The Queen: Elizabeth II and the Monarchy

Cabinet assented, and in October, the Labour Home Secretary in the wartime Coalition, Herbert Morrison, introduced legislation, arguing that the responsibility would give the Heiress valuable experience.

The new Act received the Royal Assent in time for the eighteen-year-old Princess to become a Counsellor, along with her mother and three others, during her father’s visit to Italy in July 1944. In his absence she performed her first constitutional functions, which included signifying the Royal Assent to Acts which had been passed by Parliament. Yet she was still not ‘a British subject of full age’, or legally old enough to vote in an election.

A further question also arose in connection with the Princess’s eighteenth birthday: the possibility of a change of title. During 1943, letters and articles appeared in the press suggesting that, in view of her unchallenged position as Heiress, it would be appropriate to designate her ‘Princess of Wales,’ an idea first mooted in 1936. In August, Pwllheli Town Council petitioned the Prime Minister on the subject,

recommending the Princess’s birthday as a suitable moment. At the end of the year, the Carmarthen Journal reported that no project in recent years had been more popular,

and early in 1944, the Welsh Parliamentary Party, composed of Conservative, Liberal and Labour MPs, joined the campaign. It was pointed out, on all sides, that such a gesture would be greeted with enthusiasm in the Principality, with great benefits to Anglo-Welsh relations.

The Palace, however, demurred. While appreciating the sentiment behind such a proposal, it was unwilling to be swept along by a wave of populist fervour. The key issue, it decided, was the precedent for such a bestowal of title, and the lack of one. The title ‘Prince of Wales’ had only ever been given to the Heir Apparent. Princess Elizabeth was merely Heir or Heiress Presumptive. Could the Princess perhaps be promoted from Presumptive to Apparent? The Home Office was asked to investigate. ‘I have looked into your question about HRH Princess Elizabeth’, J. A. R. Pimlott, a Home Office official, wrote to Sir Eric Miéville. ‘Where the heir to the throne is a woman her right of succession is defeasible at any time by the birth of a son to the reigning Sovereign. HRH Princess Elizabeth therefore remains Heir Presumptive till she in fact succeeds.’ This had been true, he pointed out, of Victoria in 1837. Though Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV, had no child for seventeen years, it was thought constitutionally advisable in proclaiming the accession of Queen Victoria to guard against the possibility of a posthumous birth. The new Sovereign was therefore proclaimed Queen ‘saving the rights of any issue of his Late Majesty King William IV which may be born of His Late Majesty’s Consort’.

This, however, was not the end of the matter. Though it dealt with the Presumptive-Apparent problem – by definition, no female could be Apparent – it did not dispose of the issue of whether there was any precedent for calling a female Heir, even though only Presumptive, by the Welsh title. Indeed, an inquiry seemed to show, on the basis of records kept by a sixteenth-century German ambassador, that Henry VIII had considered that whichever of his daughters was Heir to the throne should be known as Princess of Wales.

For a short time, there was consternation, and uncertainty. However, the evidence to support such a claim was shadowy, and when it was put to Sir Gerald Wollaston, Garter Principal King of Arms, he was dismissive. He also pointed out the danger of setting a new precedent, opening the doors to the alarming future possibility, if George VI had a son who then married, of there being two Princesses of Wales.

The Palace view hardened. There remained, of course, the political complication of public opinion, which would be disappointed, especially in Wales, by a negative decision. But the King’s new private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, regarded this as a minor factor. ‘I have no doubt that the matter will be raised in Parliament before long, and of course the Commons have a right to do so,’ he wrote to the King in January 1944, shortly before the Allied forces landed in Anzio. ‘As long ago as 1376, they petitioned Edward III to make his grandson, Richard of Bordeaux, Prince of Wales.’

Not everybody, however, agreed that the views of parliamentarians should be as readily ignored in the twentieth century as in the fourteenth. One objector was Herbert Morrison, who suggested that to make the King’s elder daughter Princess of Wales would deal neatly with any suggestion that the Government was anti-Welsh. It did not matter, Morrison reasonably suggested, if there was no precedent. Moreover, in the unlikely event of a male heir being born, the title could simply lapse.

The Home Secretary’s minute on the subject of 28th January 1944 was sent to the Palace, but Lascelles, no mean politician on issues he regarded as important, deliberately withheld it from the King.

Probably it made no difference. A few days earlier, Jock Colville recorded in his diary that, while the Cabinet approved of the idea of making Elizabeth Princess of Wales, her father did not.

The royal will prevailed. At his weekly audience, Churchill promised the King that he would tell the Minister of Information to ‘damp down all discussion of this question in the Press,’ in order to avoid a row. In February, it was officially announced from Buckingham Palace that there would be no change in the Princess’s title on her eighteenth birthday. ‘This will check the spate of press comment and general chatter,’ Lascelles recorded on 13 February. As a result, the principality was without a Prince or Princess until 1958. The oft-repeated explanation for this vacancy was ‘the very real distinction between heirs apparent and presumptive’.

