Royal Sisters

by Anne Edwards

  When I spoke to you last, at Christmas, I asked you all, whatever your religion, to pray for me on the day of my Coronation—to pray that God would give me wisdom and strength to carry out the promises that I should then be making.

  Throughout this memorable day I have been uplifted and sustained by the knowledge that your thoughts and prayers were with me. I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which I have now been dedicated with such solemnity.

  Many thousands of you came to London from all parts of the Commonwealth and Empire to join in the ceremony, but I have been conscious too, of the millions of others who have shared in it by means of wireless or television in their homes. All of you, near or far, have been united in one purpose. It is hard for me to find words in which to tell you of the strength which this knowledge has given me.

  The ceremonies you have seen to-day are ancient, and some of their origins are veiled in the mists of the past. But their spirit and their meaning shine through the ages, never perhaps more brightly than now.

  I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.

  In this resolve I have my husband to support me. He shares all my ideals, all my affection for you. Then, although my experience is so short and my task so new, I have my parents and grandparents as an example which I can follow with certainty and with confidence.

  There is also this. I have behind me not only the splendid tradition and the annals of more than a thousand years, but the living strength and majesty of the Commonwealth and Empire, of societies old and new, of lands and races different in history and origins but all, by God’s will, united in spirit and in aim.

  Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendour that are gone but a declaration of our hopes for the future and for the years I may, by God’s grace and mercy, be given to reign and serve you as your Queen.

  I have been speaking of the vast regions and varied peoples to whom lowe my duty, but there has also sprung from our island home a theme of social and political thought which constitutes our message to the world and through the changing generations has found acceptance both within and far beyond my realms.

  Parliamentary institutions, with their free speech and respect for the rights of minorities, and the inspiration of a broad tolerance in thought and its expression—all this, we conceive to be a precious part of our way of life and outlook.

  During recent centuries this message has been sustained and invigorated by the immense contribution, in language, literature, and action, of the nations of our Commonwealth overseas. It gives expression, as I pray it always will, to living principles as sacred to the Crown and monarchy as to its many parliaments and peoples. I ask you now to cherish them—and practise them too; then we can go forward together in peace, seeking justice and freedom for all men.

  As this day draws to its close, I know that my abiding memory of it will be, not only the solemnity and beauty of the ceremony, but the inspiration of your loyalty and affection. I thank you all from a full heart. God bless you.

  SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL’S TOAST

  TO THE QUEEN APRIL 4, 1955

  I have the honour of proposing a toast which I used to enjoy drinking during the years when I was a cavalry subaltern in the reign of Your Majesty’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. Having served in office or in Parliament under the five sovereigns who have reigned since those days, I felt, with these credentials, that in asking Your Majesty’s gracious permission to propose this toast I should not be leading to the creation of a precedent which would often cause inconvenience.

  Madam, I should like to express the deep and lively sense of gratitude which we and all your peoples feel to you and to H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh for all the help and inspiration we receive in our daily lives, and which spreads with ever growing strength throughout the British realm and the Commonwealth and Empire.

  Never have we needed more than in the anxious and darkling age through which we are passing and through which we hope to help the world pass.

  Never have the august duties which fall upon the British monarchy been discharged with more devotion than in the brilliant opening of Your Majesty’s reign. We thank God for the gift he has bestowed upon us, and vow ourselves anew to the sacred cause and wise and kindly way of life of which Your Majesty is the young, gleaming champion.

  EDITORIAL IN THE TIMES,

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1955

  Princess Margaret

  In the mounting tumult over the assumed wish of the QUEEN’S sister to marry a gallant officer, with nothing to his disadvantage except that his divorced wife is still living, few if any persons holding responsible poistions in the Commonwealth have yet expressed an opinion. Their reasons for reticence are clear: they know too little, and they care too much. But now that the reckless magnification of mere guesses has gone so far that the name of the PRINCESS is being bandied about, sometimes in heartless and offensive contexts, far beyond the confines of the British Commonwealth, it will soon be necessary for all who care for the monarchy to form some tentative judgment, even if it must for the time being rest partly upon hypothesis.

