The Royals Part 5

"But why did they get married in the first place?" she asked.

Crawfie eased the subject back to her impending delivery.

"She said she did not mind whether her first child was a boy or a girl," said John Dean, valet to Prince Philip, "but I believe the Duke was looking forward to having a son."

The King was convinced that the baby was going to be a girl because female genes ran strong on both sides of the family: Philip was the only boy following the birth of four girls, and Elizabeth was one of two girls. The genetic probability of a girl worried the King, who wanted his grandchild to be given the royal treatment, which included the bows and/or curtsies that accompany the HRH style. Since the creation of the House of Windsor in 1917, that style-His Royal Highness-had been reserved for the boys of the sovereign and excluded the girls. Not being a gambling man, the cautious King would not take a chance. He issued an official proclamation* a week before his daughter gave birth (not wanting his grandchild to be a commoner) and decreed that a week before his daughter gave birth (not wanting his grandchild to be a commoner) and decreed that all all children born to Elizabeth and Philip would be considered royal: children born to Elizabeth and Philip would be considered royal: all all must be given the royal appellation of HRH and styled Prince or Princess. That way he ensured himself a royal grandchild, even if she was a girl. When Elizabeth produced a boy, the King was ecstatic, and his enthusiasm affected everyone around the Palace. must be given the royal appellation of HRH and styled Prince or Princess. That way he ensured himself a royal grandchild, even if she was a girl. When Elizabeth produced a boy, the King was ecstatic, and his enthusiasm affected everyone around the Palace.

"It's a boy. It's a boy," shouted a policeman at the Palace gates. The gathering crowds sang l.u.s.tily for hours as the country celebrated the birth of a future king. The royal baby was hailed with forty-one-gun salutes from His Majesty's wars.h.i.+ps around the globe. Winston Churchill said the birth of Prince Charles had made the British monarchy "the most secure in the world." Prime Minister Clement Attlee congratulated the royal family, who by their "example in private life as well as in the devotion to public duty, have given strength and comfort to many in these times of stress and uncertainty."

At Windsor Castle, the two-ton curfew bell, which rings only for royals on four occasions-birth, marriage, invest.i.ture, and death-tolled for hours. For the next week, London's church bells pealed day and night, bonfires blazed, and fountains spouted blue-for-boy water. More than four thousand telegrams arrived at Buckingham Palace the first night, and a dozen temporary typists were hired to handle the letters and packages that poured in from around the empire and beyond.

The day after Prince Charles was born, the King ordered laborers working on Clarence House to "stop taking so d.a.m.ned many tea breaks." He insisted they work overtime to get the residence ready so his daughter, his son-in-law, and his eventual heir could move from their cramped quarters in Buckingham Palace. During World War II, the King had lent Clarence House to the British Red Cross. When he decided to give the bombed-out mansion-which had no heat, bathrooms, or electricity-to his daughter as a wedding present so she could live near him, Parliament allocated 50,000 ($200,000) for renovations. But work stoppages throttled England's postwar economy and stalled the project for eighteen months, and it ended up costing five times more than the war-drained treasury had allotted. Still, the King's subjects did not object. The royal family was so beloved after the war that the public willingly absorbed the cost of $1 million for remodeling the royal residence and installing crystal chandeliers, satin draperies, and gold faucets. Only the communist newspaper in London questioned the expenditures for the future sovereign at a time when the average weekly wage was less than $25 and scores of homeless families were s.h.i.+vering in abandoned military barracks.

The Queen addressed the misery of "all those who are living in uncongenial surroundings and who are longing for a time when they will have a home of their own." In her radio address on the occasion of Their Majesties' Silver Jubilee in 1948, she said, "I am sure that patience, tolerance, and love will help them to keep their faith undimmed and their courage undaunted when things seem difficult."

The King continued raging at the laborers working on Clarence House, his irascibility now exacerbated by failing health. At the age of fifty-three, his habit of chain-smoking cigarettes had clogged his lungs with cancer, although the word was never used in his presence. The deadly disease had blocked his bronchial tubes, which caused incessant coughing and shortness of breath. He relied on his doctor, Sir John Weir, a genial seventy-two-year-old homeopath, who dispensed more jokes than remedies while His Majesty's health deteriorated. Finally the amiable pract.i.tioner called in six other elderly specialists, who recommended surgery to remove the King's left lung. None of the doctors ever told the King of his spreading malignancy, and only one cautioned against cigarettes.

