Elizabeth the Queen

by Sally Bedell Smith

94. “As a mother, I’m trying to understand”: Sunday Times, Oct. 30, 1966.

  95. “It’s nice to hibernate”: E II R documentary.

  96. The long drive from the gates: Author’s observations.

  97. trucks filled with clothing: Martin Leslie interview.

  98. “There is a certain fascination”: E II R documentary.

  99. “The furniture has barely been moved”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  100. “Every new person goes for it”: Jean Carnarvon interview.

  101. “Her Majesty is aware”: Martin Leslie interview.

  102. “Hooray!”: Confidential interview.

  103. “steep frowning glories”: Dimbleby, p. 35.

  104. “At Balmoral, she knows every inch”: Malcolm Ross interview.

  105. “It was always fun to see a new stalker”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  106. She shot her last stag: Confidential interview.

  107. a practice she was forced to stop: Confidential interview.

  108. “the hoovers”: Turner, p. 73.

  109. “If I’d known you were all watching”: Ibid.

  110. “She shows you to your room”: Confidential interview.

  111. “as if a switch has flipped”: Malcolm Ross interview.

  112. “She is conversing as she is playing”: Confidential interview.

  113. “she has to have it absolutely right”: Anne Glenconner interview.

  114. “Our lunch was over”: Confidential interview.

  115. “Woe betide if you put”: Confidential interview.

  116. “At Balmoral, she never forgets”: Confidential interview.

  117. “engrossed in the sufferings of Swann”: Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader, p. 62.

  118. For many years she would choose: Oliver Everett interview.

  119. “You can go out for miles”: E II R documentary.

  NINE: Daylight on the Magic

  1. “Goodness what fun”: Bradford, p. 325.

  2. “was very impressed”: Mary Wilson interview.

  3. Displeased by her harsh treatment: Dimbleby, p. 39.

  4. The Queen was not intimidated: Ibid., p. 40.

  5. “work and responsibilities and duties”: The Queen at 80, Sky News, 2006.

  6. “he could hear the younger children”: Min Hogg interview.

  7. “dodge-ems”: The Queen at 80, Sky News, 2006.

  8. “pick us up and say”: Ibid.

  9. “caustic lot”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 273.

  10. “exert her authority”: Bradford, p. 338.

  11. “an utterly detached sensation”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 273.

  12. Having ridden since the age: Princess Anne the Princess Royal, with Ivor Herbert, Riding Through My Life, p. 2.

  13. “crème de la crème”: Dimbleby, p. 135.

  14. “on level grown-up terms”: Daily Mirror, Feb. 28, 1968.

  15. “I remember the patience”: Mary Wilson interview.

  16. “charming … with his desire to please”: Gladwyn, p. 343.

  17. “Right from the beginning”: Turner, p. 118.

  18. “it just beggars belief”: Brandreth, p. 301.

  19. “great difference”: Ibid., p. 296.

  20. “was too proud to admit it”: Dimbleby, p. 189.

  21. “an escape place”: E II R documentary.

  22. “pure luxury … miles of stubble fields”: Princess Anne, p. 2.

  23. “the autumn colours”: Ibid., p. 16.

  24. It was one of the few times: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  25. the Queen Mother had been preparing: Helen Markham interview.

  26. “There is a grave shortage”: Display at Castle of Mey; copyright HM the Queen.

  27. “A meal of such splendour”: Castle of Mey Visitors Book, Aug. 15, 1991; copyright HM the Queen.

  28. In the distance through binoculars: Nancy McCarthy interview.

  29. “She did not have to worry”: Vickers, Alice Princess Andrew of Greece, p. 335.

  30. “Bubby-kins”: Ibid., p. 382.

  31. “Yaya”: Ibid., p. 360.

  32. “Oh, I thought you were saying”: Ibid., pp. 351–52.

  33. “cuddly granny”: Ibid., p. 361.

  34. “compartmentalize”: Ibid.

  35. Andrew and Edward often came: Lacey, Monarch, p. 232.

  36. even joining the elderly princess: Annigoni, p. 173.

  37. “not arguments, but let’s say”: Vickers, Alice Princess Andrew of Greece, p. 391.

  38. Her worldly goods: Ibid., p. 394. At a later date, according to her instructions, the remains of Princess Alice were transferred to Jerusalem for burial. In April 1993 she was recognized by the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem for her heroism in hiding a family of Jews from the Nazis in Greece during World War II.

  39. “We are not publicity agents”: Time, April 11, 1949.

  40. he had hosted a second program: McDonald, The Duke documentary. 215 “I was quite a different kind”: Shawcross, Q and C, p. 151.

  41. “I think it is quite wrong”: The Times, Nov. 10, 1969.

  42. “You can do it”: Pimlott, p. 379.

  43. “the Queen goes with what she has to do”: Gay Charteris interview.

  44. “She suddenly discovered”: Pimlott, p. 381.

  45. “Can’t we avoid a shadow here?”: Morrow, p. 89.

  46. “She never underplays the importance of ceremony”: Confidential interview.

  47. implying she meant the hapless Annenberg: Diaries of David Bruce, Nov. 27, 1968.

