The Queen Mother Part 29
For us will be concrete and tyres.
In a way, the Millennium Dome reflected the intellectual and moral tenor of its time. It was built on the occasion of the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Christ, the defining event of Western civilization, but Christ was a sideshow in the Dome, relegated to a few bland sentences in one small exhibit. The 800 million construction was the product of committees and its content was at best jolly, at worst vacuous. The names of commercial sponsors were more important than any enduring message let alone any pride in the history and achievements of Britain. In fact, the contrast between the Festival and the Dome ill.u.s.trated one way in which Britain had changed in the previous half-century. The Festival displayed a poor but self-confident Britain, rejoicing in her singular accomplishments. The Dome represented a richer but far less self-a.s.sured nation.
On the Dome's opening night, 31 December 1999, the organizers paid lip-service to the Christian origins of the Millennium. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, was allowed to read prayers just before midnight. The prelate tried to remind people that Christ had been born 2,000 years before, but he was surrounded by drunks and chivvied by impatient officials who wished to begin the real, secular celebrations. These included an appearance by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh who were required to join hands with the Prime Minister and his wife to sing 'Auld Lang Syne'.
Queen Elizabeth had a quieter evening she dined at Sandringham with Princess Margaret and her racing manager, Sir Michael Oswald, and his wife Lady Angela. The celebrations of her birthday later in the year provided a remarkable contrast with those at the Dome.
QUEEN ELIZABETH was, by any measure, well into what one member of her Household called her 'running down' years. But running down did not mean giving up. In 1999 she had undertaken thirty-eight public engagements only one was cancelled, because she had a chill. At Sandringham in January 2000 she had to miss one of her hardy annuals attending the annual general meeting of the Sandringham Women's Inst.i.tute but managed the other presenting a prize to a pupil of Springwood High School.* She also planted an oak tree at Sandringham to mark the 350th anniversary of the formation of the Coldstream Guards. Back in London she received various colonels of her regiments on changeover of command and gave sittings for portraits. She entertained the Eton Beagles at Royal Lodge. In March she went to Cheltenham and Sandown Park to attend the National Hunt, the Grand Military and the Royal Artillery race meetings treasured fixtures every year.
She still entertained generously, with her lunches, her weekend parties and more intimate invitations to tea. In early 1999 she and Princess Margaret invited the Director of the Royal Collection,* Hugh Roberts, and his wife Jane, then Curator of the Print Room, to look through a trunk of Strathmore papers that had 'turned up'. Greeted by Royal Lodge's longtime, sophisticated steward, Ron Wellbelove, Hugh Roberts thought he had stepped into a reincarnation of the famous James Gunn portrait of the Royal Family at tea in the same room in 1950: 'a tea-table was laid in the centre of the room, in front of the fireplace. Queen Elizabeth in cornflower blue dress with blue hat and veil, beautiful sapphire and diamond flower brooch; Princess Margaret in pale blue silk suit and diamond brooch, both just returned from Ascot where QE had had a winner.'
There were delicious, tiny sandwiches, toasted hot cross buns and little cakes to eat and two teapots. Queen Elizabeth asked her guests, 'Would you like Margaret's special tea, or my ordinary?' The Princess's tea was served in a pretty yellow teapot, Queen Elizabeth's was still in the basic brown pot she had been given by the train steward on the way to Warwick races.1 When the Princess and the Robertses delved into the trunk, Queen Elizabeth studied the photographs with a magnifying gla.s.s. She was able to identify and provide a running commentary on almost everything and everyone. She thought some of the portrait studies of her as a young woman were too serious or 'yearning'. After an hour of sorting, she offered them all a drink; Princess Margaret mixed a stiff martini for her mother and the rest of them had whisky. Queen Elizabeth and Hugh Roberts had a Trollopean discussion about St George's Chapel she was glad to hear that the new dean was much liked and that the canons were not at each other's throats. She spoke wistfully of Ted Hughes. 'He knew about everything, it didn't matter what and wrote some charming things for me birthdays and whatnot.'