TO CONSOLE the Welsh, the King and Queen took Princess Elizabeth with them on a tour of mining and industrial areas in South Wales early in 1944. The crowds were welcoming and forgiving, and came from all classes and occupations. At Cardiff docks, according to one report, the Queen and Princess ‘mingled with a crowd of coloured Merchant Navy seamen,’ and stood beside ‘an ebony giant from British Honduras’. People from the villages walked for several miles just to see the King’s daughter, who smiled and bowed her head in acknowledgement of greetings.

It was not just in Wales, however, that there was an upsurge of feeling in favour of Elizabeth. As the war entered its final phase, she found herself an emblematic heroine everywhere. All over the Empire, the health, beauty and emerging womanhood of the Princess were linked to the eagerly anticipated future, in which families would be brought together, sweethearts rejoined, babies born, bellies filled and freedom enjoyed. Encouraged by broadcasters and newsreels, young people took a special interest in her. On the Welsh tour, she caused particular excitement among children. In Valletta, on the island of Malta, a thousand school children assembled a few weeks before the Normandy landings to see and cheer a special film depicting scenes from her life.

Requests for public appearances by the Princess now became frequent. For the time being the Palace was adamant: there could be no question of ‘independent engagements,’ though she might occasionally accompany her parents, as to South Wales.

Soon, however, this rule was relaxed. On 23 May 1944, Princess Elizabeth spoke publicly for the first time at the annual meeting of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children in Hackney. In the autumn, she accepted an invitation to launch HMS Vanguard, the largest battleship ever built in the British Isles. The ceremony, in Clyde shipyards, was followed by a luncheon at which she read a short speech. The First Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander, wrote to Lascelles afterwards describing ‘the clear and decisive way’ in which she carried out both duties.

There remained the question of whether she would enter one of the women’s services, and if so, which. Early in 1945, it was decided that she would join the Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was not the obvious choice. In view of her family’s naval traditions, the WRNS would have been more natural. The King and Queen were apparently reluctant: there is no reason to doubt Crawfie’s account of an eager and determined young woman wearing down the resistance of her parents.

At the end of February she was registered as No. 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. The rank was an honorary one, but the training in driving and vehicle-maintenance she underwent at No. 1 Mechanical Transport Training Centre at Aldershot, was genuine. She enjoyed this sole, brief experience of communal education. Several decades later, she told the Labour politician Barbara Castle that it was the only time in her life when she had been able seriously to test her own capabilities against those of others of her age.

After six weeks she qualified as a driver, and at the end of July, a few days before the final end to the war, she was promoted to Junior Commander.

‘The Princess is to be treated in exactly the same way as any other officer learning at the driving training centre,’ maintained the official report at the outset.

To back this up, the Queen requested that photographers should not be given any facilities.

This, however, did not deter the press, and during her short stay at the Centre she was photographed more intensively than at any time since the Coronation. As a result, she was scarcely just one of the girls. If it was not quite true, as a 1957 assessment put it, that ‘the rule of seclusion was maintained and she did not mix with her fellows on the course,’

the extent of mucking in, on equal terms, was limited. She kept to the routine of the ATS mess, took her share of duties, and acquired the basics of driving, car mechanics and maintenance. But she returned to Windsor every night to sleep. She also became an unwitting mannequin for the uniform of the service – pictures of her with a spanner, at the wheel of a lorry, leaning on a bonnet, or peering purposefully and fetchingly under one, appeared in the newspapers and magazines of every Allied nation.

In such matters, it was always impossible to disentangle a private motive from the public effort. Since the enrolment of a royal princess could not be kept secret, her participation in the ATS inevitably became part of the morale-boosting display of the Monarchy. It was a similar story with other initiatives that started spontaneously. A particularly striking and, in its way, sad example of the way Royal Family behaviour spilled over from the personal to the public, so that domestic events were turned into courtly contrivance, was provided by a series of Christmas shows put on during the war by Windsor children, with the aid of adult mentors, and performed in front of parents and other members of the Castle community.

These began modestly in 1940 with a simple play, ‘The Christmas Child,’ in St. George’s Hall, with Elizabeth playing one of the three kings, flanked by two boy evacuees. The occasion was enjoyed by everybody, and the princesses, who had been on stage since birth without knowing it, discovered an interest in, and even a talent for, amateur theatricals. The following Christmas, the stakes were raised slightly, and a pantomime, ‘Cinderella,’ was written for them by a local schoolmaster. Again it was a success, and once again there was a good deal of democratic sharing of tasks and banter in the preparations and rehearsals. The next year, they put on ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ and Lisa Sheridan described how Princess Elizabeth ‘took the arms of the two “sailors” and sang “Mind Your Sisters”’ and brought the house down.

