The Queen Mother Part 27
With rooty thoughts and needle tongues
They murmured: 'There they go
Looking for mountain sunshine just
In time to meet the snow!
Toasting Queen Victoria
For blazing the trail to Lochnagar.'44
She was at Royal Lodge when she received the poem, and wrote to tell Hughes that it transported her 'at once to my beloved hills, and to the "steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar" (Lord Byron!!), and to the birds and the deer and the elusive salmon and the dear creaking pines. It is such a wonderful and loving poem, and I send you my most hearty thanks for giving us something so special.'45 She had a summer full of engagements. At the end of May 1992 she unveiled a statue of one of her heroes, Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, the wartime leader of Bomber Command, outside the RAF Church, St Clement Dane's, in the Strand. (In 1988 she had unveiled a statue of Lord Dowding of Fighter Command near by.) Charged with destroying German industry, Bomber Command had a higher casualty rate than any other unit in the British armed forces. Queen Elizabeth knew well that, despite the appalling odds, its young airmen had flown into danger night after night, month after month. The missions included the saturation bombing of Dresden, where 35,000 people died in British attacks in February 1945. Dresden was an important military communications centre through which German troops pa.s.sed to the Eastern Front, but after the war was won Harris had been the subject of fierce criticism because of such attacks. Some post-war historians even called British bombing policies war crimes'.
Queen Elizabeth had no time for such views. She knew that Britain now had a completely new relationship with the democratic state of Germany, but her heart was still with the heroes of the war against n.a.z.i Germany.* She believed that Bomber Command, and Harris in particular, had been treated badly since the war. Far from seeing them as criminals, she thought that the young bomber pilots, whose airfields she and the King had often visited, were the bravest of the brave. In April 1983 she had opened the Bomber Command Museum at Hendon, where Harris had come to welcome her. It was, according to the lady in waiting's diary, 'A very moving occasion, so full of memories for all concerned'.46 Now, eight years after Sir Arthur's death, as she unveiled his memorial, demonstrators tried to interrupt Queen Elizabeth's speech. She seemed surprised, but after a moment's pause she continued. (Subsequently the statue had to be protected by police because it was frequently defaced with red paint.) That day she entertained some of the RAF officers present to lunch at Clarence House and one of them, Air Marshal Sir John Grandy, wrote to her to say, 'We were all worried but your great calm and disarming smile, courage and brave example against that ridiculous attempt to upset you was superb.'47 *
FAR MORE upsetting than transient demonstrations was the turmoil afflicting her own family. It was the misfortune of the Royal Family that the globalization of the media was now making the so-called cult of celebrity into an ever more valuable commodity. Newspapers, fearful of losing market share to television and other media, became more invasive. Tabloid editors juggled the lives of real people with those of fictional characters from television soap operas for s.p.a.ce on front pages. Actors and actresses were deliberately confused with their screen personalities. The borderlines between fact and fantasy became ever more blurred.
Exaggerations, inventions, lies about different members of the Royal Family became commonplace. The editor of the Sun, Kelvin Mackenzie, was reported to have instructed his staff, 'Give me a Monday splash on the royals. Don't worry if it's not true so long as there's not too much fuss about it afterwards.'48 Donald Trelford, editor of the Observer, a more sober paper, wrote, 'The royal soap opera has now reached such a pitch of public interest that the boundary between fact and fiction has been lost sight of ... it is not just that some papers don't check their facts or accept denials: they don't care if the stories are true or not.'49 No other European royal family was being subjected to such ruthless and sententious a.s.sault.
The revelation of problems and peccadilloes in the family was highly profitable. But there was a more important cause of tension. Though many journalists sought to deny or belittle the idea, a large majority of the population still believed that one of the Royal Family's functions was, in the words of the writer Rebecca West, to hold up to the public 'a presentation of ourselves doing well'.50 When some of them did badly, we did not like what we saw of ourselves. And all too often we found it difficult to remember that the mirror of the media distorted as much as it revealed.
The marriages and divorces of younger members of the Royal Family have since been written about endlessly and often cruelly. These crises obviously touched Queen Elizabeth profoundly; she worried constantly about her grandchildren. But she rarely committed her views to paper. Such caution was characteristic: since joining the Royal Family in 1923 she had always made it a rule not to talk about members of the family with anyone outside it, not even with her own Bowes Lyon relations. Still less did she write to anyone about family matters. Given the ever increasing danger of leaks, her discretion was well placed.
What one can venture to say is that Queen Elizabeth, like other members of the Royal Family, had welcomed Lady Diana Spencer's entry into the family. In her public life, the Princess of Wales gradually showed that she could use her natural warmth and spontaneity to good effect. After a tour of Australia in early 1983 in which she had been the centre of obsessive media attention, Queen Elizabeth wrote to congratulate her. The Princess replied that she was 'enormously touched by your letter the thought gave me a lot of happiness. Charles is the one who deserves all the credit by showing me what to do & how to do it, always patient & ready to explain. The whole Tour seems to have helped me a great deal on how to cope with my public duties, so all in all, a good experience!'51 Her success as a new member of the Royal Family was similar to that of the young d.u.c.h.ess of York in 1923. But, unlike the d.u.c.h.ess of York, personal contentment eluded her, as it did her husband. The births of their two much loved sons, Prince William in 1982 and Prince Harry in 1984, gave joy to them as well as to everyone else in the family. But hopes that motherhood would bring the Princess fulfilment proved illusory. Within the family, enthusiasm and hopes for the marriage gave way to anxiety and concern. The Prince's response was to retreat into his grandmother's concept of duty. He had always been diligent; now his work became ever more important to him. The Princess was younger and her unhappiness was more volatile. She began to move along a separate trajectory in both her personal life and her official duties, which she continued to carry out with aplomb. By 1986 the marriage had all but broken down.