One of her staff then came in to announce, in something of a solecism, that 'Queen Elizabeth' was on the telephone. 'Who?' asked Queen Elizabeth. 'Oh, you mean the Queen.' The Curator and the Director took their leave, their car laden with plastic bags filled with photographs which were then incorporated in the Royal Photographic Collection at Windsor, while others were sent to Glamis by Queen Elizabeth.2 That year Queen Elizabeth looked forward to the annual lunch with Charles and Kitty Farrell in May even more than usual because it marked her friends' fiftieth wedding anniversary. 'How blissful and how wonderful,' she wrote. 'I expect that the HEDGE will be many feet higher.'3 After the lunch party she told Lady Kitty what joy she had had seeing 'all those delightful people chatting and boozing outside the salle de glace'.4 The turf retained its unchanging allure as a world of its own in which she could be totally absorbed and in some ways the equal of others. Almost every day in their telephone conversations she and the Queen still discussed the breeding, the naming, the successes (and failures) of their horses and their jockeys. Her racing reputation still stretched across the world. Sir Michael Oswald received a cable from a North Queensland Drinking Club called Liars' Lounge. Eighty-five of them had won a filly in a lottery and they offered Queen Elizabeth a 1/86th share as a hundredth birthday present. She accepted with alacrity and the message came back, 'Tell the Queen that the next time she is here to drop in for a Cold One, and the shout's on me.'5 There were happy family events that year, including the wedding of her grandson Prince Edward to Sophie Rhys-Jones, and the christening in the Royal Chapel at Royal Lodge of her great-grandson Arthur, second son of Lady Sarah Chatto. The playwright Tom Stoppard was a guest and he wrote Queen Elizabeth a letter of thanks for a day which he would treasure. 'When I think of the long arc of life-and-times that connects you and Arthur, all that history, it brings a lump to the throat.'6 But there were family sorrows, too. In November Queen Elizabeth gave a lunch party at Clarence House after the memorial service for Lord Dalhousie, her Lord Chamberlain. Towards the end of the meal, her niece Jean Wills (her sister May Elphinstone's second daughter) had a heart attack. The Queen Mother quietly led her guests from the room; Mrs Wills was given immediate medical attention but she died several days later in hospital. It was a great shock, made easier for the Queen Mother only by her belief in the afterlife.*
In his annual letter to her on the anniversary of the King's death Anthony Harbottle expressed her own view well. 'There is no separation but an abiding oneness with our loved ones who have gone on ahead & are ever with us, giving us already a foot in heaven. It is a great & glorious thought, as Your Majesty knows so well.' She replied, 'I was so touched to receive your most thoughtful & beautiful letter, which arrived at exactly the right time. We were a little depleted at the service as John & Jean Wills have died, but it was all lovely & peaceful.'7 *
CELEBRATIONS HONOURING Queen Elizabeth's centenary tumbled one after another, through the spring and summer. She enjoyed them all. On 27 June she was given a luncheon at the Guildhall; her neighbour, the Archbishop of Canterbury, absent-mindedly picked up her wine gla.s.s rather than his own. 'Hey, that's mine!' she said quickly.8 On 21 June the Queen gave a reception and dance at Windsor Castle to mark the major birthdays of Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret (seventy), the Princess Royal (fifty) and the Duke of York (forty).
On 11 July her life was celebrated in a service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral, attended by her entire family and many European crowned heads, the Grand Duke and Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Luxembourg, the King and Queen of Norway, the King and Queen of the Belgians, King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie of the h.e.l.lenes and King Michael and Queen Anne of Romania. The Archbishop of Canterbury praised her public service she had entered the hearts of the British people, he told her, 'and your own heart has been open to them ever since.' As she left, she paused to greet other centenarians who had been invited. 'Do you know, they were all in wheelchairs,' she said, with a touch of mischief. 'I spoke to them when I walked down the aisle.'9 On 18 July, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, together with other leaders of the House of Lords, brought to the Queen Mother a message from the House. Lord Strathclyde, the Conservative leader in the Lords, said later that when they made to leave, 'not wishing to impinge too much on her time or to weary her, she insisted that more drinks be brought and that we should tell her more about politics and in particular your Lordships House.'10 Her more formal response to their Lordships stated that 'I feel fortunate that during the last Century I have been given the opportunity to serve our Country in times of war and peace and I have always been helped and uplifted by the love of my family, by the fort.i.tude and courage of our people, and by my faith in Almighty G.o.d.'
