Counting One's Blessings

by William Shawcross

  † Perhaps ‘Molly the Marchioness’, by Lionel Monckton (1861–1924), popular composer of musical comedies.

  Oh, Molly was tall and fair to see,

  Her manners were frank, her language free;

  She met with a noble Lord when he

  Was fishing a neighbour’s water …

  * Violet Carnegy of Lour (1897–1965), wife of Lieutenant Colonel Ughtred Elliott Carnegy of Lour. They had three daughters.

  * The United Nations was created, following an international conference in San Franscisco, on 24 October 1945. Its first General Assembly, with fifty-one nations represented, opened at Central Hall, Westminster, on 10 January 1946. On 17 January the Security Council met for the first time and on the 24th the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, on the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction. The cornerstone of its permanent headquarters in New York was laid in October 1949.

  * Bread had not been rationed during the war – but now it was. All other foods, clothing and fuel were in short supply or rationed. ‘Britain Can Make It’ was a massive 1946 exhibition put on at the Victoria and Albert Museum by the Council of Industrial Design (later the Design Council) to promote post-war British industry.

  † Clement Attlee, first Earl Attlee, KG OM CH PC FRS (1883–1967), leader of the Labour Party; Deputy Prime Minister, 1940–5; Prime Minister, 1945–51. Violet (Vi) Attlee, his wife, worked closely with him and drove him everywhere throughout the country. The Queen told Eric Anderson, ‘I think the King faintly dreaded such a complete change, but actually Mr Attlee turned out very good. He and the King got on very well. And he was a very good Prime Minister, I think.’ (Conversations with Eric Anderson 1994–5, RA QEQM/ADD/MISC)

  ‡ Following the plebiscite calling for his return, the king was going back to Greece after over five years in exile. He faced the thorny task of managing the political factions of the country. He died childless in April 1947 and was succeeded by his brother Prince Paul.

  § W. Averell Harriman (1891–1986), American Democrat politician, businessman and diplomat. In 1941 he became US Special Envoy to Europe.

  * RMS Queen Elizabeth, then the largest ocean liner ever built, was launched by the Queen on the Clyde in September 1938. War delayed her commercial service – she first served as a troopship. She was fitted out for the first time as a liner only in 1946. During the 1950s she and her sister ship Queen Mary dominated the transatlantic passenger market until air crossings took over. She had an ignominious end: in 1972 she caught fire and was wrecked in Hong Kong harbour.

  † John Elphinstone had returned from his German prisoner-of-war camp after VE Day. Glenmazeran was the sporting estate at Tomatin in Inverness-shire bought by John’s father, Sidney.

  * An exhibition of paintings from the Royal Collection had long been mooted. After the war, the collection was gradually reassembled from its various wartime hiding places. The pictures were cleaned and restored as necessary and the ‘The King’s Pictures’ opened at the Royal Academy in November 1946. It was the first large art show to be held in London since the war and over 366,000 people came to see it. The Queen arranged a private view and supper for friends at the Academy on 20 November 1946. Queen Elizabeth’s wish for a gallery at Buckingham Palace came true many years later, when the Duke of Edinburgh suggested that the bomb-damaged Chapel be converted into a small public gallery to display changing exhibitions from the Royal Collection. The Queen’s Gallery was opened in 1962. In 2002 it was incorporated into a new, larger gallery built to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee.

  * The British colonial administration of India, headed by Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, had hoped to give independence to a united India. But the demands of Hindu and Muslim leaders proved impossible to reconcile and Mountbatten presided over the partition of India into two countries – the mostly Muslim Pakistan and the mostly Hindu India. New borders had to be drawn and independence to both countries was granted at midnight on 14/15 August 1947. Mountbatten was criticized for the speed with which he had insisted Partition be carried out. Terrible bloodshed occurred as millions of people crossed from one new country into the other.

  * Lady Duncan (Alice), widow of Sir Patrick Duncan (1899–1943), Governor General of South Africa, 1937–43. She shaped the gardens at Government House and, a South African herself, stayed there after her husband’s death.

  * Lady Harlech DCVO (1891–1980), née Lady Beatrice (‘Mima’) Gascoyne-Cecil, daughter of the fourth Marquess of Salisbury; wife of fourth Baron Harlech. Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth (1947–67). Lady Harlech and Lady Delia Peel were the Queen’s two ladies in waiting on the South African tour; Lady Margaret Egerton (later Colville) was lady in waiting to the two Princesses.

