The Royals

by Kitty Kelley

  UPI-Corbis/Bettmann

  “I like athletic men,” said Fergie, who courted Australian tennis player Thomas Muster.

  Dave Chancellor/Globe Photos

  Johnny Bryan, whose poolside romp with Fergie and her children in the South of France in 1992 was captured by paparazzi. The photos of a bare-breasted duchess and her toe-sucking financial adviser caused an international scandal.

  AP/Wide World

  Archive Photos

  As single mothers, Diana and Sarah begin new lives. The Princess of Wales with her two children, Prince Harry and Prince William. The Duchess of York with her two children, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

  AP/Wide World

  Archive Photos/BIG Pictures

  Sophie Rhys Jones with HRH Prince Edward, who asks to be called “Mr. Windsor” during the days he works for a living making television documentaries. In the evenings he insists that people address him as His Royal Highness. The Queen gave the couple, who met in 1993, permission to share Edward’s rooms at Buckingham Palace.

  Archive Photos/Express Newspaper

  The Queen Mother on her ninety-fourth birthday surrounded by most of the royal family. Back row, left to right: Anne, The Princess Royal; Commander Tim Laurence; Viscount Linley and his wife, Serena; Peter Phillips, son of Princess Anne; Sir Angus Ogilvy; Princess Alexandra; Prince Edward; Prince Andrew (head turned away from camera). Front row, left to right: Her Majesty; Zara Phillips, daughter of Princess Anne; Queen Mother; Prince William; Princess Margaret; Prince Charles; Prince Harry.

  Archive Photos/PA News

  Trog/The Observer/London/Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate

  AP/Wide World

  THE TROUBLES OF PRINCESS DI (REPRISE)

  by Calvin Trillin

  Oh Di, we try to keep your troubles high

  On any list we make of tragic matters.

  Egad, it’s sad the tsoris that you’ve had:

  The prince. Your health. A paramour who matters.

  And now you vow to stick it out somehow,

  So William would be king, and not his pater.

  If so, let’s go. If it would end this show,

  We’d like to see it sooner, Di, not later.

  Calvin Trillin

  Prince William, the man who might be King.

  Chapter Notes

  More than one thousand people contributed to this book over a period of four years. Many who provided information are cited in the text, the bibliography, and the acknowledgments. The following summary, by no means all-inclusive, provides the reader with a general review of other aspects of research involved in constructing the book.

  CHAPTER 1

  Traditionally, royalty has been held up as the golden standard by which the rest of us should live. An illustrious moment occurs in Leon Uris’s novel Exodus, when the King of Denmark transmits a message to all Danes regarding the Nazi command that Danish Jews must wear a Star of David:

  “The King has said that one Dane is exactly the same as the next Dane. He himself will wear the first Star of David, and he expects that every loyal Dane will do the same.”

  The next day the residents of Copenhagen stood in the town square wearing armbands with the Star of David. The following day the Germans rescinded their order.

  Struck by the King’s admirable courage, I wrote to the palace in Denmark, seeking to verify a historical incident and learn more about this noble monarch who had demonstrated such integrity. He was an exemplar of how royalty should behave. Since I was writing about royalty, I wanted to define its ennobling characteristics.

  The following reply from the Lord Chamberlain of Denmark made me wish I had never inquired. It taught me a lesson about the facts and fables and fantasies of royalty:

  With regard to the incident described in Exodus by Leon Uris (1958), the following information regarding King Christian X of Denmark’s attitude toward the Jews can be supplied:

  1. In 1933, after Hitler’s takeover, the King attended a service in the synagogue.

  2. In 1941, after the German occupation, the King in a personal letter condoled the Jewish community due to a fire in the synagogue.

  3. In October 1943, the King in a personal letter to Ribbentrop warned him against interning the Danish Jews.

  King Christian never wore the David Star and nothing is related for sure that he eventually threatened to do so….

  Almost apologetically, he concluded his letter to me: “The story has been widely spread and used by many other Danish and foreign authors.”