  The enormous popular emotion that has been generated by the recent happenings is in itself perfectly healthy. It is sentimental; it is illinformed; but it proceeds from that genuine affection for all the Royal Family which they have inherited and continue to deserve and which is a principal guarantee of the stability of Kingdom and Commonwealth. The odious whipping-up of these honest and warm-hearted feelings, and their vulgar exploitation for motives of gain, have already dishonoured part of the British Press in the eyes of the world, and deserve only contempt. Though this mass sentiment would be a gratifying proof of the soundness of our institutions if it were allowed to be spontaneous, the only help it can give the PRINCESS in a matter of conscience is the assurance that her choice matters greatly to untold millions of people. For a personal concern can seldom be a private concern when the person is royal; it is part of the sacrifice the whole Royal Family make to the ideal they represent, that they must live their private lives largely in public. Yet personal the choice remains; what is at issue is the future direction of a life, hitherto dedicated. That can be determined only by PRINCESS MARGARET herself; the inner responsibility can in no way be lightened by any weight of mass opinion, however sympathetic, on one side or the other.

  Neither can HER ROYAL HIGHNESS’S ultimate decision be much helped, or seriously hindered, by posing the issue in a harshly legalistic light. At present, it is true, the suggested marriage is forbidden by the law of the State without the permission of the QUEEN, who is its head, and by the accredited authorities of the Church of England, of which she is Supreme Governor. But there is a procedure by which the PRINCESS might release herself from the rigour of the Royal Marriages Act, and the Act itself would be easily set aside by Parliament if it were generally felt that the crucial matter was merely the capacity of the PRINCESS and her issue, in a remote eventuality, to inherit the Crown. The teaching of the Church of England on divorce comes much nearer the heart of the matter, but again not quite for the technical reason that has in some places been advanced. If the objection to the marriage on these grounds derived solely from the constitutional fact that the QUEEN is Governor of the Church, it would be relevant only to that southern part of the United Kingdom in which the Church of England is established. But the dilemma is felt, and rightly felt to be the concern of all the QUEEN’S subjects throughout the Commonwealth, each kingdom of which regards not only HER MAJESTY herself but the Royal Family as an integral part of its own community.

  . . . Now, in the twentieth-century conception of the monarchy, the QUEEN has come to be the symbol of every side of the life of this society, its universal representative in whom her peop
le see their better selves ideally reflected; and since part of their ideal is of family life, the QUEEN’S family has its own part in the reflection. If the marriage which is now being discussed comes to pass, it is inevitable that this reflection becomes distorted. The PRINCESS will be entering into a union which vast numbers of her sister’s people, all sincerely anxious for her lifelong happiness, cannot in conscience regard as a marriage. This opinion would be held whether the Church of England were established or not, and extends to great bodies of Christians outside it. That devout men have argued that it is a wrong interpretation of Christianity is not here relevant. All that matters is that it is widely and sincerely held; and therefore that a royal marriage which flouted it would cause acute division among loyal subjects everywhere. But the Royal Family is above all things the symbol and guarantee of the unity of the British peoples; if one of its members herself became a cause of division, the salt has lost its savour.

  There is no escape from the logic of the situation. The QUEEN’S sister married to a divorced man (even though the innocent party) would be irrevocably disqualified from playing her part in the essential royal function—a part, be it said, which she hitherto played with the utmost charm and devotion. On the other hand, the royal service to the people would lose most of its grace if it were felt to be conscript service; nor can representation of a people’s unity be sustained with a divided heart. If the PRINCESS finally decides, with all the anxious deliberation that dearly she has given to her problem, that she is unable to make the sacrifice involved in her continued dedication to her inherited part, then she has a right to lay down a burden that is too heavy for her. It would, however, involve withdrawal, not merely from her formal rights in the succession established by law, together with such official duties as sometimes fall to her under the Regency Acts, but abandonment of her place in the Royal Family as a group fulfilling innumerable symbolic and representative functions. If she decided to ask Parliament to release her from so much of these as is of legal obligation, she would from that moment pass into private life, and it would become an impertinence for anybody to criticize the way she then chooses to order her personal affairs.

