by Kitty Kelley
By 1956 Philip had had a bellyful of “pomping,” as he referred to court protocol. With his son starting school, his daughter too young to notice, and his wife too busy for him, he felt diminished. He decided to go off on his own for a while. He had been invited to visit Melbourne, Australia, for the opening of the 1956 Olympic games, so he laid out a forty-thousand-mile itinerary around this one event to include visits to The Gambia, the Seychelles, Malaya, New Guinea, New Zealand, Antarctica, the Falklands, Galápagos Islands, and the West Coast of the United States. He planned to travel for four months with Michael Parker. The two men had been navy shipmates, crewed on the same yachting team, and played cricket on the same team. Parker recently had separated from his wife, and Philip now wanted to be separated from his—geographically, if not matrimonially. So the two grown-up boys planned their trip to the South Pacific with the abandon of Huckleberry Finn and Jim rafting down the Mississippi.
“Philip was born with itchy feet,” said the Queen, seemingly unperturbed by his plans. “It’s a waste of time trying to change a man’s character,” she added. “You have to accept your husband as he is.”
Her husband presented the cruise as a “diplomatic mission.” “This is my personal contribution to the Commonwealth ideal,” he said, announcing that he would leave England by air for Mombassa, Kenya, on the east coast of Africa on October 15, 1956, to meet the royal yacht, Britannia, with its crew of 275. He would be accompanied by his equerry, Michael Parker, and his friend Baron, the photographer.
Several weeks before they left, the forty-nine-year-old court photographer went into the hospital for hip surgery to relieve his arthritis. He wanted to be in good shape for the trip, but a few days after his operation, he died of a heart attack. His fiancée, actress Sally Ann Howes, who had begged him not to undergo the surgery, never forgave Philip.
“Baron was a wonderful guy—witty, debonair, and quite brave,” said Larry Adler. “He belonged to the Thursday Club, and he gave Philip his bachelor party. He had been the official photographer for the royal wedding in 1947 and for the coronation in 1953. He felt that if he hadn’t been Jewish, he could’ve married Princess Margaret. He took wonderful pictures of the royal family, and for all of that, he naturally expected a knighthood. But Philip wouldn’t do a thing about it—he could have, I think, but he didn’t—and the reason was the Queen did not approve of Baron. She thought he got Philip into trouble and helped Philip find girlfriends.”
The Duke of Edinburgh, extraordinarily handsome at thirty-five, needed no help attracting women. He needed only privacy, which the cruise provided; it also kicked up a swirl of whispers. His trip to Australia became a sensitive issue for biographers who tried to investigate what happened and for friends who tried to defend him against scurrilous allegations. Even a devout monarchist like Barbara Cartland, who reveres the royal family, talks about a secret love affair that she learned of from Philip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten.
“I know all about Philip’s illegitimate daughter in Melbourne,” she told an interviewer, “but I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Look into the boathouse in Sydney that is owned by Lady Mary Ellen Barton,” advised an Australian lawyer. “That’s the place Philip used for his dalliances.”
The stories of Philip’s women and his trysts were as many and varied as his ports of call. “A couple of lady typists were flown out to join the boat in Singapore,” reported the royal author Brian Hoey. “It was said they didn’t do too much typing. They weren’t the type.”
The rumors dogged Philip from Melbourne to Sydney to Singapore, but as the Queen’s husband he carried a certain immunity. No one could touch him without harming her, and no one in Great Britain, not even republicans, wanted to harm the Queen, who in 1956 was still considered inviolate. So despite his protestations to Prince Bernhard, Philip enjoyed a freewheeling life away from the Palace.
On the tour he managed to relax enough to joke about his second-class status within his marriage. In Australia a young couple were presented to him as Mr. and Dr. Robinson. Philip looked surprised until Mr. Robinson explained that his wife was a doctor of philosophy and much more important than he. “Ah, yes,” said Philip. “We have that trouble in our family, too.”
During the cruise, Philip and his equerry had a whisker-growing contest to see who could grow the longest beard; they shot alligators and were photographed tromping around in matching safari suits; they sat on the deck of the Britannia, sunbathing, painting at their easels in the afternoon, and drinking gin and tonics in the evening. Philip felt at home on the yacht, which appealed to his sense of neatness and precision. Navy stewards used a tape measure to set the table so that knives, forks, and spoons were lined up evenly with dishes. They wore felt slippers so they would not make noise while delivering his messages. The British press slammed the trip as “Philip’s folly,” calling it useless, unnecessary, and a luxury that cost the nation “at least two million pounds.”* Estimating the tour’s cost at $11,000 a week, they criticized Philip’s “commando raft,” created to unload the royal Rolls-Royce in places where no docking facilities were available for automobiles, and they carped about his traveling with his own sports car. “Who pays for it all?” asked one newspaper.
While decrying the expense of the cruise, no one dared publish a word about the women who were entertained on board ship. The Queen’s husband was not an indiscreet man, and he certainly had no intention of embarrassing his wife. “He told me the first day he offered me my job,” said Michael Parker, “that his job, first, last, and always, was never to let Her Majesty down.” Still, the rumors persisted as Philip cruised the Indian Ocean, missing such family celebrations as his son’s eighth birthday, his own ninth wedding anniversary, and the tenth family Christmas.
