The Queen's Houses

by Alan Titchmarsh

  With the reputation of the monarchy at a low ebb due to Victoria’s seclusion at Balmoral or Osborne on the Isle of Wight, wrapped in a fog of grief and increasingly de-skilled as a monarch, it is no wonder that Bertie became the first modern ‘gossip-column prince’ whose every exploit was followed avidly by the society papers. At first the mood of the nation was against him – he had even been booed and hissed in public – but he was free of any racial or religious prejudice and had a rare ability to get on with people from all walks of life and put them at their ease. That trait, coupled with his near-death from typhoid fever, changed public perception. For two months, from mid-November 1871 to the middle of January of the following year, he was gravely ill and the nation read the daily bulletins with increasing anxiety and alarm. From then on he acquired affection from his subjects, which lasted for the rest of his life, and it is generally recognized that having been a somewhat dissolute Prince of Wales, as a monarch (1901–10) he acquitted himself admirably.

  Victoria left most of her fortune to her younger children and Bertie was left with the considerable upkeep of the three privately owned royal houses, Balmoral, Sandringham and Osborne, which had been left to all the children. He calculated that the annual outgoings for the houses were £20,000, £40,000 and £17,000 respectively (approx. £1.9 million, £3.8 million and £1.6 million today). When negotiating the size of his civil list with the government of the day he undertook economies in the running of his establishments – ‘I cannot live in and maintain five places!’ – and despite protests from some of his siblings gave Osborne House, where Victoria had died, to the nation. In due course it became a school for naval officers and subsequently a convalescent home. It is now open to the public and administered by English Heritage.

  At Balmoral Bertie enthusiastically continued and embellished the Scottish traditions of his parents. He wore a kilt every day, either Balmoral or Hunting Stuart, and at night changed into Royal Stuart. Bagpipers played round the dinner table – the noise must have been deafening. However, his hectic social life elsewhere necessitated a reduced stay and he rarely visited for more than a month.

  He revived or reinvented all the old ceremonial attached to the monarchy, for the first time in 40 years driving to the state opening of Parliament in the old state coach. It was Edward VII who re-established the monarchy as spectacle, so important a role today, and made it glamorous again.

  Osborne House

  George V and Queen Mary

  Edward VII’s son George V – generally regarded as man less at ease in society – was much fonder of Balmoral Castle than his father and looked forward to his two months there each autumn. He had inherited his father’s insistence on ritual and protocol but he was a very different man. Ordered, punctilious and punctual to a fault, he adhered to a clockwork, naval routine that required him to check the barometer on first rising and again before going to bed.

  All his life a stickler for correct dress, George V was immaculately tailored. At Balmoral he swapped his frock coat and tall hat for a kilt, an Inverness cape and a feathered bonnet. At night he dined in a kilt with the Order of the Thistle on his breast. And yet, despite the insistence on correct protocol, he was a man who embraced the domestic virtues, not those of nightclubs, corridor creeping or gambling. He declared emphatically, ‘I’m not interested in any wife except my own.’

  George V, his wife Mary, and their young family

  A visitor to Balmoral in 1910, his first year as King, he described it as ‘altogether different from former years … the house is a home for children … The Queen knits of an evening … We go to bed early’. Prime Minister Lloyd George wrote: ‘The King is a very jolly chap … they are simple, very, very ordinary people.’ Large shooting parties were replaced by much smaller gatherings. Not even bridge was played and so the evenings were torture for guests and the visiting Minister in Attendance – ‘the evenings are rather tedious’ – until relieved by the early, 11 o’clock bedtime curfew. It was all a far cry from the life of Edward VII who had required his guests to stay up until he went to bed, often well into the wee small hours. Anyone spotted as absent would have a page sent to rouse them out and return them to the festivities. George V’s tenure of Balmoral was interrupted by the war, and it was six years before he resumed his annual Scottish holiday: ‘I am glad to be in this dear place again’, he wrote in August 1919.

  The future King Edward VII with family and guests at a shooting party at Balmoral, 1900.

  George V perpetuated the cult of the royal picnic that continues to this day. Even to brave the rain and the midges a strict dress code was observed. For men a heavy tweed suit with breeches, long, thick woollen socks, polished brogues and, of course, a hat were required. Women wore tweed suits with long skirts – and a hat. They were transported in large maroon Daimlers, complete with gold-plated radiators, which wound their way along the narrow tracks to the shores of Loch Muick. There the food would be unpacked and served by liveried footmen. On occasion a chef attired in whites would prepare freshly caught fish.

  Like his father, George V was an excellent shot and the deer and grouse at Balmoral were an added attraction for him. The late Queen Mother, writing to her mother-in-law after a stay at Balmoral, was not quite so keen: ‘even though I am the wife, daughter and sister of “guns”, I fail to see what pleasure there can be in walking about all day in an icy wind and driving rain!’ In another letter she was prescient about the future: ‘You and Papa [George V] make such a family feeling by your great kindness and thought for everybody but David [later Edward VIII] does not seem to possess the faculty of making others feel wanted … he had that extraordinary charm, and it all disappeared’

  Edward VIII – and the abdication

  Edward VIII inherited many of his grandfather’s proclivities. He moved in a fast, metropolitan set, enjoyed parties and kept mistresses. In 1928 George V fell gravely ill. The Prince of Wales was on holiday in Kenya when he heard the news but did not choose to curtail his holiday, despite strong words from the courtier accompanying him who reported that: looked at me, went out without a word, and spent the remainder of the evening in the successful seduction of a Mrs Barnes, wife of a local commissioner. He told me so himself the next morning.’

