A Brief History of the Private Life of Elizabeth II (13 page)

Their visit was seen by the King as such a triumph that he made both of them Privy Councillors when they got home. Having proved themselves both officially and personally, they were asked by the
Government to perform the same duty the following year. This time it would be a much longer tour, lasting six months in all, to Australia and New Zealand, visiting Kenya and Ceylon on the way. Once
again the King and Queen had intended to make the journey themselves, but he had had to undergo a lung operation, and travel was out of the question. Philip was given indefinite leave from the
Navy. His full-time job – at least until his father-in-law’s health improved – was to support his wife in her official duties.

On 31 January 1952 they departed from Britain by air and the King, Queen and Margaret saw them off. Although pictures of this event show the King looking stooped and unwell, his family were
optimistic. His operation had been successful, and the auguries were good. ‘Look out for yourselves,’ were his parting words to his daughter. She would, once again, be avoiding a bleak
English winter in the line of duty. The tour would be extremely taxing, so it was arranged that in Kenya she and Philip would have, after a few days of official functions, a rest amid the idyllic
scenery of the highlands – though this was marred at the time by the vicious and destructive Mau Mau rebellion.

They stayed at Saguna Lodge, their wedding present from the colony, and on 5 February 1952 they arrived at the Treetops Hotel. Built into a giant wild fig tree, the structure was not a
conventional hotel but a series of private rooms and a viewing platform in the branches above a watering-hole. This had been
designed to allow guests to watch animals coming at
dusk to drink. The young couple were very excited by the prospect. The Princess, wearing jeans, used her cine camera to great effect. Darkness fell. She, her husband and her staff retired to sleep
and during the night – no one knows exactly when – she became queen.

Far away, at Sandringham, the Royal family also retired to bed. The King had spent a highly enjoyable day shooting – it was the end of the season – with his keepers. He had joked
with the Queen and Margaret during dinner, and had gone to his room in good spirits. By the following morning he had died, of thrombosis.

The news did not officially reach his daughter. The code-name for this event – planned, like everything to do with royalty, long in advance – was ‘Hyde Park Corner’. The
telegram did not get through because it is thought the operator mistook the contents for the address. The news was instead picked up by a journalist friend of Elizabeth’s Private Secretary
Martin Charteris, passed by him to the Duke’s Equerry Michael Parker and thence to Philip and to Elizabeth. She was allowed some privacy, of course, to absorb the shock. She walked a little
way, deep in talk with her husband. When she appeared, to speak to her staff, she had mastered whatever emotions had immediately affected her, and was as self-contained and resolute as they had
expected. The moment she had awaited, imagined – perhaps dreaded – had come. She might have said, as did Churchill when he became Prime Minister in 1940: ‘I felt . . . as if all
my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.’ Since she was now sovereign, the world must know at once what her name was to be, and which of her christened names
she would choose: Queen Elizabeth, Queen Alexandra or Queen Mary. Might her preference be in tribute to her mother, grandmother or great-grandmother? She had had many years in which to think about
this but her reply, when asked by Charteris how she would be known,
was characteristically brisk: ‘My own name, of course, what else?’

The first thing the new Queen said to her assembled staff was typical of the young woman who had been brought up to consider others before herself: ‘I am so sorry that it means we’ve
got to go back to England and it’s upsetting everybody’s plans.’

Also characteristic was her concern for her mother and sister. She had a new role to assume and a wealth of things to do that would occupy her mind and energies. They would have nothing but a
sense of devastation.

Stories of the King’s death sometimes suggest that his daughter was interrupted by the news in the midst of a tranquil holiday. In fact, the royal party had been due to leave within hours
for Mombassa where the SS
Gothic –
there was no royal yacht at the time – was waiting to take them to Ceylon. Their luggage was already aboard, including Elizabeth’s
mourning clothes.

She flew home by the most direct route, across North Africa. During a brief stopover, instructions were telegraphed to London. She would be greeted by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, and
would be seen by the world’s press the moment she emerged from the aircraft. She could not be wearing anything but black.