The Waleses were not alone in their problems. Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, had become the first of Queen Elizabeth's grandchildren to separate from her husband. She and Captain Mark Phillips were divorced in April 1992. By this time the marriage of Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth's second grandson, was also in trouble. He had met Sarah Ferguson in 1985 and they had subsequently fallen in love. She was a friendly, outspoken young woman and the match was welcomed not only by journalists who considered that Miss Ferguson was that famous cliche 'a breath of fresh air', but also by most of the Prince's family. Queen Elizabeth thought she was 'such a cheerful person, and seems to be so thankful & pleased to be part of a united family'.52 (Sarah Ferguson's parents had divorced when she was a child.) The wedding, in July 1986, engendered widespread pleasure and on the same day the Queen created the Prince duke of York, the t.i.tle held by both his grandfather, King George VI, and his great-grandfather, King George V. The new Duke and d.u.c.h.ess had two daughters, Princess Beatrice, born in 1988, and Princess Eugenie, born in 1990. But their marriage also deteriorated.
In these hard times Queen Elizabeth gave her grandchildren, particularly the Prince of Wales, as much support as she could. The Prince visited her often and loved to bring his sons to stay with her at either Birkhall or Royal Lodge. There were some in the Royal Household who wished Queen Elizabeth would give him robust advice. But that was not her style. She never liked to acknowledge, let alone confront, disagreeableness within the family. It was a characteristic which had earned her the nickname 'imperial ostrich' among some members of the Household. She thought her role was not to try and change people's courses but to be an anchor.
Nineteen-ninety-two began well with the sort of holiday which Queen Elizabeth most enjoyed, a family Christmas and New Year at Sandringham. In thanking her sister, Princess Margaret urged her, 'Do keep Mummy there as long as poss. And please say it to her otherwise she gets in a tizz about being there for so long.'53 While she was in Norfolk Queen Elizabeth received from Ted Hughes a special edition of his poems, Rain-Charm for the Duchy. She thanked him for the 'enchanting' book with its 'rich and rustling' paper, and for his accompanying letter 'with its thrilling description of landing a fish in such wild & stormy conditions. It must have been too exciting for words, & I felt an envious thrill myself when reading of the battle with the fish and the wind and the rocks.'54 The happy start to the year was brought to an abrupt end by the announcement that the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of York were to separate. Worse was to come. In June 1992 the Sunday Times began to serialize a book called Diana: Her True Story. Highly sympathetic to Diana, this work created a sensation, particularly when it was revealed that the Princess had collaborated covertly with the author, Andrew Morton. This was deeply shocking to Queen Elizabeth. She had been sympathetic to both the Princess of Wales and the d.u.c.h.ess of York over the enormous pressures they faced from the media. But the washing of dirty linen in public was utterly abhorrent to Queen Elizabeth. Her entire life was based upon obligation, discretion and restraint. The Princess's public rejection of her husband and his life was contrary to everything that Queen Elizabeth believed and practised. She also regretted it when, subsequently, Prince Charles discussed his private life in a wide-ranging series of interviews with Jonathan Dimbleby for a film and a book. 'It's always a mistake to talk about your marriage,' she said to Eric Anderson. But she was proud of the Prince's achievements, such as the Prince's Trust,* and she hoped that the book, a serious study of his career, would help history to judge him better.55 She did not cast the Princess aside at this time but she gave her grandson as much emotional support as she could. She also talked almost daily to her daughter the Queen, who was distraught about what was happening to her children and the fact that it was taking place so publicly. Queen Elizabeth often asked members of the Household, 'Is the Queen all right?' They in turn recognized that the frequent conversations between mother and daughter helped the Queen to maintain her sangfroid and sense of perspective.
Everyone in the family felt the impact of the unhappiness among the younger generation. Prince Philip exchanged a series of affectionate letters with the Princess in which he offered 'to do my utmost to help you and Charles to the best of my ability. But I am quite ready to concede that I have no talent as a marriage counsellor!' The Princess was grateful, and said she hoped to be able to draw on his advice in the months ahead, 'whatever they may bring'.56 Princess Margaret wrote to the Queen after staying with her at Balmoral in September 1992 thanking her and sympathizing with her worries about her children. She hoped that her sister was able to have a little peace in the familiar hills, adding, 'I personally found great comfort in being with you and in that particular place.' After leaving Scotland, Princess Margaret had been to Italy. 'I think you would be very touched at how many people expressed great sympathy for you,' she wrote. 'Everyone loves you all over the place, I was so pleased for you and you must be encouraged by this I hope.'57 Sorrows marched in battalions that year, and not only through the hearts of Queen Elizabeth's grandchildren. On 20 November 1992, while she was giving a lunch party at Clarence House, there came a distant echo of the fire at Glamis in 1916 she was told that Windsor Castle was on fire. She drove down to Windsor to be with the Queen, who had already arrived from London and was watching in agony as her favourite home burned. Prince Philip was away and Queen Elizabeth invited her daughter to stay with her at Royal Lodge that weekend. Alone together they were able to talk over all the unhappinesses of the time. It helped. The Queen later thanked her mother, saying, 'It made all the difference to my sanity after that terrible day.'58 The injury of the fire was at once followed by insult. The Castle is Crown property and the fire damaged parts of the State Apartments and other reception rooms, not the Queen's private rooms. The fabric of the Castle is maintained at government expense, and the building was being rewired under this arrangement at the time when the fire broke out. Like other Crown or national properties, it is covered by government indemnity rather than commercial insurance. It was therefore not obviously unreasonable when the Minister responsible immediately announced that the government would pay for the restoration.