  * Major General Sir John Kennedy GCMG KCVO KBE CB MC (1893–1970), and his wife Catherine. He was Assistant Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the Second World War; Governor of Southern Rhodesia, 1947–53. Sir John told Queen Elizabeth later that he took the King around the grounds of Government House and they looked at a tree planted by King Edward VIII when he was Prince of Wales. The King reflected, ‘My brother never had the good fortune I had when I married my wife.’ (Sir John Kennedy to Queen Elizabeth, 14 January 1959, RA QEQM/PRIV/PAL)

  * The Queen was not, in fact, Prince Philip’s aunt. His father was King George V’s first cousin, and his mother was King George VI’s second cousin. No doubt both the Prince and the Queen considered ‘Aunt’ more suitable to their difference in age.

  † Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), senior Soviet politician and diplomat. As Minister for Foreign Affairs, in 1947 he condemned America’s Marshall Plan, which offered aid to Europe, as ‘imperialism’, and refused to allow European countries already under Soviet influence access to its funds.

  * A collection of the writings of the painter Walter Sickert edited by Osbert Sitwell.

  † A fine string ensemble which played from 1931 until the early 1960s.

  ‡ Dame Myra Hess (1890–1965), celebrated British concert pianist who organized popular lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery during the war.

  § Anthony Blunt (1907–83), appointed Surveyor of the King’s Pictures in 1945, succeeding Sir Kenneth Clark; Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, 1952–72. Knighted in 1956, but stripped of his knighthood in 1979 after he was exposed as a Soviet spy. Queen Elizabeth later recalled: ‘Blunt was a tremendous expert on Poussin, whom he particularly adored. He was another person one learned a bit from. And he could lecture in French, which I thought was so clever. Poor man. It was a long time after his wickedness, he had probably forgotten all about it. Wasn’t it extraordinary that people got like that at Cambridge? I couldn’t do that. I really couldn’t. To be a traitor to your country to me would be the worst thing.’ (Conversations with Eric Anderson 1994–5, RA QEQM/ADD/MISC)

  * 3 December [1947], RA QEQM/PRIV/RF.

  * The Rev. Hector Anderson, Rector of Sandringham, 1942–55.

  † Sir William Fellowes KCVO (1899–1986), agent at Sandringham. He started work there for Edward VIII in 1936 and retired under Queen Elizabeth II in 1964. He and his wife, Jane, remained friends of the Queen Mother all their lives.

  * Windlesham Manor, Surrey, close to Windsor Great Park, briefly home to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip before they moved to Clarence House.

  † Sir John Rupert ‘Jock’ Colville Kt CB CVO (1915–87), civil servant who worked with Winston Churchill during the war. He was Private Secretary to Princess Elizabeth, 1947–9, and then returned to work for Churchill. His diaries, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955 (1985), provide an intimate description of Churchill at war and peace.

  ‡ Major Thomas Harvey DSO CVO (1918–2001), former Scots Guards officer who was Queen Elizabeth’s Private Secretary, 1946–51.

  * The present was a glass salver engraved by Laurence Whistler inscribed with the words ‘The Queen on her Silver Weddin
g Day, the twenty-sixth of April 1948, from her devoted Servant and Treasurer, Arthur Penn’.

  * Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1911–2004), Prince Consort of Queen Juliana (1909–2004) who became Queen of the Netherlands on the abdication of her mother, Queen Wilhelmina, in 1948. She in turn abdicated in favour of her daughter Princess Beatrix in 1980. Abdication in the Dutch Royal Family was the norm; in Britain it was the unhappy exception.

  † Until 1948, nationals in the United Kingdom, the Dominions and some colonies had been entitled to call themselves ‘British subjects’. The British Nationality Act of 1948 created the new status of ‘Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies’ for all Commonwealth subjects, and allowed them to settle in the UK. Subsequent legislation limited the automatic right of abode, and the British Nationality Act of 1981 abolished the 1948 definition of citizenship.

  * Edward Goldney, A Friendly Epistle to the Deists and a Rational Prayer recommended to Them, in order for their conversion to the Christian Religion (1759).