"Before we do this operation, we've got to cut down on the smoking," said James Learmonth, England's top expert on vascular disease. Learmonth did not have the nerve to tell his sovereign that he was killing himself with cigarettes, but by then nicotine had become the Windsor family curse: Queen Mary, the Duke of Windsor, and Princess Margaret were all addicted, and even the Queen smoked eight cigarettes a day, although never in public.

In addition to lung cancer, the King also suffered from arteriosclerosis, which caused him painful leg cramps. In 1949 he underwent lumbar surgery to relieve the pain and prevent gangrene, which would have meant amputating both his legs. Cardiac complications so weakened him that he had to curtail his schedule and postpone the royal tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The Queen wanted to hide her husband's illness, so she began applying makeup to his face to camouflage his pallor during public appearances. Each time she rouged his sunken, wan cheeks, she cursed the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Windsor. "None of this would have happened," she said, "if Wallis hadn't blown in from Baltimore!" On her orders, the Palace denied that the King was camouflaging his ill health with cosmetics.

The Queen possessed the most engaging personality of the royal family. She usually demonstrated intelligence and forgiveness. But since the abdication in 1936, she remained implacable in her animosity toward the Windsors. Now, filled with bitterness, she blamed them for leaching life away from her husband. "If only Bertie hadn't had to worry so much during the war," she wrote in a letter, bemoaning the abdication that put her husband on the throne. "If only he hadn't had to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders." In her mind, and that of her mother-in-law, Queen Mary, the cause of the King's alarming deterioration was directly attributable to "that d.a.m.nable Simpson woman."

Distracted by her husband's failing health, the Queen did not pay close attention to a letter she received from Ladies' Home Journal, Ladies' Home Journal, soliciting her comments and corrections on excerpts from a ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled soliciting her comments and corrections on excerpts from a ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled The Little Princesses The Little Princesses by Marion Crawford. She was stunned to learn that her children's governess was publis.h.i.+ng a memoir about her seventeen years of royal service. The Scottish schoolmarm, who retired in 1949, said she had postponed marriage until she was forty years old to take care of the Queen's children. The governess said she waited until Lilibet, twenty-three, and Margaret Rose, nineteen, no longer needed her on a daily basis. Only then did she decide that she could in good conscience accept Retired Major George Buthlay's proposal of marriage. The royal family did not rejoice. In fact, Queen Mary was horrified. by Marion Crawford. She was stunned to learn that her children's governess was publis.h.i.+ng a memoir about her seventeen years of royal service. The Scottish schoolmarm, who retired in 1949, said she had postponed marriage until she was forty years old to take care of the Queen's children. The governess said she waited until Lilibet, twenty-three, and Margaret Rose, nineteen, no longer needed her on a daily basis. Only then did she decide that she could in good conscience accept Retired Major George Buthlay's proposal of marriage. The royal family did not rejoice. In fact, Queen Mary was horrified.

"My dear child, you can't leave them, them," she told Crawfie. "You simply cannot."

The Queen, too, was appalled by Crawfie's intentions, especially when she said she was going to be married three months before the royal wedding. The Queen, whom Crawfie described in her book as "always sweet," "usually charming," and "unfailingly pleasant," stared at her coldly. After a moment of stony silence, the Queen recovered her composure.

"You must see, Crawfie," she said, "that this would not be at all convenient just now." Her dulcet tone had hardened into the sound of a woman discovering a dog's mess in the middle of her living room floor.

The King, who usually agreed with his mother and his wife, flew into an imperial rage. Only when Crawfie promised to stay through the royal wedding was he pacified. He agreed then to make her a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. This honor, established by Queen Victoria in 1896 for members of the royal household who had rendered extraordinary personal service to the sovereign, was not good enough for Crawfie, or so the Queen maintained. She said the governess had expected to receive the highest household honor-Dame Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, which truly separated the upstairs from the downstairs. Because she didn't receive that particular decoration, she retaliated by writing a memoir and two more books.

The Queen denounced Crawfie as a traitor and never spoke to her again. When Marion Crawford died in 1988 at the age of seventy-eight, no member of the royal family attended her funeral, wrote a condolence letter, or even sent flowers. As far as the Queen was concerned, Crawfie was dead* the day her book was published. the day her book was published.

