Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch

by Sally Bedell Smith

  At the Castle of Mey: James Murray (managing director of the Castle and Gardens of Mey), Christina Murray, Shirley Farquahar, Helen Markham, Nancy McCarthy, Grant Napier, and June Webster.

  I would also like to thank Her Majesty the Queen for permission to quote excerpts from personal papers at the Castle of Mey.

  Special thanks to the team at the Buckingham Palace Press Office for patiently responding to numerous queries and for kindly making so many arrangements on my behalf: Ailsa Anderson, Samantha Cohen, Zaki Cooper, Meryl Keeling, Nick Loughran, Ed Perkins, David Pogson, Colette Saunders, Jen Stebbing, and Peter Wilkinson, the Queen’s videographer.

  I am grateful as well for the assistance of Paddy Harverson, communications secretary to the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

  I also offer heartfelt thanks for the support, hospitality, and ideas of friends and acquaintances alike: Piers Allen, Suzy Allen, Philip Astor, Geoffrey and Kathryn Baker, Bob Balaban and Lynn Grossman, Oliver Baring, Darcie Baylis, Peter and Amy Bernstein, Linda Boothby, Chris and Wendy Born, John Bowes Lyon, Graydon and Anna Carter, Victor and Isabel Cazalet, Robert Chartener, Jane Churchill, Caroline Clegg, Colin and Amanda Clive, Bob Colacello, Pat and Bill Compton, Mary Copeland, Jean Cox, Jim and Susan Dunning, John and Jodie Eastman, Jane Elliot, Michael Estorick, Barbara Evans-Butler, Pamela Fiori, Brian and Jane FitzGerald, April Foley, Tom Foley, Christopher “Kip” Forbes, Joanna Francisco, Mary Mel French, Alexander Gaudieri, Douglas and Sue Gordon, Sarah Gordon, Anne Greenstock, Debbie Haddrell, Rupert and Robin Hambro, Catherine Hamill, David and Kathleen Harvey, Rod and Kay Heller, Robert Higdon and David Deckelbaum, Patrick and Annie Holcroft, Lord and Lady Howard, Brit and Kim Hume, Brenda Johnson, Stanley and Jenny Johnson, Annie Jones, David Ker, Michael-John Knatchbull, Henry Koehler, Anne Kreamer, Tony Lake, Wayne Lawson, Mark Lloyd, Sharon Lorenzo, Jeff and Elizabeth Louis, Grant Manheim, Roz Markstein, Alyne Massey, Betty Mattie, Mike Meehan, Sir Christopher and Lady Meyer, Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, Liz Newman, Peggy Noonan, the Honourable James and Lady Caroline Ogilvy, Giulia Orth, Maureen Orth, Christopher and Ginny Palmer-Tomkinson, Christopher and Brina Penn, Helen Phelps, Justine Picardie, Olga Polizzi, Pat Roberts, Michele Rollins, Margot Roosevelt and George Girton, Bertie Ross, Charlotte Rothschild, Hannah Rothschild, Jim and Cindy Rowbotham, Martha Smilgis, Jeremy Soames, Bobby Spencer, Nadia Stanfield, Francesca Stanfill, Claire Stapleton, Will Swift, Miner Warner, Sandy and Patsy Warner, Margaret Westwood, and Jacqueline Williams.

  My friend David Harvey deserves particular thanks for giving me a wonderfully vivid account written by his father, Major Thomas Harvey, private secretary to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, “Notes on the Birth of Prince Charles,” dated November 14, 1948. Carolyn Deaver, another friend, shared her sharp-eyed journal of the Queen’s trip to California in 1983. I am grateful as well to those who showed me personal letters from the Queen.

  I owe a great debt to numerous biographers and historians, memoirists and diarists who have helped me appreciate how Elizabeth II has confronted challenges at various stages of her reign. Among the works that were particularly helpful were Queen and Country, an illuminating book and accompanying BBC documentary by William Shawcross, who also wrote the masterly Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Biography; Sarah Bradford’s Elizabeth; Gyles Brandreth’s Philip and Elizabeth; Jonathan Dimbleby’s The Prince of Wales; Robert Lacey’s Majesty and Monarch; Elizabeth Longford’s Elizabeth R; Ann Morrow’s The Queen; Ben Pimlott’s The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II; Graham Turner’s Elizabeth: The Woman and the Queen; and Hugo Vickers’s Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

  William Shawcross was also a source of wisdom and encouragement, and Sarah Bradford, Robert Lacey, and Hugo Vickers kindly shared information and offered helpful advice, as did a number of other journalists and fellow authors: Sarah Baxter, Anne de Courcy, Roland Flamini, Flora Fraser, Robert Hardman, Rachel Johnson, Alan Jones, Valentine Low, Anne McElvoy and Martin Ivins, Peter McKay, Jon Meacham, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Charles Moore, and Justin Webb.

