Elizabeth the Queen (85 page)

Authors: Sally Bedell Smith

BOOK: Elizabeth the Queen

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Gina Centrello’s publishing team at Random House is the best in the business—creative and smart about every aspect of
Elizabeth the Queen
. My thanks to Tom Perry, executive vice president and deputy publisher, and Sally Marvin, vice president and director of publicity, for their excellent ideas on promotion, along with publicists Bridget Fitzgerald and Alex Chernin. I am also grateful for the attentiveness of Avideh Bashirrad, Kelly Gildea, Erika Greber, Denise Cronin, Toby Ernst, Joelle Dieu, and Ken Wohlrob. Thanks as well to Laura Goldin and Deborah Foley, and to art director Paolo Pepe, jacket designer Belina Huey, and interior designer Susan Turner for making my book look beautiful inside and out. Carol Poticny once again threw herself into the task of photo research, resourceful and persistent as always. Thanks as well to my website designer, Shannon Swenson, and to Tony Hudz and Rosalyn Landor for their impeccable audio recording of the book.

I was delighted to have Max Hirshfeld, as congenial as he is gifted, back to take my author photograph, along with his lovely wife, Nina, stylist, Kim Steele, and assistant, Mike Jones—all of whom turned the photo session into a queen-for-a-day experience.

Amanda Urban, my longtime agent and treasured friend for even longer, has been my stalwart advocate as well as a fount of valuable advice.

In the middle of my research, my daughter, Lisa, was married in London at the Guards’ Chapel—only a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace—to a charming and brave English army officer, Dominic Clive. Their wedding on the Fourth of July brought together an exuberant Anglo-American crowd, which somehow gave this project an extra dimension of kismet. Lisa and Dom, along with my sons, Kirk and David, were a constant source of love and support, especially when I was immersed in the solitude of writing for more than a year.

After living through my six biographies for nearly three decades, my loving husband, Stephen, might be expected to show some impatience with the all-consuming nature of these projects. To the contrary, he was endlessly understanding, even when I left for long stretches of interviewing in London. He introduced me to English friends who helped me with ideas and further introductions. He buoyed me when I was feeling discouraged, making me laugh at least once every day. He happily shared my thrill of discovery. He offered astute suggestions about structure and writing. He edited my manuscript not once but twice on weekends and evenings when he was exhausted after long days of running a newspaper. As I was wrestling with options for a title, he came up with a brilliantly concise winner in about five seconds—the fourth time he has done so. Somewhat against his nature, he even agreed to provide comic relief when I wrote in my preface about his protocol infractions with the Queen. As an expression of my love and my everlasting gratefulness,
Elizabeth the Queen
is dedicated to him.

S
ALLY
B
EDELL
S
MITH
Washington, D.C.
July 2011

SOURCE NOTES

PREFACE

1.
Elizabeth fell in love: John W. Wheeler-Bennett,
King George VI: His Life and Reign
, p. 749.

2.
“She never looked at anyone else”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

3.
“People will not realize”: Nigel Nicolson,
Vita and Harold: Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
, p. 414.

4.
“Her private side took me”: Howard Morgan interview.

5.
“She stacked the plates!”: George “Frolic” Weymouth interview.

6.
“You can hear her laughter”: Tony Parnell interview.

7.
“intentionally measured and deliberate pace”: William Shawcross,
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Biography
[QEQM], p. 347.

8.
“She can uphold the identity”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

9.
“to watch her sidle into a room”: Graham Turner,
Elizabeth: The Woman and the Queen
, pp. 58–59.

10.
When her cousin Lady Mary Clayton: Author’s observation.

11.
“the only thing that comes between”: Monica Tandy interview.

12.
“like a bat out of hell”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

13.
“interest and character to the face”: Elizabeth Longford,
Elizabeth R: A Biography
, p. 9.

14.
“To be that consistent”: Dame Helen Mirren interview.

15.
“It’s just like scrubbing your teeth”: Jean Seaton interview, recounting conversation between her late husband, Ben Pimlott, and Queen Elizabeth II.

16.
“It’s not really a diary”:
E II R
documentary, BBC, Feb. 6, 1992.

17.
“I had no idea what to say”: Gwen, the Countess of Dartmouth, interview.

18.
“A great battle is lost”: Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill
, Vol. 8,
“Never Despair,” 1945–1964
, p. 835.

19.
“She makes a dictatorship more difficult”: Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the 7th Marquess of Salisbury, interview.

20.
“the right to be consulted”: Walter Bagehot,
The English Constitution
, p. 75.

21.
“a symbol of unity in a world”: William Shawcross,
Queen and Country [Q and
C], p. 216.

22.
“When she says something”: Gay Charteris interview.

23.
“There is a weed in Scotland”: Lady Elizabeth Anson interview.

24.
“supporting the Queen”: Gyles Brandreth,
Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage
, p. 228.

25.
“Prince Philip is the only man”: Ibid., p. 347.

26.
“never having to look”: John Julius Cooper, the 2nd Viscount Norwich, interview.

27.
“She has two great assets”: Sarah Bradford,
Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain’s Queen
, pp. 358–59; Turner, p. 195, quotes Martin Charteris saying the Queen is “as strong as a yak.”

28.
“present[s] the house to her”: Tony Parnell interview.

29.
I first met Queen Elizabeth II: Author’s observation.

30.
generating considerably more searches: Google Trends:
www.google.com/trends
.

31.
It was probably fitting: Author’s observation.

ONE: A Royal Education

1.
“Does that mean”: Longford,
Elizabeth R
, p. 81.

2.
“catching the days”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

3.
“an air of authority”: Shawcross,
Q and C
, pp. 21–22.

4.
“neat and methodical”: Marion Crawford,
The Little Princesses: The Story of the Queen’s Childhood by Her Nanny, Marion Crawford
, p. 171.

5.
“She liked to imagine herself”: Mary Clayton interview.

6.
“I never wanted this to happen”: Wheeler-Bennett, p. 294.

7.
“It was when the Queen was eleven”: Helen Mirren interview.

8.
“I have a feeling that in the end”:
E II R
documentary.

9.
“It was unheard of for girls”: Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, interview (her husband was John Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne, and she has been known either as Patricia Mountbatten or Patricia Brabourne).