More than anyone else in the royal family, the Queen understood the power of the revealing detail and the humanizing anecdote. She knew the historical impact of a book like Crawfie's, and despite its loving prose and affectionate stories, she never forgave the governess. The Queen did not like Crawfie's rendering of her as a pa.s.sive, uninvolved mother who cared little about her children's education beyond their ability to sing and dance. The Queen felt betrayed seeing herself using the governess as a psychiatrist to talk to her difficult daughter, Margaret. "I knew that my real work as Royal Governess at the Palace was over," wrote Crawfie, who had trained to be a child psychologist before entering royal service, "but in the new, busy life which Princess Margaret was leading, her mother thought an hour or two of quiet, unrestrained chat on general subjects might soothe her.... I had to go daily to the Palace to sit with Princess Margaret and discuss whatever subjects came up."

Although Crawfie described the Queen as "one of the loveliest people I had ever seen," she wrote that the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent was an "exceptionally beautiful woman" who, unlike the Queen, had married "the best-looking of all the Princes."

The Queen also objected to seeing personal details in print, such as the King's "blue-green draped bed" in his own bedroom "separate and away from the Queen." She did not like the reference to Margaret Rose's looking like "a plump navy-blue fish" in her bathing suit, and she was livid to read about "Uncle David" (the Duke of Windsor) being so "devoted to Lilibet." She was miffed that Crawfie had allowed the world to eavesdrop on the transatlantic call that the King and Queen had made to their children in 1939: "We ended the conversation by holding the Queen's corgi, Dookie, up and making him bark down the telephone by pinching his behind."

And the Queen never forgave Crawfie for telling the stories of Lilibet's nursery, which indicated the future Queen's compulsive disorder as a child.

"She became almost too methodical and tidy," Crawfie wrote. "She would hop out of bed several times a night to get her shoes quite straight, her clothes arranged so." The image of such an obsessive youngster, "too dutiful for her own good," was painful.

The Queen knew that The Little Princesses The Little Princesses would make Marion Crawford the most quoted royal historian of the twentieth century, because no one before had been given such intimate access to the royal family. Afterward, any mention of the author's name caused the Queen to turn away with displeasure. Her slang for treachery: "to do a Crawfie." would make Marion Crawford the most quoted royal historian of the twentieth century, because no one before had been given such intimate access to the royal family. Afterward, any mention of the author's name caused the Queen to turn away with displeasure. Her slang for treachery: "to do a Crawfie."

The King and Queen ordered their lawyers to inst.i.tute loyalty oaths* for all future servants. Anyone who dared to "do a Crawfie" was sued by the Palace and stopped by the courts. Because of Crawfie, the subsequent see-and-sell memoirs of the royal servants had to find their markets outside the United Kingdom. No British publisher would dare dishonor the monarchy by venturing into print with unauthorized recollections. To do so would show flagrant disrespect and, not incidentally, prejudice his prospects for a knighthood. Over the years secrets seeped out of the House of Windsor, stripping the monarchy of its mystique and deflating the fantasy. By 1994 the chimera had been so exposed that all deference was gone. Not even the threat of litigation intimidated royal servants. The fairy tale thoroughly dissolved when Prince Charles, the future King of England, went on television and admitted adultery. His valet then revealed the future King's romps outside his marriage bed. for all future servants. Anyone who dared to "do a Crawfie" was sued by the Palace and stopped by the courts. Because of Crawfie, the subsequent see-and-sell memoirs of the royal servants had to find their markets outside the United Kingdom. No British publisher would dare dishonor the monarchy by venturing into print with unauthorized recollections. To do so would show flagrant disrespect and, not incidentally, prejudice his prospects for a knighthood. Over the years secrets seeped out of the House of Windsor, stripping the monarchy of its mystique and deflating the fantasy. By 1994 the chimera had been so exposed that all deference was gone. Not even the threat of litigation intimidated royal servants. The fairy tale thoroughly dissolved when Prince Charles, the future King of England, went on television and admitted adultery. His valet then revealed the future King's romps outside his marriage bed.

"He was in the bushes with his mistress and there was mud and muck everywhere," said the disgusted servant, who said he had to wash the royal pajamas. "They'd obviously been doing it in the open air." The valet was forced to resign his $18,000-a-year job, but he said he did not care. By then it was no longer an honor to be a member of the royal household. The royal family had tumbled so far off its pedestal that even royal servants were dismayed. The power of royal displeasure no longer carried the punch it did in 1949.

