Ma’am Darling

by Craig Brown

  Popping his head around the door after her death, Carey was now gratified to note that the ‘attractive little flask’ of Eileen’s olive oil lay between the two candles flickering in the semi-gloom above her coffin.

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  Had she died a decade earlier, Princess Margaret might have enjoyed a warmer send-off from the obituarists. But by now the days of dutiful celebration of the recently departed had come to an end. A steelier, less forgiving approach was in operation, even for members of the Royal Family.

  ‘Princess Margaret, who has died in hospital after suffering a third stroke aged seventy-one, was the most striking illustration of the capricious and troubled relationship that beset the British and their monarchy in the second half of the twentieth century,’ began the obituary in the Guardian.

  Not even the life of Diana, Princess of Wales concentrated quite so many questions about the role and style of the royal family as that of Margaret Rose, second daughter of George VI, only sibling of Elizabeth II; for while both were creatures of their time, Margaret lived beyond hers into a more critical, ever less deferential era; and her life, above all, posed that essential question which Diana, in her own way, was trying to answer: what, exactly, is a princess for?

  The author, Charles Nevin, argued that while Margaret had been unconventional in her enjoyment of the arts, she was in other ways ‘as conventional as any Victorian or Edwardian, particularly in her unquestioning assumption that her royal status commanded the utmost respect irrespective of circumstance or behaviour. Royalty was toujours sans reproche. To put it in a rather less high-flown way, she wanted to have her cake, and to eat it.’

  Writing in the Independent, Hugo Vickers felt that ‘The absence of a role was her tragedy. Whereas her father’s life was fulfilled when he was called, reluctantly, to serve as King, the Princess never received such a call.’ Vickers went on to suggest that her ‘slightly forbidding exterior concealed a kind heart. She moved in that society which relished feuds and firm loyalties – her friends were, in principle, friends for life, but she was a naughty enemy.’ She was capricious: ‘Close friends learned to be wary of her ways. At the moment that everyone was relaxing, she would surreptitiously resume her royal rank and reduce some helpless guest to dust.’ Nevertheless, ‘the key to her character was a spirit of generosity to which even she might not have admitted’.

  In the Sunday Telegraph, her old friend Kenneth Rose rallied to her defence. ‘In a life devoted to public duties and private passions, Princess Margaret was cruelly exposed to the whims of popular opinion,’ he began, berating his fellow journalists for their ‘hurtful campaign of denigration and spite’. For Rose, the Princess was ‘an icon of 20th century monarchy. She loved clothes and jewellery, wore them with panache, retained her dazzling complexion and trim figure of youth to the end of her life. Standing a shade over five feet, she made up for her lack of inches, about which she was needlessly sensitive, by her dignity and grace of bearing.’

  As the article progressed, Rose’s case for the defence transformed, as if by magic, into the case for the prosecution. ‘It has been surmised that her imperious, even wayward, interpretation of her role sprang from dissatisfaction or envy; what colloquially could be called second-sisteritis. There is no truth in the assumption. For the person and pre-eminence of the sovereign she insisted on punctilious respect.’ It was almost as though, having trumpeted his doughty loyalist credentials at the beginning of the article, Rose felt he had now earned the right to list her shortcomings. ‘Even her closest friends were startled by the swiftness with which enticing intimacy could give way to a Hanoverian blue stare,’ he continued. ‘“Hopping back on her twig”, they called it.’

  Many of the passages in his piece begin with a compliment before veering off towards an insult. ‘Her private whims were of luxurious simplicity. She ate very little, rarely meat.’ So far, so good. ‘Although game and some fish were acceptable, she would wave away a dish of gleaming salmon trout, demand an omelette, ask if she could exchange it for a boiled egg which in its turn was rejected as too hard or too soft.’ And then the U-turn: ‘Hosts and hostesses never forgot the princess who came to dinner … Princess Margaret could be an exacting house guest who thought nothing of re-arranging the furniture in her bedroom to her own satisfaction.’

