Game of Crowns: Elizabeth, Camilla, Kate, and the Throne by Christopher Andersen Page B
Authors: Christopher Andersen
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Philip had reason to be particularly sensitive when it came tosurnames. The Duke had been given his mother’s Battenberg family name by default. It could have been much worse. Princess Alice of Battenberg, a schizophrenic who was once committed to a mental institution, could have left her son with the unwieldy Teutonic surname Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg. To avoid ruffling the feathers of their English cousins after World War I and during the years leading up to World War II, it was agreed that Elizabeth’s future husband should technically have no surname at all, and simply be known as Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark.
Philip’s wife embraced her fate with a fervor that surprised even the most ardent monarchists. She was, after all, the young mother of two: Charles was three when she became queen, his sister Anne not yet two. Andrew would arrive in 1960 and youngest child Edward in 1964. Lady Airlie, a close friend of Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary, echoed the sentiments of many when she urged the new queen’s handlers “not to kill the poor little girl” by loading her down with too many royal engagements. Even the Queen’s physicians urged her to avoid all but a handful of important engagements and devote most of her time to raising her children.
Elizabeth, ever the dutiful daughter, would have none of it. As a way to further suppress her grief and to honor her father’s memory, she threw herself into her new job. From this point on, the mother Charles had known would become little more than a phantom—a distant, formal figure who treated him with chilly detachment.
As small children, Charles and his sister, Anne, would see their mother twice a day—at 9:00 a.m. and again shortly before dinner—for a grand total of thirty carefully allotted minutes.(Originally, the Queen saw her children for only fifteen minutes on Wednesdays, but she moved her weekly audience with the Prime Minister from five-thirty to six-thirty so she would have time to tuck Charles and Anne into bed.)
In an apparent effort to loosen things up a bit, Elizabeth did make one significant change in royal protocol when it came to the children. Although the Queen Mother and her own sister, Princess Margaret, were required to curtsy or bow in Elizabeth’s presence, her young children were no longer required to. “It’s silly,” Elizabeth told her private secretary. “They’re too young to understand what’s going on.” Yet as heir to the throne, Charles grew up feeling unloved and essentially ignored. For the most part, all of Elizabeth’s offspring spent their childhoods in the company of nurses, nannies, and governesses in the six-room nursery on the palace’s second floor.
Charles later remembered how his mother seemed to simply vanish without any real explanation for months on end. When the Queen returned from one of her early Commonwealth tours, the little boy yearned for a hug from his mother. Instead, when he rushed up to greet her, the Queen said, “No, not you, dear,” and returned to the business of greeting grown-up dignitaries first. When it was finally Charles’s turn, she bent over, shook his hand, and—without uttering a word—resumed talking to the officials who were there to welcome her home.
Although Charles’s governess, Mabel Anderson, was a no-nonsense disciplinarian, he formed a deep personal attachment to her. “At least,” he later observed, “she was there for me.”
Charles could scarcely turn to his father for comfort. If anything, Philip was even more distant and unloving than his wife. In later years, he would go on record describing his father as rigid,authoritarian, cold, bullying, and “undemonstrative—incapable of sensitivity or tenderness.” (The Duke of Edinburgh was apparently quite capable of being demonstrative with members of the opposite sex, however. He had a particular fondness for actresses and showgirls, and his affair with one—British
Philip had reason to be particularly sensitive when it came tosurnames. The Duke had been given his mother’s Battenberg family name by default. It could have been much worse. Princess Alice of Battenberg, a schizophrenic who was once committed to a mental institution, could have left her son with the unwieldy Teutonic surname Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg. To avoid ruffling the feathers of their English cousins after World War I and during the years leading up to World War II, it was agreed that Elizabeth’s future husband should technically have no surname at all, and simply be known as Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark.
Philip’s wife embraced her fate with a fervor that surprised even the most ardent monarchists. She was, after all, the young mother of two: Charles was three when she became queen, his sister Anne not yet two. Andrew would arrive in 1960 and youngest child Edward in 1964. Lady Airlie, a close friend of Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary, echoed the sentiments of many when she urged the new queen’s handlers “not to kill the poor little girl” by loading her down with too many royal engagements. Even the Queen’s physicians urged her to avoid all but a handful of important engagements and devote most of her time to raising her children.
Elizabeth, ever the dutiful daughter, would have none of it. As a way to further suppress her grief and to honor her father’s memory, she threw herself into her new job. From this point on, the mother Charles had known would become little more than a phantom—a distant, formal figure who treated him with chilly detachment.
As small children, Charles and his sister, Anne, would see their mother twice a day—at 9:00 a.m. and again shortly before dinner—for a grand total of thirty carefully allotted minutes.(Originally, the Queen saw her children for only fifteen minutes on Wednesdays, but she moved her weekly audience with the Prime Minister from five-thirty to six-thirty so she would have time to tuck Charles and Anne into bed.)
In an apparent effort to loosen things up a bit, Elizabeth did make one significant change in royal protocol when it came to the children. Although the Queen Mother and her own sister, Princess Margaret, were required to curtsy or bow in Elizabeth’s presence, her young children were no longer required to. “It’s silly,” Elizabeth told her private secretary. “They’re too young to understand what’s going on.” Yet as heir to the throne, Charles grew up feeling unloved and essentially ignored. For the most part, all of Elizabeth’s offspring spent their childhoods in the company of nurses, nannies, and governesses in the six-room nursery on the palace’s second floor.
Charles later remembered how his mother seemed to simply vanish without any real explanation for months on end. When the Queen returned from one of her early Commonwealth tours, the little boy yearned for a hug from his mother. Instead, when he rushed up to greet her, the Queen said, “No, not you, dear,” and returned to the business of greeting grown-up dignitaries first. When it was finally Charles’s turn, she bent over, shook his hand, and—without uttering a word—resumed talking to the officials who were there to welcome her home.
Although Charles’s governess, Mabel Anderson, was a no-nonsense disciplinarian, he formed a deep personal attachment to her. “At least,” he later observed, “she was there for me.”
Charles could scarcely turn to his father for comfort. If anything, Philip was even more distant and unloving than his wife. In later years, he would go on record describing his father as rigid,authoritarian, cold, bullying, and “undemonstrative—incapable of sensitivity or tenderness.” (The Duke of Edinburgh was apparently quite capable of being demonstrative with members of the opposite sex, however. He had a particular fondness for actresses and showgirls, and his affair with one—British
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