  † The Crazy Gang, a much loved group of English entertainers – comedians, singers, actors – who had enduring stage and film successes from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. Their principals included Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Jimmy Nervo, Teddy Knox, Charlie Naughton, Jimmy Gold and ‘Monsewer’ Eddie Gray. Among their most famous and popular songs was ‘Underneath the Arches’, a tender evocation of the homeless who slept rough. Their kind Cockney humour was particularly popular, indeed poignant, during the war.

  * The full-length portrait of King George III, described as ‘Studio of Allan Ramsay’, came from the collection of Lord Home. It was later hung in the hall of Clarence House.

  * This sale took place at Christie’s, Spencer House, on 8 December; the catalogue lists for sale ‘Important Old English Silver, Objects of Vertu and a Charles II Gold Porringer and Cover, sold by order of the Earl of Strathmore’, the Queen’s eldest brother, Patrick, the fifteenth Earl.

  † Stafford Cripps was now Chancellor of the Exchequer and taxes had been increased.

  * Churchill had enjoyed painting since the 1920s; he found it an excellent way of relaxing and he became remarkably accomplished. Most of his works were landscapes, many of them done in the South of France and Morocco after his electoral defeat in 1945.

  * Prince Paul and Princess Olga had endured exile in Nairobi and then in Cape Town after the coup that toppled him from the regency of Yugoslavia in 1941. Their lives improved considerably after the King and Queen overrode official advice and met them on their 1947 tour of South Africa. They moved to Paris in 1949 and restored many of their British friendships. Prince Paul had been declared an enemy of the state by the post-war Communist regime in Yugoslavia but was officially rehabilitated by the Serbian courts in 2011. He died in 1976, Princess Olga in 1997.

  * After Princess Elizabeth married Prince Philip, Princess Margaret’s romantic life became a subject of enduring obsession to the popular press. Newspapers in those days were mild by comparison with later, but their attentions were often intrusive and unwelcome.

  * Sir Edward William Spencer Ford GCVO KCB ERD DL (1910–2006), Assistant Private Secretary to King George VI and then to Queen Elizabeth II, 1946–67. On the morning of 6 February 1952 it fell to Ford to report the death of the King to Winston Churchill. He found the Prime Minister working in bed and told him that he brought him bad news. ‘Bad news?’ said Churchill. ‘The worst.’ (Bradford, George VI, pp. 607–8)

  * Probably a reference to a Scottish marching song, with the refrain ‘Wi’ a hundred pipers an’ a’, an’ a’ [and all, and all]’ commemorating Bonnie Prince Charlie’s entry into Carlisle during the 1745 Jacobite rising against the Hanoverian monarchy in Britain.

  † Edward Irvine Halliday (1902–84), British portrait painter, trained at the Royal College of Art and the British School of Rome. In 1948 he drew both Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

  ‡ Crown Prince Abdulla of Hejaz GCB GCVO, Regent of Iraq, 1939–53. His ‘glamorous new wife’ was his second of three, Faisa el Tarabulsi. In 1958, both he and his nephew, King Feisal II, were murdered in a coup d’état which overthrew the monarchy.

  * Lieutenant Commander George ‘Toby’ Marten DSC, equerry to the King, married Mary Anna Sturt at Holy Trinity, Brompton, on 26 November 1949.

  † Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH (1913–76), one of the greatest twentieth-century British composers, perhaps best known for his operas such as Peter Grimes, Billy Budd and Midsummer Night’s Dream and for his War Requiem. In 1948 he and his partner, the tenor Peter Pears, founded the Aldeburgh Festival, in their home town on the Suffolk coast. It began with classical music but was expanded to include poetry, drama, literature and art. It continued to flourish past Britten’s death. The Queen Mother and the Queen both admired Britten and Pears, and what they had done for music in Britain and for cultural life on the east coast. The Queen Mother later nominated Britten for an honorary degree at London University. He and Pears became friends of both Queens; they often stayed at Sandringham and Queen Elizabeth attended many concerts at Aldeburgh.

  ‡ Probably Mark Bonham Carter, Julian Amery, Laura Smith, Peter Townsend, Jamie Granville and Princess Margaret.

  * The Duke of Windsor.