  From my research in the late 1990s for Diana in Search of Herself, I drew on interviews with Jane Atkinson, the late Elsa Bowker, the late Lord Deedes, Roberto Devorick, Jonathan Dimbleby, Lucia Flecha de Lima, Andrew Knight, Andrew Neil, and Barbara Walters.

  I am deeply grateful to Nancy Reagan, who not only shared her reminiscences with me over two enjoyable lunches in Los Angeles but granted me exclusive access to the personal correspondence she and President Reagan had with members of the royal family. Fred Ryan, chairman of the board of trustees for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, gave me good guidance, and Wren Powell, Nancy Reagan’s executive assistant, efficiently arranged my visit to the Reagan Presidential Library, where Joanne Drake and Mike Duggan assisted my study of the correspondence files.

  This is the third time I have relied on the intrepid Mike Hill for essential research. Once again he rounded up books and periodicals and found valuable nuggets of information in presidential libraries. At the Virginia Historical Society, he combed through the diaries of longtime American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s David Bruce, with the assistance of Nelson Lankford. I was also fortunate to rely on the research skills of Jack Bales, the reference and humanities librarian at Mary Washington University.

  My archival and periodical research in England was capably handled by Annabel Davidson, and Edda Tasiemka unearthed obscure clippings from her extensive collection.

  I am fortunate indeed to have Kate Medina as my editor. She is patient, wise, and imaginative, with great instincts honed by experience, and I deeply appreciate her enthusiasm for this project from day one. Editor Lindsey Schwoeri asked perceptive questions about the manuscript and expertly steered the book through the publication process. Anna Pitoniak, Kate’s assistant, was invariably efficient and cheerful. Production editor Steve Messina supervised the meticulous work of copy editor Fred Chase and fielded numerous emails.

  Gina Centrello’s publishing team at Random House is the best in the business—creative and smart about every aspect of Elizabeth the Queen. My thanks to Tom Perry, executive vice president and deputy publisher, and Sally Marvin, vice president and director of publicity, for their excellent ideas on promotion, along with publicists Bridget Fitzgerald and Alex Chernin. I am also grateful for the attentiveness of Avideh Bashirrad, Kelly Gildea, Erika Greber, Denise Cronin, Toby Ernst, Joelle Dieu, and Ken Wohlrob. Thanks as well to Laura Goldin and Deborah Foley, and to art director Paolo Pepe, jacket designer Belina Huey, and interior designer Susan Turner for making my book look beautiful inside and out. Carol Poticny once again threw herself into the task of photo research, resourceful and persistent as always. Thanks as well to my website designer, Shannon Swenson, and to Tony Hudz and Rosalyn Landor for their impeccable audio recording of the book.

  I was delighted to have Max Hirshfeld, as congenial as he is gifted, back to take my author photograph, along with his lovely wife, Nina, stylist, Kim Steele, and assistant, Mike Jones—all of whom turned the photo session into a queen-for-a-day experience.

  Amanda Urban, my longtime agent and treasured friend for even longer, has been my stalwart advocate as well as a fount of valuable advice.

  In the middle of my research, my daughter, Lisa, was married in London at the Guards’ Chapel—only a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace—to a charming and brave English army officer, Dominic Clive. Their wedding on the Fourth of July brought together an exuberant Anglo-American crowd, which somehow gave this project an extra dimension of kismet. Lisa and Dom, along with my sons, Kirk and David, were a constant source of love and support, especially when I was immersed in the solitude of writing for more than a year.

  After living through my six biographies for nearly three decades, my loving husband, Stephen, might be expected to show some impatience with the all-consuming nature of these projects. To the contrary, he was endlessly understanding, even when I left for long stretches of interviewing in London. He introduced me
to English friends who helped me with ideas and further introductions. He buoyed me when I was feeling discouraged, making me laugh at least once every day. He happily shared my thrill of discovery. He offered astute suggestions about structure and writing. He edited my manuscript not once but twice on weekends and evenings when he was exhausted after long days of running a newspaper. As I was wrestling with options for a title, he came up with a brilliantly concise winner in about five seconds—the fourth time he has done so. Somewhat against his nature, he even agreed to provide comic relief when I wrote in my preface about his protocol infractions with the Queen. As an expression of my love and my everlasting gratefulness, Elizabeth the Queen is dedicated to him.