In the Commons, the Prime Minister Tony Blair moved a motion commending the Queen Mother on reaching her centenary year the first time that the Commons had ever considered such a motion. He pointed out that throughout her life 'she has enthused countless people, for countless good causes, with her familiar smile, her sparkle and, of course, her wonderful hats.' Speaker after speaker paid tribute to the work she had done for the country since the abdication, her steadfastness during the war, her service to the monarchy and nation ever since.11 The high point of her birthday celebrations was the pageant in her honour in Horse Guards Parade, described in the Prologue to this book. The organizer, as for her eightieth and nineteenth birthday celebrations, was Major Michael Parker. In the mid-1990s Parker had had tea with the Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother. When the Princess said to her, 'We're all so looking forward to your hundredth birthday,' Queen Elizabeth replied, 'Oh, you mustn't say that, it's unlucky. I mean I might be run over by a big red bus.' Parker said he thought this was very unlikely, to which Queen Elizabeth replied, 'No, no, it's the principle of the thing. Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, all the things you didn't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you you'd say "Oh my G.o.d, I could have got so drunk last night!" That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus.' And that, Parker thought, was exactly the way she did live. Moreover, 'she treated each day as a lovely surprise that was going to be wonderful.'12 All of her regiments and organizations wished to be included in the pageant, and Parker arranged that they should march past in motley groups of people, animals and vehicles, each supervised by two Guardsmen. 'You can have anything in your group, from an Aberdeen Angus bull to a Field Marshal,' Parker told the Guardsmen; 'but you are in charge. You must get them to keep up and move at the right speed.'
The plan was that the National Anthem would be played after Queen Elizabeth arrived in Horse Guards Parade, before she got out of her carriage to inspect the troops. Then came a message from Clarence House that Queen Elizabeth insisted on standing up in the carriage for the Anthem. Parker was alarmed, for it would be dangerous if the horses moved. He consulted precedents and found that Queen Victoria had remained seated in a coach while the Anthem was played. But the message came back: 'Queen Elizabeth is not Queen Victoria. She will stand.' Eventually he persuaded her that the National Anthem should be played as she drove on to the parade ground, rather than after she had arrived.
As we have seen, the day itself began badly with IRA bomb scares in London, cancelled trains and even the controlled explosion of a suspected bomb in Whitehall. The police were nervous. The officer in charge told Mike Parker that the whole event might have to be cancelled. Parker replied that such a surrender was out of the question, but if that was his considered view the officer would have to go and give the news to Queen Elizabeth himself. The man was horrified. The parade went ahead.13 It was a balmy evening, and on her dais Queen Elizabeth stood a great deal, chatted with Prince Charles, and clearly enjoyed the music and the singing. Beside her stood Major General Evelyn Webb-Carter, the General Officer Commanding London District, who told her what was pa.s.sing in front of her so that she could react appropriately and she did. The veteran actor Sir John Mills, aged ninety-two and totally blind, stood up before her in an open vintage Rolls-Royce and made a moving speech in her honour. Few of the thousands of people who took part realized how little of the festivities she herself could see.
Afterwards, Queen Elizabeth wrote to Parker to say that she had loved the contrast between the smart soldiers and the 'orderly rabble' which followed them. She said the parade had cheered people up all over the country 'I thought it was marvellous.'14 *
THE CELEBRATIONS continued, and on 29 July Queen Elizabeth went to Ascot for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes. As she drove down the course, children paraded wearing the colours of previous winners of the race and the band played 'Happy Birthday'.
Congratulations poured in among them one heartfelt letter from Queen Fabiola of Belgium, widow of King Baudouin, who praised 'your generous gestures, your unique hats and striking dresses, together with your ever-present and welcoming smile';15 Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, recalled her wartime concern for the people of Stalingrad; Tony Blair said she was being honoured for being 'a great example to us all of service'. Andrew Motion, who had succeeded Ted Hughes as poet laureate, wrote a long affectionate tribute to her birthday.16 It ended: My dream of your birthday
is more like a wedding,
the August sky
confused with confetti,
and lit with the flash
of our camera-gaze
the century's eyes
of homage and duty
which understand best
the persistence of love.
On the morning of her actual birthday, 4 August, her long-serving page Reginald Wilc.o.c.k brought her morning teatray to her study as usual. On it was a silver cream jug, a birthday present from her staff. Wilc.o.c.k was ill with leukaemia but had been determined to see this day. That evening he was taken to hospital and within days he was dead. Queen Elizabeth wrote a tender letter to his partner and friend, William Tallon, who, like Wilc.o.c.k, had served her lovingly since the 1950s.
After her traditional appearance at the gates of Clarence House and the opening of the telegram from the Queen, came the carriage ride to Buckingham Palace with Prince Charles. She had been nervous about this, fearing that she might have to drive up an empty Mall. Sitting in the hall at Clarence House, she still seemed strangely reluctant. In the end Prince Charles gave her his arm and said, 'Come on, Granny remember Hitler said you were the most dangerous woman in Europe.' Laughing together they set off in her landau and to her relief the large crowds in the Mall cheered enthusiastically, particularly when she came out on to the balcony to wave.17 After lunch with her family she went to see the team of people recruited to answer all the letters of good wishes that she had received, and in the evening she and the Queen and Princess Margaret went to see the Kirov Ballet perform at Covent Garden.
