The royals - Kitty Kelley [283]
I cannot thank you enough for the very kind and thoughtful way in which you entertained us at Blair House.
In an otherwise rather blurred memory of our rush round Washington the hospitality and friendliness of your house and family stand out very clearly.
I do hope that Margaret’s T-V show goes off alright without her getting into difficulties with Mr. Durante! All the same I am sure you will be relieved when she starts her proper concert tour. I hope it is a great success.
It is a great pity that our stay was so short but you have whetted our appetites and we shall certainly be back to see you again either in the White House or in Mizzoura!
Yours very sincerely,
Philip
CHAPTER 7
Correspondence with the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo; interviews with Philip Knightley (November 9, 19, 1993) and Maurice Weaver (March 3, 1994).
Books: The Royal Family by Pierre Berton (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1953); The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor by Michael Bloch, 1988.
Articles: “Prince Philip: England’s Most Misunderstood Man” by Ken W. Purdy, Look, April 7, 1964; Newsweek, March 22, 1954; the Evening Star, October 11, 1957; “A Person Apart, Bounded by Precedent” by Robert T. Elson, Life, March 6, 1964.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II’s regard for Queen Victoria:
“She will try to suppress anything she considers negative about Victoria,” said former Private Eye editor Richard Ingrams (November 24, 1993). “My grandfather, Sir James Reid, was Queen Victoria’s doctor, and had been involved in her burial. In carrying out her orders, he followed her list of things to go inside her coffin. Royalty has a tradition of consulting a peasant, and Victoria had a working-class Scot, John Brown, who was rumored to be her lover. She left instructions to have certain things buried with her, and one was a photo of John Brown’s mother. That was what Queen Elizabeth tried to suppress. She’s particularly protective of Queen Victoria.
“We found out how much the Queen had objected to this information being published when my wife, Michaela, met Princess Margaret at a social function. The Princess said, ‘You had no right to put that in your book. That was my sister’s property.’
“The Princess was upset because the Queen had been upset, and Margaret cared enough to bring it up way after the fact. My mother wrote to Princess Margaret, asking what business it was of hers…. And that was the end of the matter.”
Many historians have noted Queen Elizabeth II’s fixation with Queen Victoria. Stanley Weintraub, Evan Pugh Professor of Arts and Humanities, Pennsylvania State University, said in a lecture that Elizabeth is so protective of her predecessor’s image she would not have dedicated “Broadgate Venus” in London in 1993 if she had known that the plump sculpture poked fun at Victoria. The rotund Queen, who ballooned as an adult with a fifty-four-inch waist, was known to her African subjects as “the Great She Elephant Across the Big Water.”
“It was a private joke by the artist on Queen Victoria as a full-blown adult,” said Professor Weintraub.
Not so, said Fernando Botero, Latin America’s most famous living artist. In a letter to the author, Botero wrote: “That piece actually represents the most famous and used theme in sculpture: the reclining female figure…. But I’m sure, because of the extreme deformation, that the piece is open to different interpretations, including Queen Victoria as a full-blown adult.”
CHAPTER 8
During Philip’s 1956 tour of the Commonwealth, he missed his ninth wedding anniversary, his son’s eighth birthday, and Charles’s first day of school outside the Palace. Sources consulted for background: New York Mirror, October 18, 1957; Time, October 12, 1957; New York Times Magazine, February 3, 1957. The reunion: Sunday Express, February 17, 1957, plus the report of Sydney Smith, who traveled with Michael Parker from Gibraltar to London.
The subject of other women in Philip’s life became international news in 1957 when the Baltimore Sun carried an article