Royal Sisters

by Anne Edwards

  Philip’s training as a cadet was completed in January 1940, when he joined his first ship, Ramillies, and sailed with her to Australia to bring back troop convoys. When she reached the Mediterranean he was forced to leave her since, as a Greek citizen, he was still a neutral and the Ramillies was in an area of active operations. When Greece entered the war a few months later, he was promptly drafted to the Valiant.

  The Battle of Matapan was his first naval action. The key encounter was the night raid by three battleships, Valiant, Warspite, and Barham, in which the Italian cruisers Zara and Fuime were completely destroyed.

  Philip was in charge of a section of the Valiant’s searchlight control. The lighting up of enemy ships plays a vital role in the accuracy of a gun crew in night action. The Valiant made twenty-four direct hits of thirty-two fired. (One report stated: “Fleet tactical orders allotted to Valiant the duty of illuminating enemy targets. Radar gave the first warning of the approach of the enemy ships, which were returning south-eastwards, presumably to try to aid the cruiser Pola, crippled by a previous air bombardment. The destroyer Greyhound was first to light up the enemy. An instant later Valiant’s lights were on targets, which she kept illuminating for the remainder of the action.”)

  When Valiant docked in Athens in January 1941, Greece was locked in bitter combat with Italy and ruled by a dictator, General John Metaxas. The debonair King George II and his first cousin, young Crown Prince Paul, lived together in humiliatingly reduced circumstances at the Palace and had to attend bargain sales in the Athens shops for their necessities. (In 1921, while waiting for Philip to be born, Princess Andrew had written with some pride to her brother Dickie: “My son, if God wills, could become one day the King, if Monarchy prevails.”)

  Princess Andrew was now living in a small house in Athens with a deaf companion who could sign with her. But three of Philip’s surviving sisters lived in Germany and were married to serving German officers. Since the expectation was that Hitler would soon declare war on Greece, the mood at the cocktail party given by the English ambassador and attended by Chips Channon, Princess Nicholas and Philip could not have been lighthearted. For a young man not yet twenty, Philip had a great many things to trouble him, but he also had a large capacity to enjoy life.

  His exotic, dark-haired Greek cousin Alexandra also resided in Athens. They were contemporaries and she saw him often. To her, Philip seemed “gay, debonair, confident.” Alexandra lived in a hillside house that could only be reached by a long, difficult ascent. “Philip would come bounding up the hundred steps—for record-playing and dancing—with a whole new group of [young] friends ... [mostly from] the British Legation.... In the evening the family often gathered either at the Palace with the King (Uncle Georgie) or at one of our [the Greek Royal Family’s] homes.”

  The cousins were to meet soon again in Cape Town, South Africa, where Alexandra had fled to escape the constant bombardment of Athens and Philip’s ship had come into port. “One evening [when he was on shore leave] in Cape Town [and] I wanted to chat, he insisted on finishing a letter he was writing and I, cousin-like, asked, ‘Who’s it to?’

  “ ‘Lilibet,’ he answered.

  “ ‘Who?’ I asked, rather mystified.

  “ ‘Princess Elizabeth, in England.’

  ” ‘But she’s only a baby,’ I said, still puzzled, as he sealed the letter. Aha, I thought, he knows he’s going to England and he’s angling for invitations.”

  His plans were to return to England where he would spend the next two years on home stations. Mountbatten, newly appointed Chief of Combined Operations, was also back in London preparing for a cross-Channel raid at Dieppe. In April 1942, Channon lunched with both him and Edwina, “a dazzling couple ... Dicky much grown in stature since he took up his highly important, indeed vital, command. But only when I talked of his nephew, Prince Philip of Greece, did his sleepy strange eyes light up in affectionate, almost paternal light.”

  The Mountbattens had two daughters, Lady Pamela and Lady Patricia, whom their father doted on. But he was a Navy man, the son of another great sailor, and like Philip, he was a member of a Royal Family that had been treated sorely. Mountbatten might never find it it in him to forgive King George for relieving his father, Lord Louis, of his command at the height of anti-German emotions during the First World War. But his own brilliant career and the inclusion of a Mountbatten in the British succession would one day compensate for this outrage.