To the astonishment and embarra.s.sment of the Prime Minister, John Major, who had succeeded Mrs Thatcher in 1990, there was a storm of protest led by the Daily Mail, ostensibly a Conservative and monarchist paper. The Mail published a front-page editorial under the headline 'Why the Queen Must Listen', asking 'Why should the populace, many of whom have had to make huge sacrifices during the bitter recession, have to pay the total bill for Windsor Castle, when the Queen, who pays no taxes, contributes next to nothing?' The Mail's line was followed by other parts of the media. The matter was resolved by the Queen's decision to open the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace to the public during late summer from then on. The 37 million of repairs were carried out without any additional contribution from the public purse.
Four days after the fire, the Queen made a remarkable speech at Guildhall. She had flu and a temperature of 101, but she refused to cancel the engagement. Her voice hoa.r.s.e, she used a phrase that became instantly famous 1992, she said, 'is not a year on which I will look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.' (Her correspondent was Sir Edward Ford, the former a.s.sistant Private Secretary to King George VI and then to the Queen.) She declared also that she understood that no inst.i.tution 'City, Monarchy, whatever should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don't'. The Queen's lunchtime audience at Guildhall was touched and responded with a standing ovation.
On 26 November it became clear that the speech had been a prologue. John Major announced that the Queen and Prince Charles had agreed to pay tax on their private incomes and that 900,000 worth of Civil List payments that went to five members of the Royal Family would end. From now on only the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen Mother would continue to receive direct Parliamentary annuities; the Queen would reimburse the government for the allowances given to her children under the Civil List.
Before the decision on tax had been announced, the Queen asked her Private Secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, to break the news to Queen Elizabeth. He knew that she would not be pleased. The Queen Mother understood that the country was changing so much that monarchy had, as always, to change to retain consent.* But, according to members of the family, she was concerned lest acceptance of such reform should imply criticism of the Queen and her predecessors, particularly the King, for not having paid tax earlier.
Fellowes made an appointment to see her at Clarence House one evening at 6 o'clock. 'The drawing room was in shadow with very few lights on. She gazed into the distance as I talked. When I finished there was a long pause and then she said, "I think we'll have a drink." ' He was relieved. 'In other words, she thought it was completely wrong, but she did not want to take it out on me. She didn't want to hear about it or dwell upon it.' He asked for a whisky and water; Queen Elizabeth had a martini.59 The tax-reform plan had been almost completely ready when the fire forced a premature announcement. Many newspapers were ungracious.60 On 7 December the Prince of Wales dined with his grandmother and gave her the draft statement to be made by the Prime Minister on the separation between him and the Princess.61 The announcement came on 9 December 'a sad day at Clarence House', wrote the lady in waiting.62 Four days later there was a moment of pleasure to offset the gloom of the year. On Sat.u.r.day 12 December the Princess Royal was married in Crathie Church to her second husband, Commander Tim Laurence, a naval officer and a former equerry to the Queen. The wedding clashed with one of Queen Elizabeth's house parties at Royal Lodge. But she left her guests to fly to Scotland for the ceremony, and after the reception at Balmoral she flew back in the evening for dinner at Royal Lodge.
Even an annus horribilis comes to an end. The family spent Christmas and New Year together at Sandringham. In her thank-you letter to her elder daughter, the Queen Mother said, 'I do hope that you feel rested and relaxed after all the ghastly happenings of last (& this) year. I do think that you have been marvellous, & so does everybody.'63 *
EARLY IN THE New Year Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales together went to the Royal College of Music where she officially handed over to him the presidency of the inst.i.tution which she had a.s.sisted diligently and with great pleasure for so many years. Then they went together to see the new apartment into which he was moving at St James's Palace; the Princess of Wales continued to live in their home at Kensington Palace. A few weeks later, after taking his boys back to their preparatory school, Ludgrove, the Prince went to supper with Queen Elizabeth at Clarence House it was just the tonic he needed, he told her. 'It very nearly finished me off completely, seeing those two, pathetic little figures standing in the drive waving forlornly as I drove away.'64 Queen Elizabeth had another great anxiety. Martin Gilliat, still her Private Secretary, had been diagnosed with cancer; he was now very ill. Queen Elizabeth gave a dinner party to celebrate his eightieth birthday; there were about thirty guests, and Martin Charteris, the Queen's former Private Secretary and one of the few courtiers whose joie de vivre matched that of Gilliat, made a short speech praising his beloved colleague. After dinner they all had a singsong around the piano. They were as merry as they could be given the appearance of their friend.
Even now Gilliat did not feel he could leave Queen Elizabeth. He soldiered on for more than three months and, in the words of Martin Charteris, he was 'run to a shadow, visibly dying, jaundiced as a yellow guinea, scarcely able to walk', but still 'courageous, humorous and of wonderful morale until the end'.65 Over the last weekend of his life, he worked from his flat in St James's Palace. On Monday 24 May he was at his desk when he said he felt more than usually unwell; he went into hospital that afternoon. Three days later he died.
