The royals - Kitty Kelley [22]
Ambassador Bullitt’s 1939 memo to the President advised Roosevelt not to mention the Windsors to the King and Queen because “about a month ago the Duke of Windsor wrote to Queen Mary [his mother] that Bertie [his brother, the King] had behaved toward him in such an ungentlemanly way because of ‘the influence of that common little woman,’ the Queen, that he could have no further relations with Bertie. Brotherly love, therefore, not at fever heat.”
The King and Queen arrived with their valets, maids, dressers, and ladies-in-waiting, and the British servants immediately started squabbling with their American counterparts.
The King’s valet complained about the food and drink, saying it was far below what he was accustomed to in Buckingham Palace, which supposedly was getting by on war rations. Although the public was led to believe that the King and Queen and the two little Princesses were depriving themselves of meat, bread, and butter like everyone else in the country and sharing England’s bleak fare of boiled potatoes, gray Brussels sprouts, and powdered eggs, those behind the Palace gates knew differently. The King and Queen sidestepped the country’s strict food rationing and regularly ate roast beef and drank Champagne. Butter pats were monogrammed with the royal coat of arms, and dinners were served on gold plates.
“During the war, when the King and Queen were in London and their daughters at Windsor, the Princesses used to order their own meals,” recalled René Roussin, the French chef who worked for the royal family from 1937 to 1946. “A typical day’s menu for them began with buttered eggs for breakfast; boiled chicken with sieved vegetables—even when they were both in their teens, they still liked their vegetables sieved—potato crisps, and hot baked custard for lunch; bread and butter, cake, jelly, and toast for tea; and just some kind of broth followed by compote of pear with whipped cream for supper.”
In London, no restaurant was allowed to charge more than five shillings for a meal. But at the Palace, the King ordered two eggs and six rashers of grilled bacon for breakfast every day and grouse in season for dinner every night. The Queen, accustomed to a full meal at teatime, continued having her daily oatcakes, a rich dessert prepared by the Palace chef, which caused her to gain twelve pounds in one year.
“Her Majesty will not give up oatcakes,” said her maid, who admitted having to let out the seams of the Queen’s gowns.
The Queen insisted her tea be a special blend of China and Ceylon, brewed with London water that she had shipped to the United States with her luggage in heavy casks.
The vast amount of royal luggage—bulky wardrobes, numerous suitcases, crates of hatboxes, bins of shoes—surprised the President’s domestic staff. The British servants reacted defensively. They knew what the public did not know—that the King was dazzled by gold-braided military uniforms and spent hours with his personal tailor being fitted every day. This obsession with fashion had started early.
“Unfortunately, Bertie takes no interest in anything but clothes, and again clothes,” his father had complained. “Even when out shooting, he is more occupied with his trousers than his game!”
Equally concerned about his wife’s appearance, the King winced when he heard her described as “dowdy.” So he summoned couturier Norman Hartnell to the Palace to design a flattering wardrobe for her. Although silk was banned from sale to the public and used only to make parachutes, exceptions were made for the Queen, and by the time she left for America, she was changing her outfits as least four times a day.
During one photography session with Cecil Beaton, she posed in a pale gray dress with long fur-trimmed sleeves and a gray fox fur collar. She changed into a ruby-encrusted gown of