  CHAPTERS 2 AND 3

  Documents regarding U.S. and U.K. relations received through the Freedom of Information Act; the Presidential Library of Franklin D. Roosevelt; U.S. Department of State documents regarding British royal family during the years 1940– 1945. Diplomatic cables indicated difficulties both countries experienced in dealing with the Windsors. One telegram dated July 20, 1940, from the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon to the Secretary of State:

  Duke and duchess of Windsor are indiscreet and outspoken against British government. Consider their presence in the United States might be disturbing and confusing. They say that they intend remaining in the United States whether Churchill likes it or not and desire apparently to make propaganda for peace. If Department cancels their visas they could take clipper to Bermuda thence to Bahamas. Visas were given by Consulate General.

  Interviews with Robert Lacey (April 18, 1995); Michael Thornton (November 13, 1993); Nicholas Haslam (March 30, 1994); Bevis Hillier (April 16, 1994); Fleur Cowles (November 8, 1993); Sue Townsend (April 19, 1994); Michael Bloch (April 14, 1994).

  Books: Chronicle of the Royal Family by Ray Boston; The Royal House of Windsor by Elizabeth Longford; King George V by Kenneth Rose.

  Articles: “Unhappy and Inglorious” by Richard Tomlinson, Independent on Sunday, June 12, 1994; Profile, Annabel Goldsmith, Daily Mail, August 4, 1994.

  Re: Relationship of royal family with Duke and Duchess of Windsor:

  “I remember when Philip Ziegler got Palace permission to write the official biography of King Edward VIII,” recalled an editor at William Collins Sons & Co. “The Queen had to approve the manuscript because she gave Ziegler access to papers in the archives at Windsor Castle. He submitted his manuscript to the Palace and the Queen made her comments in the margins. The manuscript was not returned to him. Instead, one of her equerries called and said, On page such-and-such, Her Majesty feels that the information might be better phrased, and on page such-and-such, the information can be deleted….

  “At one point, the equerry laughed and said, ‘Her Majesty wrote in the margin here: “They did behave dreadfully, didn’t they?’ ”

  The Queen shared a summary of the manuscript with her mother, who summoned the author to Clarence House after reading about her feud with the Duchess of Windsor. “The Queen Mother was then ninety years old,” recalled the editor. “Ziegler arrived and she said, ever so sweetly, ‘Whatever gave you the idea that I hated Mrs. Simpson? Why, I only met her once.’ As I say, she was ninety years old then and Ziegler was not prepared to argue with the Queen Mother revising history.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Documents: Public Records Kew in London; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library for the President’s personal papers and the files of the White House social office dealing with the U.S. visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth; Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (correspondence November 1, 1995); British Library regarding the Marquess of Milford Haven’s pornography collection; unpublished diaries of the late Vice Admiral Harold Tom Baillie-Grohman.

  Articles: Series by Philip Ziegler (February 19, 1996); Life, August 3, 1953; Time, October 28, 1957.

  Interviews: Penelope Mortimer (May 9, 1995); Fiammetta Rocco (November 22, 24, 1993).

  Books: The Queen by Ann Morrow; FDR—A Biography by Ted Morgan; Great Britons by Harold Oxbury (Oxford University Press, 1985); Little Gloria Happy at Last by Barbara Goldsmith.

  CHAPTER 5

  For the period 1945–
1947, including the royal wedding of Elizabeth and Philip, several sources were consulted.

  Interviews: Larry Adler (May 24, November 22, 1993; January 10, 1995); Gant Gather on Philip’s courtship of Cobina Wright Jr.; Sarah Morrison (April 8, 1994); Hugh Bygott-Webb (May 4, 1995); Noreen Taylor (May 4, 5, 1995); James Bellini (November 24, 1993).

  Re: Mountbatten’s listing of himself in Who’s Who as follows:

  Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Baron Romsey, KG [Knight of the Garter], PC [Privy Councillor], GCB [Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath], KCB [Knight Commander of the Bath], CB [Companion of the Order of the Bath], OM [Order of Merit], GCSI [Grand Commander of the Star of India], GCIE [Grand Commander of the Indian Empire], GCVO [Grand Cross of the Victorian Order], KCVO [Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order], MVO [Member of the Royal Victorian Order], DSO [Distinguished Service Order], FRS [Fellow of the Royal Society], Hon. DCL [Hon. Doctor of Civil Law], Hon. LLD [Hon. Doctor of Laws], Hon. DSc [Hon. Doctor of Science], AMIEE [Associate Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers], AMRINA [Associate Member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects].

