuilt and, in thanks, the locals changed the name of Île St. Jean to Prince Edward Island. The Prince returned to Britain in 1800 and nineteen years later fathered the future Queen Victoria.

Her Majesty did not cross the ocean to Canada, disliking travel and barely tolerating the new technology of trains and steamships. But her son Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, changed it all: he toured Canada in 1860, not on a posting but because he saw his role as “Britain’s first salesman.” On tour, he opened bridges, shook the hands of selected Canadians, reviewed regiments, and postulated his government’s views of the current scene. In doing so, His Royal Highness had discovered a role for royalty and set the pattern for all future tours, each monarch utilizing the new technology of the railway, motor cars, and aircraft to do so.

There have been many royal biographies. Other books have painted pictures of the personalities themselves, but on researching the transport of each successive generation, with the idea that objects can speak louder than the people themselves, I was able to understand better the monarch that favoured them. Queen Victoria kept two hundred horses at the Royal Mews, a hundred more at Windsor and Balmoral, and never really accepted trains. With the enthusiasm with which he took to everything, her son Edward VII embraced all forms of transport, even meeting with the Wright brothers. He also favoured the Daimler, a make of motor car that the royal family would use for half a century. His son George V so loved the racing yacht Britannia that he ordered it scuttled when he died. Edward VIII — the only royal matinee idol until Princess Diana — loved jazzy American cars and was the first member of the family to fly. His brother George VI’s choice of transport was less bold, but his consort Queen Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother, was more adventurous, keen for anything from jet airliners to helicopters to a golf cart. Denied a naval career, Prince Philip took to aircraft. Denied a role at all, Prince Charles has always loved James Bond’s Aston Martins, while his mother the Queen is reportedly never so happy as when driving herself around in a Land Rover.

There is no question that the royal family are privileged, that their only qualification for living in the royal palaces in London and Windsor and for enjoying the executive jet aircraft and Rolls-Royces is that they were born into the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, renamed Windsor.¹ Even years after his abdication, the Duke of Windsor still expected royal privilege, part of an enchanted world he had always known. “Trains were held, yachts materialized, aeroplanes stood waiting,” explained Wallis Simpson. When that no longer happened, “It was pathetic to see HRH’s face. He couldn’t believe it,” remembers the Duke’s best friend, Major Edward “Fruity” Metcalfe, who accompanied him on many Royal Tours. “He’d been so used to having everything done as he wished.”

But it should be remembered that, like the Crown jewels and the Gold Coach, the planes, trains, and limousines are only held by Her Majesty the Queen as sovereign. She cannot sell them, and they must be handed on to her successor. She does have a driving licence and operates her own Daimler Jaguar saloon and a Vauxhall estate (station wagon). The Duke of Edinburgh has a Range Rover and a Metrocab to get through London’s traffic. All of these vehicles are expensive but hardly in the super-rich category. And when it was in service, the idea of using the Royal Yacht Britannia for a pleasure cruise was always out of the question. Her Majesty has always been a poor sailor; as a princess on her 1947 South African tour, when HMS Vanguard hit rough weather, she wrote, “I for one would have willingly died.” And as for hopping about in helicopters, Her Majesty’s childhood dream was “being married to a farmer and having lots of horses and dogs.” Her father too was quite content to be a country squire. For, despite the luxury and deferential treatment, the Queen, in common with her father, has found travel a duty like everything else.

The costs of official royal travel by air and rail used to be shared by the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Transport, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. At the royal household’s suggestion, responsibility for the expenditure was transferred to the household from April 1, 1997. The royal household now receives annual funding to meet the costs of official royal travel, in the form of a Royal Travel Grant-in-Aid from Parliament, through the Department of Transport. Today the majority of royal travel expenditure goes toward the Queen’s helicopter and the chartering of scheduled fixed-wing aircraft provided by airlines for overseas state visits. The aircraft provided to her by the RAF’s 32 Squadron serve the requirements of the Royal Air Force 80 percent of the time. The Queen’s official travel by car is paid for from the Civil List and for the Duke of Edinburgh from his Parliamentary Annuity. Payment for official travel for other members of the royal family comes from their private sources.² In 2004, Britons paid the equivalent of about $1.10 each in taxes to support Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family — the price then of a loaf of bread; they were getting a bargain.

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HRH Prince Arthur on a sleigh, 1869, Montreal, Quebec.

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Probably the most unusual royal transport: the royal party running the Chaudiere timber slide on a timber crib, September 1901, Ottawa, Ontario.