She came home not six months, but six days, after she had left. The plane bumped onto the runway but stopped some distance from where the official delegation waited. A car raced across the
tarmac and stopped under the fuselage. Luggage was heaved aboard. The aircraft taxied with deliberate slowness, going no faster than walking pace while the Queen swiftly dressed in mourning. She
came down the steps alone in her black dress and hat, her subjects’ first glimpse of their new sovereign. When the Prime Minister, Churchill, offered sympathy she remarked: ‘A tragic
homecoming, but a smooth flight.’

Driven to St James’s Palace, she made an accession speech that was brief and poignant: ‘My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than that I shall
always work as my father did.’ Shortly afterwards she went on to Sandringham where he lay in state in the church, watched over by estate workers. She curtsied to his coffin – the last
time she would ever make such a gesture.

For the second time in her life, Elizabeth had to move to Buckingham Palace from a home she loved. This time she gave up Clarence House more or less at the moment she and
Philip had finished turning it into a family home. So much trouble had gone into its renovation, so much of their own time and enthusiasm had been expended on the choosing of furniture, pictures
and colour schemes, that it was heartbreaking to leave it. The senior Queen Elizabeth, for whom the Palace was associated with her husband, was as reluctant to move from her home as the junior one
was to take her place. Both asked the Prime Minister if they could not stay where they were. Might the new sovereign not use the Palace as her office and live, as it were, next door? Churchill
would not hear of it. Buckingham Palace was not simply a home. It was a symbol of the nation and the Empire, and it was unthinkable that a reigning monarch should reside anywhere else. The elder
Queen, who was to share Clarence House with Princess Margaret, proved rather
stubborn. To gain her consent the Prime Minister had to agree that a fireplace – a gift from
the King – could be dismantled and brought with her.

Her daughter had more pressing matters to consider. Despite the training she had had, she had much to learn about the day-to-day work of being monarch. She was later to recall that, thrust into
her position: ‘It was all very sudden, kind of taking on and making the best job you can . . . a question of just maturing into what you’re doing and accepting that here you are and
it’s your fate.’ Nevertheless she proved extremely adept at administration and paperwork. She was as conscientious as the late King, but could read the papers in her dispatch boxes at
twice the speed, while remembering most of their contents. She was brisk, but thorough. Her questions to officials were penetrating and her opinions perceptive.

At least her Coronation was not one of her principal worries. It was decided that it would take place in June 1953 – 16 months after her accession – and this allowed time for the
preparations to be organised and carried out without haste, as well as for the manufacture and marketing of souvenirs. As early as the previous November the route was timed and tested. In December
the Abbey was closed for a period of nine months and handed over to the Ministry of Works, which began the task of transforming it for the ceremony. All the chairs were removed, and the great
church filled with planks and scaffolding (there was even a small set of railway tracks for moving heavy objects). Huge electric lights were rigged above the nave. Rows of benches were constructed,
as steeply raked as the seats in a theatre, and once complete were crowded with soldiers to test their strength. Balconies were decorated with blue-and-gold hangings. In the crossing, which for
crownings is known as the Theatre, the Coronation chair was set. Behind it was the dais, five steps high (so that the sovereign could be clearly seen) and copied from a medieval original, on which
she would sit to receive the homage of her noblemen.

The Duke of Norfolk, who as Earl Marshal was hereditary master of ceremonies, presided over rehearsals that were compulsory for all the principals involved except the Queen
(she was represented by his wife). He was aware that some previous coronations, such as Victoria’s, had been disorganised to the point of farce, and was determined that there would be no
mistakes. Practice went on every day of the week.

At the Palace, too, rehearsals were lengthy and serious. The Queen listened, over and over, to records made of her father’s Coronation ceremony, memorising the order of prayers and hymns
and movements, supplementing her own memories of the event.