  48. “infinitely rewarding and impressive”: Walter Annenberg to Richard Nixon, May 1, 1969, Nixon Library.

  49. “flustered envoy … verbal felicity”: Christopher Ogden, Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg, p. 429.

  50. Through speech therapy, he had learned: Ibid., p. 430.

  51. “When we reviewed the film”: Ibid., p. 432.

  52. “came through as a great character”: Beaton, Beaton in the Sixties, p. 342.

  53. “we must not let in daylight upon magic”: Bagehot, p. 59.

  54. “like a middle-class family in Surbiton or Croydon”: Evening Standard, June 26, 1969.

  55. “depends on mystique”: Bradford, p. 353.

  56. “rotten idea”: William Shawcross, Queen and Country documentary.

  57. “language and culture”: Dimbleby, p. 149.

  58. “grand and simple”: BBC News interview with Lord Snowdon, June 29, 2009.

  59. “I didn’t want red carpets”: BBC Colour TV coverage, July 1, 1969, YouTube.

  60. “that it was her show not his”: Gladwyn, p. 346.

  61. “By far the most moving”: Dimbleby, p. 163. 222 “She gaily shattered”: Coward, p. 678.

  TEN: Ring of Silence

  1. “Everything about her seemed smaller”: Annigoni, p. 172. 225 “At every sitting”: Ibid., p. 174.

  2. “I see Your Majesty”: Ibid., pp. 176–77.

  3. The Queen had become fascinated: Diaries of David Bruce, April 22, 1969.

  4. “and to the American people”: Queen Elizabeth II message to Richard Nixon, Department of State telegram, July 1969, Nixon Library.

  5. “it filled us with wonder”: Annigoni, p. 184.

  6. “he was so drunk”: Ibid., p. 185.

  7. “You must have emptied”: Shaun Plunket interview.

  8. “people who never in the past”: Confidential interview.

  9. “He knew everybody”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  10. “She realized quickly that Patrick”: Shaun Plunket interview.

  11. “often with a smile”: Ibid.

  12. “a great protector”: Annabel Goldsmith, No Invitation Required: The Pelham Cottage Years, p. 87.

  13. “Ma’am, do you feel I ought to close”: Shaun Plunket interview.

  14. Afterward, he would regale: Annabel Goldsmith interview.

  15. Philip was relieved: Shaun Plunket interview.

  16. Plunket found a kindred spirit:
Gay Charteris interview.

  17. “Martin was someone he could relate to”: Ibid.

  18. “would have been too late”: Ibid.

  19. “One of the pleasant things”: Diaries of David Bruce, Feb. 4, 1969.

  20. “There are no set plays”: Confidential interview.

  21. “She will say, ‘Can you cope?’ ”: Confidential interview.

  22. “a glare”: Anne Glenconner interview.

  23. “fierce whisper”: Johnson, p. 105.

  24. “It would be ghastly”: Esme, the Dowager Countess of Cromer, interview.

  25. “easy to relax”: Campbell-Preston, p. 270.

  26. “We never talked”: Esme Cromer interview.

  27. They had shared a bedroom: Crawford, p. 121.

  28. “Bobo could say anything”: Margaret Rhodes interview.

  29. “The sketches were put all over”: Valerie Rouse interview, Hardyaimes.com.

  30. “Bobo will give me hell”: Daily Mail, Nov. 11, 1997.

  31. “She knew everything”: Confidential interview.

  32. “quite friendly when thawed”: Dean, p. 60.

  33. Bobo wandered away: Jean Carnarvon interview.

  34. “sound, very human, very wise”: Patricia Brabourne interview.

  35. “ring of silence”: Turner, p. 188, quoting an anonymous former cabinet secretary.

  36. “Those who see the private side”: Confidential interview.

  37. “She is not someone who is enormously intimate”: Confidential interview.

  38. “One of her greatest strengths”: Robert Salisbury interview.

  39. “the Colonel”: Shawcross, QEQM, p. 626.

  40. “There is absolutely no such thing as snobbism”: Patricia Brabourne interview.

  41. “I nearly died of fright”: Jean Carnarvon interview.

  42. The hostess sends her the guest list: Esme Cromer interview.

  43. “easy and gay and ready to giggle”: Coward, p. 634.

  44. Two years later: Columbus O’Donnell interview.

  45. She even showed up: Duncan, p. 188.

  46. “You have mosquitoes”: Daily Mail, Sept. 16, 2008.

  47. “I get kicked in the teeth”: Prince Philip speech at Edinburgh University, May 23, 1969.

  48. “the monarchy functions”: Prince Philip interview on Grampian Television, Feb. 21, 1969.

  49. “The answer to this question”: Duncan, p. 65.

  50. he even jumped into a swimming pool: Lacey, Majesty, p. 257.

  51. Three years later, President Nixon organized: Dinner at the White House, guest list for Tuesday, Nov. 4, 1969, at 8:00 P.M., Nixon Library.

  52. “I had never thought of the President”: Barbara Walters, Audition: A Memoir, pp. 177–78.

