Royal Sisters

by Anne Edwards

Mistaking Crawfie’s voice (which had a similar tone) for the Queen’s, Alah replied from behind a closed door. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “It’s not Your Majesty, Alah, it’s Crawfie. Lord Wigram and Sir Hill Child [Master of the Household] and everybody else is waiting in the shelter and you must come down. This is not a dress rehearsal. What are you doing?”

  Lilibet called, “We’re dressing, Crawfie. We must dress.”

  “Nonsense! You are not to dress. Put a coat over your nightclothes, at once,” Crawfie ordered.

  Out they came, Alah in her white uniform, every hair in place under her starched cap, and the girls fully clothed, coats neatly buttoned. With only a small flashlight to show the way, Ruby, Bobo, Alah, Lilibet and Margaret followed Crawfie down the dark, twisting, stone passageway to the shelter, which was in one of the middle dungeons. The walls, floor and ceiling were carved out of stone. In the flickering candlelight shiny black beetles could be seen crawling along the cracks. Beds had been improvised by setting mattresses in the center of the cavernous room, nearer to the light and farther away from the insects. Margaret refused to stretch out on them and finally fell asleep propped against Crawfie’s knee. Lilibet rested, but never slept. About 1:00 A.M., Sir Hill Child brewed tea on an alcohol burner. Child was “a tall, distinguished-looking person, very dignified,” who even in this bizarre setting “managed to look spruce and well-dressed, with a scarf round his neck,” and at the same time “incongruous as he meticulously tinkered with the tea cups as he waited for the kettle to boil.”

  The all-clear sounded an hour later, and Child “bowed ceremoniously to Lilibet. ‘You may now go to bed, ma’am,’ ” he told her.

  Much to his disappointment, Clive Wigram, a still vigorous man of sixty-six, had been given the post of Governor of the Castle, a position he thought took him out of the thick of things. He had been a legendary cricketer in his youth, was an ardent hunter, and “had the British contempt for all foreigners.” His one son was fighting at the front, “and children (especially of the female variety) and their feminine caretakers made him feel extremely uncomfortable.” His strident voice and blustering manner did much to spark Windsor’s wartime gloom.

  The next morning, Wigram informed the Princesses and their staff that their stay at Windsor was to be a prolonged one. Instructions were given by the Queen that a routine should be maintained so that Lilibet and Margaret could lead as normal a life as was possible under the circumstance. Classes were conducted as usual and although the girls were not to leave the walled section of the castle’s gardens, they were allowed free access of these. Sir Hill Child carried this “life as usual” dictum out in his management of the Household. “Dinner [for the Household staff],” he informed Crawfie, was to be at eight in the Octagon Room. “We dress,” he added gravely.

  Crawfie had her apartments in the top floor of the Victoria Tower, a distance away from the oak-paneled dining room. There was only the dimmest light for all bulbs had been replaced by those with the lowest available wattage. She did not know her way and so for some time she “wandered around like one of the Castle ghosts ... wearing a red velvet dinner-dress against the Britannic draughts that raged through the stone passages.” On her arrival she found the waiting gentlemen who were to be her constant dining companions, “all conventionally attired in dinner-jackets with white ties.”

  The day after the surprise raid, Sir Francis Manners and a company of Grenadier Guards were stationed at the castle. In case of an alarm the girls would now be escorted to the shelter, which was swiftly equipped with proper beds and blankets; dressing rooms and toilets were installed. Some of their possessions were left there—dolls, books and games—and each had a small suitcase standing by the door of her room ready-packed with a change of clothing and a diary with a lock, the latter gifts from their mother.

  If they were outside during a daytime alarm, they headed “for some curious caves in the side of a hill quite close to the Castle,” reached by a long tunnel. Margaret would run ahead, hide and then jump out with a loud scarifying shout.

  Mrs. Montaudon-Smith, whom Lilibet and Margaret called Monty, soon joined the staff at Windsor as French and singing teacher. Her companionship eased Crawfie’s loneliness for Scotland, her own family and for the gentleman she had fallen in love with on her last visit home before the war. Monty had a hearty laugh, a vital personality and an ingenious talent for turning lessons into a joyous occasion. Song sessions, games of charades and lunchtime conversations were conducted in French and the girls’ fluency in the language increased considerably.

