Queen's House (51 page)

John Colville remembered:

The guests were as various as half a dozen foreign Kings and Queens on one hand and Beatrice Lillie and Noël Coward on the other. An Indian Rajah got uncontrollably drunk and assaulted the Duke of Devonshire (who was sober) … Queen Mary, scintillating as ever in a huge display of jewellery without giving the least impression of vulgarity or ostentation, was somewhat taken
aback when Field Marshal Smuts said to her, ‘You are the big potato; the other Queens are small potatoes.'
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Food at this time was still rationed, so the menu at this party and for the wedding breakfast was simple. In fact the Palace had been ‘overwhelmed by food parcels from all over the world. Hundreds of tons of tinned food of every variety arrived, given by British communities abroad.'
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The official solution, to hand it over to the Ministry of Food, was rejected by Princess Elizabeth as being too ‘unimaginative'. At Colville's suggestion Lady Reading brought in her WVS volunteers after the wedding and took over the Palace kitchens during the royal family's Balmoral holiday.

By the end of September 1948 thousands of beautifully packed and well assorted food parcels had been despatched to widows and old age pensioners throughout the Kingdom, each containing a message from Princess Elizabeth personally. These were sent by the Post Office free of charge.
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As John Colville remembered, it was a hectic time for all the House-hold. Presents arrived from all over the world to be unpacked and put on display at St James's Palace. There were jewels and ‘hundreds of beautiful handkerchiefs, linen, lace and lawn. Hundreds of pairs of nylon stockings … gifts of silk and muslin and brocades that came from distant parts of the Empire.'
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Gandhi sent a tray cloth, woven by himself, which some humourist said was a loin cloth. Queen Mary was deeply shocked.

On his marriage Prince Philip was made Duke of Edinburgh. The night before the wedding, while he enjoyed his stag night with his uncle, Lord Mountbatten, the Princesses were practising a new descant to be sung in the Abbey the next day. Marion Crawford heard ‘the most awful sounds coming from the old music room. They were all trying to sing Crimond's setting of the old Scottish paraphrase of “The Lord is my Shepherd” … [and] they could not get the descant right.'
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That descant, as John Colville recorded, had been taught to the Princesses on the moors at Balmoral by one of Princess Elizabeth's Ladies-in-Waiting, Lady Margaret Egerton, ‘endowed with a beautiful voice. She had been wont to sing a metrical psalm “The Lord is My Shepherd” (Crimond)
in the heather at Balmoral and had taught the Princesses a little known descant.'
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Nobody could find the score of the descant. Lady Margaret tunefully accompanied the two Princesses, and sang it to the Organist and Precentor of Westminster Abbey who took the notes down in musical shorthand and taught it to the Abbey Choir. On the wedding day nobody was more surprised than the composer of the descant who, far away in Stirling, listened to the service on his radio. Since then both the metrical psalm to the tune Crimond and the descant have been consistently popular in churches throughout the British Isles and the Commonwealth.
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On the morning of the wedding Marion Crawford went early to Princess Elizabeth's room and found her in her dressing gown watching the crowds outside the Palace. Crawfie was justly proud of Princess Elizabeth that day. She had, for sixteen years, through war and tragedies, given her love and total loyalty. As she later said to the Queen, she felt that ‘she too was losing a daughter'.
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She had not the elegance of style of Fanny Burney but, like her, brought humanity and immediacy to her description of the great occasion. If her usual common sense was on this day touched with sentiment, it can be forgiven. ‘I could not help remembering', she wrote, ‘that small golden-headed little girl I had first seen sixteen years ago, sitting up in bed, the cord of her dressing gown tied to the bed posts, driving her imaginary team round the Park.'
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There were last-minute panics. A lost bouquet was finally found in a cool cupboard. Colville had to rush over to St James's Palace to collect a string of pearls that Princess Elizabeth wanted to wear and only with difficulty persuaded the police to give it to him. He was escorted back to the Palace with a policeman and a couple of detectives.