Draped in sheets that enabled her to accustom to carrying a long train, she processed around the White Drawing Room – chosen because it was much the same size as the crossing in the Abbey
– to determine how slowly she should walk and how many paces it would take to get from place to place. In the Picture Gallery chairs were arranged into an approximation of the state coach so
that she, with her train, could practise getting in and out. The train was to be carried by six maids-of-honour, all the daughters of peers. They had been chosen by the Earl Marshal and were
perhaps somewhat baffled, until they met. It then became obvious that they had been carefully selected for height with two tall, two medium and two shorter girls.

Beyond the Palace railings, the public was also gearing up for what was to be – even more than her wedding and the Festival of Britain – the greatest national celebration of recent
times. This would be the fourth coronation of the 20th century (there had been three in the 19th) but it was an event rare enough to be savoured, and something that would naturally be remembered
for the whole of their lives by those who were there. This fact was not lost on manufacturers, who began using images of the Queen to decorate all manner of commercial products. No doubt the
Coronation biscuit-barrels were expected to be
cherished by posterity, but more ephemeral packaging used her likeness too. The rate of exposure increased as June came nearer,
and caused a certain amount of visual fatigue. ‘Not that I’ve anything against the Queen,’ one woman lamented, ‘I’m just sick of seeing her face on everything from
tinned peas upwards.’

One thing threatened to spoil the event. The new Queen’s grandmother was in rapidly failing health and her death, weeks or even days before the ceremony, would oblige the court to go into
mourning. The older Queen had suffered several major blows since the death of her husband in 1936: the Abdication, the war, the loss of the Indian Empire (for which she held Mountbatten, the last
Viceroy, personally responsible) and the death of her son, the King, at the age of only 56. The single thing she hoped to see was her granddaughter wearing the crown. When the date was set for
June, it became a race against time, and the old lady lost. She would not allow her own situation to interfere with the sovereign’s crowning, however, and insisted that court mourning should
not be imposed if she died beforehand. She did, on 24 March – exactly 70 days before the event. It is believed that before this Elizabeth visited her – and put on the crown.

The immense respect that the new Queen’s parents had earned throughout the war meant that the Royal Family could bank on a huge amount of public goodwill. Elizabeth herself was deeply
popular, still young and strikingly beautiful, and now with a family of her own. Press and people were at a pitch of uncritical admiration that would last a few further years before the age of
debunking and levelling began.

Publishers filled the bookshops and news-stands with material on the sovereign, her family and her homes and – to set it all in context – the history of coronations, of the offices
of state, of the Crown Jewels and of the Abbey itself. Of all national occasions, none is as grand as a coronation. Other events – openings of Parliament, jubilees, even royal
weddings and funerals – do not assemble all the colourful office-holders, feature the same wealth of bands and flags, or deploy the full majesty of British tradition to the same
extent. The lesser occasions are separate parts, this is the whole – the oldest, the biggest, the most elaborate royal ceremony, a fusion of sacred and secular, ancient and modern, civilian
and military. Because India had become independent Elizabeth could not become an Empress, but there was compensation in that she would inherit no less than 13 thrones as queen, by invitation, of
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other nations and territories. Editorials lectured on the significance of what was to occur, described some of the 38 previous coronations in the Abbey, and
dispensed advice on vantage-points as well as offering tips on how to survive the waiting and the weather.

For those who could not endure a night on cold paving stones – or could not get to London in the first place – there was considerable joy in the news that the ceremony would be
televised. The body responsible for planning the event was the Coronation Committee, and this had announced that there would be no cameras in the Abbey. The result was such an outcry that the issue
had to be reconsidered. The decision was not taken lightly. The Government, the Church and the Queen were all opposed, and it was intended that only a radio broadcast be allowed. It was, after all,
not a tourist spectacle but a religious service, and it was thought that the presence of cameras and film-crews among the costumed dignitaries would distract as well as detract from the solemnity
of the occasion. Not only that, but it would be extremely lengthy. The service would last seven hours and 15 minutes. Could an audience, even seated comfortably at home, endure such a marathon? The
final decision was left to the Queen but, since the others involved had come round to the idea, she agreed. This meant that make-up would have to be applied to those on whom the cameras
focused.