  By the autumn of 1942 Philip was out of the main action. When granted leave he would go to London where he kept rooms at his uncle’s house, lunch with one of his cousins—Alexandra (who had followed him to London) or David Milford Haven—and spend the night out at the 400 Club in Leicester Square or at the Savoy on the Strand. The Café de Paris, another favorite haunt of London’s social set, had recently suffered a catastrophic bombing. Laura, Duchess of Marlborough, recalled passing the café on her way to the 400 just five minutes after the explosion. “Men and women in full evening dress lying on the pavement ... too few nurses and doctors ... some dreadful looting going on. Diamond bracelets, brooches and even silk stockings were being stripped off the badly injured (if not dead) women ... having seen the horrors at the Café de Paris, my party went on to the 400. It sounds callous and unfeeling but that was the way the war went when one was actually not at work.”

  The constant bombardments, the destruction, the ever-presence of danger and death had now become a way of life. England carried on bravely, and in London “very few people bothered about going to shelters.... One could see more and more people around ... the streets.... At night everywhere was packed, and the town seemed overcrowded, gay and full of atmosphere and intense living,” wrote the former Hélène Foufounis, a good friend of Philip’s. “Nothing stopped. The traffic went on full swing.... Even five o’clock in the morning the tubes and shelters may have been full, but so were the streets and restaurants and the night spots.... It was as if everybody wanted to be with everybody else, as if every minute in the present was terribly important, and the future ... became very vague, hazy and unreal.”

  Hélène parents were Greek royalists who had lived in France and had worked very hard to help the Greek Royal Family in exile back into power in Greece. A good part of Philip’s five years in France as a child was spent at the Foufounis country home in Saint-Cloud where he and his sisters would come for three months at a time. “After her [three] children, the Greek Royal Family was everything in [my mother’s] life,” Hélène declared. “Nothing else and nobody else existed.” Philip and Hélène, nearest in age of the young people at Saint-Cloud, became allies.

  Hélène came to England in 1938 while Philip was at Gordonstoun. Her mother’s dream for them to marry one day was no secret, but according to Hélène’s account, she fell in love that year with a young Oxford student whom she married on April 29, 1938. Philip was not only best man but gave the bride away. When he returned to England in the fall of 1942 after serving abroad, Hélène’s marriage had been dissolved and she was living in London. So Philip was not without youthful companionship.

  Despite the exigencies of war, his life was not unpleasant. He came and went as he liked at Mountbatten’s homes in London and the country and often spent time with another cousin, Marina, Duchess of Kent, at Coppins, her country home where all manner of exciting personalities were bound to be present. Marina was a striking beauty with “cool, classical features in a perfect oval head held high on a straight column of neck; the topaz eyes, the slightly tilted smile” were breathtaking. Very royal, always dressed elegantly and possessing a distinctive, deep, clipped, accented voice, she moved with panache among her guests—exiled royalty along with her husband’s family, politicians like Chips Channon, society figures (many from the old Edward-Wallis set) and creative artists like Noël Coward and Cecil Beaton. Beaton thought that the Duke of Kent led “her a terrible dance,” and although the King’s younger brother cut a handsome figure, his sharp tongue and his drug and alco
hol abuse created serious marital problems.

  Philip’s mother remained in Greece. The Nazis threatened occupation, but Philip was confident that with his sisters’ German affiliations, Princess Andrew would be safe. As Christmas drew near he had several alternatives as to where he might go: Asdean or Coppins, which would guarantee sophisticated company and adult pleasures; or Kensington Palace with his grandmother, where London’s night life would be readily accessible. He chose instead to go to Windsor Castle, dowdy in its wartime atmosphere, where life revolved around the two young Princesses still living in a nursery setting.