Queen Elizabeth was suddenly without the much loved man ('dear, indomitable Martin', Ted Hughes called him)66 who, with wit and good cheer, had organized both her public life and her private engagements, shared her racing interests, and protected her from the outside world for nearly forty years. The Queen wrote to her with sympathy: 'Darling Mummy, I have just heard about Martin's death I am so very sorry. I know how much you will miss him after such a long time of relying on him I felt much the same when my Martin left, only he was still around if I needed to ask anything difficult.'67 Queen Elizabeth felt Gilliat's death as keenly as that of Arthur Penn three decades earlier. Like Penn, Gilliat had been an essential stimulant in the c.o.c.ktail of good humour in her Household. 'He was such a wonderful mixer,' she said later. 'One of the kindest of people. He was always helping somebody.'68 Their relationship became second nature to them both. The artist Andrew Festing, who painted her twice in the early 1990s, thought they behaved more like brother and sister than Queen and courtier. 'They bickered,' he said. 'She would say to me, "When are you coming next?" and I would reply that I would ask Martin. "There's no point in talking to him. Fix it with me" she would say. Then Martin would tell me, "That's absurd. She's bonkers. Talk to me." '69 Others observed that Gilliat was able to be tough with her when he felt that she was being wilful or extravagant, and saw to it that she did not always get her way. In his address at Gilliat's memorial service, Martin Charteris chose P. G. Wodehouse's words, 'like a prawn in aspic', to describe how well his friend had fitted into life at Clarence House.
Gilliat was succeeded as private secretary by Alastair Aird, who had worked for Queen Elizabeth since 1960. The Queen a.s.sured her mother that he would be 'very good',70 and he was, though Aird later recalled that she found it difficult at first to adjust to his different style.71 But his courtesy and attention to detail were invaluable to her.
More sadness was to come. A few weeks after Martin Gilliat's death, Ruth Fermoy was admitted into Edward VII Hospital for tests. Queen Elizabeth visited her there. Lady Fermoy had inoperable cancer and she died in early July. Queen Elizabeth took the Princess of Wales to the funeral of her grandmother in King's Lynn. Prince Charles came too. After the funeral the Prince and Princess joined the Queen Mother for a picnic at Wood Farm, Sandringham, and the Princess then flew back to London with her. The Princess's aunt Mary Roche wrote to Queen Elizabeth, grateful that she had been 'so caring and inclusive' towards Diana; she was touched to see Prince Charles and her niece 'so apparently close' and was filled with a wild hope that they could get back together again.72 Thus in a very short time two of the people to whom Queen Elizabeth had been closest for decades had gone. Their deaths, coming as they did on top of all her family's problems, left her feeling bereft. She wrote to Ted Hughes to say, 'We have lately been battered by tragic happenings and I found it hard to put pen to paper.'73 Hughes's friendship was a continued pleasure. He had come fishing at Birkhall again and, as usual, he kept the party entertained. The weather was wild there was snow one morning, but the trees were venturing into bud. He wrote the Queen Mother another whimsical poem which invented a life for a young woman they had seen near their picnic place on the hill. Hughes called her Miss Dimsdale and Queen Elizabeth loved the fantasy.74 She even suggested a marriage between Miss Dimsdale and another of Hughes's imagined characters, the Rev. Cedric Potter. 'As they are both dream people could a dream wedding be a possibility?' she wrote to him. 'I can see the announcement in the Daily Telegraph A wedding has been arranged and will shortly take place between Julia eldest daughter of Doctor Dimsdale and Rev. Cedric Potter, Rector of Knoware. I wonder where the happy union will take place. Possibly on the steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar. Forgive all this nonsense, and with a thousand thanks, I am ever yours, Elizabeth R.'75 Later in summer 1993, during the traditional visit of Britannia to the Castle of Mey, the family set itself a special task: they gathered to build a cairn in memory of Martin Gilliat and Ruth Fermoy. Mikie Strathmore, Queen Elizabeth's great-nephew, whose idea the project had been, had brought with him from Glamis a stone block carved with the two friends' initials and dates, to be fitted into the cairn. It was an emotional day. Under a brilliantly clear Scottish sky, Queen Elizabeth supervised the construction while the Queen led the party in gathering nearby stones and piecing them together. The Queen's Press Secretary, Robin Janvrin, a former naval officer and diplomat, recalled that it was 'a real labour of love, a hugely symbolic moment in which all of the family there paid homage to two great old friends'.76 Nineteen-ninety-three was, in every way, hard for Queen Elizabeth. She was lame, her skin was in places as thin as tissue, and her legs bruised easily. But little or none of this was apparent to anyone but her personal maids and her doctor and nurses; she never complained and she rarely sought medical treatment. Her homeopathic doctor, Dr Anita Davies, prescribed propolis for her lesions. The Prince of Wales arranged for his Australian physiotherapist, Sarah Key, to treat her legs.
Notwithstanding such a.s.sistance, the Queen became increasingly worried about her mother's health as the decade went on, and thought that, with the infirmities of age, life was less fun and less easy for her. One constant risk was that she might fall, and the Queen sent her mother a special stick: 'Darling Mummy, Your daughters and your nieces would very much like you to TRY this walking stick! It has a magic handle which fits one's hand like a glove and therefore gives one confidence in movement, especially when feeling dizzy! Just at this moment, it would make the two Margarets, Jean* and me very happy and relieved if you would rely on its support!'77 Queen Elizabeth never warmed to such aids, and what she did not like she stubbornly resisted. One year at Mey, while she was at church, her staff installed handrails either side of the stairs down to the front door. She stared at them angrily for days before she agreed to use them. She still used the lift only to ride downstairs, and walked back upstairs. She did eventually make much use of another aid which the Queen provided the golf buggy which her chauffeur John Collings had suggested would be useful. She did not like it at first, but when it was painted in her racing colours she used it at race courses and elsewhere. But not everywhere. On one occasion the Queen had the buggy sent up to Mey. It was returned next day.