  But the peoples of the Commonwealth would see her step down from her high place with the deepest regret, for she has adorned it, and is everywhere honoured and loved. Moreover, there would be profound sympathy with the QUEEN, who would be left still more lonely in her arduous life of public service in which she needs all the support and cooperation that only her close kindred can give. These things said, the matter is, in the last resort, one to be determined solely by PRINCESS MARGARET’S conscience. Whatever the judgment of that unsparing tribunal, her fellow-subjects will wish her every possible happiness—not forgetting that happiness in the full sense is a spiritual state, and that its most precious element may be the sense of duty done.

  NEWSPAPER OPINIONS ON PRINCESS MARGARET’S

  DECISION: RIGHT OR WRONG?

  The Manchester Guardian

  Her decision, which has plainly been come to after subtle pressure, will be regarded by great masses of people as unnecessary and perhaps a great waste. In the long run it will not redound to the credit or influence of those who have been most presistent in denying the Princess the same liberty that is enjoyed by the rest of her fellow-citizens. Even the least cynical among us find it hard to see why an innocent party to a divorce [i.e., Sir Anthony Eden] can become the man who appoints archbishops and bishops, while the Princess, who merely exercises her social graces and has a very remote chance of succeeding to the throne, should be denied by ecclesiastical prescription the right to marry an innocent party to a divorce. That odd piece of inconsistency may be typically English, but it has more than a smack of English hypocrisy about it.

  The New York Daily News

  From the romantic point of view, the episode is a sad disappointment. We cannot help reflecting, though, that in this case a member of the British royal family has shown a strength of character eminently befitting that family’s highest traditions. They can’t take that away from her.

  Britain’s New Statesmen and Nation

  Submerged under the “human interest” of the Princess Margaret story, commentators have been slow to scrutinise her statement of renunciation. It raises sharp constitutional issues. The Princess declared that she has been “aware that subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage.” This seems to imply that a civil marriage could have been possible only if the succession were renounced. But who has made her “aware” of any such thing? Is it even true? The right of succession is peculiarly a matter of Parliament. She has been made “aware” of a probably untrue and certainly highly controversial doctrine.

  The Vatican Daily

  The echoes and rumblings of the passing storm continue after the noble message of Princess Margaret. She was subjected to reportorial treatment usually given those movie stars who seek publicity in anything—even of the most dubious nature. The storm swept away a large part of the press, along with weakly resisting public opinion, into a bankruptcy without parallel in recent years.

  If there were an administrator to look into this disastrous bankruptcy, it would be easy for him to denounce those who are responsible: the liberal secularists and the materialistic extremists, their schools and their journalism. The former because in their pretension of giving order to the world without including its Creator, they have set up love in the place of law. The about-face of the materialistic extremists would have been stupendous if a “comrade” faithful to Communist principles had sent a message to say he was calling off his wedding because the person he was marrying wanted a church ceremony.

  The New York Post

  What kind of conception of duty is it which demands that one should give up love and life, in the interest of some abstraction like the Monarchy or the Empire or the Church, all of which in the end draw their sustenance from love and life? The churchmen, high and low, have commended Margaret on putting duty above love. But their congratulations will be cold cheer in the dreary years that stretch ahead.

