The royals - Kitty Kelley [124]
Her subjects accepted certain extravagances as basic necessities for the Queen such as her luggage—172 custom-made trunks of hand-tooled leather that carried her feather pillows, her hot-water bottles, her favorite china tea set, and her white leather lavatory seat.
Her arch, stilted manner was interpreted as dignified, even when she appeared to be totally out of touch. On a visit to Budapest she toured a homeless shelter and saw a line of unshaven men sitting on a bench outside. She said, “It must be so nice here in the winter.” She tried to relate to a group of housewives in Sheffield, England, by saying, “I find it difficult keeping my floors clean, too.”
Recognizing that Her Majesty’s world was remote and rarefied, her courtiers instituted regular luncheons at the Palace to introduce her to interesting people. “It’s supposed to be a hedge against high huckletybuck,” said an actor who has been a regular guest, “but I haven’t seen a change in ten years’ time…. She’s still the Queen, who sent six half bottles of nonvintage champagne to Winston Churchill on his deathbed… she’s the wealthiest woman in the world, and this, of itself, tends to make one so aloof and distant as to be unapproachable. Poor woman cannot relate on a human level… just doesn’t know how… making small talk pains her.” The Queen’s opening remark to one luncheon partner illustrated the vast distance between monarch and subject: “You can have no idea,” she said, “how much work is involved in maintaining a private golf course.”
The Queen was better on paper than in person, especially on matters of taste. When she received letters of protest objecting to a Danish director coming to England to film The Love Life of Jesus Christ, she, too, objected. Her press secretary said, “Her Majesty finds this proposal as obnoxious as most of her subjects do.” The director was not allowed to film in the United Kingdom. When British newspapers offered huge sums of money for the life story of the Yorkshire Ripper, who had terrorized northern England for five years, killing women, the Queen registered her “sense of distaste.” She wrote to the mother of one of the victims, who had complained about the murderer’s profiting from his crimes. The Queen agreed, and the newspapers withdrew their bids.
Her subjects felt that Her Majesty was the best representative of the world’s most prestigious surviving monarchy, and as such, she was entitled to extraordinary wealth. With the exception of the fiery Willie Hamilton, few people begrudged her her $400 million fortune.* So, with little dissension in 1972, Parliament voted to give her the tax-free raise she requested for herself—$3 million a year—and the tax-free raises for her family: the Queen Mother was raised to $237,500; Prince Philip to $162,500; Princess Margaret to $87,500; and Princess Anne to $37,500. Because Prince Charles received an annual income from the Duchy of Cornwall, he was not included on the Civil List.
The pressure on Charles to marry grew in 1973 when Princess Anne became engaged to Captain Mark Phillips. Reporters suggested that Charles had been bested by his sister, who was marrying before him. Anne chose her brother’s twenty-fifth birthday, November 14, 1973, as her wedding day, but Charles did not feel honored. He was aboard the frigate HMS Minerva when he received the news of her engagement in a letter