  Despite the otherwise grim aspects of what was really an enforced confinement—the separation from their parents and the discontinuance of outside excursions, life at the castle often took on a festive air. The sisters were good-natured about food rationing, looked forward to their one egg on Sunday, and tilled a small patch of dirt to grow a few vegetables and strawberries to supplement the nursery diet. Mealtimes were happy occasions. The four Grenadier officers who lived at Windsor often had lunch (“a long meal that started at 12:45 and went on until three”) and tea with the girls. Lilibet was the hostess at these gatherings. Margaret, her puppy fat gone, was fast growing out of childhood. And, although it was Lilibet who poured the tea, seated her guests and made sure they were drawn into conversation, it was Margaret who “kept everyone in fits of laughter.”

  When summer came and the weather was suitable, they moved their schoolroom from Queen Alexandra’s former sitting room to the garden, where they set up tables. Lilibet now took many of her lessons alone. Shortly before coming to Windsor she had started special classes, twice weekly, in the history of the British Constitution with Sir Henry Marten, the Vice-Provost of Eton College. Now he sent her biweekly assignments and a series of test questions to answer and return by post. Along with these new lessons, her history course was intensified.

  Windsor was an especially apt setting for this period in Lilibet’s education. Wherever she looked England’s history had been made: the ramparts where many Englishmen had been hanged; the dungeons where they had been imprisoned; the tower where Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn had held their trysts; the gardens where a long succession of monarchs had strolled; and Queen Victoria’s apartments where she had remained cloistered after the death of her dear Albert. The castle breathed history. It also held many treasures.

  Crawfie recalled the girls being asked by the King’s Librarian, Sir Owen Morshead, “Would you like to see something interesting?” They answered that they would and trooped after him down to the vaults under the castle where he pulled out some “ordinary looking leather hatboxes which seemed at first sight to be all stuffed with old newspapers. But when we [Crawfie, Lilibet and Margaret] examined these, we discovered the Crown Jewels were hidden in them!”

  The King and Queen, determined to remain at Buck House, traveled to Windsor with their three dogs whenever they had a free weekend. Much excitement attended their arrival. The girls had their corgis at the castle and the weekend canine reunion was a startling affair. It took hours to calm the animals. Dookie, one of the Queen’s corgis, had a nasty habit of nipping at people’s heels and on occasion took a sizable bite from a hand that only wanted to pet him. (“I don’t think Dookie bit Lord Lothian too badly,” the Queen was overheard to say after this incident. “All the same, he did bleed all over the floor!” Lilibet pointed out. “Oh, dear,” the Queen sighed. But Dookie was not reprimanded.)

  Lisa Sheridan, the photographer, recalled being summoned to Windsor in the summer of 1940 to take some pictures of the royal sisters. “Immediately the car stopped at the ‘Princesses’ Entrance,’ footmen seemed to appear from all sides to carry [the camera equipment] and place it in the dim crimson hall. I went up alone in an enormous clanking lift and, in the dark corridor upstairs, found the two Princesses waiting for me. We spent a happy, if stiflingly hot day [while she took photographs]. They sketched and painted, played card games ... and were given a short geography lesson. The
y had a circulating calculator which, when rotated, gave facts about a country: the ruler, its capital, its products and so forth. As Princess Elizabeth spoke of Albania she turned the card into position and found the information about its ruler was no longer correct.

  “[During the day] despatch-cases arrived for the King’s inspection—the famous scarlet leather boxes. I noticed that he drew Princess Elizabeth’s attention to a document and explained certain matters to her very earnestly.... Princess Margaret, meanwhile sat silently ... knitting.”

  The following day Mrs. Sheridan wrote a friend: “There is a particular bond of understanding between the King and Princess Elizabeth.... He makes a point of explaining everything he can to her personally—the present King and the future Queen.... I saw them together looking at papers on his desk.... Later, when they went into the garden together, her arm went spontaneously around his waist and he pulled her towards him. They seemed to have their own little jokes together.... I suppose that theirs is a special intimacy, more deep than perhaps is usually in the ordinary family.”