Losing her eyesight was in some ways even harder. From the mid-1990s she was less and less able to recognize people who came into the room, though she disguised the fact well. She still liked to have her menu handwritten in French for every meal, but she could not read it. Nor could she read her speeches. She could still write cheerful letters, but it was more difficult. Thus 'please forgive my horrid hand writing but something has gone wrong with the focus of my eye so I hope that it is legible.'78 One of the pleasant events of 1993 was the wedding in October of Princess Margaret's son David Linley to Serena Stanhope at St Margaret's, Westminster. The reception was at St James's Palace and the newly married couple changed into their going-away clothes next door at Clarence House. To mark the occasion, Queen Elizabeth gave Princess Margaret a ruby ring, but rather than handing it to her she left it for her daughter to find when she was alone after the wedding. The Princess was touched, and wrote to thank her: 'It is typical of you to be so kind, just when one was feeling rather flat, after David's wedding, to think of giving it to me ... a million thanks for such a lovely surprise.'79 Princess Margaret was now engaged on one of her periodic 'sortings' of her mother's papers, which were still filed haphazardly in various drawers and bags and pieces of furniture in her rooms at Clarence House and Royal Lodge. She wrote to her mother at Birkhall, 'I am going back today to clear up some more of your room. Keeping the letters for you to sort later.'80 Next day she wrote, 'Darling Mummy, I am sitting in your sitting room "doing a bit of sorting" ... I've nearly cleared the chaise longue and made an attack on the fire stool.'81 On the Princess's orders, large black bags of papers were taken away for destruction rather than for ultimate consignment to the Royal Archives. There is no record of just what was thus lost but Princess Margaret later told Lady Penn that among the papers she had destroyed were letters from the Princess of Wales to Queen Elizabeth because they were so private, she said.82 No doubt Princess Margaret felt that she was protecting her mother and other members of the family. It was understandable, although regrettable from a historical viewpoint.
Queen Elizabeth was not feeling well when she returned from Scotland in autumn 1993 and she undertook few engagements for the rest of that year. She spent Christmas and New Year at Sandringham and was unwell much of the time. It was, in her view, an awful waste of time, but at least she was ill in the family home in Norfolk 'in London I would have died of depression.'83 In 1994 her official engagements were down to thirty-eight and five had to be cancelled late in the day because of either bad weather or bad health. In February, the Queen embarked on a long tour of the Caribbean. Mother and daughter corresponded at length, with Queen Elizabeth, as usual, sending the Queen the latest horseracing news. It was snowing widely in England, she said, so most racing was cancelled 'and the great Whitechapel is still waiting!' He was to have his first run over hurdles at Plumpton, in Suss.e.x, the only course where the going was possible, but she was nervous lest he fall.84 On 22 February 1994 Queen Elizabeth entertained the Eton Beagles to the annual lawn meet at Royal Lodge. Now that her great-grandsons Prince William and Prince Harry were set to go to Eton, and Martin Charteris was the Provost, her affection for the school was reinforced. She became close to the Head Master, Eric Anderson, and his wife Poppy who had made friends with Prince Charles when Anderson taught him at Gordonstoun in the 1960s. She enjoyed visiting the school; she made a point of talking to as many boys as she could on every occasion.
That year Queen Elizabeth began a series of long conversations with Anderson, at the suggestion of Prince Charles; many of her comments have been quoted already in this book. She greeted him over tea at Royal Lodge with the disarming words, 'I'm afraid Charles has been bullying you. I'm a very ordinary person. There is nothing very interesting about me.' She talked at length about the jolly conviviality of her childhood. Living at Glamis as a child, she said, was like being in a happy village 'A big family was fun. You were brought up by your brothers and sisters as well as by your parents and the servants.' Talking of the authors and wits she had always enjoyed, she praised Joyce Grenfell, a favourite comedienne, Peter Sellers (a 1960s friend of the Snowdons) and, more recently, Alan Bennett, whose gentle ragging of British habits she loved. But 'Kitchen sink is not my cup of tea.'
Asked about the abdication she said, 'The terrible thing was that the two brothers were such friends. So it was such a terrible shock.' During the war, she never thought Britain would not win. 'The worse things are, the more the British become determined.' When Anderson told her that the country owed a lot to her and the King, she replied, 'Oh, I don't think so, I think it was the people who won the war. We happened to be there.'
She spoke well of many politicians, including Clement Attlee and other Labour leaders. All in all she had few complaints; optimism and faith in Britain always defined her. But 'one of the banes of my life' was that she tended to remind middle-aged men of their mothers. 'I recognize the glazed look that comes over their faces,' she said, 'a sort of glazed look of memory' just before they would tell her so. This happened famously with US President Jimmy Carter who, extolling the cherished likeness, kissed her full on the lips. 'I took a sharp step backwards,' she recalled. 'Not quite far enough.' She was quoted in the press as saying that no one had kissed her on the lips since her husband the King had died.
As for her present interests, she cited above all the need for preservation 'I'm a great preserver.' She mentioned also the Shaftesbury Society, a Christian charity which helped disabled people and poor children. 'It's extraordinary,' she said, that in every town and village in Britain there were always people helping each other. 'You never hear about those, but it's going on all the time.' She recalled visiting an old ladies home in Glasgow where they all looked very jolly 'and I discovered that the boys from the local High School came along two or three times a week, took the old ladies out, took them for walks, jollied them up, got their newspapers. And you see, if you can get that mixture, it's wonderful.'
