Royal Sisters

by Anne Edwards

  As has often been noted, “no two sisters could have been less alike.” Lilibet was reserved, serious and prim; Margaret, outgoing, fun-loving and lively. She was also graceful and talented, and even her martinet grandmother, Queen Mary, found her “so outrageously amusing that one can’t help encouraging her.” In a gathering, Margaret was the one who sparkled; Margaret, who looked the more attractive in their twin clothes; Margaret, who was forgiven anything because she was younger and—through no fault or choice of Lilibet’s—was not to be Queen with all the treasures and adoration that went with it.

  Lilibet was not without her own sibling resentments. She had always had to work harder than Margaret and be more responsible and correct in her demeanor. Some of it came naturally, but not all. And often what was expected of her was almost more than she could deal with, and the tension it caused was palpable. So, while she tried desperately to understand the contents of the despatch boxes, make sense of the small print in the constitutional history books, learn court etiquette, be able to identify insignia and medals instantly and bone up on all visiting dignitaries and their countries so that she could ask cogent and impressive questions, Margaret was being entertained and indulged.

  Ironically, it was Lilibet who, despite her apparent advantages, felt the more insecure. And there was always the nagging fear that if she failed to live up to her parents’ expectations, she might lose their love as her Uncle David had done.

  Philip’s attention had raised her self-confidence. Handsome, charming, witty and worldly, he could have had his choice of any young woman. He looked at her in a way that made her feel beautiful. Once, at Coppins, when she wore an azure frock, he had said, “Blue becomes you, Ma’am.” She consistently wore blue to their meetings after that. Perhaps she wondered if he might be interested in her because of her position and how this would benefit him. But the main point was that he made her feel not only like a woman but like an individual, and all her life she had felt tied—to her duty, her father and her sister.

  Margaret had some understanding of Lilibet’s problems. After all, she had been the one to say “poor you” when she learned Lilibet would one day be Queen. But that did not negate Margaret’s feeling of being replaced by Philip in her sister’s world. For her entire life she had thought of herself as one of a pair. She now realized she would have to begin cultivating her own friends. That was not a simple matter in the cloistered circumstances in which she lived. Too young to have a Lady-in-Waiting, she struck up a casual friendship with her father’s Equerry, Group Captain Townsend.

  To his surprise, Townsend had quickly adapted to his new post. A great part of this had to do with his being “completely wet from war.” Nearly all his close friends had been killed, and a kind of emotional numbness had crept over him. Palace life was a safe harbor. He spent hours on end in the somber Equerry’s Room, “a few book shelves in it to glance at—books of law and constitution and things like that.” A fireplace and a long writing table completed the decor. The duty of the Equerry was to sit in this room, “chilled to the bone generally,” and wait for a page to tell him that His Majesty had retired and he could go to bed.

  “There was a bell [connected to the King’s bedroom]—a huge bell that made a ghastly sound like a fire alarm, a nasty clanging noise—but it was rare for the King to ring it.” Sir Alan Lascelles had warned Townsend that sometimes the King’s temper got the better of him, and the new Equerry was soon a witness to these outbursts. During one of these his face would flush deep purple with rage and his breath come in short puffs. If the Queen was present, she would take his pulse. It was usually after such a fiery display that the bell clanged, and when the Equerry answered the call, the King would look up at him “like a small boy and apologize.”

  Equerries referred to the King as “Sir, but it was always a good idea to throw in ‘Your Majesty’ from time to time.” More difficult was the task for a new member of the Court to learn who was who, by what title she or he must be addressed, and the proper protocol for all occasions.

  “Churchill was the only man to whom the King accorded special privileges. Normally every visitor, whether [President] Eisenhower or Nehru, was met at the Equerries door, led down the corridor to the King’s apartments. There were six steps going up to the door. You knocked, brought the visitor in after being bid to do so, and announced him. But Churchill—the King came to the door and always met him just at the top [of the stairs].”