At that time, King George VI had his hands full. While dealing with the international commotion over Crawfie's book, and his own precarious health, he was being pestered by his son-in-law for permission to return to active duty. Prince Philip, who aspired to becoming an admiral, wanted to quit his office job at the Admiralty, where he said all he did was "shuffle s.h.i.+ps around all day," and resume his career in the navy. The King was resisting because he knew Elizabeth would want to accompany her husband during his two-year tour, and the King did not want her to go. Weeks of family negotiations ensured what Elizabeth should do; when she agreed to commute to London every few months, the King agreed to release Philip from his desk. The Duke of Edinburgh left in October 1949 for Malta, where his uncle d.i.c.kie Mountbatten, second in command of the Mediterranean Fleet, eventually gave him command of his own frigate, HMS Magpie. Magpie. Respected, not loved, he was called "Dukey" by his crew. Respected, not loved, he was called "Dukey" by his crew.

As she promised, Elizabeth remained in England for a few weeks with her baby. Soon, though, she left the eleven-month-old infant with his nannies and grandparents. She skipped her baby's first birthday to join her husband in Malta for their second wedding anniversary.

"[The] Princess had no very clear understanding of the way people lived outside Palace walls," said her governess, Marion Crawford. "But... when she flew to visit Prince Philip in Malta, she saw and experienced for the first time the life of an ordinary girl not living in a palace."

Lady Mountbatten agreed. In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, she wrote: "It's lovely seeing her so radiant, and leading a more or less human and normal existence for once."

The Mountbattens turned over their hilltop quarters in Villa Guardamangia to Elizabeth and Philip during her visits, and the Princess so enjoyed herself that she extended her stay to spend Christmas with her husband. So little Prince Charles spent the holidays with his nanny, his grandparents, and his great-grandmother Queen Mary, whom he called "Gan Gan."

"He is too sweet stomping around the room & we shall love having him at Sandringham," the King wrote of his two-year-old grandson. "He is the fifth generation to live there & I hope will get to love the place."

Elizabeth returned home only when her husband went to sea, and Lady Mountbatten accompanied her to the airport.

"Lilibet had left with a tear in her eyes and a lump in her throat," Edwina Mountbatten wrote to a friend. "Putting her into the Viking when she left was I thought rather like putting a bird back into a very small cage and I felt sad and nearly tearful myself."

Back home, Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant. So she returned to Malta in March 1950 to tell her husband the news and stayed with him for another month. She returned to London in May and did not see Philip again until he came home for the birth of their daughter, Anne, on August 15, 1950. He stayed for four weeks before returning to Malta.

Elizabeth rejoined him there in November for three months, again leaving her children with their nannies and grandparents. Accompanied by her maid, her footman, and her detective, she arrived on the island with her sports car, forty wardrobe trunks, and a new polo pony for her husband. She spent her days relaxing in the sun, shopping, lunching with officers' wives, and getting her hair done in a beauty salon. Occasionally she toured military installations, cut ceremonial ribbons, and visited nursery schools. She filled her evenings with dinner parties, dances, and movies. On later trips she traveled with Philip to Italy and Greece. The Maltese press reported the personal cruise as professional business: "Like the wife of any naval officer, she is joining her husband on his station." While she said she considered herself "just another naval wife," she never discouraged curtsies or formal introductions as "Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth, d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh."

The Maltese were enchanted with her, and the Times of Malta Times of Malta ran several stories reporting her visits to the Under-Five Club, for children whose fathers were stationed in Malta. But the paper did not raise the question of why she, unlike other military mothers, had left her own children, under the age of five, in England. Often, photographs appeared of her smiling and waving, attending Champagne parties, visiting churches, wars.h.i.+ps, and horse stables. She was hailed as "the best-loved, the most notable naval wife ever to visit these islands." ran several stories reporting her visits to the Under-Five Club, for children whose fathers were stationed in Malta. But the paper did not raise the question of why she, unlike other military mothers, had left her own children, under the age of five, in England. Often, photographs appeared of her smiling and waving, attending Champagne parties, visiting churches, wars.h.i.+ps, and horse stables. She was hailed as "the best-loved, the most notable naval wife ever to visit these islands."

Back home, her press coverage was not quite so gushy. One newspaper story wondered how she could abandon her children for weeks on end, especially when her son came down with tonsillitis. Other newspapers took her to task for looking like "an Edwardian vaudeville queen." Carpings about her weight and wardrobe disturbed her more than criticism about her children, especially coming from her husband.

"You're not going to wear that that thing," he said when Elizabeth walked into his room to show him a new dress. "Take it off at once." thing," he said when Elizabeth walked into his room to show him a new dress. "Take it off at once."

