The Queen Mother (105 page)

After a few days at Appleton and a visit to her father at Glamis she and the King and the Princesses repaired to Balmoral. She was overjoyed that for the first time in the war she was able to invite friends to stay. ‘I can hardly believe that I am really writing these words,’ she said in her invitation to Bobbety Cranborne’s wife Betty, ‘as it seems such years and years since one ever thought of such things.’
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It was a happy holiday which the Queen tried to prolong for the Princesses so that they should have as much fresh Scottish air as possible to fortify them against another cold winter at war. Lady Cranborne brought with her a new popular gramophone record, ‘Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer’, which made the Queen and the Princesses weep a little every time they played it.
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‘We were all so delighted to have such a gloriously glutinous song introduced to us.’
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By the third quarter of 1943, Allied victories were more frequent. The Red Army was forcing the Germans back on the Eastern Front. Mussolini was overthrown and Italy changed sides. But there were growing tensions among the Allies. Churchill was increasingly concerned about Stalin’s post-war ambitions in Europe, a concern which
Roosevelt did not always share. Indeed, having been Churchill’s great friend, Roosevelt now fondly imagined he could create an equally trusting relationship with Stalin. To Churchill’s dismay he now often found himself the odd man out among the Big Three, Roosevelt, Stalin and himself. He shared such fears of Britain’s diminishing status with the King and Queen.

The travels of the King and Queen around the country and their visits to factories, barracks and schools continued. Tommy Lascelles constantly advised where their presence would be most beneficial to the war effort. In October 1943 he wrote to the Queen, ‘At the moment, the two obvious activities of vital importance are Bombing and Coal. Perhaps the troops that are being kept waiting, not too patiently, for some future continental adventure, come next.’ He also suggested visits at Christmas to clubs and hospitals used by troops from overseas.
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After a visit to Queen Mary in November 1943, the King and Queen returned to London and gave lunch to two Saudi Arabian princes; the Queen reported to her mother-in-law that ‘the two brothers were most beautiful; true Arabs with marvellous dignity & lovely manners. It was rather a strain having to talk through an interpreter, but it all seemed to go smoothly. They brought Bertie a diamond studded sword from King Ibn Saud, & they were very pleased when Bertie drew out its curved blade, & said that it would do to cut Hitler’s head off!’
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I
T WAS NOT
easy for the Queen to combine her wartime duties with her responsibilities to, and love for, her daughters. She was unable to spend much time with them except at weekends. There was, perhaps, another factor. She had always dedicated herself to supporting her husband; since the abdication this had become an even stronger priority for her, and both as wife and as queen she felt that her place was at his side. She was nevertheless aware of how difficult it was to grow up in a nation at war and she did all she could to preserve the normal pleasures of childhood for them. She ended one letter to Arthur Penn, ‘I must scram as the children have already eased off their ponies.’
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The Queen realized that there were similarities between her own life among the soldiers at Glamis in the First World War and that of
her daughters, particularly Princess Elizabeth, at Windsor now: ‘what a beastly time it is for people growing up. Lilibet meets young Grenadiers at Windsor and then they get killed, & it is horrid for someone so young.’
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Among such young men was Francis Wigram, son of Lord Wigram, King George V’s Private Secretary and now Governor of Windsor Castle. The Queen had liked him very much and was nervous about what to say when Lord Wigram came to meet them at the station soon after his son’s death. She thought this was ‘a very brave thing to do. Of course I could hardly say anything for the lump in my throat, but so like the wonderful old thing, he started off at once saying, “Isn’t it sad about Francis”, and helping us out as he always does.’
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The success of the nativity play in 1940 had led to a series of pantomimes written, as usual, by Hubert Tannar, in which the Princesses acted with children from his school. At Christmas 1943 the Princesses were heavily involved in
Aladdin
. Costumes were conjured up from old curtains and blackout material. ‘The oldest jokes are being resurrected & used boldly once more,’ said the Queen, but ‘some dreadfully Japanese touches are creeping in, such atrocities as “Nip off to Nippon” & such things!’
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The characters of the two Princesses were by now well developed. Princess Margaret, now thirteen, was still constantly mischievous and provocative. Tommy Lascelles told the Queen that one of her dancing partners had enjoyed her company greatly but had been embarrassed by her freewheeling gossip. The Queen thanked him, saying he should not hesitate to tell her such things, ‘and even if it is something I don’t like, if it is said kindly & tactfully I shall never mind’.
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Princess Elizabeth was growing into a poised, serious but open young woman. In early 1942 the King had appointed her colonel of the Grenadier Guards,
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who were protecting the family at Windsor; she immediately took a great interest in the regiment, her father recorded, and on her sixteenth birthday she had inspected a regimental parade in the Quadrangle at the Castle.
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General Smuts met her at the end of 1943 – ‘He seems pleased with Lilibet, which is nice, as I think he is a good judge,’ said the Queen.
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The Princess made a great impression on a young Grenadier and friend of the family, Mark
Bonham Carter, who went to see her as colonel of his regiment. According to Arthur Penn, he arrived nervous but ‘when he came out he was in a state which I can best describe as exaltation … I have seen this effect, in another generation, so often that it is almost what the lawyers call “common form”, but it gave me such pleasure to see it reproduced that I felt I must tell Your Majesty.’
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The Princess was also showing signs of an interest in Prince Philip of Greece; this was a friendship about which her parents had some concerns, if only on account of her age. Prince Philip was the nephew of King Constantine of Greece, but he was closely related to the British Royal Family – his maternal grandmother, Victoria Marchioness of Milford Haven, was Queen Victoria’s granddaughter and lived in Kensington Palace. Both she and his mother, Princess Alice, were born in Windsor Castle. His father, Prince Andrew of Greece, was King George V’s first cousin. Prince Philip himself was born in the family home on Corfu but when he was eighteen months old his parents had to flee with him and his four elder sisters on a British warship after a Greek revolutionary court sentenced his father to death.

