The royals - Kitty Kelley [25]
“We used to say that the first thing Nanny teaches a royal is how to ring for service,” said a Palace employee. The youngster, who called herself Lilibet, certainly had learned that lesson well. By the age of seven she also knew her place in the line of succession.
“I’m three and you’re four,” she told her younger sister.
“No, you’re not,” said Margaret Rose, who thought her sister was talking about their ages. “I’m three and you’re seven.”
Knowing that his oldest daughter, Elizabeth, would follow him to the throne, the new King decided that she should be better prepared for her role than he was for his. He had been traumatized by the prospect of giving up grouse shooting every day to become King.
Minutes before his brother’s abdication, he told his cousin Louis Mountbatten: “This is the most awful thing that has ever happened to me. I’m completely unfitted [sic] to be King. I’ve had no education for it.”
He said that would not happen to his daughter, whom he began tutoring at an early age. He instructed her in the ceremonial duties of being a sovereign, and he made her study on her feet so she would become accustomed to long hours of standing in heavy robes to have her portrait painted. He told her she must keep a daily diary and showed her how to review troops and take a salute. He also shared the red boxes containing top-secret state papers that were delivered to him every day. Soon she approached new tasks by asking: “Will I have to do this when Papa dies?”
The first time her younger sister saw the King’s equerry call for Elizabeth and escort her to the King’s study to “do the boxes,” she was curious.
“Does this mean that you will have to be the next Queen?” Margaret asked.
“Yes, someday,” replied Elizabeth.
“Poor you,” said Margaret Rose, who was disgusted when her father became King and the family had to move into Buckingham Palace.
“What?” Margaret had asked. “Do you mean forever? I hate all this. I used to be Margaret Rose of York, and now I’m Margaret Rose of nothing.”
But Elizabeth was wide-eyed when she saw a letter on the hall table addressed to “Her Majesty the Queen.”
“That’s Mummie now, isn’t it,” she said, awestruck.
By 1939 Lilibet was prefacing her sentences with “When I become Queen…”
“She makes it very plain to the Queen [her mother] that whereas she, the Queen, is a commoner, she, Princess Elizabeth, is of royal blood,” said the Duke of Devonshire.
Although four years separated the two Princesses, they were reared as twins, and until they were teenagers, their mother dressed them identically in matching brown oxfords, coats with velvet collars, and little hats fastened on their heads by elastic bands. Featured frequently in the newspapers and newsreels, they became the paradigm for how all little girls should dress, sit, walk, talk, and behave.
The two Princesses played games together and performed plays and pantomimes for their parents on the stage built for them at Windsor Castle. Their mother liked to sing dance hall songs, while the King enjoyed dancing in a conga line. Their world, once described by their father as “us four,” was filled with dogs and horses and servants but very few friends. They listened to Bing Crosby records, took weekly dancing classes, played the piano, and sang constantly. Because their mother stressed music over mathematics, they excelled at the former and neglected the latter.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Britain declared war. Soon women and children were evacuated from London. The two Princesses remained in seclusion at Windsor for the next five years, traveling to