"It was all very upsetting," wrote Geoffrey Bocca in an early biography. "The Empire had on its hands a Princess it adored pa.s.sionately, but a Princess that was both overstuffed and overdressed.... As a non-smoker she did not have the a.s.sistance of nicotine to hold down the poundage... [so] she went off starchy food and she took appet.i.te-reducing pills-a blue pill for breakfast, a green pill at lunch, and a chocolate pill at dinner."

The amphetamines, like all other medications for the Princess, were bought by a servant to preserve her privacy. "When sleeping tablets were prescribed to help her get a good night's rest, I got them in my own name," said John Dean. "To avoid drawing attention to the purchase and to the fact that they were for Princess Elizabeth."

During Elizabeth's longest stay in Malta, her sister came to visit, and the prospect of the glamorous, pouty-lipped Princess with her long, ornate cigarette holder and strapless gowns excited the bachelor contingent stationed on the small island.

"Malta is only ninety square miles in size, and Princess Margaret's arrival was big, big news for the men, who just about went crazy," recalled Roland Flamini, a diplomatic correspondent for Time Time magazine. "I was a teenager then, and because my father was writing Malta's const.i.tution, I later got to meet Princess Elizabeth. I didn't have the slightest idea what to say to her, so I blurted out something about Princess Margaret's visit, and said I hoped that she had had a good time. magazine. "I was a teenager then, and because my father was writing Malta's const.i.tution, I later got to meet Princess Elizabeth. I didn't have the slightest idea what to say to her, so I blurted out something about Princess Margaret's visit, and said I hoped that she had had a good time.

" 'I haven't the faintest idea,' said Princess Elizabeth in her high-pitched voice. 'The little b.i.t.c.h hasn't written to me yet, or thanked me.' "*

"I knew then that there was more to the proper, prissy-looking Princess Elizabeth than met the eye."

Because of her father's failing health, Elizabeth returned to London, and Philip had to follow a few months later after resigning from the navy. On July 16, 1951, he bade farewell to his crew. "The past eleven months have been the happiest of my sailor life," he said. Five days later he flew to England, where he was greeted at the airport by his young son, Prince Charles, and one of his son's nannies. But Elizabeth was not there. She was at the Ascot races.

Three months later, in October 1951, she and Philip were called upon to represent the royal family on a tour of Canada, which, after a diplomatic prod from the British to the Americans,* included a short visit to the United States. Once again Elizabeth and Philip left their children in the care of nannies and grandparents. They missed Princess Anne's first steps and the third birthday of Prince Charles, but before leaving England, they selected gifts for him, which they left with the King and Queen to present. They embarked on their five-week journey with an entourage of four servants and 189 wardrobe trunks. One suitcase contained a sealed parchment envelope with the Accession Declaration in case the King died during the tour. They spent almost a month in the Dominion, where their purpose, as described by the British Foreign Office, was "to show the flag" to fourteen million people who were the King's subjects. He had insisted on the royal tour after hearing Newfoundland's Premier say, "The cords that bind us to the Mother Country are only silken cords of sentiment." The King wanted those cords strengthened, so the royal couple crisscrossed Canada twice, traveling more than ten thousand miles through North America and visiting every province, including Newfoundland. All along their route, Elizabeth phoned her parents. included a short visit to the United States. Once again Elizabeth and Philip left their children in the care of nannies and grandparents. They missed Princess Anne's first steps and the third birthday of Prince Charles, but before leaving England, they selected gifts for him, which they left with the King and Queen to present. They embarked on their five-week journey with an entourage of four servants and 189 wardrobe trunks. One suitcase contained a sealed parchment envelope with the Accession Declaration in case the King died during the tour. They spent almost a month in the Dominion, where their purpose, as described by the British Foreign Office, was "to show the flag" to fourteen million people who were the King's subjects. He had insisted on the royal tour after hearing Newfoundland's Premier say, "The cords that bind us to the Mother Country are only silken cords of sentiment." The King wanted those cords strengthened, so the royal couple crisscrossed Canada twice, traveling more than ten thousand miles through North America and visiting every province, including Newfoundland. All along their route, Elizabeth phoned her parents.

"Are you smiling enough, dear?" asked the Queen.

"Oh, Mother!" said her daughter. "I seem to be smiling all the time!"

Afterward she said Canada was "a country which has become a second home in every sense." Philip p.r.o.nounced the country "a good investment."