  Townsend found the King “a profoundly simple man—you could see in his outward aspect that he was a good man, not an intellectual, not a very quick wit—he loved music-hall humour—other rather daring things. Sometimes he could tell some rather amusing stories—not dirty stories—just amusing.... The Royal Family were deeply devoted to one another. Princess Elizabeth was more like her father. She loved a good laugh but you had to make her laugh. She wasn’t a funny person. Princess Margaret, on the other hand, was a comedian. She could have gone on the stage. She could imitate any accent and did an uproarious impression of Ethel Merman [the American performer whom she had heard on a record].”

  By nature of their temperaments, Townsend had more of an empathy for Margaret than for Lilibet. He thought of her as a willful, charming child, but he respected her intelligence. At Easter, when he had been with the family only three months, he had accompanied them to Appleton House on the King’s estate at Sandringham. The main house had been closed since the war; and Appleton which, before her death in 1938, had been the country home of Queen Maud of Norway (George V’s sister), had been converted into a wartime retreat and shelter for the family. It was much smaller than other Royal homes, and fewer Household members could be accommodated. Those who were lived in closer proximity to the family. Appleton House was near the stables, where the horses remained during the war. The grounds were hilly and there were “lots of ups and downs in the garden.” Townsend and the sisters used bicycles. “We’d go whizzing down and up the other side,” he recalled. The Queen’s Lady-in-Waiting, Marion Hyde, was with the reduced staff at Appleton, and she and Townsend shared “the recreational hours of the day ... lunching and dining with [the family] and remaining with them until the evening was spent.”

  For the first time there was someone in the inner circle with whom Margaret could relate on an intellectual level. She and Townsend discussed Shakespeare and Chaucer, as well as her loathing for stalking and shooting. And she could “let down her reserves, confessing some of the frustrations she suffered and some of the aspirations she nurtured.” There was a great deal of the teacher/student in their relationship. With Townsend’s friendship she seemed much less unpredictable, and both the King and Queen welcomed his calming influence on their daughter. If they suspected that she had fantasies about him, they dismissed them. If Margaret was to have a teenage crush, an upright, married officer and war hero was a safe choice.

  Townsend and Rosemary had recently been given, by the King, the use of Adelaide Cottage, which opened off Windsor Great Park, and this meant that, at least when the King was at Windsor or Royal Lodge, Townsend could go home in his off hours. A second son, Hugo George, was born to them in February 1945. As a mark of his affection and esteem for his Equerry, the King consented to be the boy’s godfather. The sisters came back to Adelaide Cottage for the christening tea. After that, occasionally on a Sunday, they would drop in on a walk from the lodge and play with the children on the lawn while “Townsend, off duty, sat back in a deck chair.”

  To casual eyes the Townsends seemed to have a stable, happy home. But, in fact, he was caught in a marriage that he knew was not working. The couple shared few interests except the children. Rosemary was restless and Townsend resentful of her detachment. No one in the Royal Family was aware of his private problems, but they did give him a certain vulnerability. And he began to identify more and more with the cohesiveness of “us four” (the phrase the King often used in referring to his wife, his two daughters and himself)—drawing comfort from the Royal Family’s sec
urity.

  There had not been many women in his life before Rosemary, and he was not inclined to “womanize.” Sanctity of marriage meant a great deal to him. He had accepted the King’s offer to stay on, knowing he could not return to flying except as an instructor, something he did not want to be. The war continued but there was hope that in Europe, at least, it would soon end. Then he could decide on his future.

  Philip’s ship, HMS Whelp, was finally put into service in August and he was dispatched with it across the world to Australia, where a former shipmate, Lieutenant Michael Parker,joined the staff. Parker, an Australian, was on home ground and “was adept at organising parties,” enjoying the instant popularity that came with his close association to the “handsome Prince who might one day marry the Queen of England.” Stories began to spread about the wildness of these parties and about the men’s torrid associations and the various heiresses who had never met a prince before and were out to seduce Philip. None of these tales appears to have been carried back to Lilibet (nor were they proven true). The pair continued to correspond, and he sent her a photograph of himself with a newly grown beard, which she boldly displayed on the mantel in her sitting room. (When Crawfie told her she thought this was somewhat indiscreet, Lilibet replied that no one would recognize Philip with his new facial growth.)