“The cruise was a brilliant idea of Prince Philip’s and deserved much greater recognition,” Parker said years later. “The object was to put Britannia to her greatest use in visiting beleaguered British people deep in the oceans around the world—Ascension, St. Helena, Gough Island, Tristan de Cunha, the Falklands, South Georgia, Chatham Islands, Deception Island, and some bases in Antarctica open only twenty days a year. It was quite a sacrifice for all—our first Christmas away from home since the war to boot.”
Near Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Philip and his equerry watched the world almost explode. Shortly after leaving England, the Britannia was put on emergency notice to stand by for nine days as the Middle East seemed poised for war over the Suez Canal. Egypt had seized the Canal in July 1956 after the United States withdrew its $56 million commitment to help build the Aswan Dam. The U.S. move enraged Egypt’s President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who then closed the canal to all foreigners.
“I look at Americans and say: May you choke to death on your fury!” Nasser roared. “The annual income of the Suez Canal is $100 million. Why not take it ourselves? We shall rely on our own strength, our own muscle, our own funds. And it will be run by Egyptians! Egyptians! Egyptians!”
Of the 1.5 million barrels of oil that passed through the canal each day, 1.2 million went to Western Europe. So, in nationalizing the canal, Nasser had choked off the chief source of petroleum for England and France. Fearful for their survival and spoiling for retaliation, the two countries joined secretly with Israel, also menaced by the Arabs, to seize the canal. On October 29, 1956, Israel’s armored tanks plowed across the Sinai and attacked Egypt, giving Britain and France the excuse they needed. The next day they declared that fighting in the Middle East threatened international navigation and demanded both sides withdraw from the Suez within twenty-four hours. Egypt refused, and on October 31, 1956, the British and French started bombing. Five days later they dropped fifty thousand paratroops on Port Said, Egypt, at the mouth of the canal.
The Britannia, officially designated as a hospital ship during war, suspended its cruise. Philip was in constant radio contact with the Palace, which relayed hourly news bulletins. He learned that most of the world opposed the Anglo-French
alliance with Israel and their use of military force. At the United Nations, America, England’s staunchest ally, denounced the invasion, and Britain’s currency plummeted. Still, England and France continued to veto the UN’s cease-fire proposals. Finally the White House made it clear that if they continued to use force, the United States would not support them. Just as terrifying to England, France, and Israel was the hectoring threat from Russia to “crush the aggressors” and “restore peace… through the use of force.” With no U.S. support and the rest of the world against them, they yielded and announced a cease-fire.
The Queen was too young and inexperienced to exercise her royal prerogative and advise her new Prime Minister, Anthony Eden. Instead she listened to him and accepted his proposals. She knew that he had been brilliant as Winston Churchill’s Foreign Secretary but did not realize he was in over his head as Prime Minister. Struggling on five hours of sleep a night, he became addicted to amphetamines, which distorted his judgment. She was at the racetrack when his messenger reached her with an urgent proclamation requiring her signature, calling out army reserves. In between horse races, she signed. Britain was ready to go to war.
“In a few weeks’ time,” predicted Laborite John Strachey, “this country is going to wake up to the fact that we have marched into Egypt, marched out of Egypt, caused the canal to be blocked, stopped our oil, made every Arab in the world into an enemy, opened the Middle East to Russian penetration, split the Commonwealth, quarreled with the Americans, and ruined ourselves—all for nothing.”
Prime Minister Eden collapsed and flew to Jamaica in December to recuperate. Randolph Churchill compared Eden’s leadership to Hitler’s in marching his troops to Stalingrad and leaving them there to freeze to death. “Except,” said Winston Churchill’s son, “Hitler, with all his faults, did not winter in Jamaica.” Sir Anthony returned three weeks later to find gas lines blocking the roads as a result of emergency rationing brought on by the crisis. The next month he resigned as Prime Minister. As his replacement, the Queen chose Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan.
The country was reeling from international humiliation. The British press lashed out at everyone connected with the debacle. Even Philip, thousands of miles away, was berated for not being at his wife’s side. But the Queen said privately that she was relieved not to have her husband around. “I’m glad he wasn’t here,” she said. “All hell would have broken loose.”
After four months on board the Britannia, Philip headed for a family reunion in Lisbon with his wife before their state visit to Portugal. First he had to stop in Gibraltar to say good-bye to his equerry, who was no longer allowed to be in the Queen’s presence. Days before, news of Michael Parker’s divorce had leaked and the press was full of stories that his wife, Eileen, was suing him for sexual misconduct and demanding alimony on the grounds of alleged adultery. He was forced to resign. Philip raged about the hypocrisy of a broken marriage being an impediment to royal service when the former Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, had been married twice and divorced. Philip pleaded with his equerry to reconsider because he could not bear to lose the one person who was his friend and ally in the Palace, but both men knew, and Philip later admitted, that Parker “had to go,” especially after the Townsend affair. The Queen’s courtiers demanded that the equerry be put ashore before Philip’s reunion with the Queen. Furious at having to follow their orders, Philip insisted on accompanying his friend to the airport in Gibraltar. “It’s the least I can do,” he said. He looked unhappy as he emerged from a government limousine with Parker. Philip walked him to his waiting plane, and in front of reporters,* he clasped his hand in silence. Parker forced a smile, bounded up the steps without a backward glance, and flew to London, where he held a press conference with his lawyer.