It was in every way a happy day and Prince Charles wrote to her, 'I will never forget the magical atmosphere that surrounded you with love, devotion and grat.i.tude for all that you mean to people.'18 As for Queen Elizabeth herself, she said to one friend that she could not understand what all the fuss was about. 'I was just doing my job.'19 *
HER 101ST SUMMER was spent, as usual, at Mey and then Birkhall. Back in London at the end of October, she received one more birthday tribute: the Governor General of Canada came to Clarence House to present her with the insignia of the Order of Canada. The autumn seemed set fair, until on the morning of 3 November she tripped and fell in her bedroom at Clarence House. She had broken her collar bone and had to remain in bed for six weeks. She was looked after princ.i.p.ally by her dresser Jacqui Meakin and her page Leslie Chappell; these two cared for her with the utmost devotion in the months ahead.20 Outwardly, her final year, 2001, followed the pattern of the others which it seamlessly followed. She grew frailer and she suffered more pain, but she was determined to conceal it. Her real sadness was the constant deterioration in the health of her younger daughter. Princess Margaret had frequently been unwell since the 1970s, suffering migraines, laryngitis, bronchitis. She had endured depression, she had had part of her lung removed and in 1998 she had her first stroke. In March 1999 she severely scalded her feet in a bath in her house in Mustique and never really recovered from these burns, nor from a second stroke she suffered there.
In February 2001 Queen Elizabeth made her first public appearance after her collar-bone fracture, at the memorial service for Lady Elizabeth Ba.s.set, who had died on 30 November 2000 and with whom she had shared her devout faith. The service took place in the Savoy Chapel and according to the chaplain, the Rev. John Robson, Queen Elizabeth seemed serious, sad and wistful in remembrance of her old friend. But still lively too when he showed her to her car, 'she FLUNG her sticks into it in a most eloquent gesture as if to say, "Let us be rid of these pesky things!" '21 That same month she presided as usual over the lawn meet of the Eton Beagles. Then she had her annual house party for the Grand Military Race Meeting at Sandown Park in March, but to her disappointment foot-and-mouth disease forced the cancellation of Cheltenham races.
In early June 2001 she lunched privately at All Souls in Oxford, an annual custom she much enjoyed. At the Sandringham Flower Show in July she toured every stall in her buggy and entertained her usual house party, including the Queen and the Prince of Wales. Her grandson, as always, marvelled at her stamina and wrote to her that 'no-one would ever have known that you were actually feeling pretty tired.'22 She was even more tired a few days later, during her racing house party at Royal Lodge for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. She insisted on going to the races but when she returned home she almost collapsed. She was taken to King Edward VII hospital where she was discovered to be suffering seriously from anaemia. Blood transfusions were prescribed to make good the iron deficiency. Determined as ever, she demanded that the treatment be carried out overnight so that she could be back at Clarence House in time for her 101st birthday.23 In these circ.u.mstances, members of her Household expected her merely to wave from the window to the crowd which always gathered on 4 August.24 But no, she insisted on going to the gate and greeting people in the street as she had always done. She then gave lunch to the Queen, the Prince of Wales and others in the family and that evening she went to the ballet at the Royal Opera House. Then, once again, she flew to her Castle in the north. Prince Charles wrote to thank her for the joy of being with her on her 101st birthday. 'It was so wonderful to see Your Majesty so transfused and with your iron const.i.tution so comprehensively "re-ironed".' He thought that 'Evidence of the ironing operation was there for all to see when Your Majesty stepped boldly off the aeroplane ... The fact that your dogs were carried down the steps reinforced the message about your "rude" health!'25 He was right, but it was to be her last summer in her Castle. Among the guests were many of those friends who loved her most.* There was the familiar merriment, the jokes, the toasts to favourites high in the air and to unfavourites below the table, the video evenings, the pervading sense of happiness. But behind everything there was a sense of frailty if not finality. In the Guest Book are photographs of her sitting in the sun and walking in the mist, always clad in her familiar blue hat and coat and tartan skirt. Although the weather was unspeakable on the day of the Mey Highland Games she insisted on attending, b.u.t.toned up against driving rain and fierce wind.