  Edward VIII with his nieces Elizabeth and Margaret

  Edward VIII – ‘David’ to his family – had never liked Balmoral, and when he inherited he made sweeping and unpopular changes at both Balmoral and Sandringham, cutting staff and introducing swingeing economies. He spent his first summer holiday as King cruising with Wallis Simpson, returning to Balmoral in the autumn. Whilst at Balmoral he also demonstrated how his ‘craving for private happiness’ was becoming more important to him than his public duty. Scheduled to open a new hospital in Aberdeen he cancelled on the grounds that he was still in mourning for his father. The Duke (later George VI) and Duchess of York stood in for him. That same day he was photographed picking up Wallis Simpson and other members of his house party from the station in Aberdeen. In a telling juxtaposition the local paper printed photographs of both events side by side. It was at Balmoral that The Duchess of York so famously snubbed Wallis Simpson. Invited with her husband to dinner with Edward VIII’s house party she ignored Mrs Simpson’s outstretched hand and declared loudly, ‘I came to dine with the King!’

  Princes playing in Loch Muick. From left to right: Prince George; Edward, Prince of Wales; Prince Albert and Prince Henry, 1912

  After the abdication of Edward VIII the interests of both Sandringham and Balmoral remained with him; George VI, in an acrimonious series of negotiations, had to buy them from him for £300,000, the equivalent of about £16 million today.

  George VI and Queen Elizabeth

  The Duke and Duchess of York had used Birkhall as their Scottish holiday house during the life of George V and during Edward VIII’s short reign. Once Edward had abdicated, and the purchase price negotiated, King George VI and his consort, Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother), moved i
nto Balmoral and their personalities, and the personalities of their children, transformed the gloomy castle. Now courtiers and servants enjoyed their annual visit and a certain informality was allowed – often, after dinner, a film was shown, which all the staff, household and estate workers came to watch (after no less than seven pipers had finished playing in the dining room).

  The Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, were at Birkhall when Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. The voice of the Nazi propagandist Lord Haw-Haw became a fixture on the radio and the little Princesses would throw cushions at it to try and shut him up. Sewing parties were arranged in the schoolroom to aid the war work and in due course evacuee children and their mothers from Glasgow were housed at Craigowan Lodge on the estate. Apparently this was not a success: it was reported the children were not used to the silence and were frightened by the forests. Elizabeth joined the ATS – the Auxiliary Territorial Service – and having learnt to drive taught her sister on the private roads of Balmoral, before she took her test in nearby Ballater.

  After the surrender of the Japanese in August 1945, the royal family could at last take a holiday, and Balmoral was the perfect place to shed the anxieties of the war years. For the first time, the future Queen Elizabeth II went out deerstalking with the keepers, wearing her father’s tweed plus-fours. During their next autumn holiday, in 1946, Prince Philip was invited to stay at Balmoral and it was during this stay that he and Elizabeth became engaged. They were to return to Birkhall for the second phase of their honeymoon following their wedding on 20 November 1947, the seclusion of the estate very welcome after the public siege of Broadlands, the Mountbatten estate in Hampshire.

  Above: George VI, his mother Queen Mary, and the future Queen Elizabeth, c1924

  Below: George VI and his family at Abergeldie, 1939

  Above: Birkhall estate, 1947

  Below: The young royal family on their way to Crathie Church in Balmoral

  Balmoral Castle in the nineteenth century

  Elizabeth II and Prince Philip

  Balmoral today is a hugely complex enterprise of nearly 50,000 acres made up of moorland, forests and 550 acres of arable farmland and pasture that supports Highland cattle. Also on the estate are five holiday cottages that are available for rent – including the Glen Muick bothy, ‘Allt-na-giubhsaich’, that Victoria and Albert created to be their rustic retreat.

  The moors are managed to provide autumn shoots, as are the herds of deer in the surrounding forests. The red deer are still brought home on the back of a garron (a Haflinger or a Highland pony) after being shot, and when it comes to grouse shooting, a line of beaters one-mile wide drives the grouse toward the guns. The gundogs are transported to Balmoral from Sandringham.

  Conservation is a high priority – with quality rather than quantity being a priority on the shoots. Sheep do not graze the landscape in the interests of bird numbers, and as a result of careful land management there is a healthy population of wild birds, from merlins, peregrines, ospreys and golden eagles, to red and black grouse, ptarmigan and a capercaillie population of around 200 birds.

  ‘I FAIL TO SEE WHAT PLEASURE THERE CAN BE IN WALKING ABOUT ALL DAY IN AN ICY WIND AND DRIVING RAIN!’