The family then lived in somewhat reduced circumstances outside Paris. By the early 1930s the Prince’s parents had drifted apart; his mother developed psychiatric problems and then sought solace in religion, while his father based himself in Monte Carlo. The young Prince Philip continued to see each of his parents and spent a good deal of time in Germany with his sisters, who had all married German princes. He went first to preparatory school at Cheam in Surrey, then to Salem in Germany, which was run by the progressive educationalist Kurt Hahn.

When Hahn was driven out of Germany by the Nazis in 1933, he founded a new school, Gordonstoun, in north-eastern Scotland, and Prince Philip became a pupil. An adventurous, good-looking and athletic boy with precocious curiosity, the Prince flourished there. ‘Often naughty, never nasty,’ Hahn wrote of him. Even as a boy the Prince set high standards – for himself and for others. In his final report, Hahn summarized his character: ‘Prince Philip is a born leader, but will need the exacting demands of a great service to do justice to himself. His best is outstanding – his second best is not good enough.’

In January 1940, after passing out of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, having been awarded the King’s Dirk as the best all-round cadet of his term, Prince Philip began a distinguished career in the
Royal Navy. He had a good war and was mentioned in dispatches after the Battle of Matapan in 1941; in charge of searchlights on HMS
Valiant
, he had enabled the sinking of two Italian cruisers.