  Perplexed by the swarm of initials in the foregoing, I wrote to the Countess Mountbatten for clarification. In a letter dated March 30, 1995, her assistant wrote:

  She was sorry to hear that you had had such difficulty in discovering what those four post nominal letters to Lord Mountbatten’s name stood for. Actually they are all listed under “Abbreviations” in the front of both Who’s Who and Debrett’s Peerage!

  Lady Mountbatten has also asked me to say that you mention Hon. DSC.* This should actually read “Hon. DSc” and stands for Doctor of Science and not Distinguished Service Cross, which does not have Honorary Membership. She has also asked me to explain that Who’s Who lists the various grades of the Order of the Bath and the Victorian Order and the dates they were conferred, as matter of reference. Only the senior grade would be used normally after his name.

  Re: Wartime rationing:

  Dr. Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, researched the Public Record Office in London to document that the royal family received considerably more clothing coupons than its subjects during World War II. She reported her findings in History Today in 1993; Philip Ziegler, the authorized biographer of King George VI, dismissed the report as “a load of rubbish.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Correspondence with the Queen’s press secretary, Charles Anson, and his assistant Penny Russell-Smith (January 27, 1995); interviews with Roland Flamini (December 15, 1994; April 19, 1995); Nigel Dempster (May 23, 1993); Anthony Holden (March 25, April 15, 1994); profile of King George VI by W. F. Deedes, Daily Telegraph, December 14, 1994; Norman Barson correspondence (December 1, 1995; January 31, 1996) regarding his position within the royal household; Foreign Service dispatches pertaining to the royal tour of Canada in 1951.

  The Harry S Truman Library produced the handwritten letter that the President wrote to King George VI following Elizabeth and Philip’s November 1951 visit to the White House. Truman sent the letter to the British Ambassador in Washington. “I am asking you to forward a personal and confidential letter to the King,” he said.

  The letter:

  November 5, 1951

  Your Majesty:-

  We’ve just had a visit from a lovely young lady and her personable husband—their Royal Highnesses, Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh.

  They went to the hearts of all the citizens of the United States. We tried to make their visit a happy one.

  As one father to another, we can be very proud of our daughters. You have the better of me—because you have two!

  I hope you have an early and complete recovery. Please express my appreciation to Her Majesty the Queen for her Kindness to my Margaret.

  Sincerely,

  Harry S. Truman

  The Duke of Edinburgh wrote a letter full of exclamation points to thank Mrs. Truman on November 3, 1951:

  Dear Mrs. Truman,

  We arrived in Montreal at the same moment as a snowstorm! We are now in a log-cabin in the Laurentian Mountains under almost 2 feet of snow! The thought of 2 days of quiet is very welcome—I hope I am not making you jealous!

  I cannot thank you enough for the very kind and thoughtful way in which you entertained us at Blair House.

  In an otherwise rather blurred memory of our rush round Washington the hospitality and friendliness of your house and family stand out very clearly.

  I do hope that Margaret’s T-V show goes off alright without her getting into difficulties with Mr. Durante! All the same I am sure you will be relieved when she starts her proper concert tour. I hope it is a great success.

  It is a great pity that our stay was so short but you have whetted our appetites and we shall certainly be back to see you again either in the White House or in Mizzoura!

  Yours very sincerely,

  Philip

  CHAPTER 7

  Correspondence with the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo; interviews with Philip Knightley (November 9, 19, 1993) and Maurice Weaver (March 3, 1994).

  Books: The Royal Family by Pierre Berton (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1953); The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor by Michael Bloch, 1988.

  Articles: “Prince Philip: England’s Most Misunderstood Man” by Ken W. Purdy, Look, April 7, 1964; Newsweek, March 22, 1954; the Evening Star, October 11, 1957; “A Person Apart, Bounded by Precedent” by Robert T. Elson, Life, March 6, 1964.