When the royal couple arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., for their two-day visit, President Harry S Truman greeted them at the airport. Such a gesture was unusual for the President of the United States, but Truman was grateful to the "fairy Princess," as he called Elizabeth, for entertaining his daughter, Margaret, in London. His only child had been received by the royal family at Buckingham Palace, so he reciprocated by welcoming Elizabeth with open arms. When she came down the mobile stairway, he was waiting for her. Ignoring royal protocol, he addressed her affectionately as "my dear" and casually waylaid her at the foot of the airplane for ten minutes so photographers could take pictures. While she and her husband waited, Truman told jokes.

"Hundreds of police were milling about," recalled John Dean. "They told me they were amazed that the Princess and the Duke traveled with so little protection. I shall never forget the ride [we] were given to Blair House... for on our high-speed drive we were escorted by motorcycle police, with sirens blaring all the time."

Lines of uniformed police surrounded the President and guarded his armor-plated limousine. Jerking his thumb toward the security force, Truman said, "I suppose you haven't got the tradition of nuts that we've got." Knowing that Puerto Rican nationalists had tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate the President the year before, Elizabeth and Philip appreciated Truman's humor. When he stood with them in a receiving line, he announced they were ready by telling his aide, "Bring in the customers." The royal couple's smiling faces appeared in the next day's newspapers, and the President sent the photographs to the King. In his handwritten letter, Truman p.r.o.nounced the trip a resounding success: "We've just had a visit from a lovely young lady and her personable husband," wrote the President. "They went to the hearts of all the citizens of the United States.... As one father to another, we can be very proud of our daughters. You have the better of me-because you have two!"

The King responded to the expression of paternal love by sending a cable from Buckingham Palace: "The Queen and I would like you to know how touched we are to hear of the friendly welcome given to our daughter and son-in-law in Was.h.i.+ngton. Our thoughts go back to our own visit in 1939 of which we have such happy memories. We are so grateful to you, Mr. President, for your kindness and hospitality to our children."

With the White House under renovation, Bess Truman tried to spruce up Blair House across the street. She had removed all the air conditioners, as the royal couple had requested, and although surprised by their desire for separate bedrooms, she prepared a suite for Princess Elizabeth and moved in the blue damask four-poster canopy bed that the Trumans shared. The First Lady also hung flowered curtains from the presidential bedroom in the Princess's guest room and prepared an adjoining green suite for Prince Philip. "We brought in a small Oriental rug, with a table and a few books, to make it more cozy," recalled White House usher J. B. West. "But the Princess still had to use the concrete bathtub."

The Princess's maid and dresser, BoBo MacDonald, inspected everything before Her Royal Highness arrived and declared the accommodations satisfactory. "Why, it's just like her bedroom at Windsor Castle," she said.

Elizabeth never complained about her accommodations on foreign visits. She left that to her husband. On a subsequent visit to Was.h.i.+ngton, the royal couple again stayed in Blair House and were awakened throughout the night by the comings and goings of Secret Service agents. The next morning, Philip objected to U.S. Chief of Protocol Henry Catto. "I say, Catto. Do you employ professional door slammers in this house?" Duly chastised, Catto immediately ordered all the doorjambs to be lined in felt.

The President's elderly mother, who was bedridden on the top floor of Blair House, was looking forward to meeting the royal couple. "She'll kill me if she doesn't get to say h.e.l.lo to you," Truman told the Princess. So Elizabeth and Philip followed the President up six flights of stairs.

"Mother," bellowed Truman, "I've brought Princess Elizabeth to see you!"

Infirm and almost deaf at the age of ninety-eight, Martha Truman had learned that Winston Churchill had been returned as Prime Minister on October 25, 1951. So she was primed for the royal introduction.

The little old woman beamed. "I'm so glad your father's been reelected," she said.

Elizabeth smiled and Philip chuckled as Harry Truman threw back his head and roared.

The folksy President had won the affection of the royal couple, and Elizabeth wrote him a three-page letter of thanks: "The memory of our visit to Was.h.i.+ngton will long remain with us, and we are so grateful to you for having invited us. Our only sadness was that our stay with you was so short, but what we saw has only made us wish all the more that it may be possible for us to return again one day...."

British Paramount News filmed one thousand feet of newsreel on the royal visit to Was.h.i.+ngton, because after the GI presence in England during the war, Britons were intrigued with America. They packed the movie houses to see the footage. The Foreign Office complimented the British Amba.s.sador to the United States for a job well done, and the Amba.s.sador wrote to the President: "I am so delighted with the success of the visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh that I feel I must express my own deep grat.i.tude to you. I know from what they said to us how much Princess Elizabeth and her husband enjoyed their stay at Blair House."

