The Queen, now 91, is Britain’s longest-serving monarch, the world’s oldest head of state and approaching the 65th anniversary of her coronation. It is a life that started in the Jazz Age and has stretched far into the digital one.
It is hard for some of us to remember that she was not always this august. ‘I suppose people may now see a 91-year-old lady and forget she was once young,’ recalls Prudence, Lady Penn, one of the Queen’s oldest friends, who herself is 91.
‘I remember going with her and Prince Philip to a nightclub in Leicester Square called The 400, which was the smart place to go. And we had drinks, and something to eat and we danced. She loved to do normal things like you do when you are young.’
The Crown, the dramatisation of the Queen’s life on Netflix, has introduced a new generation to the young Elizabeth. But the series has played fast and loose with the truth. Many are keen to set the record straight, not least her close friends. This explains why Lady Penn, a former lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother, along with more of the Queen’s oldest companions have given in-depth interviews for Elizabeth: Our Queen, an eight-part documentary starting this week on Channel 5.
Elizabeth (pictured in her Girl Guide uniform in 1942) has been dramatized for Netflix series The Crown, and now her oldest friends have started to set the records straight
Most are usually wary of talking publicly about their friendship, but they have shared their memories of the Queen and her husband, some stretching back to the 1930s, as well as their memories of Princess Margaret, who also features a lot in The Crown.
‘You are not getting the fictionalised conversations, you are getting the eye-witness accounts,’ explains Charles Colville, the series producer. ‘A lot of the interviewees are in their 80s and 90s, it is extraordinary to get them. I don’t want to sound pompous, but you felt that you were recording history.’
Some of the interviewees played a key part in the coronation. The day, in June 1953, was a splash of colour in austerity-hit Britain and also one full of ancient pageantry. That included the Queen having six maids of honour, in charge of holding her train and chosen for their good looks and aristocratic connections. All were daughters of dukes, marquesses or earls. They included the now Lady Anne Glenconner and Lady Jane Rayne-Lacey.
‘Four of us went to the Abbey to receive her,’ remembers Lady Anne. The other two helped the Queen on her journey from Buckingham Palace. ‘We were standing by the door and we could tell she was coming because we could hear this roar, which got louder and louder. And around the corner came this golden coach, which was like some fairy tale. Then the Queen! She looked fantastic. In this beautiful dress, with a tiny waist and a wonderful complexion. She looked dazzling. She just turned around and said, ‘Ready girls?’ and off we went.’
The event was televised and watched by more than 20 million of the then 50 million who lived in Britain, an astonishing statistic, considering how many households could not yet afford the luxury of a television set in 1953.
Lady Penn remembers the Queen’s anxieties about it being broadcast. ‘Television was very new. And I think it worried people that it was going to be an intrusion on a very sacred and solemn moment in her life.’
As a compromise, it was agreed that the most sacred part of the service would not be televised: when the Queen was anointed with holy oil by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her maids of honour, however, were close witnesses to this intimate part, able to see when the Queen took off her robes and put on a simple shift dress. ‘It brought a lump to my throat,’ says Lady Jane. ‘She looked very young, younger than 26, which is what she was. She looked so vulnerable and defenceless in a way just sitting there.
‘I’d never seen her look like that before; she’d always been very dressed up. Here she was with nothing.’
Lady Anne Glenconner (pictured left with Philip) was one of six maids of honour at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation
The Queen’s unwillingness to let this moment be filmed is proof of how seriously she took the religious aspect of her coronation. ‘The Queen’s faith is incredibly important,’ explains Colville. ‘It is much deeper and more profound than most of us think. The spiritual element to the coronation was incredibly important for her.’
Her Christianity and being head of the Church of England made the Queen’s decision about whether Princess Margaret could marry a divorcé so difficult. Margaret had fallen in love with Group Captain Peter Townsend, a war hero and equerry to King George VI in the late 1940s.
Lady Jane had stayed at Balmoral for a week in 1950 and seen them together in the early stages, when Townsend was still married. ‘I thought they were in love. And after seven days, I was convinced of it. When I went back to London I said to my mother, ‘I think Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend are in love.’ And Mother said, ‘Don’t be so romantic and ridiculous. He’s the king’s servant. She can’t be in love with the king’s servant, that would be utterly wrong.’
Within three years, he was divorced, and Margaret was desperate to marry but, as she was under 25, needed the permission of the monarch. ‘He was divorced. In those days, divorced people weren’t allowed to come to Ascot,’ says Lady Anne. ‘It was difficult for the Queen to know how to respond.’