  Rose’s glowing interpretation often seemed at odds with the evidence he offered. ‘The Princess shone as a mimic. She would recall Dame Joan Sutherland greeting her backstage after her sleepwalking scene from Lucia di Lammermoor: “Oi’m always meeting yew in moi nightie.”’

  Insults were smuggled like contraband beneath the cover of wide-eyed questions. ‘So who did she like in a world of real and imaginary slights magnified by her own insecurity?’ In answer to his own question, Rose listed her mother and sister (‘though both relationships were subject to occasional exasperation’), her children, and a handful of women friends, ‘some of whom had served as ladies-in-waiting’.

  The New York Times announced that ‘Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, whose troubled private life aroused both worldwide sympathy and widespread reprobation, died yesterday morning in London. She was 71.’ The tone of the obituary was even edgier than its British counterparts. ‘She was often less than gracious when faced with the drudgery of public appearances – the ribbon-cuttings, diplomatic functions and endless other official occasions by which Britain’s royals justify their position and the public money that finances it. Easily bored and often petulant, the princess was known for indulging her moods.’

  In later years, the obituary continued, she had been criticised for ‘demanding motorcycle escorts and government helicopters to travel around Britain’. To many people she appeared to be ‘the black sheep of her generation of royals. But this reputation did not necessarily trouble her.’ The obituarist went on to describe the Princess as ‘haughty’, with ‘a penchant for saying the wrong thing’. She also had ‘a traumatic private life’, and ‘as a houseguest she was notoriously demanding. At parties she often objected if other guests ignored royal protocol and left before her. Even her children were expected to refer to her as “Princess Margaret” in front of visitors. So did her husband, though he was said to have called her Ducky in private.’

  The anonymous Daily Telegraph obituary seemed to be written more in sorrow than in anger. ‘She had talents and qualities which might, perhaps, have blossomed more fully away from the constant blaze of publicity,’ it began. ‘She had defects which, precisely because she was completely honest, she neither would nor could conceal: wilfulness, a dislike of being crossed and an inability to reconcile her royal status with her love of the bohemian.’

  Though witty, she was ‘sometimes bitingly sharp to those who presumed too far’. On the other hand, for all her misfortunes, she ‘always retained her sense of fun’. The obituarist then executed a neat little somersault: ‘Whatever may have been foolishly and maliciously said at various times, the Princess was a remarkably beautiful and stylish woman who put duty first.’ The obituarist ended by indulging in a game of ‘What if …?’

  ‘A complex figure, Princess Margaret seemed, despite her exalted position, more often than not to have been dealt a peculiarly bad hand for the game of life … It was Princess Margaret’s misfortune to have narrowly missed being a Queen – a job at which she might have been rather good – while being saddled with the secondary task of being a Princess, for which she was temperamentally unsuited.’ But what of the rest of us, dealt such a monstrously bad hand in the game of life that we missed the throne not by an inch, but a mile?

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  Perhaps wisely, the author didn’t elaborate on his aside that Margaret might have made a rather good queen. Since then, others have begged to differ. ‘The Almighty gets the right people to be born first,’ her cousin Margaret Rhodes told Tim Heald. ‘Thank heaven Margaret wasn’t the eldest – it would have been disastrous the other way round.’

  The Princess would at least have g
one along with her cousin’s theology. Her sister’s position was, in her opinion, decreed by God. A.N. Wilson remembers one evening spent in her company. ‘Someone mentioned the quasi-religious feelings excited in many bosoms by the thought of the Queen. Someone else spoke of the common phenomenon, in all ranks of society, of dreaming about the Queen, and said that in their case these dreams brought feelings of peace and benediction, as if they had been in the presence of God. “Quite right, too,” said Princess Margaret firmly. “After all, the Queen is God’s representative in this realm.” Admittedly the Princess was in a condition which Private Eye would describe as “tired and emotional”, but I got the impression that her words were meant entirely seriously.’