In December 1943 the King and Queen held a small dance for their daughters at Windsor Castle. The Queen was much impressed by the good behaviour of the young men; they seemed to appreciate the beauties of Windsor – ‘I fear that they are all starved of colour and beautiful things to look at, in these days.’
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To Princess Elizabeth’s disappointment Prince Philip was struck by flu and confined to bed in Claridge’s (‘of all gloomy places’, said the Queen).
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But in the end he was well enough to come to the pantomime; he stayed the weekend after it and they all laughed a great deal. He then spent Christmas with them and, according to Princess Elizabeth, ‘we had a very gay time, with a film, dinner parties and dancing to the gramophone’.
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According to Tommy Lascelles, they ‘frisked and capered away till near 1 a.m.’.
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As well as being good looking, Prince Philip was a strong character, full of opinions. He seems to have been aware early on that the Queen, another such character, might not always appreciate his exuberance. In his thank-you letter to her after Christmas 1943, he wrote that he hoped that ‘my behaviour did not get out of hand’. He said that he also hoped it would not be too presumptuous if he now added Windsor to Broadlands (the Mountbattens’ home) and Coppins (the Kents’ home) as his favourite places; ‘that may give you some small idea of how much I appreciated the few days you were kind enough to let me spend with you.’ The young Prince and the Queen had evidently been talking about what he should do next. ‘In thinking it over I have come to the conclusion that you were right and that if I had the freedom to choose I would stay in this country and not go to America.’
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After a subsequent visit to Windsor, Prince Philip told the Queen how much he loved being with them – ‘It is the simple enjoyment of family pleasures and amusements and the feeling that I am welcome to share them. I am afraid I am not capable of putting all this into the right words and I am certainly incapable of showing you the gratitude I feel.’
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Early in 1944 Queen Mary heard a rumour that the King of Greece was planning to suggest his cousin Prince Philip as a possible suitor for Princess Elizabeth. Queen Mary thought Prince Philip was in some ways very suitable. The King liked him too but, according to Queen
Mary, wondered if an Englishman, through and through, might not be more popular with the people of Britain.
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(Hugh Euston, son and heir to the Duke of Grafton, and now a young Grenadier who had been stationed at the Castle, was high on the King’s list of suitable young men.) Queen Mary wrote to the King hoping that he would not think her interfering, ‘But as you know well I adore Lilibet, & her future means much to me, tho’ I am too old to be able to expect to see much of it!’
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The King confirmed the rumour about Prince Philip and said that he liked him – ‘he is intelligent, has a good sense of humour and thinks about things in the right way.’ But he and the Queen both thought that their daughter was ‘too young for that now, as she has never met any young men of her own age’.
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Queen Mary was relieved, ‘as L is much too young, & after all the country will have to have a say in the matter. P. sounds extremely nice.’
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Despite their concerns about age, neither the King nor the Queen did anything to discourage the growing friendship between their daughter and the Prince. Meanwhile, Princess Elizabeth took on more public duties, particularly after her eighteenth birthday in April 1944. To her mother’s and grandmother’s delight, she now became a Counsellor of State.
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She often accompanied her parents on official appointments and began to carry out engagements on her own.

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B
Y THE SPRING
of 1944 the Queen believed that, although the Allies were finally marching towards victory, an immense struggle still lay ahead. Longing for peace vied with anger. Writing to her mother-in-law she said, ‘One feels quite exhausted by the immensity of the huge battlefields, stretching right across the world, and by the great amount of misery caused by the Germans. What people – words fail one … if
only
we could crush the Germans, and bring a true peace to this poor suffering world.’
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Weariness reigned. For the King’s birthday, Queen Mary had sent him greetings and sympathy over ‘this terrible war which never seems to come to an end & which gives you such endless work in so many
different ways’. She thought it was ‘far, far worse’ than the previous war.
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The King replied that he hoped very much that the war would end in 1944 ‘as really everybody is getting worn out with work & anxiety’.
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The Queen’s public life in 1944, the last full year of the war, did not much change. While she was still at Sandringham in January she chaired the AGM of the local Women’s Institute, and gave out prizes at the Sunday School Treat. After returning to London, she visited the headquarters of Bomber Command (whose aircrews won her lifelong admiration for their exemplary courage), the Yorkshire coalfields and air force stations, the New Zealand Forces Club and the American Red Cross Club. On a very cold day she, the King and Princess Elizabeth attended the England vs Scotland football match at Wembley (England won 6–2), and she inspected the 5th, 1st and 7th Battalions of the Black Watch. She toured bombed-out areas in south and west London and watched the beating of the retreat by pipes and drums of the 51st Highland Division. On 7 March she attended the ‘Back to Work’ Exhibition for Disabled Men at Burlington House, and later in the month reviewed troops in Yorkshire and then, together with Princess Elizabeth, toured South Wales.