Philip poured himself a stiff drink, he was shaken
Lady Penn insists the Queen would have allowed them to marry if Margaret was truly prepared to renounce her claim to the throne, as would have been demanded. ‘I think the Queen would have been happy as long as Princess Margaret was happy. I don’t think she had any strong feelings that he’d been divorced. But he was a lot older than her.’ Sixteen years older, in fact.
To buy time and test Margaret’s resolve Townsend was sent off to Brussels as an air attaché at the British Embassy for two years. When he returned Margaret was old enough to marry without permission. Townsend stayed with the Penns on his return, while he waited for Margaret to make up her mind. ‘It had been such a rocky road, I think it had killed something,’ says Lady Penn. Margaret announced that ‘conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others’, and refused to marry Townsend.
Lady Anne recalls Margaret (pictured left with family friend Lady Penn) was always thinking of naughty things to do
The Townsend episode, for the Queen, was an uncomfortable echo of the abdication crisis of 1936, which had thrust her father onto the throne. It cast a shadow over the Queen’s childhood. That shadow is remembered by one of her oldest friends still alive: Myra, Lady Butter, 92, granddaughter of Grand Duke Michael of Russia and cousin of the Duke of Edinburgh. Lady Butter was in the 1st Buckingham Palace Company of Girl Guides with the Queen, when it launched in 1937. The Queen was in the Kingfisher patrol, Lady Butter in Robin. ‘She was her patrol leader. It was great fun. We learnt how to do Morse code and tie knots.’
She can well remember listening to Edward VIII’s abdication broadcast on the wireless. ‘I thought it was the end of the world. We haven’t got a king, what’s going to happen now?’
Her friends recall that, always a shy girl, the Queen became serious. Lady Anne says, ‘Margaret was such fun, she was always thinking of naughty things to do. We used to hide behind doors [at Buckingham Palace] and when some wretched page came along, we’d jump out and the Queen would say, ‘You can’t do that. It’s very naughty.’
Close friend Lady Jane (pictured) at the rehearsal for the Queen’s coronation
The one time Princess Elizabeth did not toe the line was in choosing a husband. Her parents organised balls during the war at Windsor Castle, where many Grenadier Guards were stationed. ‘It took you out of the horror of the war,’ recalls Lady Butter. The hope was that the princess might find a match among the aristocratic British officers. But she’d set her heart on Philip, Prince of Greece and Denmark, a dashing naval officer who was almost penniless and homeless, his family scattered across Europe.
He was seen as unsuitable by courtiers and her parents, says Lady Butter. ‘He was outspoken, they would call him brash.’ But Princess Elizabeth married her man in 1947. Lady Butter remembers being at the wedding. ‘Lucky her, we thought, and lucky all of us. Because it was a really good fairy tale, and it remains a really good fairy tale.’
The marriage has proved enduring, but there were early tensions. Philip had to give up his promising naval career to act as her consort. Later, the Cabinet decreed his children were to take the Windsor name, not Mountbatten, the name from his mother’s family which Philip had adopted on marriage. His friends say that his feelings of frustration and emasculation were genuine.
The royal couple struck a deal. The Queen, as sovereign would be in charge in public, but behind closed doors, with decisions about the family, Philip was in command. This deal included Philip deciding on a school for Prince Charles – Gordonstoun, not Eton as the Queen preferred. Philip believed the boarding school in an isolated part of Scotland would instil character into Charles. But though he was adamant about the importance of a tough education, Philip was not heartless, according to Lady Butter, who was staying with Philip when he first dropped Charles off at Gordonstoun in 1962.
‘All I can remember is that when Prince Philip came back from taking Prince Charles to school, he looked slightly shaken. He didn’t say anything, but he went straight over and poured himself a stiff drink – I do remember that. And I thought, ‘Oh, that has shaken you.’
Amid all the dramas and glories, the Queen has been surrounded by a close circle of friends, who saw her flourish. ‘When the Queen was very young, the Queen Mother would tell her to be brave,’ says Lady Penn. ‘Her mother said to her, ‘When you walk into a room, walk through the middle of the door.’ She meant, don’t go in apologetically, walk like you’re in charge. That was very good advice.’ And it’s advice she’s certainly followed to this day.
Elizabeth: Our Queen begins on Tuesday at 9pm on Channel 5.