  SALLY BEDELL SMITH

  Washington, D.C.

  July 2011

  SOURCE NOTES

  PREFACE

  1. Elizabeth fell in love: John W. Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI: His Life and Reign, p. 749.

  2. “She never looked at anyone else”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  3. “People will not realize”: Nigel Nicolson, Vita and Harold: Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, p. 414.

  4. “Her private side took me”: Howard Morgan interview.

  5. “She stacked the plates!”: George “Frolic” Weymouth interview.

  6. “You can hear her laughter”: Tony Parnell interview.

  7. “intentionally measured and deliberate pace”: William Shawcross, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Biography [QEQM], p. 347.

  8. “She can uphold the identity”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  9. “to watch her sidle into a room”: Graham Turner, Elizabeth: The Woman and the Queen, pp. 58–59.

  10. When her cousin Lady Mary Clayton: Author’s observation.

  11. “the only thing that comes between”: Monica Tandy interview.

  12. “like a bat out of hell”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  13. “interest and character to the face”: Elizabeth Longford, Elizabeth R: A Biography, p. 9.

  14. “To be that consistent”: Dame Helen Mirren interview.

  15. “It’s just like scrubbing your teeth”: Jean Seaton interview, recounting conversation between her late husband, Ben Pimlott, and Queen Elizabeth II.

  16. “It’s not really a diary”: E II R documentary, BBC, Feb. 6, 1992.

  17. “I had no idea what to say”: Gwen, the Countess of Dartmouth, interview.

  18. “A great battle is lost”: Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 8, “Never Despair,” 1945–1964, p. 835.

  19. “She makes a dictatorship more difficult”: Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the 7th Marquess of Salisbury, interview.

  20. “the right to be consulted”: Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, p. 75.

  21. “a symbol of unity in a world”: William Shawcross, Queen and Country [Q and C], p. 216.

  22. “When she says something”: Gay Charteris interview.

  23. “There is a weed in Scotland”: Lady Elizabeth Anson interview.

  24. “supporting the Queen”: Gyles Brandreth, Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage, p. 228.

  25. “Prince Philip is the only man”: Ibid., p. 347.

  26. “never having to look”: John Julius Cooper, the 2nd Viscount Norwich, interview.

  27. “She has two great assets”: Sarah Bradford, Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain’s Queen, pp. 358–59; Turner, p. 195, quotes Martin Charteris saying the Queen is “as strong as a yak.”

  28. “present[s] the house to her”: Tony Parnell interview.

  29. I first met Queen Elizabeth II: Author’s observation.

  30. generating considerably more searches: Google Trends: www.google.com/trends.

  31. It was probably fitting: Author’s observation.

  ONE: A Royal Education

  1. “Does that mean”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 81.

  2. “catching the days”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  3. “an air of authority”: Shawcross, Q and C, pp. 21–22.

  4. “neat and methodical”: Marion Crawford, The Little Princesses: The Story of the Queen’s Childhood by Her Nanny, Marion Crawford, p. 171.

  5. “She liked to imagine herself”: Mary Clayton interview.

  6. “I never wanted this to happen”: Wheeler-Bennett, p. 294.

  7. “It was when the Queen was eleven”: Helen Mirren interview.

  8. “I have a feeling that in the end”: E II R documentary.

  9. “It was unheard of for girls”: Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, interview (her husband was John Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne, and she has been known either as Patricia Mountbatten or Patricia Brabourne).

  10. “hopeless at math”: Mary Clayton interview.

  11. “to write a decent hand”: Crawford, p. 19.

  12. “as fast as I can pour it”: Shawcross, QEQM, p. 535.

  13. “a first-rate knowledge”: Ben Pimlott, The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II, p. 69.

  14. “the corners of the Commonwealth”: Mark Collins interview.

  15. “stood me in good stead”: Robert Lacey, Monarch: The Life and Reign of Elizabeth II, pp. 406–7.

  16. “a dramatic, racy, enthusiastic”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 304.

  17. “entirely at home with him”: Crawford, p. 85.

  18. “Hide nothing”: Sir Alan “Tommy” Lascelles, King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, edited by Duff Hart-Davis, p. 208.

