The royals - Kitty Kelley [16]
“All done with mirrors,” was how Noel Coward described the cunning mystery of mythmaking. But Elizabeth did it with feathers, a dazzling smile, a soft voice, and a tiara. With these ingredients she produced her soufflé of magic.
She was born in 1900 during the reign of Queen Victoria and lived through many monarchs and prime ministers. She survived two world wars and watched the British empire shrink to a commonwealth of countries. As she aged, she was celebrated as a befeathered emblem of a glorious past. She was history—the continuum that linked generations to their best memories of courage and duty and steadfastness.
From the beginning she understood the enduring power of image on the public imagination—the curtsies, the uniforms, the prancing horses, the movie star waves from the golden coach. She instinctively knew the value of such pageantry in stirring people’s hearts. She was a genius at marketing herself and her husband, especially during the war years, when she propped up the weak, faltering man she had married and made him look like a king.
As the first commoner to marry into the House of Windsor, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon showed the country how royalty should behave. She ingratiated herself as the Duchess of York with twirly little waves and gracious smiles. But she earned mass adoration as Queen during World War II when she stayed in London during the Blitz. She was photographed standing with the King in the bombed-out ruins of Buckingham Palace. “I’m almost happy that we’ve been hit,” she said. “It makes me feel I can look the blitzed East End in the face.”
Endearing herself forever to her embattled country, she refused to flee England to seek safety for herself and her children.
“They could not go without me,” she said. “I could not possibly leave the King, and the King will never go.”
When she and the King toured London’s East End to inspect the bomb damage, a Jewish tailor advised the monarch “to put the empire in the wife’s name.” She became such a morale booster that Adolf Hitler called her the most dangerous woman in Europe. After the war, a grateful soldier rhapsodized:
She put on her finest gown, her gayest smile
and stayed in town, while London Bridge was falling down.
A photograph of the Queen in her crown was turned into a Christmas card during World War II and sent to every man and woman serving in the armed forces. It was a cherished keepsake from the monarch to his subjects.
Elizabeth was so ingenious at humanizing the royal family that she became an international media sensation in the newsreels shown in movie houses before the advent of television. Her radio speeches inspired hope throughout Occupied Europe as she told her listeners: “Wherever I go, I see bright eyes and smiling faces. For though our road is stony and hard, it is straight, and we know that we fight in a great cause.” The sight of her smiling in the face of German bombardment inspired patriotism.
She put a caring face on the monarchy by visiting bombed sites throughout England. Beforehand, she had consulted with her couturier, Norman Hartnell, to make sure she was properly dressed. She would not wear anything as masculine as a military uniform, and she knew better than