At St Paul’s Walden Bury, the Queen Mother’s other childhood home, Sir Simon and Lady Bowes Lyon kindly allowed me access to yet more family letters and papers. Among other members of the Bowes Lyon family, I am grateful to Queen Elizabeth’s nieces Lady Mary Clayton, Lady Mary Colman and the Hon. Mrs Rhodes (née Margaret Elphinstone), whose help I have greatly appreciated, and also to Queen Elizabeth’s nephew the Hon. Albemarle Bowes Lyon, to her cousin John Bowes Lyon, and to Rosie Stancer, her great-niece, and her husband William.
I thank Her Majesty Queen Fabiola of the Belgians for permission to quote a letter she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, Her Majesty The Queen of Denmark for permission to quote from a letter from the late Queen Ingrid, Her Majesty The Queen of the Netherlands for permission to quote from a letter from the late Princess Juliana, and His Majesty The King of Norway for permission to quote from a letter from the late Queen Maud.
I am indebted to all those who have allowed me to read, and to quote from, their family papers; some of them I have to thank also for permission to quote from letters in which they own the copyright among Queen Elizabeth’s papers at Windsor. They include: the Earl of Airlie, Anne, Countess Attlee, John Dalrymple Hamilton, Viscount Davidson, Eric and Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Lady Katharine Farrell, George Fergusson, Sir Edmund Grove, the Earl of Halifax, Kate Hall, Richard Hall, Mrs David Hankinson and the Hon. Mrs David Erskine, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst and the Hon. Lady Murray, Mrs Sylvia Hudson, Carol Hughes, Lady May, David Micklethwait, Viscount Norwich, Wilfred Notley, Rev. Jonathan Peel, Lady Penn, the Earl of Rosslyn, the Marquess of Salisbury (whose archivist, Robin Harcourt-Smith, I wish also to thank for his help), Susannah Sitwell, Earl Spencer (whose archivist, Bruce Bailey, I thank likewise), Margaret Vyner and her daughter Violet, Robert Woods and the Earl of Woolton.
I wish also to express my thanks to those who have given me permission to quote from their letters, or letters from their forebears, among Queen Elizabeth’s papers or in other collections I have consulted. They include Lord Annaly, Sir Toby Anstruther, Bt, Bryan Basset, Winston Churchill, Mrs Alan Clark, the Duke of Devonshire, the Rev. Canon Dendle French, Lord Gage, Lord Gladwyn, Sir Carron Greig and Geordie Greig, James Joicey-Cecil, Candida Lycett Green, Sir Ian Rankin, Sir Adam Ridley, Lady Elizabeth Shakerley, the Earl of Stockton, Sir Tom Stoppard, Viscount Stuart of Findhorn and Baroness Thatcher.
My thanks are due for assistance with my research and, where appropriate, permission to publish material from the collections in their care, to Allen Packwood and Andrew Riley at the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge (Churchill Papers, Lascelles Papers, Lloyd Papers, Norwich Papers), Helen Langley and her staff at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Attlee Papers, Beck Papers, Isaiah Berlin Papers, Monckton Papers, Bonham Carter Papers, Violet Milner Papers, Woolton Papers), Dr Frances Harris and William Frame at the British Library (Airlie Papers), the staff of The National Archives (Foreign Office Papers), the staff of the National Library of Scotland (Ballantrae Papers), Christine Penney and her staff at Birmingham University Archives (Chamberlain Papers), Michael Meredith at Eton College Library (Diana Cooper Papers), the staff of the Borthwick Institute, University of York (Hickleton Papers), Dr Richard Palmer and his staff at Lambeth Palace Library (Lang Papers, Alan Don Papers), the staff of the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone (Hardinge of Penshurst Papers), the staff of Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, in particular Denis Boulé, Bill Russell, Paulette Dozois and Jennifer Mueller, and the staff of the Archives Nationales du Québec, especially Louis Fournier, Pierre Rainville, Jacques Morin and Rénald Lessard. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of Balliol College, Oxford to publish an extract from the Monckton Papers, and that of the Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust to quote from a letter from Sir Isaiah Berlin.