  19. “somewhat rambling structure”: Lacey, Monarch, p. 116. 7 “a consultative and tentative absolutism”: Ibid., p. 117.

  20. “it was as if she were studying”: Ibid., p. 118.

  21. “cool clear precision”: David Horbury, “A Princess in Paris,” Royalty Digest: A Journal of Record 6, no. 3 (September 1996): 88.

  22. “to appraise both sides”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 116.

  23. “fresh, buxom altogether ‘jolly’ ”: Time, April 29, 1929.

  24. “The way that Dame Pearl”: Shawcross, QEQM, p. 555.

  25. “The arches and beams”: Jane Roberts, Queen Elizabeth: A Birthday Souvenir Album, facsimile reproduction of “The Coronation 12th May, 1937, To Mummy and Papa In Memory of Their coronation, From Lilibet, By Herself.”

  26. “No, none”: The Queen, by Rolf, BBC documentary, Jan. 1, 2006.

  27. “intelligent and full of character”: Gerald Isaaman, “A Forgotten Artist Who Had a Brush with Grandeur,” Camden New Journal, Jan. 15, 2004.

  28. “horrid … He was one of those”: The Queen, by Rolf, BBC documentary.

  29. The second artist to capture: Pimlott, p. 33.

  30. “It’s quite nice”: The Queen, by Rolf documentary.

  31. “horses are the greatest levelers”: Frolic Weymouth interview.

  32. “moving carpet”: Sally Bedell Smith, Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess, p. 149.

  33. “They’re heelers”: The Queen, by Rolf documentary.

  34. “It was a very inhibiting experience”: Turner, p. 11.

  35. “Never do that to royalty”: James Ogilvy interview.

  36. “a glass curtain”: Crawford, p. 81.

  37. “real people”: Ibid., p. 31.

  38. “quite fierce”: Lady Pamela Mountbatten (Hicks after her marriage to interior designer David Hicks) interview.

  39. “was brought up knowing”: Patricia Brabourne interview.

  40. “if you find something or somebody”: Ann Morrow, The Queen, p. 16.

  41. “You must not be in too much of a hurry”: Crawford, p. 89.

  42. “particularly easy and pleasant”: Shawcross, QEQM, p. 465.

  43. “sometimes I have tears”: Ibid., p. 468.

  44. “almost continually ‘on show’ ”: Ibid., p. 478.

  45. “The Queen knows the prayer book”: George Carey, the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury and later Lord Carey of Clifton, interview.

  46. “She comes from a generation”:
Ibid.

  47. “sit up at a slight distance:” Clarissa Eden, the Countess of Avon, interview.

  48. “a lady’s back should never touch”: Shawcross, QEQM, p. 780.

  49. “brought up her children”: Mary Clayton interview.

  50. “never shout or frighten”: Shawcross, QEQM, p. 336.

  51. “remember to keep your temper”: Ibid., p. 583.

  52. “She was brought up by strict”: Confidential interview.

  53. “small, very smart, and rather peremptory”: John Dean, H.R.H. Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh: A Portrait by His Valet, p. 60.

  54. “The Queen just enjoyed”: Mary Clayton interview.

  55. “clothes tidy”: Crawford, p. 172.

  56. “internal fast beat”: Helen Mirren interview.

  57. who wore a tiara every night at dinner: Deborah Devonshire, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, Home to Roost and Other Peckings, p. 62.

  58. “look anyone straight in the face”: Cecil Beaton, Self Portrait with Friends: The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton, edited by Richard Buckle, p. 264.

  59. “Queen Mary wore tiaras like she wore her toques”: Devonshire, Home to Roost and Other Peckings, p. 62.

  60. Queen Mary touchingly said: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 196.

  61. “all the people who’ll be waiting”: Ibid., pp 73–74.

  62. “new ideas held no terrors”: Gilbert, p. 809.

  63. “a happy childhood”: Crawford, p. 18.

  64. “wonderful memory training”: Ibid., p. 43.

  65. “steadfastness”: Robert Lacey, Majesty: Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor, p. 92.

  66. Six weeks later: Crawford, p. 106.

  67. Crawfie directed the princesses: Ibid., p. 108.

  68. “purdah”: Lacey, Majesty, p. 105.

  69. “I was brought up amongst men”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 122.

  70. “the first requisite of a really good officer”: Crawford, p. 150.

  71. “a rather shy little girl”: Ibid., p. 134.

  72. “never forgot there was a war on”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 122.