Читать книгу The Queen: History in an Hour - Sinead Fitzgibbon - Страница 6

When the young Princess was just eight months old, her parents were obliged to leave her behind in England when they embarked on another tour, this time of Australia. The enforced six-month separation, however, proved to be more difficult for her mother than for the infant herself, with the Duchess recalling later that parting from her beloved daughter ‘quite broke me up’.

Portrait of Princess Elizabeth, aged three (1929)

In her parent’s absence, the responsibility for Princess Elizabeth’s care mainly fell to her nanny, Clara Knight, who had also looked after the Duchess as a child. Known as ‘Alah’ to her young charges, this indomitable, no-nonsense woman was to have a profound influence on the young Elizabeth, who would continue to remember her fondly long into adulthood. The little Princess, however, was not completely without familial influence during those formative months when her parents were away. In addition to frequent visits to her maternal grandparents, she was also taken to see King George and Queen Mary every afternoon. In fact, when the Duke and Duchess of York finally returned from their arduous trip in June 1927, they were delighted to discover that their fifteen-month-old daughter had become the darling of Buckingham Palace.

It was not just her grandparents who were charmed by the child – it seemed Elizabeth, or Lilibet as she would become known (a nickname which stemmed from her inability to pronounce her name correctly), charmed almost everyone who encountered her. Even the inscrutable Winston Churchill was not immune. After seeing the child at Balmoral in 1928, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to his wife: ‘[She] is quite a character. She had an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant.’

Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose (1932)

But Lilibet did not remain the centre of attention for long. When, on 21 August 1930, her sister, Margaret Rose, was born, the new arrival wasted no time in making her presence felt. With the baby monopolizing all of Alah’s time, Lilibet’s care was delegated to a nursery assistant, Margaret McDonald, whom the Princess immediately nicknamed ‘Bobo’. And while she was to grow very fond of Bobo, the loss of her beloved Alah must have been very keenly felt by the four-year-old child. It soon became clear that Margaret Rose was very different in temperament to her older sibling. More headstrong and unruly, she was much naughtier than Lilibet, and was forever getting into scrapes, which would prompt the exasperated Alah to exclaim, ‘I really don’t know what we are going to do with Margaret!’ But no one could ever stay mad at her for long – she possessed an enviable ability to make people laugh, with the result that any naughtiness was soon forgotten.

However, despite the marked differences in their personalities, the sisters grew very close. Aside from the usual nursery arguments, during which Lilibet would often bitterly complain that ‘Margaret always wants what I want!’, the girls played well together. Indeed, it seems they had no choice but to get along – being educated at home by their governess Marion Crawford, or ‘Crawfie’, the princesses spent every day in each other’s company, with almost no outside influences to distract them.

Unfortunately, their peaceful existence did not last long. When Princess Elizabeth was just ten years old, her father’s older brother dropped a bombshell that would shatter the family’s idyll forever.