Many people in the Royal Household, past and present, have helped me in different ways. They include Sir Robin (now Lord) Janvrin, the Queen’s Private Secretary when I was invited to write this book, and his successor, Christopher Geidt. I have benefited greatly from their encouragement. I am also indebted to the Royal Librarian, the Hon. Lady Roberts, for her constant support, her invaluable knowledge and her eye for detail; she and her colleagues, Bridget Wright, Emma Stuart and Paul Carter, helped with enquiries about Queen Elizabeth’s extensive book collection. Sir Hugh Roberts, Director of the Royal Collection, provided much useful information and kind guidance throughout. Shruti Patel, Karen Lawson, Daniel Partridge and Eva Zielinska Millar of the Royal Collection Photographic Services assisted with illustrations. In the office of The Duke of Edinburgh, Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt Davis, the Duke’s Private Secretary, and Dame Anne Griffiths were most helpful. At Clarence House I was greatly helped by Sir Stephen Lamport, Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales, and his successor Sir Michael Peat, as well as by David Hutson, Virginia Carington and Paddy Harverson.
I thank Penny Russell Smith, Press Secretary to the Queen when I began this book, for her help. In the later stages, her successor, Samantha Cohen, was impeccably wise and kind; I am very grateful to her. In her office several others, in particular Ailsa Anderson, were of great assistance. I am also grateful to others at Buckingham Palace, including Helen Cross, Doug King and Mrs Margaret Mattocks and her fine team on the Buckingham Palace switchboard.
Other members or former members of the Royal Household to whom I owe my thanks include the late Sir Richard Bayliss, Dr Ian Campbell, Lord Fellowes, the late Sir Edward Ford, Sister Gillian Frampton, Dr Jonathan Holliday, the late Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Johnston, the late Sir Oliver and Lady Millar, Peter Ord, Canon John Ovenden, Sir Richard Thompson and Mr Roger Vickers.
Among the members of The Queen Mother’s Household to whom I am greatly indebted are Sir Alastair Aird, her last Private Secretary, and Lady Aird, who were unfailingly helpful; I was also given much assistance by the Hon. Nicholas Assheton, Dame Frances Campbell-Preston, the late Lady Margaret Colville, Fiona Fletcher, Mrs Michael Gordon-Lennox, the late Sir John and Lady Griffin, Elizabeth, Lady Grimthorpe, Martin and Catriona Leslie, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, Jeremy Mainwaring Burton, Lucy Murphy and Major Raymond Seymour. Sir Michael and Lady Angela Oswald gave me enormous assistance, especially in regard to Queen Elizabeth’s passion for steeplechasing. Ashe Windham, former equerry and friend of Queen Elizabeth, was my delightful guide to the Castle of Mey and much more. Lady Penn, former lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth, has given me consistent and excellent advice.
Many former members of Queen Elizabeth’s staff helped me with obvious delight in the subject; they include Leslie Chappell, Sadie Ewen, Nancy McCarthy, Danny and Sandy McCarthy, Jacqui Meakin, Michael Sealey, the late Clifford Skeet, the late William Tallon, June Webster, Ron Wellbelove and the late Charlie Wright.
A multitude of other people, some of them friends of Queen Elizabeth, assisted me. They included the Countess of Airlie, Christiane Besse, Lord and Lady Brabourne, John Bridcut, Donald Cameron, George Carey, Lord and the late Lady Carrington, Sir Edward Cazalet and Mrs Peter Cazalet, Rev. Professor Dr Owen Chadwick, Lady Charteris, Rosemary Coleman, Sir Timothy Colman, Dr Anita Davies, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, Annabel Eliot, Alwyne Farqharson, Julian Fellowes, Andrew Festing, Lord and Lady Nicholas Gordon-Lennox, the Earl and Countess of Gowrie, the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, Dame Drue Heinz, Heather Henderson, Nigel Jaques, Lady Sarah Keswick, Sarah Key, Patricia, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Mrs Timmy Munro, James Murray, Lady Rupert Nevill, Patty Palmer Tomkinson, Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles, Major Johnny Perkins, Johnny Robertson, Leo Rothschild, Clare and Oliver Russell, Lord and Lady Sainsbury, the late Bruce Shand, Christine Shearer, Anne Sloman, Lizzie Spender, Betty Berkeley Stafford, Margaret, Dowager Viscountess Thurso, the Duchess of Westminster, Galen and Hilary Weston, Lynne Wilson and the late Lord Wyatt and Lady Wyatt.