  I prefer the view that all minor duties must be matched against the overreaching duty to the genuineness with which we live our lives, and to our deepest emotions. I think the reason why I feel so disappointed about Margaret’s decision is that it seems a betrayal of the very sources of life, because of a musty conception of what is owed to ancient forms that have outlived their usefulness. [Columnist Max Lerner]

  Hearst Columnist George E. Sokolsky

  I dare not say that a woman should not marry the man she loves, but it is refreshing as Springtime to witness a response to a call to duty. Margaret of England will be beloved by her people not because she gave up the man of her choice but because she sacrificed personal happiness to maintain a way of life which her family is duty-bound to defend. In this era in which marriage is being reduced to a matter of registration and the word romance is becoming, in common parlance, equivalent to harlotry, the clean courtship, the honorable decision, the unwillingness to yield principle to personal satisfaction stand out in pristine beauty, and all who were engaged in what could have been an ugly pursuit of passion will be glorified among their own people as restoring the virtuous qualities of duty and respect.

  Line of Succession

  THE ROYAL LINE OF SUCCESSION (1937)

  1. HRH The Princess Elizabeth

  2. HRH The Princess Margaret

  3. HRH Henry Duke of Gloucester

  4. HRH George Duke of Kent

  5. HRH Edward Duke of Kent

  6. HRH Princess Alexandra

  7. HRH The Princess Mary, Princess Royal

  8. George Viscount Lascelles (7th Earl of Harewood)

  9. Honourable Gerald Lascelles

  10. Alexandra Duchess of Fife

  11. HRH Arthur Duke of Connaught

  12. Alastair Arthur (2nd Duke of Connaught)

  13. Maud Countess of Southesk

  14
. James Lord Carnegie

  15. HRH Queen Maud of Norway

  16. HRH Olav V of Norway

  17. HRH Prince Harold of Norway

  18. HRH Princess Martha Louise of Norway

  19. HH Princess Ragnihild of Norway

  20. HRH Queen Marie of Rumania

  21. HRH King Carol of Rumania

  22. HRH Prince Michael of Rumania

  23. HRH Queen Marie of Yugoslavia

  24. HRH King Peter II of Yugoslavia

  25. HRH Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia

  THE ROYAL LINE OF SUCCESSION (2016)

  1. HRH The Prince of Wales

  2. HRH The Prince William of Wales

  3. HRH The Prince George

  4. HRH The Princess Charlotte

  5. HRH The Prince Henry of Wales

  6. HRH The Prince Andrew

  7. HRH Princess Beatrice

  8. HRH Princess Eugenie

  9. HRH Prince Edward

  10. James, Viscount Severn

  11. Lady Louise Windsor

  12. HRH Princess Anne

  13. Peter Phillips

  14. Savannah Phillips

  15. Isla Phillips

  16. Zara Tindall (Phillips)

  17. Mia Grace Tindall

  18. David Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley

  19. Hon. Charles Armstrong Jones

  20. Margarita Armstrong-Jones

  21. Lady Sarah Chatto

  22. Samuel Chatto

  23. Arthur Chatto

  24. HRH Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester

  25. Alexander Windsor, Earl of Ulster

  Notes

  Page Chapter 1

  10 (“... legally a commoner.”) Britain recognizes only peers (dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons) and their wives as aristocrats; their children, although given honorary titles (Lord, Lady, the Honourable), are legally commoners. The term “The Royal Family” is often used incorrectly. In 1990, the Royal Family included twenty-two members: the Queen, Queen Mother; nine princes (Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; Prince Charles; Prince Andrew; Prince Edward; Prince William and Prince Harry; the Duke of Gloucester; the Duke of Kent; and Prince Michael of Kent) and eleven princesses (the Princess of Wales;* Princess Anne; Princess Margaret; Princess Alice, the Dowager Duchess of Gloucester;* her daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Gloucester;* the Duchess of York;* the Duchess of Kent;* Princess Michael of Kent* and Princess Alexandra, and Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie of York). The six Princesses whose names are followed by an asterisk acquired their Royal rank by marriage. The husbands and children of the Sovereign’s daughters are not given Royal status. Therefore, Princess Anne is Royal, but her husband and two children are untitled commoners.