  Mary of Teck

  The Queen Mother was a keen – and accomplished – salmon fisher in the waters of the Dee and current members of the royal family continue the tradition.

  A staff of over 50 full-time workers keep the house, gardens and grounds immaculate and productive – a number that is doubled when The Queen and her family are in residence between late July and late September. The families of many of them have worked for the royal family for generations and, as many live on the estate, Balmoral is an intimate, interdependent community. That fact, and the relatively remote location far away and free from the ceremonial life, constantly on guard, that they live in London and Windsor, means that the two full months The Queen and Prince Philip spend there with their children and grandchildren coming and going, is of enormous importance to them. Of all their houses and palaces it is the only one not open to the public (apart from the ballroom and the castle grounds between April and the end of July, and occasional winter tours of the estate).

  Outside the castle is a well-stocked walled kitchen garden, a rose garden and a small conservatory where flowering pot plants are banked up in an impressive display. The Duke of Edinburgh, aided by a team of seven gardeners, has redesigned the gardens to include a series of herbaceous borders. He has also enjoyed the creation of a water feature in the trees to the west of the castle, undertaking the work with a borrowed bulldozer. Of all the royal gardens, this is the one most challenged by climate and weather and it is, therefore, the least elaborate, though the views it commands add to its grandeur.

  Significant events of both domestic and national importance have played their part on the Balmoral stage over the last 160 years. For The Queen and Prince Philip the ordered, domestic calm of their autumn break has been rudely shattered on several occasions. It was at Balmoral in 1992, while The Duke and Duchess of York and their children were staying, that photographs taken with a telephoto lens of Sarah, The Duchess, behaving inappropriately with her American ‘financial adviser’ in the South of France first appeared. The atmosphere at Balmoral was reported as frosty. The couple divorced in 1995 but in 2013 were again at Balmoral for a holiday with their two children.

  The Duke of Edinburgh wearing his tartan at Balmoral, 2002

  On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died from her injuries when the car in which she was being driven hit a concrete pillar in a Paris underpass. The royal family was at Balmoral when they heard the news from Sir Michael Jay, the British Ambassador in Paris. And so began The Queen’s ‘annus horribilis’. The decision not to return immediately to London, issue a public statement or fly the Royal Standard at half-mast over Buckingham Palace produced a wave of popular criticism as the nation indulged in an extraordinary paroxysm of collective mourning. An estimated one million bouquets, together with teddy bears and associated messages, were stacked five-feet deep outside the gates of Kensington Palace. Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a carefully crafted public statement that caught the popular mood in which he described Diana as ‘the People’s Princess … and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and memories for ever’.

  As the royal family remained, silent, in the seclusion of Balmoral, they appeared unaware of the mounting hysteria and anger, now reaching dangerous levels, directed towards them. The Sun on 4 September led with the banner headline: ‘Where is the Queen When the Country Needs Her?’ On Friday 5 September the royal family flew back from Balmoral to mingle with the crowds, for The Queen to make a well-received public broadcast and for the whole family to take a prominent part in Diana’s funeral.

  A greater understanding of The Queen’s reasons for remaining at Balmoral – a desire to keep Princes William and Harry safe within the family and protected from both press intrusion and public scrutiny – is now acknowledged. This was a family tragedy as well as a public one.

  Princess Anne and Commander Tim Laurence in their car after marrying at Crathie Church, Balmoral, 1992

  But Balmoral harbours its share of happy memories too. Princess Anne wed the then Commander Timothy Laurence at the local Crathie parish church in 1992. The Earl and Countess of Wessex spent their honeymoon here in 1999. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie revealed in her autobiography that their youngest son Leo was conceived during the Prime Minister’s annual visit to Balmoral in 1999 (information that many would have been happy to forgo).

  Top: The Duke of York at Balmoral, wearing traditional dress

  Below: The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh with Prince Charles and Princess Anne (and corgis) in the grounds of Balmoral

  More recently Prince William and Kate Middleton, in breaks from St Andrew’s University, escaped to the romantic seclusion of a cottage called Tam-na-Ghar on the Balmoral estate. In September 2013 the n
ow Duke and Duchess of Cambridge took the brand-new Prince George with them to stay at Balmoral to meet his great-grandparents and to help play host to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and his family. Prince William took the Keys’ son Max grouse shooting and The Duchess took their daughter Stephanie on the traditional royal tramp through the surrounding woods. Prince Philip fired up the barbecue, a yearly tradition during the late summer Balmoral holiday. It was during this visit that Prime Minister Key flouted royal protocol by allowing a photograph of himself and The Queen in conversation at Balmoral to be published. The tartan-smothered interior, and The Queen in a Balmoral tartan kilt, surrounded by the kind of memorabilia and knick-knacks common in many a grandparent’s household, caused much comment around the world with many newspapers attempting to decode, and even price, the decoration, furniture, paintings and family photographs. So much for privacy …

  Yet the estate does offer that in abundance, under the shadow of Lochnagar and its neighbouring mountains. For 60 years Balmoral has provided largely happy memories for seven generations of the royal family. No doubt the royal pipers will still be playing for the eighth – King George VII, if that is his chosen title – in the decades to come …