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Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson on the mini-rail at Expo ’67.

Royal visitors to Canada have travelled by horse-drawn sleigh, by rafts on the Chaudière timber slide, and by specially built trains. A remnant from that era (and most familiar to Canadian television viewers) is the state landau, the usual mode for royal travel in Ottawa. In 1911, at the end of his term as Governor General, Earl Grey sold his landau, which he had purchased from the Governor General of Australia, to the Canadian government. The carriage received widespread use during the Royal Tour of 1939 but was put away during the Second World War, only to be brought out again in 1953 by Governor General Vincent Massey. The state landau is still used for the opening of Parliament and during official state visits.

As of 2004, in her twenty-one Canadian visits as queen (and once as princess), Her Majesty has ridden in the state landau, in convertibles, on stagecoaches, and on a mini-rail. This last took place when the Queen was invited to help celebrate Canada’s centenary in 1967. Her Majesty unexpectedly asked Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson if she could tour the Expo ’67 site on the specially built mini-rail. Security officials scrambled to accede to her wish and were initially going to completely restrict access to the entire site during the royal visit. In the end, however, only a part of Île Notre-Dame, where the pavilions of Great Britain and Canada were located, was made off-limits to visitors. Fairgoers cheered the Queen along the route, a journey that lasted forty minutes. The ride was a symbolic journey to celebrate Canada’s coming of age.

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HRH Princess Elizabeth leaving the stagecoach at the Stadium, assisted by Mr. Jim Cross, President, Calgary Stampede Association, October 18, 1951, Calgary, Alberta.

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Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth ride through Ottawa in the state landau, May 1939.

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Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh ride to the Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, in the same state landau that King George VI and Queen Elizabeth used.

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1951 tour: Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh leave Dorval Airport in a convertible.

But no Royal Tour will ever equal (in the memories of a certain generation of Canadians) the 1939 visit of George VI and Queen Elizabeth, when for the first time in history, a reigning monarch and his consort, in the King’s words, “shook the hands of everyone in the country.” The Queen Mother remembered the tour years later: “I lost my heart to Canada and to Canadians, and my feelings have not changed with the passage of time.” It was this tour that gave birth to that royal staple, the walkabout. In Ottawa, beside the War Memorial, Her Majesty plunged into the crowds to meet with the veterans. One young soldier memorably said, “I wish Hitler could see this.” The cynical would say that the whole tour had been designed to achieve that very purpose, that is, to bring Canada into a European war. Whatever the opinion, the outpouring of goodwill and affection that was evident as Their Majesties made their way across the continent has never been equalled, and has been immortalized in history texts, newsreels, and radio broadcasts. A single anecdote sums it up: As the royal train wound through the Rockies, it stopped one night for water at a small station. A crowd of locals gathered around the balcony of the last car, hoping to see Their Majesties. The King and Queen took the opportunity to stretch their legs, and stepped down into the crowd. At that moment, the moon came out, illuminating the scene, and a young man within the crowd began singing “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain.” He sang like Nelson Eddy, the Queen’s favourite singer, and first she and then His Majesty joined in. Soon everyone took up the song. The royal train was soon on its way, and the locals dispersed into the deep Canadian forests, with the memorable scene destined to pass not into history but surely into the hearts of those who witnessed it. The public interest in Royal Tours has abated little since 1939.

If the travellers were not the royal family, who would care what cars, aircraft, or yachts they use? Air Force One, the Boeing 747 of the President of the United States, is far larger than the aircraft of the Queen’s Flight, the Saudi royal family has many more Rolls-Royces, and the fittings on Saddam Hussein’s former presidential yacht al-Mansur definitely outnumbered those on the now-decommissioned Britannia. Her Majesty now shares her aircraft with ministers and military personnel. The furnishings of the royal train have been described as rather dowdy, and the Rolls Royce Phantoms manage to convey a hearse-like, antiquated splendour. With the exception of the state coaches, the transport of the royal family is hardly noteworthy.

Perhaps because of this, there has been as far as I could ascertain, no complete study on all the family’s modes of transport. That is a pity, because, whether the Queen travels in the Gold Coach or a Canadian Forces aircraft, by the mere fact that she has done so, the vehicle becomes a link with our heritage. The grandeur of the monarchy, however faded one might hold it to be, provides continuity in a rapidly changing, increasingly globalized world. How it will adapt when Prince Charles comes to the throne (and if he will still be the King of Canada then) cannot be known. But my aunt is right. One tampers with such institutions at one’s peril.