Waiting for him at the London airport was the Queen’s formidable press secretary, Commander Richard Colville. The equerry brightened when he saw the courtier and approached to thank him for coming to run interference with the reporters. The press secretary cut him off before he could say a word and made it clear that he was not there to help him.
“Hello, Parker,” said Colville. “I’ve just come to let you know that from now on, you’re on your own.” That said, Colville turned and walked away.
In Lisbon the Queen’s plane circled the airfield because the Queen’s husband was running late. On board the Viscount airliner, Her Majesty and her twenty-five passengers, including Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, and all her ladies-in-waiting, giggled as they pasted fake beards on their chins in preparation for Philip’s arrival. He had sent the Queen a picture of himself after weeks without a shave. “It was the Queen’s idea,” said one of the women. “She has a wonderful sense of humor.”
At the time, few people around the throne were laughing. The press in Germany, France, and Italy had published another round of stories about the Duke of Edinburgh’s “bachelor apartment close to London’s famous Berkeley Square” and questioned whether the weekly dinner parties of the Thursday Club that met “in the infamous Soho district” had been confined to Philip’s male friends. On February 5, 1957, the Evening Standard of London had implied a less-than-happy marriage by reporting that Philip had ordered a new bed for his room at Windsor Castle. The bed was made to his exact specifications (“It’s a single bed,” reported the newspaper). Other than mentioning that the Queen “rode alone” in Windsor Great Park and opened Parliament “without her husband by her side,” the British press had remained silent about the Queen’s rocky marriage and relied on the American press to spread the bad news. On February 8, 1957, the Baltimore Sun delivered. The story ran on the front page under the headline “London Rumors of Rift in Royal Family Growing.” Filed by the paper’s London correspondent, Joan Graham, the article linked Michael Parker’s resignation to whispers that the Duke of Edinburgh had had more than a passing interest in an unmarried woman and had met her regularly in the apartment of the late royal photographer, the Duke’s friend Baron Nahum. Asserting that rumors about the splintered royal marriage “are now percolating down to the British masses, who only know about the royal family from what is printed in the British press,” the dispatch concluded the real reason for the four-month cruise was that Philip “was being got out of the country to cool down.”
The Queen, who according to people close to her had been troubled enough about her marriage to consult a psychiatrist three times during this period, acted stunned. “How can they say such terrible things about us?” she asked her dresser, BoBo MacDonald. The Palace courtiers became concerned, thinking the monarchy was being sullied. Commander Richard Colville, the Queen’s press secretary, quickly denounced the story. “It is quite untrue that there is a rift between the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh,” he said. “It’s a lie.” His denial was reported around the world with a recapitulation of the offending story, which insured that the Queen’s strained marriage now became international news.
The British press took exception. “We could not drag even a simple denial out of the palace for the British public,” said an editorial in the London Daily Herald. “For Americans, a denial. For the British people, no comment. The Queen’s subjects were evidently not supposed to know.” The Daily Mirror blamed the Queen’s courtiers: “They need lessons on how to handle a hot potato.”
The next day the Queen put on her public face, and the United Press reported from London that she “was amused” by the rumors of a rift between her and her husband. “The Queen shrugged off the story,” UP said, “and gave the impression that her reunion with the Duke in Portugal after the longest separation of their marriage would effectively squelch further gossip…. Anyone with eyes to see will know then how wrong the stories are.”
A horde of reporters and photographers swarmed into Lisbon to watch the royal reunion at the airport. Philip was already irascible about the press coverage he had received, which compared him—unfavorably—with Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert. Victoria had included him in her meetings w
ith ministers and allowed him to read her state papers. At first Philip joked about his lack of status. “Constitutionally, I don’t exist,” he said. But when he arrived in Lisbon and saw the press waiting for him, he stopped chuckling. “Those bloody lies that you people print to make money,” he snapped. “These lies about how I’m never with my wife.”
Running five minutes late, he bounded up the steps to the Queen’s airplane two at a time. He was wearing a suit, a white shirt, a tie, and a bronze tan with a small white shadow around his chin where he had obviously just shaved off his beard.
An hour later he emerged from the plane with a faint smudge of lipstick on his cheek and smilingly assumed his position a few paces behind the Queen. They spent the weekend together on the Britannia, anchored in the choppy waters of the river Sado, which was a big concession on the Queen’s part. Never a sailor, she was afraid of water and usually avoided the yacht because she was prone to seasickness, but on this weekend she was determined to accommodate her sea-loving husband. Knowing their schedule was set for the next two years, she decided that after their royal tour of Canada in 1959, she would concentrate on her ambition to have four children. She also would change the rules regarding her family name so that her descendants not in direct line for the throne would carry her husband’s name and be known as Mountbatten-Windsor.