In September, after saying goodbye with unusual emphasis to her staff, neighbours and friends at Mey, she drove south to Balmoral and Birkhall. And, again as usual, she stopped for lunch at Foulis Castle in Ross-shire, the home of Mrs Timmy Munro, a tradition that had been maintained since 1959. At lunch she engaged in a long conversation with the younger members of the family about the teenage fad for body piercing, a phenomenon of which she may have been aware because her great-granddaughter, Zara Phillips, had a pierced tongue. A few days later a three-page, handwritten thank-you letter arrived for Mrs Munro.26 At Birkhall she found that the Queen had had a stairlift installed for her. Prince Charles wrote to cheer the fact that 'you now have a form of mechanized a.s.sistance to ascend "les escaliers" without Your Majesty's feet touching the floor. Thank G.o.d for the wonders of science ...!'27 Her guests many of them Prince Charles's stalking friends enjoyed the usual fishing expeditions, picnics and evening videos. One night there was dancing and, twirling her sticks, she took part in an eightsome reel. She went with Prince Charles to Aberdeen for the unveiling of a statue of a bull for the North East Aberdeen Angus Breeders, to the pleasure of them all.28 But there was an elegiac note to her days. She said that she wanted to see her old ghillie, Charlie Wright, who had fished with her for decades. Wright, now eighty-two, had been captured with the 51st Highland Division at Saint-Valery, covering the retreat at Dunkirk in June 1940; as a result, he had spent five years as a prisoner of war. His father had been a stalker for the King, and Charlie Wright had himself worked at Balmoral first as a stalker and then as a river ghillie. After he retired from the river he still turned out for Queen Elizabeth's spring fishing parties.
She insisted on going to his home rather than asking him to hers. She was driven on a track along the bank of the Dee to the little humpbacked stone bridge, the Brig O'Dee,* which led across the river to his cottage. There is a photograph of Queen Elizabeth pulling herself on her sticks across the bridge by sheer will power. She took tea with Wright and his daughter Jane. Then she forced herself back across the bridge to the car. Charlie and Jane Wright were touched by her determination and her courtesy.29 One of the happiest occasions at Birkhall that year was a convivial picnic lunch at Loch Callater. Her guests and Household were all worried that she was too frail and should not go. As usual, she insisted. It was a blithe gathering and she enjoyed herself immensely. Many times in the months to come, as she grew weaker, she would say, 'I wish I was at Loch Callater.'
In November 2001, just before the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph, she was strong enough to make her customary visit to the Garden of Remembrance at St Margaret's, Westminster. The Duke of Kent accompanied her and he was struck by the fact that, despite the cold, she spent an hour in the open air, greeting and talking to old soldiers.30 A few days later she watched the Remembrance Day Parade from a window of the Home Office looking over Whitehall.
On 22 November she made an extraordinary trip another visit to the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, which she had launched in 1981 and which was now being recommissioned and rededicated after an extensive refit. She flew by helicopter to Portsmouth, landed on the carrier and was lowered into the ship's great hangar. It was a touching spectacle: 1,200 people were there to greet her and to take part in the rededication service. She summoned the strength to make a short speech and then, to the pleasure of the audience, she said to Captain David Snelson, 'Captain, splice the mainbrace.'31 Before Christmas she felt strong enough to give interviews to two authors one writing a PhD thesis on Dr Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of the abdication, and the other the biographer of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Xenia of Russia, who had spent forty years in exile in Britain and whom Queen Elizabeth had liked.32 And still she went on and on: she attended the Middle Temple Family Night dinner on 5 December and the next day she went to lunch with the Trustees of the Injured Jockeys Fund at the Goring Hotel. She went racing, for the last time, at Sandown Park on 9 December and to her great pleasure she saw her own horse First Love win she delighted the crowd by going to the winner's enclosure to congratulate the jockey. She had had seventy-five winners at Sandown Park over her racing career more than at any other racecourse.33 She had another fall before Christmas but, as usual, she refused to admit she was in pain. She carried out the engagements to which she had agreed; the last was the staff Christmas party in St James's Palace. There were about 200 people there; she consented to be wheeled around but whenever she stopped to talk to a group of people she insisted on standing up out of the chair. She did this some twenty times.34 Christmas, of course, was with her family at Sandringham. She and Princess Margaret flew there together by helicopter and landed in a blizzard. After her two strokes, Princess Margaret was now in a wheelchair. Queen Elizabeth was not well either; she developed a cough over Christmas and had to spend much of the holiday in her room. By early January 2002 she was better and able to come down and mingle with her family, but then she caught another virus which she could not shake off and she stayed in Norfolk when the Queen returned to Buckingham Palace. Princess Margaret was, if anything, in worse pain than her mother; she barely spoke. When the Princess left for London Queen Elizabeth carried out the family tradition of waving a white handkerchief in farewell as her daughter was wheeled out of the saloon to the car. It was their final parting.
The 6th of February marked the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the King, but Queen Elizabeth was not well enough to go to Royal Lodge for her customary service in the Royal Chapel. Instead, Canon John Ovenden, the chaplain there, drove up to Norfolk. He and Canon George Hall conducted the service in a small sitting room at Sandringham.