I benefited from valuable insights into Queen Elizabeth’s private visits to France and Italy provided by the Marquise de Ravenel, daughter of Prince Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge, the orchestrator of many
of the tours, Bertrand du Vignaud de Villefort, the Prince’s successor as tour organizer, Laure, Princesse de Beauvau-Craon, Queen Elizabeth’s hostess in Lorraine, and Madame Servagnat, survivor of Ravensbrück, whom she met during her visit to Epernay in 1983. I thank them all for their kind help. In Australia, Sir James Scholtens reminisced with great charm about Queen Elizabeth’s tours there in which he was involved.
In Canada, where my research was conducted by Sheila de Bellaigue, I thank: at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Rosemary Doyle-Morier for valuable contacts and information, and Patricia McRae for arranging access to Governor Generals’ papers; also in Ottawa, Martin and Louise Tetreault and Roger and Huguette Potvin; in Montreal, Robin Quinlan, for kind hospitality and introductions to Mrs Tom Price, Colonel Bruce Bolton, Colonel Victor Chartier, Tom Bourne and Elspeth Straker, all of whom provided useful information about Queen Elizabeth’s links with The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, and Mrs Alan Gordon, in whose house Queen Elizabeth stayed in 1987; in Toronto, Walter Borosa, former Chief of Protocol for Ontario, who was involved with many of her visits, Colonel Hugh Stewart, former Colonel of The Toronto Scottish (The Queen Mother’s Own) Regiment, and David Willmot, who supplied tales of Queen Elizabeth’s visits to the Woodbine races; also Harris Boyd, Federal Co-ordinator of Queen Elizabeth’s later tours, and Jean-Paul Roy, his deputy, both of whom provided further enlightenment about her visits and her occasionally wilful, but highly popular, deviations from the official programme; and Beverly McLaughlin, Chief Justice of Canada, who drew my attention to Queen Elizabeth’s speech on laying the foundation stone of the Supreme Court building in Ottawa in 1939.
Others to whom I owe warm thanks for advice, information or help in many different ways are Dr Joanna Marschner of Historic Royal Palaces and Joanna Hashagen of the Bowes Museum, for information on Queen Elizabeth’s clothes; Lucia van der Post, for an assessment of Queen Elizabeth’s style of dress; Wendy Moore, for information on Mary Eleanor Bowes; Donald Gillies, for information on Archie Clark Kerr; Clare Elmquist, for information on Lydie Lachaise; Dr Christina de Bellaigue, for information on private education for girls; Gladys Noble, for information on Lord Roberts Memorial Workshops; Ian Shapiro, for kindly showing me a letter from King George VI in his collection; Bob Steward, for research on Catherine Maclean; Charles Sumner, for information regarding his aunt, Beryl Poignand.
All writers owe debts to other writers. As well as those already mentioned, many eminent historians assisted me with great kindness; they include my old friend Kenneth Rose, author of, inter alia, an authoritative biography of King George V, and Philip Ziegler, a particular source of wisdom on the role of the official biographer. I am grateful also for the most generous advice of Sir Martin Gilbert, official biographer of Winston Churchill, and I thank D. R. Thorpe, official biographer of Lord Home. Sir Eric Anderson and his wife Poppy gave me wonderful support. Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government at Oxford University and author, among other distinguished works, of The British Constitution, was a peerless guide to me throughout the writing of this book.
Much has already been written about Queen Elizabeth. The first biography of the then Duchess of York was written by Lady Cynthia Asquith with the Duchess’s assistance, and was published in 1927. In the 1960s Dorothy Laird was given official assistance to prepare what was called the ‘first authorised biographical study of Her Majesty’. Queen Elizabeth was such a compelling subject that these books were followed by many more, including The Queen Mother (1981), by Elizabeth Longford, a great historian whom I was fortunate to know from my childhood, My Darling Buffy (1997) in which Grania Forbes explored Elizabeth Bowes Lyon’s youth and, especially, Queen Elizabeth, by Hugo Vickers (2005). In her George VI (1989) Sarah Bradford naturally wrote at length about Queen Elizabeth too. All of these books contain valuable original material which I have used and credited and I am grateful to the authors for their help.