  Manly, “divinely tall and well-built,” Philip possessed an enormous store of physical energy, was “aggressive, a touch patronising, funny, really funny and had a way with women,” said one of his youthful friends. “I think Hélène always loved him. But she knew he would never marry her. Somehow, there was an unspoken acceptance that he planned to marry into the British Royal Family and if it had not worked out with Princess Elizabeth, then he would have happily waited for her sister to grow up.

  “He wanted more than anything else to be English not Greek. His father’s bitterness toward his native land had transferred itself to Philip at an early age.

  “There is a story that once as a young boy, when he was in London visiting his uncle [Dickie] Mountbatten, he hid under one of the beds and had to be dragged out screaming and later sedated before his mother could board a train with him to return to France. A year or so later, he came back to England to stay.

  “Also, he was most determined to speak English without an accent. Until he was nine, Greek and French were his first languages, although he spoke German and English, but not as well. Once he left his parents he spoke only English. He always modelled himself after his Uncle Dickie. When his Uncle George [Mountbatten] died, the attachment became even stronger. But he looked more like his father than anyone. Put a monocle in his eye and you could have sworn he was Prince Andrew!

  “He had mixed emotions about his mother. She was terribly bizarre and yet she was regarded as a bit of a saint in the Mountbatten family. She had suffered and overcome so much and yet she was not in the least bitter—or so it appeared. Instead, she devoted her life to her religion and gave what free time she had to helping war orphans. You could not, without some loss of self-esteem, resent such a woman. She was not an easy mother-figure to have in your life. But then Philip always identified more with men than women.”

  George VI was not a man Philip could warm to, nor, for that matter, did the King take an immediate liking to him. Philip seemed a bit too wild, although his manners were impeccable and his outward respect unimpeachable. But his thoroughly outgoing personality and his sharp, often biting wit made the King uncomfortable. Bertie’s nervousness had increased with the pressures of war, and his uneasiness was sometimes marked “by an almost aggressively domineering manner.”

  He found particularly distasteful any irregularities in the wearing of a uniform. From the first day of the war until the last he wore Navy, Army and RAF uniform in turn, his favorite being that of Admiral of the Fleet, and much time was taken to ensure the rightness of every detail. (Weekends, however, he donned sports clothes.) When King Peter of Yugoslavia (in England for his marriage to Alexandra) came to the Palace, he wore a gold watch chain threaded through two upper pockets of his tunic.

  “Is it part of the uniform?” King George asked him coldly.

  “No.”

  “Then take it off. It looks damned silly and damned sloppy.”

  He had made a hobby of the study of decorations and was an expert in this esoteric field. No misplacement of a ribbon or medal, however slight, ever failed to escape his notice or comment. He did not share the Queen’s capacity for polite talk, but his attitude loosened considerably when she was by his side.

  The contrast of Philip’s leaves in London and life at Windsor was dramatic. The sisters were living in a time warp. By being confined to the Castle and its grounds, they had escaped the sight of London under fire and the death and destruction that accompanied it. Their parents regarded their Windsor weekends and holidays as a time out from war and the terrible tension they were under in London. The King did not neglect his red despatch cases, and official black cars—carrying men on his staff as well as visiting dignitaries—came and went. But essentially the atmosphere at Windsor was that of a contented family, albeit one in which the father was not always easy to communicate with. This did not unnerve Philip, who seemed a good deal more relaxed with the King than the King was with him.

  From the moment Philip arrived, his eyes were on Lilibet. She had grown into a fully developed young woman and had an easy charm that was akin to her mother’s. Beaton had photographed her a few weeks earlier and found her “serene, magnetic, and at the same time meltingly sympathetic.” But he was disappointed that he could not capture in his photographs “the effect of the dazzlingly fresh complexion, the clear regard from the glass-blue eyes, and the gentle, all-pervading sweetness of her smile.” She also had a pleasant voice and formed her words carefully, in the same way the Queen spoke, setting a pace for the King that would avoid some of his speech difficulties.