She loved that mixture for herself. 'I don't know what I'd do without my grandchildren, you know. We have great rags. They keep one up to date ... We don't always agree on things, which is a very good thing, I think.' She was endlessly curious about the younger generations and their changing interests. But she also believed that values such as duty should remain eternal. She told Anderson that she had not understood the Princess of Wales's announcement, made after her separation, that she was giving up her charitable works. 'I can't believe she won't come out and do some things. I may perhaps bully her into doing things. It's no good sitting back. Your devoir, your duty. There we are back again. It's the same old thing. Your devoir.'85 In fact the Princess did resume her public life and became active in several causes, especially the campaigns to help AIDS sufferers and to ban land mines. But her marriage could not be saved. In 1996, the Prince and Princess of Wales were divorced, as were the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of York. Throughout, Queen Elizabeth talked constantly to the Queen, and wrote to her, commiserating with her about all the strain that these events inevitably placed upon her.86 *
TED HUGHES'S friendship was a great support throughout this difficult time. He could understand the horror of what was happening to the Royal Family; his own unhappy marriage had ended with the suicide of his wife Sylvia Plath and he had been publicly excoriated by her champions ever since. Like Queen Elizabeth herself, he knew how to be sympathetic and to give pleasure. After one visit to Birkhall he wrote to remind her of 'the skylines rolling away, the nearest brownyred heather, the next the dense green of pine-forest, & beyond that, highest and furthest, the snow-patched hills. You remember we tried to photograph it in our memories? The trees by the stream just coming into their new green. And the ranger's falcons that preferred a bath in the burn to hunting rabbits! And all our conversations about everything.'87 She loved such letters and she told him so.
The deterioration in the health of her friends and then their deaths was an inevitable but sad theme of this decade. This year, two of her long-serving ladies in waiting, Patricia, Viscountess Hambleden, who had been a friend since their debutante days, and Lady Victoria Wemyss, both died; the latter, born a Cavendish-Bentinck and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, was 104.
In June 1994 Queen Elizabeth took part in celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. On 4 June she flew by helicopter to HMS Vernon, Portsmouth, and embarked in the royal yacht; later, accompanied by the Princess Royal, she landed at Whale Island for the ceremony of Beating Retreat. The next morning, Sunday 5 June, a Drumhead Service was held on Southsea Common, which she attended with the Queen and the Duke and other members of the Royal Family, together with the a.s.sembled heads of state and statesmen representing the Allied nations during the war. She enjoyed such commemorations above all because they evoked the spirit of unity that had prevailed during the war. Of the Portsmouth celebration, she said, 'It's very strange. I think it brought people together in the most amazing way. They suddenly remembered that we were all together then ... And it was a wicked thing we were fighting.'88 Queen Elizabeth's summer continued with all her usual fixtures her progress to Walmer Castle, the King's Lynn Festival, her birthday at Clarence House (followed by Romeo and Juliet with Princess Margaret at Covent Garden), the Castle of Mey and then Birkhall. Whenever she was at Birkhall she would ask the Balmoral factor and his wife to dinner. Latterly that was Peter Ord, who had been the factor at Glamis before. He thought her interest was not just to get the latest news and gossip of the area but also to remind him of her views and values on the running of the estate. Her view, simply put, was that Balmoral belonged to the Queen and she could do with it as she wished. She was correct, but in practice the demands for public accountability grew all the time, even though Balmoral was one of the best-run private estates in Scotland.
She liked continuity in employment and felt a responsibility for all those who worked in the estates. 'If I wanted to get a good gardener, she might ask me to employ Jimmy's son, rather than an experienced man from outside,' said Peter Ord. She encouraged the employment of young people in order to try and keep the school rolls up. She always wanted to know who was with child, who was ill. She would say to new arrivals, as she did to the Ords, 'You are family now.'89 It was an unashamedly paternalistic way of doing things and it worked well in tempering more modern methods. The disadvantage, however, was that it sometimes led her to insist on retaining, out of loyalty, staff who were ineffective, which could cause exasperation in her family and Household.
After her return to London she suffered from considerable pain in her right leg, but she insisted on attending the 1994 Royal Smithfield Show at Earls Court, the Middle Temple Family Night dinner, and even a reception at St James's Palace given by the Cookery and Food a.s.sociation. Despite rest and recuperation over Christmas and New Year at Sandringham her leg and her foot were now giving her so much trouble that she could not manage her favourite walks, but she managed to see 'dear old Bustino' and other horses.90 She nevertheless carried out thirty official engagements in 1995 and only three had to be cancelled because of her health. Wherever she went, she still managed to appear deeply interested in the people she met. One Member of Parliament later identified this quality. On a visit to his const.i.tuency, he said, she had lingered, saying, 'I am not in a hurry. I have time. Time is not my dictator; I dictate to time. I want to meet people.'91 That remained true until the end. In May 1995 she enjoyed lunch as much as ever with her friends the Farrells in their 'salle de glace' 'Chicken with Tarragon! What a treat!' She was happy to see Paul Getty transformed in health,92 and ascribed this miracle, correctly, to his new wife Victoria, whom he had married in 1994 and who did indeed transform his life.
That summer Britain celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, VE Day. The festivities were remarkable; once again both monarchists and republicans were struck by the affection in which the monarchy was still held by large sections of the population, of all ages. On Sat.u.r.day 6 May Queen Elizabeth inaugurated the celebrations in Hyde Park after a Drumhead Service she spoke briefly, without notes, of all those 'whose courage and fort.i.tude brought us the victory'.93 The next day she accompanied other members of the Royal Family to the service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral and then to lunch at Buckingham Palace for all the heads of state visiting London.