On their return home, Elizabeth and Philip were buoyed by the praise they received for improving Anglo-American relations. The King and Queen met them at Victoria Station with Prince Charles, who timidly approached his parents as if they were strangers. The photograph of Princess Elizabeth greeting her three-year-old son with a pat on the back would haunt her years later when the young boy grew up and, citing the picture, criticized her for being a cold and distant mother.

The King, who had undergone three operations in three years, said he felt so much better that he wanted to reinstate his visit to Australia and New Zealand. "An operation is not an illness," he said, "and a sea voyage would be beneficial." His doctors adamantly refused, so once again Elizabeth and Philip were pressed into service. The King received tentative permission from his doctors to plan a therapeutic cruise to South Africa in the spring, and the departure date was set for the next March. The country rejoiced over the King's recovery. "By then he was esteemed to the point of tenderness," recalled writer Rebecca West. A national day of thanksgiving was declared for December 9, 1951. Church bells pealed, the Commonwealth thanked G.o.d, and the King knighted his doctors. Five days later he celebrated his fifty-sixth birthday at Buckingham Palace.

Preparing for the rigorous five-month trip ahead, Elizabeth asked that a rest stop be added to the itinerary so she could see the wild animal reserves of what was then called "Kenya Colony." She and Philip wanted to see the Sagana Royal Lodge at Nyeri, which had been their wedding present from the people of East Africa.

The royal couple left London by plane on January 31, 1952, with a small traveling party. The King and Queen and Princess Margaret went to the airport to say good-bye. Aboard the blue-and-silver royal aircraft, the King turned to BoBo MacDonald, his daughter's personal dresser.

"Look after the Princess for me, BoBo," he said. "I hope the tour is not going to be too tiring for you."

He disembarked and stood at the bottom of the steps, hatless and haggard. Newsreel cameras captured him in an overcoat, standing in the bitingly cold wind. He waved to his daughter and watched the plane until it became a speck in the sky. He never saw her again.

Five days later at Sandringham, in the early hours of February 6, 1952, he suffered a coronary thrombosis and died in his sleep. That morning, as the Queen was drinking her tea, Sir Harold Campbell came to her room to tell her that the King was gone. She hurried to her husband's chamber, walked to his bed, and kissed his forehead for the last time. She issued instructions for a vigil to be kept at his open door. "The King must not be left alone," she said. "And Lilibet must be informed." Quickly she amended her sentence. "The Queen Queen must be informed." must be informed."

The equerry backed out of the room to relay the awful news to the young woman, who had departed England a Princess and would be returning as Queen. Campbell did not reach the royal party because a tropical storm had knocked out the telephone lines in Kenya. So he contacted Reuters, which he deemed the most responsible news service, and asked that the message be conveyed to the royal party. Elizabeth and Philip had spent the night at Treetops, the remote observation post in the African jungle, where they watched animals gather at a salt lick in the shadow of Mount Kenya. At dawn the exhausted couple returned to the Sagana Royal Lodge to sleep for a few hours. A Reuters reporter received the news flash from London and located the Queen's private secretary, Martin Charteris.

"I remember he reached for a cigarette with trembling hands before he could tell me the King was dead," said Charteris, who relayed the news to Michael Parker, aide-de-camp to Prince Philip. "Mike," he said, "our employer's father is dead. I suggest you do not tell the lady at least until the news is confirmed."

The British Broadcasting Corporation made a formal announcement at 10:45 A.M. A.M., February 6, 1952, and, in a gesture of respect, went silent for the rest of the day. Stunned crowds filled the rain-drenched streets of London, and motorists stood in the middle of the street by their cars, weeping. Church bells tolled fifty-six times, one for each year of the King's short life. England's sorrow echoed around the world. In Australia a member of Parliament said, "We have lost a great bloke." In America the House of Representatives pa.s.sed a resolution of sympathy and adjourned. President Truman wrote in his diary: "He was a grand man. Worth a pair of his brother Ed."

That brother, the Duke of Windsor, received the news in New York City, where he and the d.u.c.h.ess were staying at the Waldorf-Astoria. Winston Churchill advised him to return to England at once but cautioned against bringing the d.u.c.h.ess, who would not be received with propriety. The Duke sailed for England by himself, looking like a forlorn little man who had fallen off a charm bracelet. He stayed with his mother at Marlborough House, although he resented Queen Mary's hostility to his wife.