I had an exceptional group of people helping me with my research – Patricia Lennox-Boyd, Douglas Murray and Rachel Smith delved in various archives and libraries and on the internet; Julia Melvin and Gill Middleburgh chronicled particular areas of Queen Elizabeth’s life from the records in the Royal Archives and elsewhere, and helped in many other ways; Lucy Murphy, after serving for thirty-four years in Queen Elizabeth’s office, brought her invaluable knowledge to my aid. The person who helped me most throughout these six years was Sheila de Bellaigue, former Registrar of the Royal Archives. I am deeply indebted to her for her diligent research, her wit, her meticulous attention to detail and her scholarly advice. I could never have written this book without her.
My literary agents – Carol Heaton in London and Lynn Nesbit in New York – have both been, as usual, immensely supportive; and my publishers, Macmillan in London and Knopf in New York, have been most forbearing and helpful. In particular Georgina Morley, and her colleagues at Macmillan, guided me and the book to publication with skill and fortitude. In New York, Sonny Mehta displayed his usual élan, kindness and judgement. In London I was given excellent advice by Charles Elliott and towards the end I was wonderfully assisted by Peter James, the doyen of copyeditors. I count myself very fortunate to have persuaded the legendary Douglas Matthews to compile the index.
My family has had to live with my work on this book for a long time and I thank especially my wife Olga for her understanding, and Conrad, Ellie, Alex and Charlie for their tolerance. My sister Joanna and my brother Hume have also helped me kindly. And I thank my late parents, Hartley and Joan, for years of encouragement. One of my earliest memories, from February 1952, is of my mother weeping in our garden; when I asked her why, she replied, ‘The King has died.’
*
The nature of official biography inevitably changes over time. In his inaugural lecture as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Professor of British History at the University of London, David Cannadine remarked that until the end of the 1950s, royal biographers ‘were specifically instructed to write nothing that was embarrassing to the institution of monarchy, or critical of the particular individual who was being thus commemorated and memorialised’. By Harold Nicolson’s account, such strictures were indeed placed upon him when he began work on King George V’s biography. John Wheeler-Bennett, official biographer of Queen Elizabeth’s husband, King George VI, thought that royal biography was almost a sacred enterprise which, like matrimony, ought ‘not to be entered into inadvisedly, or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God’.
No such instructions were issued and no such fears were instilled in me; on the contrary, I was encouraged to write what I wished. When I showed members of Queen Elizabeth’s family, Household and staff sections of the manuscript, they offered many helpful suggestions to ensure accuracy and completeness, but the decision on what to publish remained mine alone. I have been guided by the advice of Hamlet – ‘Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor.’
Any biography, even one as long as this, is selective; the writer has to choose which aspects of the subject to concentrate upon. I have quoted at length from Queen Elizabeth’s private letters because few of them have been seen before and because I found them remarkable – from childhood to old age she wrote with a rare clarity and verve. Her letters illuminate sides of her character which were not always clear to people beyond her immediate family. Not all her letters, written or received, survive; sadly I was able to find few between her and her mother, Lady Strathmore. As happens in any family, other letters have been lost or thrown away over the years. Nevertheless, I have sought wherever possible to use the primary sources uniquely available to me when narrating the trajectory of Queen Elizabeth’s life.
The English philosopher Roger Scruton has, in a happy phrase, described the British monarchy as ‘the light above politics’. It is the light that Queen Elizabeth cast over the life of the nation that I have tried to describe.
WILLIAM SHAWCROSS
July 2009
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bsp; * In this book the misspellings of Queen Elizabeth’s childhood letters have been left as written, but her occasional mistakes as an adult have been corrected (as have those of a few other writers) on the grounds that they are an unnecessary distraction from the sense of the letters. She herself was well aware that spelling was not her strong point. ‘It all smacks to me of BUREAUCRACY!!!’ she once wrote in a note inveighing against that particular bugbear. ‘How fortunate that I have just learnt to spell this valuable word!’ (RA QEQM/PRIV/MISCOFF)
PROLOGUE
WEDNESDAY 19 JULY 2000 was the day chosen for the pageant celebrating the hundredth birthday of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. In London, the day did not begin well. There were bomb scares, the controlled explosion of a suspicious bag, and many trains were cancelled. Senior police officers considered whether the whole event should be abandoned. It was not.
The celebration, on Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall, had been designed as a joyful tribute to Queen Elizabeth and the hundreds of organizations with which she was connected. In warm afternoon sunshine, as the National Anthem was performed by massed military bands, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and a choir of a thousand singers, Queen Elizabeth, dressed in pink, arrived with her grandson the Prince of Wales in a landau escorted by the Household Cavalry.
The Queen Mother Page 2