Queen Elizabeth would probably have stayed on in Norfolk, but three days later, on 9 February, the Queen telephoned her mother to say that Princess Margaret had died. The Princess had suffered another stroke the previous afternoon and then developed cardiac problems. She was taken to King Edward VII Hospital during the night and she had died there on Sat.u.r.day morning. She was seventy-one. The death of a child is an intolerable burden to a parent, whatever their respective ages. But Queen Elizabeth knew her daughter had been suffering with no hope of respite.35 Prince Charles immediately went to Sandringham to comfort his grandmother. She told him that 'Margot's' death had probably been a merciful release. He agreed and shortly afterwards he sent her a letter in which he related that Anne Glenconner, one of the Princess's ladies in waiting and a good friend, 'told me that she had seen Margot on Wednesday last week and that she had said to Anne that she felt so ill that she longed "to join Papa" '. He added, 'I thought that this was so incredibly touching.'36 A few days after the Princess's death Queen Elizabeth fell again; she damaged her arm, which had to be carefully dressed by Dr Campbell. But she insisted on attending her daughter's funeral in St George's Chapel at Windsor. She was flown there by helicopter and manoeuvred with difficulty into a car to be taken to the Chapel. The service was tranquil; the melancholy but rea.s.suring words of the 23rd Psalm 'I will dwell in the house of the Lord' seemed to many in the congregation to be apposite to the life and death of the devout, talented but troubled Princess, whose greatest joy was to be a loving mother to her two children. As the coffin was borne out of the Chapel, Queen Elizabeth struggled to her feet. Princess Margaret was cremated; she had asked that her ashes be interred in the King George VI Memorial Chapel in St George's. After the funeral, Queen Elizabeth went home to Royal Lodge for the last time.
This year was the fiftieth anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne. The Golden Jubilee celebrations were due to begin with official visits by the Queen to Jamaica, New Zealand and Australia. Members of Queen Elizabeth's Household felt that she was determined not to cause any disruption to these tours and was intent on husbanding her remaining strength a little longer. The Queen telephoned her mother every day she was away and when she returned to Britain on 3 March she went straight from Heathrow Airport to Royal Lodge to see her.
Still Queen Elizabeth carried on and still she saw people; on 5 March she held a lawn meet and lunch for the Eton Beagles and discussed future dates with them. Then, as usual, she held her house party for the Grand Military Race Meeting at Sandown Park. On this occasion the Queen had arranged to receive her mother's guests. But at the last minute Queen Elizabeth appeared and greeted them herself. Her horse First Love distinguished himself by winning again at the race meeting her last ever runner. She could not attend the Cheltenham races but she watched them on television. As luck would have it, the Gold Cup on 14 March was won by Best Mate, trained by Henrietta Knight, daughter of her great friend of many years, Guy Knight. She was ecstatic, her lady in waiting Angela Oswald recorded.37 Easter fell early that year, on 31 March, and by the week before Easter Queen Elizabeth was weakening further. She was visited regularly by her local doctor, Jonathan Holliday, the Apothecary to the Household at Windsor; and Gill Frampton, the nursing sister at the Castle, came every afternoon to change the bandages on her legs and to give her a light ma.s.sage if she wished. She was not eating much now but she might take a small gla.s.s of champagne with scrambled eggs in the evening this reminded her of late-night suppers with the Duke in the early days of her marriage, she said.38 She had decided not to have a lady in waiting with her now, but her niece Margaret Rhodes came regularly to Royal Lodge from her own house a few hundred yards away in the Great Park. On Palm Sunday, Canon Ovenden held a service for her in the Saloon, the room in which she had entertained so many friends over so many years.
That week she made many telephone calls from her bedroom. Michael Oswald was pleased to hear her, but it was clear to him that she was saying goodbye; she gave him a list of things to do and people to thank for all that they had done for her. She rang Johnny Perkins, her faithful neighbour in Norfolk and frequent visitor to Mey, to thank him for freesias that he had sent her. She telephoned the Princess Royal and asked her to take some of her horses.
It was obvious that she would not be able to join the rest of the family for Easter at Windsor Castle. On Wednesday 27 March her Private Secretary, Sir Alastair Aird, went down to Royal Lodge to talk to her staff and to wish them a happy Easter. When Queen Elizabeth heard he was there she asked to see him. 'I found her in the Saloon sitting in a winged chair with her feet up and covered by a rug. I took a chair and sat immediately opposite her for her eyesight was very bad and she had very limited lateral vision. We discussed a few things and I told Queen Elizabeth whom I had seen recently she always liked to be kept up to date with news of her Household and friends. She had a smile on her face and I suddenly had the feeling that this was the last time we would meet and that she was in her own way saying goodbye to me.'39 Over the next two days Queen Elizabeth weakened further; by Good Friday she was unable to lift her head from the pillow, but she remained in complete control. She asked Leslie Chappell to take a box from the drawer of her desk. In it he found a pair of cufflinks for himself and a brooch with her 'ER' cypher for Jacqui Meakin, a token of affection for their care.