  Re: Queen Elizabeth II’s regard for Queen Victoria:

  “She will try to suppress anything she considers negative about Victoria,” said former Private Eye editor Richard Ingrams (November 24, 1993). “My grandfather, Sir James Reid, was Queen Victoria’s doctor, and had been involved in her burial. In carrying out her orders, he followed her list of things to go inside her coffin. Royalty has a tradition of consulting a peasant, and Victoria had a working-class Scot, John Brown, who was rumored to be her lover. She left instructions to have certain things buried with her, and one was a photo of John Brown’s mother. That was what Queen Elizabeth tried to suppress. She’s particularly protective of Queen Victoria.

  “We found out how much the Queen had objected to this information being published when my wife, Michaela, met Princess Margaret at a social function. The Princess said, ‘You had no right to put that in your book. That was my sister’s property.’

  “The Princess was upset because the Queen had been upset, and Margaret cared enough to bring it up way after the fact. My mother wrote to Princess Margaret, asking what business it was of hers…. And that was the end of the matter.”

  Many historians have noted Queen Elizabeth II’s fixation with Queen Victoria. Stanley Weintraub, Evan Pugh Professor of Arts and Humanities, Pennsylvania State University, said in a lecture that Elizabeth is so protective of her predecessor’s image she would not have dedicated “Broadgate Venus” in London in 1993 if she had known that the plump sculpture poked fun at Victoria. The rotund Queen, who ballooned as an adult with a fifty-four-inch waist, was known to her African subjects as “the Great She Elephant Across the Big Water.”

  “It was a private joke by the artist on Queen Victoria as a full-blown adult,” said Professor Weintraub.

  Not so, said Fernando Botero, Latin America’s most famous living artist. In a letter to the author, Botero wrote: “That piece actually represents the most famous and used theme in sculpture: the reclining female figure…. But I’m sure, because of the extreme deformation, that the piece is open to different interpretations, including Queen Victoria as a full-blown adult.”

  CHAPTER 8

  During Philip’s 1956 tour of the Commonwealth, he missed his ninth wedding anniversary, his son’s eighth birthday, and Charles’s first day of school outside the Palace. Sources consulted for background: New York Mirror, October 18, 1957; Time, October 12, 1957; New York Times Magazine, Februar
y 3, 1957. The reunion: Sunday Express, February 17, 1957, plus the report of Sydney Smith, who traveled with Michael Parker from Gibraltar to London.

  The subject of other women in Philip’s life became international news in 1957 when the Baltimore Sun carried an article suggesting the Queen’s husband was conducting an extramarital affair. Three decades later the personal life of the Duke of Edinburgh continued to cause speculation, but British publishers resisted printing stories that might appear disrespectful to the monarch. Touchy about suggestions of Prince Philip with other women, they scissored references from books and articles, citing Britain’s libel laws. In the U.S. publication of Elizabeth and Philip by Charles Higham and Roy Moseley (Doubleday, New York, 1991), the authors wrote about “four mystery women in Philip’s life. One of these was a popular singer and dancer, another an actress who lived over a tobacco shop, still another a Greek cabaret singer, and the fourth a ‘Mrs. S,’ whom he had allegedly visited at a flat in Chelsea.” In the U.K. publication of the book, the innuendo was excised by lawyers.

  In addition to the personal recollections of diplomats and reporters who covered the crisis of Suez, I consulted Oxford Illustrated History; History of the Modern World; Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia of World History.

  Interviews: Warren Rogers, Associated Press (March 1995); Larry Adler (November 29, 1993); Christopher Sylvester (November 29, 1993; July 27, 1995).

  Re: Prince Charles as a student: His interview to ABC-TV (December 6, 1984), plus personal recollections of classmates and teachers. The young Prince was remembered for his “interesting” views. One history professor was amazed to hear the Prince defend George III, the monarch who was mentally deranged. But to Charles, his ancestor was admirable because “he loved the arts and was a great human being.” Charles said, “I happen to admire, appreciate, and sympathize with a lot of things he did and enjoyed. I see him as a person whom I’d love to have met in a corridor. I’d love to have talked with him. He was a marvelous eccentric.” The professor noted that George III talked to trees in Hyde Park and Charles talked to plants at Highgrove.