The tradition continued, giving pleasure to both performers and audience, which always included the princesses’ parents. Horace Smith, who attended the pantomimes of 1942–4, recalled seeing the elder princess ‘full of confidence and vigour,’ and reducing the King to hearty laughter.

The humour depended a lot on puns. ‘There are three acres in one rood,’ Widow Twankey, an office boy from the Castle, was required to say in the 1943 production of ‘Aladdin’. ‘We don’t want anything improper,’ replied Margaret. ‘There’s a large copper in the kitchen,’ said the Widow. ‘We’ll soon get rid of him,’ declared Elizabeth – and so on.

Year by year, the performances became more polished, with increasingly elaborate costumes and sets. It was also established, as Court etiquette apparently required, that if the King and Queen were to attend, their daughters should have leading parts, regardless of the acting ability of the evacuees and village children who were also involved. Consequently, attention focused on the royal children and their skills, even more than would have been true in any case. Meanwhile audiences grew, bringing in large numbers of locally-based guardsmen and ATS girls. In 1943, there were three performances, including one specifically for soldiers. The show also became publicly known. Weeks before the 1943 pantomime, advance publicity produced a flood of inquiries, and more than a thousand would-be ticket holders sent in applications containing blank cheques. All were politely refused.

However, those denied entry could still learn about the show second-hand, for reports appeared in the press. Particular interest was aroused by ‘Aladdin’ in 1943, in which the Heiress Presumptive, cast in the title role, and wearing utility shorts and top, performed a tap dance, and in one scene appeared as a charlady, in an apron of sackcloth. ‘From the moment Princess Elizabeth popped out of a laundry basket,’ enthused the Sunday Graphic, ‘the King and Queen and the audience of 400 laughed and thoroughly enjoyed the show.’

After seeing the last of the three performances, Lascelles wrote in his diary that the principals and chorus alike would not have disgraced Drury Lane. ‘P’cess Eliz. was a charming Aladdin’, he noted, ‘and P’cess M. a charming and competent Princess Roxana’.

Altogether the pantomime netted £200.

The final pantomime, at Christmas 1944, starred the Heiress Presumptive as a Victorian seaside belle. It also included a carefully choreographed ‘ballet interlude,’ arranged by the dancing mistress at Buckingham Palace.

By this time, however, it had been transformed into an ambitious, semi-professional extravaganza, widely discussed as an established rite, and, in effect, part of the public relations of royalty.

Chapter 5

BEING ON STAGE was, of course, an inescapable part of a royal childhood. Indeed, the last of the Windsor shows was followed by a royal performance as theatrical as anything the princesses had yet experienced. In contrast to the run-up to the 1918 Armistice which was brought about by a sudden German collapse, the early months of 1945 provided a crescendo of victories and liberations. At home, faith in the cause, pride at survival, and the justice of the outcome, created a patriotic mood quite different from the nationalist frenzy of twenty-seven years before. As a result the celebrations marking the defeat first of Germany and then of Japan contained a communal spirit which expressed itself in the festival nature of the rejoicing, and also in an inclusive and grateful attitude to the Royal Family. On both VE and VJ-Days it was the crowds, as much as the Government, that placed the King, Queen and two princesses centre-stage.

Officially, Victory-in-Europe Day was 8 May. In practice, the celebrations lasted at least three days, with attention directed at Buckingham Palace, and with the Royal Family in starring roles throughout. By mid-afternoon on VE-Day itself, the number of people gathered in the hot sunshine round the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of the Palace exceeded that at the Coronation. It was, according to The Times, ‘a red, white and blue crowd,’ with every other woman wearing a multi-coloured ribbon or rosette in her hair. Winston Churchill arrived in an open car and spoke briefly, before disappearing for lunch with the King and Queen. A lull followed. Then the call ‘We want the King’ rose from the crowd. Responding to it, the royal couple and the two princesses came out onto the balcony, the King in naval, and Princess Elizabeth in ATS uniform, to be met by prolonged cheering and singing of ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’. Only later did the Prime Minister appear with them, giving the ‘V for Victory’ sign. In the evening after Churchill had left, the Royal Family appeared for yet another encore, producing fresh waves of applause and community singing.

That night, they were joined for dinner by a group of Guards officers who were friends of the princesses. After the meal, as the noise continued beyond the railings, Princess Margaret suggested that the younger members of the party should go outside, so that she and her sister could become, for an evening, part of the chorus. It was a frivolous idea which would have been dismissed as absurd on any other day. However, the exhilaration was such that the King and Queen agreed. Accompanied by a police sergeant, a small party left the Palace and went into the street.