  Throughout the summer the King traveled up and down the country talking freely with men of the Home Guard, the RAF and the Army. Crawfie thought he had “suddenly grown tall.” War brought him closer to the people and he was far more at ease with average young men than he was with statesmen. As the war progressed his popularity increased and so did his self-confidence and this tended to endow him with a new vitality and aura of strength that had completely eluded him in the past.

  A delayed-action bomb fell outside the north wing of the palace on September 10. No one was injured in the ensuing explosion but the windows of the Royal apartments were broken. One of the Queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting recalled seeing the King and Queen in the passageway leading down to the shelter: “[The King] was carrying a corgi and [the Queen] was carrying a small case, perhaps containing her jewels. They had a brief consultation in the hall, and he gave her the corgi to hold. Then [he] darted back upstairs to find the other [dogs]. Eventually, he returned with the missing [animals] and they went down to the shelter together.”

  Shelters at Buck House were dangerously inadequate. The royal shelter was a former housekeeper’s room in the basement. Steel girders had been installed to reinforce the ceiling; and the window, which was overhead, was protected by steel shutters. Gilt chairs, a regency settee and an oversized Victorian library table were incongruously juxtaposed with a steel ladder [to reach the window], axes [with which to hack one’s way out], oil lamps, electric torches, “and a supply of glossy magazines.”

  The unrelenting assault on London began with staggering ruthlessness the very next day and on Monday, September 13, the Palace was attacked again.

  “The day was very cloudy & it was raining hard [the King wrote in his diary]. We [the Queen and himself] were both upstairs with Alec Hardinge talking in my little sitting room overlooking the quadrangle; (I cannot use my ordinary one owing to the broken windows). All of a sudden we heard an aircraft making a looming noise above us, saw 2 bombs falling past the opposite side of the Palace, & then heard 2 resounding crashes as the bombs fell in the quadrangle about 30 yds. away. We looked at each other, & then we were out into the passage as fast as we could get there. The whole thing happened in a matter of seconds. We all wondered why we weren’t dead. Two great craters had appeared in the courtyard. The one nearest the Palace had burst a fire hydrant & water was pouring through the broken windows in the passage.” They hurried down to their shelter where they remained for several hours, until all danger had passed.

  Six bombs had made direct hits: two in the forecourt, two in the quadrangle, one in the garden and one in the chapel, which was destroyed. Miraculously only three men (plumbers working below the chapel repairing a pipe) were injured.

  Again and again in those warm September days, “the King and Queen would appear suddenly and without formality among the rubble and ruins,” sympathizing with the recent occupants of bomb-shattered rows of houses. Photographs of these royal inspections appeared on the front pages of all the popular press. The King’s image soon changed to “a Sovereign standing at the head of his people, sharing their dangers, deeply concerned for their suffering, encouraging them in their continued determination to resist the enemy.”

  After one East End visit, the Queen sent sixty suites of furniture from Windsor Castle along with linens and rugs to families who had lost all their possessions. The household effects had been stored in Windsor’s vast basements after a refurbishing of staff quarters many years before. Old furnishings or not, the gesture was well appreciated.

  Dark clouds shifted ominously over Chamberlain’s Government and the country was uneasy about “the pusillanimous handling of the war.” On May 11, 1941, after much intrigue in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister. According to Chips Channon it had been “crazy week” in the House; Ministers stood about “bewildered,” not sure of their future. The one popular appointment in the new Government was Duff Cooper as Minister of Information. But with the Government in such confusion—the repeated bombings in the East End and South End of London, and the news that Amsterdam had been nearly razed and the French taking a terrible beating—the direct hit on Buckingham Palace was viewed in narrow perspective. Nonetheless, the King’s staff took it most seriously.

  A decision was made that the King and Queen would travel every evening to Windsor and return the next morning to Buck House, a distance of about forty-five minutes by car. They rode “in a bullet-proof vehicle, carried a steel helmet and service gas-mask, and had a sten-gun, which [the King] knew how to use, hidden in a despatch case. The Queen, who was already a good shot, and other ladies in the Royal Household learnt to use a rifle and revolver.”