  D-Day, June 5, 1944, had come and gone. The savage battle of the vast Allied expeditionary force had failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and General Dwight Eisenhower had been forced to withdraw the troops. At Christmas, 1944, American General Anthony McAuliffe wrote about the Allied forces in Europe: “We have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the north, east, southwest ... four German Panzer Divisions and one German Paratroop Division. We are continuing to hold Bastogne.... We are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present.” The war was almost over, but as a simple foot soldier recorded: “I’m almost home and I’m scared that maybe just a lucky shot will get me. And I don’t want to die now, not now when it’s almost over. I don’t want to die now. Do you know what I mean?”

  Tragically, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, unable to see the Allies victorious. England deeply mourned his passing. Chips Channon recalled the memorial service at St. Paul’s, which Lilibet attended in her ATS uniform, along with her parents, “The King in Naval uniform, the Queen in black ... The Star Spangled Banner was sung like a negro spiritual, and the words of the Anthem were magnificent.” The bells tolled as they all left the cathedral after the service. Channon happened to turn back; and as he did, he saw “Winston standing bareheaded framed between two columns of the portico and he was sobbing as the shaft of sunlight fell on his face.”

  The blackout ended officially on April 19; and after five years’ eclipse, Big Ben was illuminated. Finally, on May 8, 1945, the war in Europe was won; Hitler and Mussolini were dead. The Allies went wild in VE-Day celebrations around the world. In England, the day began with “intense, Wagnerian rain.” By noon the sun streamed through the dark skies and all of London seemed to have gathered before the gates of Buckingham Palace.

  For Lilibet and Margaret peace meant liberation from their castle tower. “The King’s thought for them was, ‘Poor darlings. They have not had any fun yet.’ That day, [Townsend wrote] they did. They broke out into the crazy, rejoicing world which was London and I stood near them in the dense crowds in front of Buckingham Palace as they cheered, with everybody else, each time their parents, the King and Queen, came out on to the balcony.”

  That evening ten thousand strong remained outside the Palace and the crowds still shouted, “We want the King. We want the King.” For the tenth time that day “the tall windows going on to the long stone balcony above the front courtyard of the Palace ... opened.” A hush—then the King, Queen, Lilibet and Margaret stepped out into the golden glow of floodlights and flaming torches. “The roar that comes up from the people is like thunder,” Cecil Beaton wrote. “The tiny figures on the balcony can be seen to wave. Then, when they retire from view, the cheering continues. Again the waving dots appear and are greeted with an even greater expression of joy and thankfulness. (The head of the country is the symbol of all that we have considered worth fighting for: the freedom and liberty of the individual and the enemy of those things [that have been] defeated.)

  “Something remarkable happens. The diminutive personages bring forward another figure, clad in black and white. It is none other than Winston Churchill. That he, a commoner, is here on the balcony with the reigning family is a break with tradition, but no one denies him this honour since he is the man who, perhaps more than anyone else, has brought us to victory.”

  But complete victory had not yet been accomplished. Mountbatten, as Supreme Allied Commander in North-East Asia, had still not been able to eject the Japanese from Burma. Then came Hiroshima and Nagasaki and japan’s surrender. On September 2 Whelp put in to Tokyo Bay, along with the U.S. battleship Missouri, aboard which the instrument of surrender was signed. Mountbatten accepted the surrender of the Japanese in South-East Asia ten days later. The war was over. The Whelp was dispatched to bring home prisoners of war. The destroyer did not return to Portsmouth to be decommissioned until February 1946. This return voyage after the war’s end was Philip’s first command. As soon as he had been granted leave he requested permission to see Lilibet. A private dinner was planned for him at Buck House in her new apartments with only one other guest. Margaret was to be present to keep rumors from flying.

  Footnote

  *The water pressure was so low at Windsor that water had to be heated and carried to upstairs rooms for bathing.