They wandered among the chanting, cheering merry-makers. According to Lascelles, ‘the Princesses, under escort, went out and walked unrecognized about St. James’s Street and Piccadilly’.

One member of the group remembers a much more extensive itinerary – from Buckingham Palace to Parliament Square, then to Piccadilly, St. James’s Street, Bennet Street, Berkeley Square, Park Lane, and into the Ritz and Dorchester Hotels, before crossing Green Park, and ending up, once again, outside the Palace. ‘It was such a happy atmosphere,’ he recalls. ‘Such a tremendous feeling of being alive.’

Apart from Margaret, all were in uniform, making them barely distinguishable from thousands of others also moving almost aimlessly in the no-longer blacked-out city centre.

To be invisible in a crowd! For an instant, the fantasy of being ordinary and unknown became real. After five years of incarceration at Windsor, and a life sentence of the public spotlight, the nation’s liberation gave them an exceptional moment of personal freedom. Many years later, Elizabeth recalled that they were terrified of being recognized, ‘so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes’. She remembered ‘lines of people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, and all of us were swept along by tides of happiness and relief’.

One of the party snatched a Dutch sailor’s cap as a joke, and the sailor kept chasing after them, not knowing and probably not caring who they had in their midst. In the atmosphere of carefree hysteria, they did the Lambeth Walk and the hokey-cokey. When they got back to the Palace, they stood close to the railings, and helped to orchestrate a new wave of ‘We want the King’ cries. Unlike most people, however, they were able to supply the King. One of them was sent inside, and shortly afterwards, the King and Queen reappeared on the balcony.

Next day, the holiday continued with street parties and bonfires. During the afternoon, the princesses went with their parents on a tour of bombed-out districts in East London, including a council estate in Stepney, where two blocks of flats, and one hundred and thirty people, had been wiped out by a V2 rocket two months before. The King and Queen and their daughters appeared again on the Palace balcony in the evening, as a military band entertained the crowds from the forecourt.

Similar celebrations followed the Japanese surrender in August, with the important difference that, though the royal participants were the same, a Labour Government was in office, and a Labour Prime Minister now acknowledged the cheers and addressed the crowd. In place of the romantic Churchillian rhetoric, there was a clipped Attleean homily. ‘We are right to rejoice at the victory of the people,’ declared the new premier, from the balcony of the Ministry of Health, ‘and it is right for a short time that we should relax. But I want to remind you that we have a great deal of work to do to win the peace as we won the war.’ A speech read by the King, loyally described in the press as ‘firm, resonant and strong,’ was broadcast through loudspeakers. The Royal Family spent the rest of the day taking curtain calls on the balcony, waving to the multitude, and acknowledging the roars of approval.

That night, the princesses repeated the escapade of 8 May. This time, however, the attempt to behave like anonymous citizens – masked princesses at the ball – did not quite succeed. Perhaps the mood was less euphoric than on VE-Day; perhaps because Princess Elizabeth was not in uniform, she was easier to identify. At any rate, they were spotted. ‘Big Crowds at the Palace,’ headlined The Times. ‘Royal Family on the Balcony. Princesses Join the Throng.’ The paper revealed that the King’s daughters had left the Palace shortly before eleven o’clock, and that they ‘were here and there recognised and quickly surrounded by cheering men and women’. But police had told the crowds that ‘the princesses wished to be treated as private individuals, and they were allowed to go on their way’.

IN ITSELF, the coming of peace in August did not greatly affect the everyday lives of the Royal Family, who had been re-united at Buckingham Palace earlier in the year. There had already been various symptoms of the post VE-Day phoney peace. Early in August, Elizabeth was taken to Ascot. It was a doubly memorable day. Gordon Richards won five races, carrying the royal colours to victory in the Burghclere Stakes for the first time; and, during lunch at Windsor, the King received the news from President Truman that an atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima.

Despite such excursions, and weekend trips to Windsor, it took time to re-adjust to the cratered capital and bomb-damaged royal mansion. ‘It was a nasty shock to live in a town again,’ says Princess Margaret.

The King found himself as busy as at the height of the war: the exhortatory use made of the Monarchy, if anything, increased. Peacetime austerity had its own moralising. So did the newly elected Labour Government.

In 1940 the King had favoured Lord Halifax for the premiership. During the war, however, he had grown to like and depend on Churchill, who behaved towards him with extravagant courtesy, and he was distressed by the outcome of the general election in July 1945. Apart from his familiarity with the war leader, and his dislike of change per se, he was alarmed about the implications for his family, and his kind. ‘Thank God for the Civil Service,’ he is supposed to have remarked on hearing of the huge majority for a party committed to a programme of nationalization, redistribution and social reform. In private, he was unapologetically right-wing (his wife even more so), and was often moved to explosions of anger at the latest socialist outrage, especially if he felt he had not been consulted.