On Sat.u.r.day morning Dr Richard Thompson, Physician to the Queen, and Dr Jonathan Holliday came to see her. They realized she would not last the day. Dr Thompson called first the Queen and then the Prince of Wales, who was dismayed because he was in Switzerland and would not be able to return in time to be with his grandmother. The Queen, who was riding in the Park, went at once to Royal Lodge and Queen Elizabeth was able to say goodbye to her daughter.
Canon Ovenden arrived as Queen Elizabeth lapsed into unconsciousness. He held her hand, prayed aloud and read her a Highland lament: I am going now into the sleep,
Be it that I in health shall wake;
If death be to me in deathly sleep,
Be it that in thine own arm's keep.
O G.o.d of grace, to new life I wake;
O be it in thy dear arm's keep,
O G.o.d of grace that I shall awake!40
Queen Elizabeth died at 3.15 in the afternoon of 30 March 2002, Holy Sat.u.r.day, a contemplative day for Christians antic.i.p.ating the resurrection. At her bedside were her daughter the Queen and her grandchildren, Sarah Chatto and David Linley.
The following afternoon her oak coffin was borne to the Royal Chapel and in the evening Canon Ovenden celebrated Evensong for all the members of her family who could be there.
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S funeral was to be the most solemn state occasion since the funeral of her husband the King, half a century before. She had been diligent in planning it herself and Operation Tay Bridge, as it was codenamed, was regularly updated. On Tuesday 2 April her coffin was driven from Windsor to the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace, where her family, friends and Household were able to pay their respects in private.
The public part of the ceremonies began on the morning of Friday 5 April. The coffin was placed on the same gun carriage that had borne the remains of her husband the King fifty years before, to be carried from St James's Palace to lie in state in Westminster Hall. The coffin was draped in her personal Standard and on it lay the crown made for her Coronation in 1937. The Koh-i-nur diamond, given to Queen Victoria, the first Empress of India, and now set in the crown of Queen Elizabeth, the last Empress, flashed in the sunlight. Next to the crown lay one wreath the card read simply, 'In Loving Memory, Lilibet'. The procession began to the sounds of Mendelssohn's Funeral March played by the bands of the Scots Guards and the Irish Guards. As it moved off, the King's Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery started a twenty-eight-gun salute in Green Park. The boom of the guns echoed once every minute until the procession reached Westminster Hall.
In bright spring sunshine a quarter of a million people lined the streets. More than 1,600 servicemen took part, marching slowly to the beat of a m.u.f.fled drum as the coffin was taken down the Mall and across Horse Guards Parade and thence past the Cenotaph on Whitehall to Westminster. There were contingents from all the regiments a.s.sociated with her, from both Britain and the Commonwealth. They included the Wit.w.a.tersrand Rifles, the Transvaal Scottish, the Cape Town Highlanders, the Royal New Zealand Army Medical Corps, the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps, the Toronto Scottish and the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada. Walking beside the coffin were ten pallbearers, eight of them colonels of her British regiments the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Black Watch, the Light Infantry, the Royal Anglian Regiment, the King's Regiment, 9th/12th Royal Lancers, the Queen's Royal Hussars, 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, the Royal Army Medical Corps together with the Captain of HMS Ark Royal and the Commandant of the Central Flying School of the Royal Air Force.
The Queen Mother's grandsons, the Prince of Wales, Prince Andrew, the Earl of Wess.e.x and Viscount Linley, together with Prince Philip, Princes William and Harry and Peter Phillips, all marched behind the coffin. Breaking with tradition, the Princess Royal marched with them. The Prince of Wales was visibly distressed; as Deborah, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire wrote of him, 'My poor friend's steely face made us all realise how much he loved her and relied on her.'41 In the procession, Queen Elizabeth's grandchildren were followed by other members of the Royal Family and of the Bowes Lyon family, her Household and staff, including her Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, and her Private Secretary Captain Sir Alastair Aird. Among the staff who marched were her page, William Tallon, her Head Chauffeur, John Collings and her Head Chef, Michael Sealey. Then came senior military personnel, including the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Air Staff and the Chief of Naval Staff.
