The royals - Kitty Kelley [2]
We began with the apartments known as Grace-and-Favor Residences, which are given to select employees by the sovereign. Some of these small apartments looked like monk’s cells. They’re clean but cramped, with just enough room for the essentials—bed, chair, couch, table. In some, the space is so limited that the private toilet is across the hall from the bathtub. But, as one appreciative employee pointed out, “They are rent-free.”
When we walked into the residence of HRH the Princess Margaret, I gawked in disbelief; because I was standing in the home of the sister of the wealthiest woman in the world, I had probably anticipated something grander, more imposing. I half expected diamond-studded walls and floors inlaid with rubies. Instead I saw plastic flowers arranged in vases on the windowsills and in the fireplace an electric heater with a badly frayed cord. A collapsible aluminum tray was stashed behind the door of the drawing room. I was told that it was placed in front of the television set when the Princess dined alone. Two large blackamoor statues guarded the entrance to the vivid blue room, where she displayed her vast collection of loving cups, crystal goblets, and pitchers. Lining the walls were porcelain plates and dishes embellished with great globs of gold. On a mahogany dumbwaiter by her desk, she had placed a collection of tiny porcelain boxes. One, circa 1800, carried an inscription: “May the King Live to Reward the Subject Who Would Die for Him.”
My guide showed me through the rooms of the palace and patiently answered my questions about the royal family—the Queen, the Queen Mother, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, Princes Andrew and Edward, and the Prince and Princess of Wales. When I asked about Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, I was told curtly, “She’s not royalty.” I gazed at the portraits and photographs, including the framed picture of Princess Margaret and her former husband, Antony Armstrong-Jones, at a White House dinner with President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. The photo, signed by the Johnsons, hangs in the bathroom.
The path from Kensington Palace to Buckingham Palace beckoned intriguingly as my research into the House of Windsor led me up and down the class system. Downstairs I interviewed footmen. Upstairs I conversed with courtiers. I listened to members of the House of Lords and House of Commons. I interviewed Tory and Labor Members of Parliament about the dominating influence of the monarchy.
At a meeting of women that I attended, actress Glenda Jackson, a Labor MP, said, “My constituents are angry about where their country is going, but you would never know their concerns from the press coverage, which is obsessed with royalty.” The Tory MP Rupert Allason, who writes spy novels under the name of Nigel West, wrote to me about his high regard for the monarchy. “I am rather old fashioned about the Royals. Some of it may be unattractive but it serves the country well and… [it]… is regarded over here as a cherished if anachronistic institution.”
Jacob, Lord Rothschild was more mischievous. Over dinner at the River Cafe in London, he mentioned he had dined recently at Buckingham Palace. “You are never supposed to say if you dine at the Palace. But what’s the fun of knowing the royals,” he said with a wink, “if you can’t talk about them?”
His wife tried to shush him. She shook her finger at me for taking notes. “You must not write a book,” said Lady Rothschild. “We have to protect our royal family from themselves…. We don’t need a book by an objective American. You’re not supposed to be objective about royalty.”
My research also included tea with titled ladies married to gentlemen with a string of initials after their names. These abbreviations indicate the honors