On Monday 8 May Queen Elizabeth joined her daughters on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, to wave to the crowds just as they had done in May 1945. Only the King, husband and father, was gone. As a demonstration of the continuity of monarchy it could not be bettered. The cheering seemed endless. Queen Elizabeth loved seeing the 'old patriotism' shine through again, 'but it was so funny being there, just us three on the balcony.' She told the Queen, 'We are just war relics.'94 Another 'war relic', Vera Lynn, sang 'We'll Meet Again'. Harry Secombe and Cliff Richard also performed. There was vigorous singing of 'Rule Britannia', 'Land of Hope and Glory' and the National Anthem. A clutch of surviving wartime aircraft flew overhead, followed by the Red Arrows, and finally there were fireworks from the roof of Buckingham Palace making a noise very reminiscent of the Blitz, the lady in waiting noted, and at one stage almost engulfing the royal ladies in smoke. Some of the fireworks were supposed to drop Union flags on little parachutes, but not all the parachutes opened and one bundle fell on Queen Elizabeth's shoulder. Princess Margaret recalled that the Queen then said, 'Come on, Mummy, I think you had better get back.' 'Into shelter,' added Queen Elizabeth.95 The summer was punctuated by her usual engagements, including her annual visit to the Cinque Ports, but in mid-July she quietly went into King Edward VII's Hospital for the removal of a cataract in her left eye.* No engagements were cancelled, and the operation did help a little to improve her vision. For her ninety-fifth birthday, Queen Elizabeth used the golf buggy to move among the usual crowd of well-wishers at Clarence House. She then had lunch and dinner with family and friends and next day flew to Scotland. Ted Hughes sent her another birthday poem. 'How fortunate I am to have a friend who is a great poet!' she thanked him. 'Lucky lucky me!'96 By November that year both hips were giving her considerable pain. On 15 November she calmly went to lunch with friends at the Ritz, and then was driven to King Edward VII's Hospital. She had decided to have a right hip replacement. The operation was performed successfully, though not without difficulty, by Roger Vickers the next morning, a.s.sisted by the anaesthetist Dr Di Davis. Vickers, who had taken over as the orthopaedic surgeon to the Queen in 1993, had been reluctant to carry out the operation until it became essential. In the event he found her to be a good patient. She stayed longer than most patients in hospital, because she wanted to be able to walk unaided down the steps when she left. Afterwards she invited all the doctors and nurses and their spouses, and the cleaners of her room, to a party at Clarence House. They were moved and delighted.97 While she was at Sandringham after Christmas another member of her family, Rachel, widow of her much loved brother David, died. The roads around Sandringham were impa.s.sable with snow and ice and Queen Elizabeth was distressed that she could not get to St Paul's Walden for the funeral. She sent a tender letter to her nephew Simon, talking of his mother's brave spirit, her courage, her humour and 'her great loving kindness. I know that when my heart fails me I shall hear Rachel saying come on now, don't give up.'98 On 6 February, the anniversary of the King's death, Queen Elizabeth celebrated Holy Communion as usual at the Royal Chapel in Windsor Great Park. She received a heartening letter from the former chaplain of the Royal Chapel, the Rev. Anthony Harbottle, a devout and kindly man who had served with the Royal Marines during the war and was also a distinguished lepidopterist, the first person in Britain to breed the New Pale Clouded Yellow b.u.t.terfly. He had become close to many members of the Royal Family, but particularly the Queen Mother, throughout his time as chaplain from 1968 to 1981. In 1972, on the twentieth anniversary of the King's death, she wrote to tell him that the family had all thought his sermon was 'perfect'. In February 1982, the first year after he had ceased to be chaplain, she wrote to tell him how much they missed his 'sympathy and understanding' at the service.99 Every year thereafter Harbottle would write to her on the anniversary of the King's death, and every year she would reply. Queen Elizabeth took comfort in his vivid statements of belief in an all-encompa.s.sing, loving G.o.d, the resurrection of the dead and the reunion of souls. Her faith was traditional and uncomplicated and she derived a great deal of support from it. She was more interested in liturgical tradition than in theological subtleties. She preferred, to put it mildly, the 1662 version of the Prayer Book and the Authorized or King James Version of the Bible. Her friend Lord St John of Fawsley, a regular guest at her home, said, 'It was the Prayer Book that she loved.'* She did not like such new-fangled ideas as 'the kiss of peace' or even the handshake. 'When she saw it winging its way towards her, she stiffened and took evasive action. Her religion was loving kindness.'100 Her devotion to the truths of the Christian gospel sustained her through sadness and nourished her sense of commitment to others.
Another friend and lady in waiting, Lady Elizabeth Ba.s.set, put it thus: 'In LIVING, her faith shines out almost unconsciously and speaks through her dedication to her country, in her tremendous sense of duty, and her endurance, her courage, and last but not least her sense of humour and enjoyment of life.'101 *
IN 1996 QUEEN ELIZABETH was cheered by the state visit of President Nelson Mandela to London, following South Africa's readmission to the Commonwealth. He came to tea with her at Clarence House on 9 July and she then attended the state banquet in his honour. She marvelled in the change that Mandela had peacefully brought about, and dared for the first time in decades to be hopeful about the beloved country.102 It was the summer of heroes. On 18 July she received the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet. The meeting took place at a complex time, just one year before Hong Kong was due to revert from British rule to China. The Chinese government was always sensitive to criticism of its human rights record in Tibet. The day before Chinese officials had attacked a cross-party group of British politicians for inviting the Dalai Lama to address members of the Lords and Commons. Their actions, said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, 'will have an adverse affect on the Sino-British relationship'.