  The sisters had selected Aladdin as their third Christmas pantomime and Lilibet took the leading role. On opening night she came to Crawfie “looking rather pink. ‘Who do you think is coming to see us act, Crawfie? Philip!’ ” she exclaimed. Because he was staying at the Castle, he attended all five performances that were given during Christmas week and came backstage to help with the props. “Both in the audience and in the wings he thoroughly entered into the fun,” reported Lisa Sheridan, who was taking photographs of the pantomime.

  “I remember in particular the scene in which Aladdin and his girlfriend (Princess Margaret) were working in the Dame’s Laundry ... a constant interruption on the telephone, as one customer after another rang up to complain of this and that poor service from the laundry. And, meanwhile, the ... iron burning its way through valuable ‘unmentionables.’ ”

  Another sketch showed a sentry box with a soldier on duty. “When his superior officer passed, he jumped to attention and saluted stiffly. But no sooner had the officer gone, when two girls emerged from the sentry box where they had been hiding.” Lilibet’s costume consisted of a red-and-gold-brocaded jacket, worn over satin shorts. The jacket reached her thighs, and in lieu of trousers, she wore silk stockings that revealed somewhat chunky but nonetheless shapely legs. A pair of gold-buckled shoes and a saucy hat completed the outfit. Her stocky, bosomy build seemed incongruous with the costume. As Philip must well have noted, she had matured into a voluptuous young woman. Margaret, a foot shorter and still pudgy, at times appeared dwarfed, and scenes between them were often played with the younger sister (wearing a long Arabian-style dress and a small tiara) standing on a step.

  Twelve is not an easy age and Margaret looked impatient to get it behind her. Everything about her was restless—the eyes of piercing blue—“catlike and fierce” while at the same time “so very pristine and youthful.” Her movements were quick, small dance steps up stairs, skirts always swishing, and her voice rapid, “high-pitched, rather strident.” The looks that passed between Lilibet and Philip were not lost on her.

  “I don’t think Princess Margaret is quite so merry this year,” Lisa Sheridan wrote. “She is taking herself a little seriously but I am sure that won’t last! Her ability on the stage is quite outstanding—slick, self-possessed, and a really charming voice. She is exceptionally musical.”

  Christmas dinner was an unusually intimate holiday gathering with only nine people—the King, Queen, Lilibet, Margaret, Philip and four more guests present, Grenadier officers who could not return home for the holiday. Later they told ghost stories around the fire in the otherwise darkened small drawing room. “We settled ourselves to be frightened,” Margaret wrote, “and we were not. Most disappointing.” The next evening, with the addition of David Milford Haven, members of the Household staff and the officers o
f the Grenadier Guards, dancing to a gramophone and charades were added to liven the festivities. Margaret shone at the former but was not allowed to dance with anyone but her father. Lilibet, however, learned for the first time what it was like to be the belle of the ball. No one could help but notice that she sparkled most when talking or dancing with Philip.

  He left Windsor to celebrate New Year’s Eve in London at a party at Hélène’s apartment. But there was little doubt that at the Castle his attention had been directed toward Lilibet. As testament to this, letters now made their way between them with greater frequency and were of a more personal content, Philip describing his feelings about the Navy and the war and Lilibet writing him detailed accounts of life at Windsor.

  Margaret, having shared to this date almost every experience with her sister, now felt herself the same outsider she was when Lilibet was huddled over the red despatch boxes with their father. Only twelve at the time, she also had difficulty (not that she did not try) keeping up with new interests caused by her older sister’s burgeoning womanhood. Lilibet was reading romantic novels and wore silk stockings, and they no longer always dressed alike.

  To compound Margaret’s growing resentments, Lilibet was given a sitting room of her own, decorated to her personal taste in shades of peach and apple green and containing some handsome antique pieces of furniture, not too unlike some of those in her mother’s boudoir. Here, in an atmosphere far removed from the nursery, Lilibet answered the hundreds of letters she received from young people throughout England, and took private instruction. Crawfie was now teaching the sisters one on one. When Margaret often found her sister’s door closed to her she turned to Alah more and more for approval and comfort.