  In fact, Margaret Rhodes’s glowing interim report on the Almighty’s gift for administrating the royal succession was a little selective: in 1502 He saw to it that the first-born, Prince Arthur, perished from sweating sickness at the age of fifteen, thus allowing his reckless younger brother Henry to be crowned King Henry VIII on their father’s death seven years later. In 1894 He arranged for the flighty Duke of Windsor to be born first, before the dependable King George VI. Had it been the other way round, would the Duke of Windsor’s supporters now be saying that, if only he had been born first, he might have made a rather good king? Likewise, the Queen’s grandfather, King George V, was born second, the early death of his flaky elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, described by the historian Philip Magnus as ‘a merciful act of providence’.

  But what if Margaret had been born first? Would she really have been better-suited to the role of Queen than the secondary role of Princess? John Updike once suggested that ‘Margaret would have made a more striking and expressive queen’, though he then went on to ask, ‘but would she have worn as well, and presided as smoothly?’

  What if Elizabeth had been the younger daughter? Would she have turned out all moody and demanding? Pursued any further, these idle speculations spiral to the very heart of human existence. Nature or nurture? If the egg that turned into Elizabeth had instead turned into Margaret – that is to say, had Margaret been born first – would Margaret have become the dutiful monarch, and Elizabeth the wayward bossyboots? Or would Queen Margaret I have been a chain-smoking, high-camp, acid-tongued, slugabed monarch, leaving her younger sister, HRH the Princess Elizabeth, in her tweed skirts and her sensible shoes, to pick up the pieces? Was Margaret’s entire life overshadowed by the conviction that she had missed out on the throne? How odd, to emerge from the womb fourth in line, to go up a notch at the age of six, up another notch that same year, and then to find yourself hurtling down, down, down to fourth place at the birth of Prince Charles in 1948, fifth at the birth of Princess Anne in 1950, then downhill all the way, overtaken by a non-stop stream of riff-raff – Prince Andrew and Prince Edward and Peter Phillips and Princess Beatrice and the rest of them, down, down, down, until by the time of your death you have plummeted to number eleven, behind Zara Phillips, later to become Zara Tindall, mother of Mia Tindall, who, if you were still alive, would herself be one ahead of you, even when she was still in nappies. Not many women have to face the fact that their careers peaked at the age of six, or to live with the prospect of losing their place in the pecking order to a succession of newborn babies, and to face demotion every few years thereafter. Small wonder, then, if Princess Margaret felt short-changed by life.

  But what if she had been the first-born? Would it have been any different? What if she had been Queen? Or if Elizabeth had died young? What if, somewhere along the line, Margaret and Elizabeth had switched characters?

  What if? What if? What if?

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  HM Queen Margaret’s Christmas Broadcast, 1977

  As I go about this country and abroad, I meet many people who, all in their own ways, are making a very real contribution to their community.

  Many of them find ways to give service in their spare time, through voluntary organisations or simply on their own individual initiative, contributing in a thousand ways to all that is best in our society.

  Of course, some are conspicuous by their absence.

  I am talking now of those who are happy to take a fancy title when they get married and boost their own tiresome little careers from all the publicity but won’t lift a finger for anyone else.

  And I am also talking of those who have devoted their lives to undermining the contributions of those more conscientious and infinitely better-born than themselves.

  You know full well who you are. May that be an end to the matter.

  Christmas is traditionally a time when we take the opportunity to look back on the year that is coming to an end, and to look ahead to the year that is shortly to commence.

  My own year has been faintly tiresome, but that’s only to be expected. I have been dragged here, there and everywhere as part of my Silver Jubilee celebrations. If I see one more plate of coronation chicken, I shall be left with no choice but to scream. The street parties and village fêtes, the presents, the flowers from the children, the mile upon mile of decorated streets and houses; these things suggest the real value and pleasure of the celebration for everyone, except, of course, for the one person whom they are meant to be celebrating, namely oneself. It’s the same everywhere I go: yes, of course people are thrilled to see one, it makes their day, but are they prepared to give something back in return? Answer: no.