  Lilibet and Margaret were thrilled with this new arrangement. “Elizabeth could make a home anywhere in a matter of hours,” the King once told Lady Airlie. This was entirely true. Flowers appeared in vases in otherwise desolate rooms; family photographs crowded each other on tables and mantels; and dogs were everywhere. And no matter how exhausted or how occupied with pressing affairs the King and Queen were, they did share a part of each evening with their daughters. Lilibet had more time with her father than Margaret as the King persisted in discussing the contents of his dispatch boxes with her.

  Margaret was not only not involved in these exchanges between the King and his heir but she was being given no training that would equip her to become Queen in the event that some disaster befell her sister—a true conundrum, for recent British history had seen two younger brothers, her grandfather and her father—succeed to the Throne, both feeling painfully unprepared.

  Her father called her “Meg” in private, “Margaret” in public. She liked playing current “pop” records on the gramophone. “Meg!” the King would shout. “The music’s too loud. Will you please turn it down!”

  Margaret knew only two ways to divert her father’s attention from Lilibet to herself: to behave like an enfant terrible, or to make him laugh. At eleven, and too old to engage in the sitdown tantrum she had during the Coronation preparations, she now chose more devious means to be singled out. On occasion she would “suddenly disappear,” sending her parents and the staff into a state of near panic before she came out of her place of hiding. Then, when being Royally dressed down for her thoughtless action, she would become the comic. The most quoted example of this tactic is her reply when her father was in the midst of reprimanding her: “Papa, do you sing ‘God Save My Gracious Me?’ ” she interrupted with blue-eyed innocence. Margaret’s irreverent conduct was becoming a shield and an attention-getter. The problem was discernible to one and all. But with the pressures of war and the danger that lurked so near at hand, her “childish misbehaviour” and the reasons behind it seemed of less than important consequence.

  Even at Windsor, the Royal Family had their narrow escapes, not always from bombing attacks. One night the Queen was dressing for dinner. “The King had gone downs
tairs to take the dogs out,” a Lady-in-Waiting recalled. “The page, who generally sits in the corridor outside the Royal Apartments, was tidying up the sitting room. The Queen went into her bedroom. Suddenly a man sprang out at her from behind a curtain. He flung himself at her, seized her round the ankles [knocking her over onto the floor]. The Queen said afterwards, ‘For a moment my heart stood absolutely still.’ [Nonetheless, she managed to get to her feet.] She realised that the man was half-demented, and that if she screamed he might attack her. She said in a normal voice, ‘Tell me about it?’ [He confessed he was an Army deserter whose family had all been killed in the raids.] As he spoke the Queen moved quietly across the room and rang the [servants’] bell. Help came instantly.”

  The ever-present fear was that Lilibet and Margaret might be captured and held as hostages. For this reason, and following the visit of the Queen’s intruder, security was intensified. To avoid the girls feeling like “the Princesses in the tower,” Crawfie came up with a plan approved by all concerned.

  The Royal School in Windsor Great Park was attended by the children of the castle’s domestic staff, some local youngsters and a number of young cockney evacuees from London (about thirty students in all). With the King and Queen’s approval, Crawfie made arrangements with the school’s headmaster, Hubert Tannar, a Welshman who formerly had been a Gilbert and Sullivan actor, to write a pantomime for his students with parts for Lilibet and Margaret, which would be produced at the Castle.

  For the first time the Princesses were brought into direct contact with young people outside their family. Mr. Tannar wrote a script with songs for Cinderella. Margaret was very definite in her determination to play the lead. Lilibet was cast as the Prince (without complaint). Costumes were hired from a theatrical outfitter and performances were given in the Waterloo Room, where Queen Victoria had had a stage erected for household theatricals.

  “We rode from school to the Castle in a large horse-brake,” one member of this amateur company remembered. “It was all very heady and madly exciting. Nonetheless, no one was entirely comfortable once we were into rehearsals. Mr. Tannar had insisted we call the Princesses, ‘Ma’am,’ and that we curtsy whenever we greeted them. We—well, I at least, was always conscious of who they were and found it difficult to carry on a normal conversation. I was one of the few children about the same age as Princess Elizabeth, but she wasn’t able to relax with me any more than I was with her. She seemed most comfortable being protective to her sister or to the other younger children in the group.