In Kenya Michael Parker hurried to Prince Philip's room to wake him. "It was his job to tell the Queen," said Parker. "Probably the worst moment of his life. All he could say was, 'This will be a terrible blow.' He took her out into the garden and they walked slowly up and down the lawn while he talked and talked and talked to her.... I've never felt so sorry for anyone in all my life. He's not the sort of person to show his emotions, but you can tell from a man's face-how he sets his features. I'll never forget it. He looked as if you'd dropped half the world on him.... The rest of us flew into action and were out of that place in an hour."

Elizabeth received the news without cracking. She walked slowly back to the lodge, where BoBo MacDonald was s.h.i.+ning her shoes. Her personal dresser dropped to her knees in a deep curtsy. "Oh, no, BoBo," she said. "You don't have to do that." Her lady-in-waiting, Pamela Mountbatten, rushed to give her a comforting hug. don't have to do that." Her lady-in-waiting, Pamela Mountbatten, rushed to give her a comforting hug.

"Oh, thank you," said the new Queen. "But I am so sorry that it means we've got to go back to England and it's upsetting everybody's plans."

Martin Charteris entered with the dreaded envelope containing the accession doc.u.ments, which required the new sovereign's name.

"I did what I had to do," he recalled. "I addressed her: 'The only question I have to ask you at this stage is, what do you wish to be called when you're on the throne?'

" 'Oh, my own name, of course. Elizabeth. What else?'

" 'Right. Elizabeth. Elizabeth the Second.' "

Many years later Charteris characterized the new Queen's reaction to her accession: "I remember seeing her moments after she became Queen-moments, not hours-and she seemed almost to reach out for it. There were no tears. She was just there, back braced, her color a little heightened. Just waiting for her destiny.

"It was quite different for Philip. He sat slumped behind a copy of the Times. Times. He didn't want it at all. It was going to change his whole life: take away the emotional stability he'd finally found." He didn't want it at all. It was going to change his whole life: take away the emotional stability he'd finally found."

Charteris summoned the press to make the announcement about "the lady we must now call the Queen." He asked photographers to respect her privacy by not taking her picture as she prepared to leave. The photographers complied and stood by the side of the road as she pa.s.sed, holding their cameras limp in their left hands and their right hands held over their hearts. The people of Kenya lined the dirt road to the airport for a solid forty-mile line. Black Africans, brown Indians, and white Europeans, subjects all, bowed their heads in silent tribute.

"There was very little conversation on the flight back to London," recalled John Dean. "BoBo and I sat together, with the royal couple immediately behind.... The Queen got up once or twice during the journey, and when she returned to her seat she looked as if she might have been crying."

She was wearing the beige-and-white sundress she had on in Kenya and refused to put on mourning clothes until the very last minute. Upon landing, the Queen looked out the window and saw Prime Minister Churchill waiting with a clutch of elderly men in somber ration-book black suits and black armbands. She gasped when she saw the long line of black Daimler sedans.

"Oh, G.o.d," she whispered to her lady-in-waiting. "They've brought the hea.r.s.es."

Composed, but unsure of what to do next, she turned to her husband.

"Shall I go down alone?"

"Yes," he said, acknowledging her sudden preeminence. As his wife's subject, he now was required to call her "ma'am" in public and walk four paces behind her.

Tears trickled down Churchill's cheeks and he struggled for composure as he offered his condolences.

"A tragic homecoming," said the Queen, "but a smooth flight."

After shaking hands with the plane's crew, and thanking each one, she stepped into the family Daimler and was driven to Clarence House, where Queen Mary, dressed in black, was waiting to pay her respects.

"Her old grannie and subject must be the first to kiss her hand," said Queen Mary.

The eighty-five-year-old woman, who would die thirteen months later, set the royal standard for mourning. After burying her husband, King George V, and two of her five sons, she declared black to be the color of death and to be worn only for doing death's duty. So the women of the House of Windsor never wore black except when grieving. "On royal trips, we always packed something black in the luggage in case news of any death reached us," said John Dean. "That is how it happened that the new Queen returned from tropical Africa dressed appropriately in a plain black dress, coat, and hat."

The Queen greeted her grandmother as always: by kissing her on both cheeks and curtsying. Queen Mary frowned and shook her head, insisting that she be the one to pay homage. Despite crippling arthritis, she dropped to the ground in a deep curtsy to her twenty-five-year-old granddaughter, who was now her sovereign. Then, standing upright, the elderly Queen chided the new Queen.

"Lilibet," she said, "your skirts are much too short for mourning!"

After seeing her grandmother, the Queen was led to St. James's Palace, where she made a poignant accession proclamation. "My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than that I shall always work as my father did," she said.