  Of course, it wasn’t always like that. Far from it. When my mother visited the East End of London during the Blitz, she was delighted by the marvellous spirit she found there: people resolutely cheerful, quite regardless of the awful mess they may have found themselves in. But sadly today they have all grown used to what I call the ‘something for nothing’ society, in which they expect the rest of us to do all the work, while they simply loaf about.

  And, with this in mind, I’ll wish you all a very happy Christmas, not because I really want to, but because I suppose I must.

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  Four hundred and fifty mourners attended the funeral of HRH the Princess Margaret at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Among them were her former husband, Lord Snowdon, who was heard to complain that the lord chamberlain had assured him there would be no steps. At one point he and Roddy Llewellyn exchanged glances, but they did not speak. The Queen Mother, dressed all in black, her face covered by a veil, entered by the North Door. Her biographer-to-be Hugo Vickers observed her close-up. She was, he thought, ‘impressive and demonic’; he detected ‘a kind of steely resolve that was more involved with her own attendance at the ceremony than any sympathy she might feel for her dead daughter. It was a mixture between her wonderful resolve and perhaps a tiny hint of triumphalism.’

  The Princess had been planning her own funeral for a few years; it had become something of a pastime. ‘I am always altering the arrangements for my funeral. I drive the Lord Chamberlain’s Department mad,’ she told Kenneth Rose.

  She would chop and change as the mood took her. ‘I rather think I should like to be buried at sea,’ she once mused to a friend.

  ‘With a Union flag wrapped round your coffin?’ asked the friend.

  ‘Certainly not. I have my own Standard.’

  In the end, she had opted for dry land. Her choice of music included a bit of Swan Lake, a choral version of Psalm 23 and the Nunc Dimittis, as well as two stirring hymns: ‘Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise’ and ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’.

  The canon-in-residence, the Rev Canon Barry Thompson, said a prayer for the Princess: ‘O eternal God … we remember before thee this day thy servant Margaret, rendering thanks to thee: for her loyalty and sense of duty; for her faithfulness towards her family and her friends; for her energy and enthusiasm; for her quick wit and sound advice; for her depth of knowledge and her love of life …’

  The lesson, from Romans 8, was read by her son, Lord Linley. As the coffin was carried to the hearse by eight soldiers from the Princess’s own Glasgow and Ayrshire Regiment, the 1st Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers,
a lament was played by a lone piper. Chosen by the Princess’s daughter, Lady Sarah, it was called ‘The Desperate Struggle of the Bird’. Another lament was played by a piper from the Royal Highland Fusiliers, and ‘The Last Post’ was sounded by the trumpeters of the Hussars and Light Dragoons. This was followed by ‘Reveille’.

  Despite all this, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Rev George Carey, felt the service ‘sadly lacked the personal touch. I was dismayed that there was no homily to pay tribute to a woman who had put her loyalty to Crown and country before her personal happiness … Apart from my prayer at the end, when I mentioned the Princess by name, it could have been anybody’s funeral service.’ In an interview on the BBC the following day, he emphasised his own special significance in her life: ‘I’ve prayed with her on several occasions,’ he told the royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell. ‘I remember one Christmas, going to her bedside at Sandringham and praying with her and she was deeply grateful for that.’

  Afterwards, the mourners retired to Windsor Castle for tea and cake. Some were dissatisfied by the day’s arrangements. Prince Rupert Loewenstein considered what he referred to as the ‘tickets’ for the funeral ‘rather strange’, as ‘morning coat’ or ‘lounge suit’ were recommended both for the men and the women. ‘If taken literally it would have made an excellent cabaret scene in the Weimar Republic.’ He was unimpressed, also, by ‘a flimsy note’ attached to each invitation saying, ‘You can get a cup of tea in St George’s Hall after the service.’

  Standards had fallen, he felt. ‘I did not think that David Ogilvy, the 12th Earl of Airlie, who was Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, would have allowed such wording to pass through under his white staff.’ As the business manager of the Rolling Stones Prince Rupert Loewenstein had, for some decades, been used to dealing with these social niceties.