  10

  The outlook from Lilibet’s rooms at Buck House was breathtakingly lovely. “The straight clean lines of the Mall, the curved road, the inside view of those attractive Palace railings, the bright flash of colour as the sentries pass[ed], the whirl and swirl of the constant traffic ... and in the distance, close to the curious tower of Westminster Cathedral ... Big Ben.” (“No wonder you are always so punctual,” Margaret told her sister one day. “You can’t very well help it.”)

  London remained a war-ravaged city—fallen brick, plaster dust and gaping holes where buildings had once stood—but everywhere reconstruction and cleaning up were in progress; streetlamps illuminated the night and people walked without furtive side glances to see if a V2 bomb was headed in their direction.

  The art had been rehung on the walls of the Palace, the crystal chandeliers reinstalled, the fine objets d’art replaced inside their glass-fronted vitrines; and if Buck House’s six-hundred-plus rooms were not yet all reopened, many of those that were contained the bracing smell of turpentine and fresh paint.

  Large boxes filled with crystal and china waiting to be unpacked lined corridors; and Lilibet, Margaret and Crawfie sometimes “took a hand” polishing their beautiful finds with their handkerchiefs as they uncovered the contents. Often as she worked, Margaret would sing in what she called her “village-choir voice.” And one day, “pottering through the half dismantled rooms, [she] came upon a very old piano [and] dragged up a packing-case, sat down and proceeded to play Chopin. As she touched the notes, great clouds of dust flew out.”

  The sisters had finally been given rooms of their own. Margaret’s was done in salmon-pink, her favorite color. In the center was a “large round table [containing] a lavish clutter. Letters, invitations, dance programmes, greetings, telegrams—in short, a hoosh-mi.” Her white wooden dressing table was littered with “bottles, manicure instruments, and small ornaments.” The nursery remained, but was now fitted with more sophisticated playthings: an upright piano, a gramophone, tabletop jigsaw puzzles and a large collection of records, both contemporary and classic. Alah’s and Ruby’s rooms had become intercommunicating. The nursery ambience had not been entirely shed.

  Lilibet’s apartments were enlarged to incorporate a crimson-and-fawn-decorated study where she answered her mail and—“when time permitted�
�—worked on her growing stamp collection. Bobo had her own adjoining room; and Lilibet’s new, grander sitting room was refurbished with cream walls hung with pictures of pastoral scenes (a great contrast to the masses of huge ancestral portraits in gilt frames that proliferated throughout the rest of the Palace.) She had chosen fabrics of pale pink and cream, with coordinated floral designs. An unpatterned fawn fitted carpet had recently been installed and near the brass-fronted fire was a basket where Lilibet’s own corgi, Susan, reposed.

  The evening Philip came to dinner, a casual note was struck. A table had been set up in Lilibet’s sitting room and a simple meal of fish, a sweet and orangeade was served by the nursery footman. The Palace staff reported “that all three enjoyed themselves hugely, the still bearded Philip roaring with laughter as [after dinner] they chased each other along the Palace’s long corridors [in a game of tag].”

  Over the next few weeks Philip frequently visited Lilibet at Buck House. She began to take more care with her appearance. Old clothes were made over to fit better and a few new ones, in various shades of blue, were added. A touch of bluish-pink rouge could be discerned on her cheeks and she took a bolder hand with her lipstick. “She was a very healthy, nice looking girl. Her most attractive feature was her marvellous porcelain blue eyes inherited from the House of Hanover, and she had the kind of hair that always looked natural, seemingly, just washed and brushed. She had a very sturdy kind of walk, not gauche in any way, not sporting exactly—just ‘steady-on.’ And she possessed a good command of language; not exactly Edmund Burke or William Pitt or anybody like that, but she spoke very forthright, sometimes abrupt—most direct.... As for her figure, her body was full and yet still girl-like. Margaret’s figure seemed already formed,” a close observer recalled. Crawfie noted that the sisters now appeared nearer to the same age, but that Margaret seemed old for her years and Lilibet young for hers.