The Queen, with her niece Lady Sarah Chatto, drove by car to meet the coffin as it arrived at the door of Westminster Hall exactly thirty minutes after it left St James's, and as the last of the echoes of the twenty-eight guns fired in salute died away. Members of the House of Lords stood along the west side of the Hall and members of the Commons along the east as, led by Black Rod, the coffin was carried by the bearer party from 1st Battalion Irish Guards into the vast and magnificent medieval s.p.a.ce.
Queen Elizabeth's coffin was placed on a catafalque in exactly the same spot where her husband had lain in 1952. The Queen and other members of the Royal Family gathered around and the Archbishop of Canterbury said prayers. Four officers of the Household Cavalry then took their places around the catafalque for the first Vigil of the Watch. Officers from many different regiments would stand guard day and night until the funeral. As had happened with the coffin of King George V, one watch was held by her four grandsons, Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and Lord Linley.
After the short service, the Queen drove back along Whitehall to Buckingham Palace. Suddenly a ripple of applause ran through the crowd and the Queen was clapped all the way up the Mall. It was an extraordinary moment, a spontaneous burst of popular sympathy, a recognition of all that the Queen had had to endure in recent years, culminating in the death of her sister and her mother in such a short s.p.a.ce of time. She was visibly moved and she said to one of those with her that this moment was one of the most touching things that had ever happened to her.42 That was just the beginning. For the rest of the week, the people of Britain confounded opinion-makers. The government had hugely underestimated the impact of her death people came in their hundreds of thousands to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth and what she had represented. The scheduled opening hours had to be lengthened to twenty-two hours a day. Despite biting weather, people queued patiently, waiting their turn in lines that stretched along the Embankment and across the river, to pa.s.s by the coffin. The Women's Royal Voluntary Service (of which Queen Elizabeth had been patron and then president) pa.s.sed along the lines, carrying flasks of hot tea.
Prince Charles broadcast an emotional tribute to his grandmother, 'the original life enhancer at once indomitable, somehow timeless, able to span the generations. Wise, loving, with an utterly irresistible mischievousness of spirit.' Above all she understood the British character, 'and her heart belonged to this ancient old land and its equally indomitable and humorous inhabitants.' He had dreaded her death, which he somehow thought would never happen. He praised her for the fun, laughter and affection she had created around her, for her 'sparklingly wonderful letters' and for seeing the funny side of life 'we laughed till we cried, and oh how I shall miss those laughs.' She had wisdom and sensitivity too, and she was 'quite simply, the most magical grandmother you could possibly have, and I was utterly devoted to her. Her departure has left an irreplaceable chasm in countless lives but, thank G.o.d, we're all richer for the sheer joy of her presence and everything she stood for.'43 The night before the funeral the Queen made a short television address in which she too spoke with emotion. She said, 'the extent of the tribute that huge numbers of you have paid my mother in the last few days has been overwhelming. I have drawn great comfort from so many individual acts of kindness and respect.' She hoped that at her mother's funeral 'sadness will blend with a wider sense of thanksgiving, not just for her life but for the times in which she lived a century for this country and the Commonwealth not without its trials and sorrows, but also one of extraordinary progress, full of examples of courage and service as well as fun and laughter. This is what my mother would have understood, because it was the warmth and affection of people everywhere which inspired her resolve, dedication and enthusiasm for life.'44 The next morning, Tuesday 9 April, the bearer party from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards carried her coffin from Westminster Hall into the sharp sunlight and laid it again on the gun carriage. It was drawn by the King's Troop, the Royal Horse Artillery, to the Abbey for her funeral. Some 200 pipers and drummers, playing 'My Home' and 'The Mist Covered Mountains', accompanied the coffin. Nine senior members of the Royal Family followed behind; all were sombre. But the service was joyful, with lessons from Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and a reading from Pilgrim's Progress. The hymns included 'Immortal, invisible, G.o.d only wise' and 'Guide me, Oh thou great Redeemer'. The anthem was Brahms's setting of Psalm 84 'How lovely are thy dwellings fair'.
In his eulogy, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said that the vast crowds who had pa.s.sed before her had understood that, in George Eliot's lovely phrase, there was about her 'the sweet presence of a good diffused'. He felt that the one verse in scripture which captured her best was from the Book of Proverbs: 'Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come.' Her strength and her dignity were clear; her laughter 'reflects an att.i.tude of confident hope in the face of adversity and the unpredictable challenges of life'. Moreover, she had a deep, simple and abiding faith 'that this life is to be lived to the full as a preparation for the next'. He ended by quoting again from the Book of Proverbs. 'It says simply of a woman of grace, "Many have done excellently, but you exceed them all." '