Only Margaret MacDonald, ‘the staunch Bobo remained … calm and cool'. She dressed her Princess and then went over to the Abbey to be on hand when she arrived there. ‘Throughout the years,' Crawfie wrote, ‘I had many reasons for admiring the Queen's self-control but I have never admired her more. And I thought as I watched her enter
the Abbey and kneel for a moment in prayer that the most she could ask for her child was the happiness she herself had found in her marriage.'

From her privileged seat in Poet's Corner, Crawfie watched. ‘First the Queen in apricot silk brocade', more becoming Crawfie thought ‘than her usual pastel violet, blue or mauve', then at last the bride. ‘Her veil was a white cloud about her and the light from the tall windows and from the candelabra caught and reflected the jewelled embroidery of her dress.' She hoped that her younger sister walking alone was noticed too; she ‘moved with extraordinary dignity and grace, her head held high'. Crawfie loved and understood Princess Margaret and knew more than anyone else how lonely she would be from now on. The most touching moment of the service, Crawfie thought, was when the couple came out of the ‘vestry, paused for a moment before the King and Queen and Elizabeth swept them a beautiful curtsey'. Afterwards Crawfie

was rushed through the crowds in a police car to take my place at the family luncheon party at Buckingham Palace. The tables were decorated with smilax and white carnations and at each of our places there was a little bunch of white heather sent down from Balmoral. The famous gold plate and the scarlet coated footmen gave a fairy-tale atmosphere to it all and I was in a veritable dream. The skirl of the bagpipes warmed the hearts of those of us who came from North of the Tweed. The French gentleman seated next to me, however, winced from time to time, but he bore it with fortitude.
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At this royal wedding, unlike earlier ones, the accent was Scottish not German. Many of the Household were from ‘North of the Tweed' – recruited in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. There were few of the old German families present – ‘the royal mob', as Queen Victoria had called them. Even Prince Philip's sisters, who had married into German families, were not present.

For the devoted governess in her ‘cherry red velvet frock and a large black hat with black ostrich feathers held in place with ruby clips', it was a magical day. For the King it had been a day of sadness and joy. As he wrote to Princess Elizabeth afterwards:

I was so proud of you and thrilled to have you close on our long walk in Westminster Abbey, but when I handed your hand to the Archbishop, I felt I
had lost something very precious … Our family, us Four, the Royal family must remain together, with suitable additions of course at suitable moments.

I have watched you grow up all these years with pride under the skilful direction of Mummy who as you know is the most marvellous person in the world …

Your leaving us has left a great blank in our lives but do remember that your old home is still yours and do come back to it as much and as often as possible.
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There was some consolation for the King. Clarence House, which was to be the newly-weds' new home, was not ready, so after their honeymoon at Broadlands, Hampshire, the home of Lord Mountbatten, and at Balmoral Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip returned to live in the Princess's old rooms at Buckingham Palace and were to remain there for another year. While the Prince worked as a naval officer at the Admiralty, the King spent much time with Princess Elizabeth, guiding her in her path to the throne. He would not allow her to be unprepared, as he himself had been.

In 1948 the King's fears about the world seemed realized. Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi in January, and India was torn by riots. In February came the Russian coup in Czechoslovakia. His spirits were lifted by the enthusiastic crowds that cheered him and the Queen on their Silver Wedding, when they drove through the streets of London and afterwards made the traditional balcony appearance.

By the autumn, however, his doctors were worried. His left foot was numb all day. Nevertheless he soldiered on. There was a dinner for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers at Buckingham Palace on 13 October. On 26 October he opened Parliament for the first time since the war in full state.

He was still hoping to undertake a tour of Australia and New Zealand in the New Year, but a specialist, Professor Learmonth, diagnosed arteriosclerosis. The King was ordered to rest and since he was warned that the blocked artery might cause gangrene and even result in the amputation of the leg, he agreed to do so. Reluctantly he cancelled the tour.