  53. “Might Queen Elizabeth ever abdicate?”: Ibid.

  54. “means of unlocking”: Ibid.

  55. “particularly charming and intelligent”: Prince Philip to Richard Nixon, Nov. 7, 1969, Nixon Library.

  56. “Duke of Edinburgh jousts”: Time, Nov. 7, 1969.

  57. “We go into the red”: Meet the Press, Nov. 9, 1969.

  58. Consumer prices had risen by 74 percent: Lacey, Majesty, p. 275.

  ELEVEN: “Not Bloody Likely!”

  1. The ball was a Patrick Plunket production: Beaton, The Unexpurgated Beaton, pp. 71–73.

  2. “We had been expecting to put up with Wilson”: Ibid., p. 75.

  3. “I was told that he blushed”: Ibid.

  4. “celibate”: Philip Ziegler, Edward Heath: The Authorised Biography, p. 230.

  5. “cold and uncompassionate”: Ibid., p. 231.

  6. He described her as a patient listener: Andrew Marr, An Intimate Portrait of the Queen at 80, BBC, 2006.

  7. “a good deal”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 346.

  8. “The fact that she has all these years”: Ibid.

  9. “very useful … particularly on overseas stuff”: Ziegler, p. 319.

  10. “deeply unhappy”: John Campbell, Edward Heath: A Biography, p. 494.

  11. “It’s like Nanny being there”: Lacey, Monarch, pp. 260–61.

  12. “actively sought to downgrade”: Ziegler, p. 374.

  13. their first trip: Suggested Remarks: Welcome for Prince Charles and Princess Anne, July 15, 1970, Nixon Library.

  14. “I learnt the way a monkey learns”: Longford, Elizabeth R, p. 279.

  15. “At nineteen years old suddenly being dropped”: Shawcross, Queen and Country documentary.

  16. Nixon laid on an ambitious program: Department of State, Office of the Chief of Protocol, “Administrative Arrangements for the Visit to Washington, D.C.: His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, K.G. and Her Royal Highness the Princess Anne,” Nixon Library.

  17. More than three decades later: Confidential interview.

  18. “hopes and aspirations”: Henry Kissinger to Richard Nixon, July 17, 1970, Nixon Library.

  19. “pointed out one must not”: Dimbleby, p. 180.

  20. The Queen, who was on vacation: Ziegler, p. 375.

  21. “suitable for entertaining”: Michael Adeane to Charles Morris, M.P., Nov. 18, 1970, National Archives, Kew.

  22. “during his four-hour stay”: Robert T. Armstrong to Michael Adeane, Nov. 18, 1970, National Archives, Kew.

  23. “signal kindness”: Richard Nixon to Queen Elizabeth II, Oct. 7, 1970, Nixon Library.

  24. “Taking a lively interest”: Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Select Committee on the Civil List, 1971, p. 111.

  25. “expensive kept woman”: Pimlott, p. 404.

  26. “Martin was given his chance”: Gay Charteris interview. 246 “Your job is to spread a carpet of happiness”: Ibid.

  27. “ridiculous disease”: Queen Elizabeth II to Edward Heath, Nov. 28, 1971, National Archives, Kew.

  28. “to commiserate with you”: Edward Heath to Queen Elizabeth II, Nov. 23, 1971, National Archives, Kew.

  29. “from them—one can’t win from a virus!”: Queen Elizabeth II to Edward Heath, Nov. 28, 1971, National Archives, Kew.

  30. During her thirties and forties: Evening Standard, April 28, 1971.

  31. “She has a theory that you carry on”: Confidential interview.

  32. “how unnerving it was to get under the bedclothes”: Min Hogg interview.

  33. “can do no harm”: Wyatt, Vol. 3, p. 423.

  34. Among Blackie’s more exotic treatments: Morrow, p. 55.

  35. “for whatever was wrong with them”: Min Hogg interview.

  36. the Queen had extended an olive branch: Diaries of David Bruce, March 28, 1965.

  37. But in 1968 the Queen complied graciously: Bradford, pp. 347–48.

  38. “If the Duke of Windsor were to die”: Christopher Soames confidential telegram, May 10, 1972, National Archives, Kew.

  39. Accompanied by an entourage of thirty-six: State Visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to France, Monday 15th–Friday 19th May, 1972, List of Party, National Archives, Kew.

  40. “We may drive on different sides”: Time, May 29, 1972.

  41. driving to Rouen at the mouth of the Seine: The Times, May 23, 1972.

  42. “She went on board Britannia”: Mary Soames interview.

  43. “a conspicuous demonstration”: The Observer, May 21, 1972.

  44. “had seduced and conquered”: Ibid.

  45. “With the Queen’s visit”: Time, May 29, 1972.

  46. “prattled away”: Dimbleby, p. 217.

  47. “He gave up so much for so little”: Ibid., p. 218.

  48. “showed a motherly and nanny-like tenderness”: Beaton, The Unexpurgated Beaton, p. 256.

  49. “The new links with Europe”: Queen Elizabeth II Christmas Broadcast, Dec. 25, 1972, Official Website of the British Monarchy.