  † Alice Bruce, Stanley Lucking, George Simpson, Reginald Evitts, Cyril Hailey, Thomas Lance and Jack Crisp were members of staff at Windsor, respectively housekeeper, foreman, head gardener, yeoman of the plate pantry, page and footmen.

  ‡ Jimmy Edwards (1920–88) and Frankie Howerd (1917–92), popular comedians who each enjoyed great success in radio, television and film.

  § Popular dance, sometimes known as a mixer, in which everyone frequently changes partners.

  * Prince Philip replied:

  ‘I’m sure I don’t deserve half the kind things you say. These last two years have been a wonderful experience and a most valuable one. I have learnt a great deal about what “goes on” and in years to come the knowledge gained will come in very useful.

  ‘I have the most unbounded admiration for the way in which you and Uncle Bertie manage to do the enormous number of things you do without letting it become automatic. Your example and help have been a constant source of strength during a rather hectic period.

  ‘You say in your letter that I think you are Olde Worlde. I don’t really think that my own ideas are sufficiently clear to be able to stigmatize anybody least of all yourself. Perhaps my education and life so far have caused me to think differently and therefore hold different views but I hope that they are sufficiently open-minded not to be “modern” for modernity’s sake. If and when we disagree I assure you that I listen to and digest your views as those of an exceptionally intelligent and enlightened person and try to reconcile them with my own. It seems to me that the best way to form an opinion is to rub views with other people!

  ‘Your loyal and devoted son in law, Philip’ (RA QEQM/PRIV/RF)

  * The first general election since the Labour victory of 1945 was held on 23 February 1950. Labour won a narrow majority of just five seats over all other parties.

  * Vincent Auriol (1884–1966), President of the French Fourth Republic, 1947–54.

  † Peter Cazalet (1907–73), racehorse trainer. After the war he and his friend Anthony Mildmay, a brilliant amateur jockey, set up a racing stable of jumpers at his home, Fairlawne in Kent. In 1949 they persuaded the Queen and Princess Elizabeth that they should buy Monaveen, who raced in the Queen’s colours in the 1950 Grand National.

  Over the years Peter Cazalet trained over 250 winners for Queen Elizabeth. His second wife Zara was an exuberant hostess and, in the 1960s, Queen Elizabeth enjoyed their house parties at Fairlawne.

  * Simon Elwes RP RA KM (1902–75), British war artist and portrait painter. In 1945 he nearly died from a stroke; his right hand and side were paralysed so he taught himself to paint with his left hand. He painted many members of the Royal Family.

  * Queen Elizabeth was fond of the aircraf
t carrier HMS Ark Royal and visited it often, as she did its successor, also Ark Royal, which she launched in 1981. In November 2001, some four months before her death, she visited her second Ark Royal for the ceremony to mark its recommissioning after extensive refitting.

  † ‘Jack’, seventh Earl Spencer (1892–1975). Countess Spencer DCVO OBE (1897–1972) née Lady Cynthia Hamilton. Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen 1937–72; paternal grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

  * Anthony Bingham Mildmay, second Baron Mildmay of Flete (1909–50), amateur steeplechaser, who had introduced the Queen and Princess Elizabeth to National Hunt racing. Lord Mildmay had disappeared while swimming off the coast of Devon in May 1950. His loss was a blow to racing as well as to all those who knew him.

  * Henry Walton (1746–1813), British painter.

  † Noble Essences: A Book of Characters, Macmillan, 1950.

  ‡ Prince Philip was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and given command of the frigate HMS Magpie.

  * Princess Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise, second child of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, was born on 15 August 1950.

  * Monaveen won many races in the course of 1950 but at the end of the year, ridden by Tony Grantham, he fell and broke his leg at Hurst Park. He had to be put down at once. Grantham broke his ribs in the accident.

  † Sir John Crocker Bulteel (1890–1956), racing administrator, who developed the racing programme at Ascot.

  * Mabel Anderson (1927– ), nanny to royal children through six decades. She started work as assistant nanny to Prince Charles in 1949. He once described her as ‘a haven of security, the great haven’. She retired in 1981 but remained close to the family; in 2010 the Queen invited her on a cruise of the Western Isles.

  * Manicou was the second racehorse the Queen acquired. A dark bay with a white star on his forehead and two white socks, the Queen loved him. He became incurably lame and at stud sired many horses, including The Rip and Isle of Man, two of her later favourites.