There was one great joy that November. He and the Queen had concealed from Princess Elizabeth the gravity of his illness until after
the birth of her first child. Prince Charles was born on 14 November 1948, in her old nursery at Buckingham Palace, as his mother had wished. He was the first baby to be born in the Palace since Queen Victoria had given birth to Princess Beatrice there.

Soon afterwards Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip took their son to their new home, Clarence House, which after long delays was finally ready. Prince Philip took much pleasure in arranging and equipping his first real home. It was run on the same lines as Buckingham Palace. Prince Philip had his old friend and Navy colleague Michael Parker as his aide, and the staunch John Dean as his valet. Princess Elizabeth had two Scottish nurses, Helen Lightbody and Mabel Anderson, who were to be of immense importance in the lives of Prince Charles and his sister, Princess Anne, who was to be born at Clarence House on 15 August 1950. They were especially important when Prince Philip was allowed to return to active service in the Royal Navy, and Princess Elizabeth joined him in Malta.

Slowly the King recovered and was able to carry out an investiture at the Palace in February 1949, though he remained seated. But his doctors realized that he could not recover fully without an operation. It was suggested that the King, as a Mason, should go into the Royal Masonic Hospital. ‘But', said the King, ‘I have never heard of a King going into hospital.'
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So, on 12 February, a room in the Belgian Suite was again turned into an operating theatre. Professor Learmonth performed a lumbar sympathectomy, which cut the nerve to his leg. The Queen, who was his constant support, was deeply concerned and prayed to be ‘granted not a lighter load but a stronger back'.
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The King's load certainly did not lighten, nor did he have the Queen's physical strength. He continued to watch closely events in India. Independence had come, but not without blood and tears. Mountbatten had retired as Governor General in 1948 but kept a close friendship with Nehru, which helped to create a new relationship between India and Great Britain. Nehru came to London and was received by the King at Buckingham Palace in October 1948. The newly elected Indian Constituent Assembly had voted to become a democratic republic, but both the King and Lord Mountbatten were anxious to keep India within
the Commonwealth, even though it was a republic. This time the King was impressed with Nehru's genuine desire to achieve this settlement.

The Commonwealth premiers met in London on 21 April 1949 to discuss India's relationship with the new Commonwealth. On Wednesday 27 April, still convalescent from his operation, the King received Attlee and seven other prime ministers and Lester Pearson, Canadian Minister for External Affairs, in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. In his speech he praised the ‘commonsense and good temper of their conference'.

Their solution, expressed in the Declaration of 27 April 1949, stated that ‘the Governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon … have considered the impending constitutional changes in India'.
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Although India was to become a sovereign independent republic, she still wished to remain a member of the Commonwealth and wished to accept the King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such as the Head of the Commonwealth. The King believed that the solution they had found to a ‘problem that has given us all very grave concern' was a ‘striking example of the elasticity of our system … He believed that their association of nations had immense powers of good for humanity generally.' Praising their ‘wisdom and tolerance', he hoped the new arrangement would ‘redound to the greater happiness of all those millions whose well being is the responsibility of all of us in this room today'.
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It was a trust he was to bequeath to his daughter and it has remained her greatest pride. There have been many assemblies in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace but perhaps none more important. Just as his father, King George V, had done, King George VI had made the Palace the symbol of unity.

The year 1950 was a difficult one, with political and economic crises at home and international tension caused by the Korean war.

In the winter of 1950–51 two books were published which caused concern at the Palace. Marion Crawford published her memoirs,
The Little Princesses,
in breach of her solemn promise to the Queen. Poor Crawfie had been badgered by a difficult husband and seduced by her
publisher's offer of large sums of money. The Royal family was shocked: she had broken her word and betrayed their trust. She could not be forgiven. Yet in the words of Princess Margaret, ‘We loved her, and the irony was she made us loved.'
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Crawfie finally left her little grace-and-favour house at Kensington Palace, which she had been given for life instead of a pension. She died in 1988. There were no flowers from the Palace.