This was the first time that the exiled Tibetan leader had been received by a member of the Royal Family. It was a moving encounter and the Tibetan spiritual leader explained to the Queen Mother that as a boy in Tibet he had seen newsreel and pictures of her and the King in bombed-out London and had wanted to meet her ever since. The Dalai Lama seemed, in the words of Robert Ford, the Foreign Office official with him, to be 'captivated by the charm of Her Majesty'. This was very clear when he left her he took her hand and placed it to his bowed forehead, a mark of sincere respect and affection.103 For years afterwards the Dalai Lama referred to this meeting in speeches and interviews, saying how impressed he had been by Queen Elizabeth's optimistic view of the world and of improvements that she had witnessed during the twentieth century. 'I was deeply impressed and inspired' by her, he said. Her optimism reinforced his own and he was further encouraged when Prince Charles inherited and expanded his grandmother's interest in the plight of Tibet.104 At the Sandringham Flower Show, in late July that year, Queen Elizabeth arrived in a carriage with Prince Charles; they then toured the stalls together in her golf buggy. Ted Hughes, who was again among her guests, captured it all in another poem, called 'The Prince and His Granny'. The second of the five verses ran: The Police Bra.s.s Band, they puffed and frowned
To turn their duty into sound.
They woke the flowers and the flowers swooned
To meet the gaze of the Prince and his Granny.
Then hearing the bees boom 'Taste our honey!'
The Lemon Curd and the Marmalade
Rose from the stalls, no matter who paid,
And joined in the joys of the Royal Parade.105
She was 'thrilled and delighted' by it, she told him. First, she said, the Prince himself read it to his granny '(Very nicely)' and then she had read it herself 'again and again'. He had evoked lovely memories, she said, and she ended by sending 'an immense amount of grat.i.tude from the Prince's Granny, Elizabeth R'.106 A disagreeable occurrence for her in 1996 was publicity over the size of her overdraft which suddenly hit the headlines 4 million, the papers said. That she was extravagant and lived beyond her means had always been a.s.sumed how could any retired person, even a queen, pay for so many homes, horses, staff and dresses? Her finances were managed by Ralph Anstruther until he fell ill and was replaced as Treasurer by Nicholas a.s.sheton, the former deputy chairman of Coutts. She had a pa.s.sbook from Coutts that would be brought by hand every quarter, written up by hand and detailing all her personal cheques. Most of them were to dressmakers and those close friends whom she helped. Her racing account was still looked after by Michael Oswald. There were inevitable financial shortfalls, even after her Civil List annuity rose, eventually, to 643,000 to cover her official expenses. As we have seen, the Queen had elected always to cover her mother's racing losses and other expenses, and thus enable her to continue the style of life to which she was both accustomed and suited.
Her expenditure would doubtless have been much reduced had she not been so determined, despite her age, to continue leading a remarkably active public and private life. In 1997 she carried out fifty-four public engagements and many private ones. In early February there was an enjoyable family weekend at Royal Lodge for the christening of her great-grandson, Samuel Chatto, the son of Princess Margaret's daughter Sarah and her husband Daniel. Lord Snowdon was there for the christening and lunch and she made sure that he sat next to her.
Later that month she gave tea to the President of Israel, Ezer Weizman, and his wife during their state visit, and attended the banquet for them at Buckingham Palace on 25 February. Over the next two days she inspected the Royal Yeomanry, of which she was honorary colonel, in Chelsea, and paid a visit to the National Headquarters of the British Red Cross Society. March followed the usual pattern, with race meetings at Sandown and Cheltenham and the presentation of shamrock to the Irish Guards at Pirbright on 17 March. So it continued throughout the year, with almost all her true and tried engagements, public and personal.
She had her usual fishing fortnight at Birkhall, and Ted Hughes came. He was recovering from an operation and Queen Elizabeth invited Carol Hughes to come too, although wives did not usually accompany their husbands on these occasions. As always he entered into the spirit of the place and loved his 'deeply restful and richly happy' days there.107 As lord warden of the Cinque Ports, she visited Walmer Castle from 18 to 21 July and went to Sandringham for the King's Lynn Festival a week later. Prince Charles was there as usual and wrote to her afterwards, 'I still can't believe that another year has pa.s.sed and that, once again, we have walked round the flower & vegetable tent at Sandringham, talked to all those hardy annual people in the crowd and sung Cole Porter songs after dinner with Raymond Leppard.* As always, everything was a very special treat because it was with you.'108 She was at Clarence House for her birthday lunch, before which the King's Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery paraded by in her honour. This year she invited Prince William and Prince Harry and their father wrote to her afterwards that his boys 'adored it'.109 She then left as usual for the Castle of Mey on 7 August. There was a sad moment at Mey that summer: Britannia made her last visit. The Conservative government of John Major had decided to decommission the royal yacht and this decision was confirmed by the new Labour government, led by Tony Blair. The yacht had been an effective seaborne emba.s.sy and trade platform for Britain for over forty years, as well as being the family's floating haven both when they were promoting Britain and when they were taking holidays.*
Britannia anch.o.r.ed off Caithness for the last time on 16 August 1997. The Queen came ash.o.r.e to Mey leading a large family party which included Prince Andrew and his daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Princess Anne and her husband, her children Peter and Zara, Prince Edward and his friend Sophie Rhys-Jones (whom he married in June 1999), and Princess Margaret's son and daughter, David Linley and Sarah Chatto, with their spouses.
Lunch that day was fun but somewhat melancholy. Conscious that without their resident muse, Martin Gilliat, their collective writing skills were much diminished, Queen Elizabeth's Household had gone for the best they secretly asked Ted Hughes to come up with some lines to be sent to the Queen as she sailed away for the last time. His verse ended: Whichever course your Captain takes, you steer
Into this haven of all our hearts, and here
You shall be anch.o.r.ed for ever.
The reply from the yacht was similar in spirit: My what a marvellous time we have had,