The royals - Kitty Kelley [51]
At that time, King George VI had his hands full. While dealing with the international commotion over Crawfie’s book, and his own precarious health, he was being pestered by his son-in-law for permission to return to active duty. Prince Philip, who aspired to becoming an admiral, wanted to quit his office job at the Admiralty, where he said all he did was “shuffle ships around all day,” and resume his career in the navy. The King was resisting because he knew Elizabeth would want to accompany her husband during his two-year tour, and the King did not want her to go. Weeks of family negotiations ensured what Elizabeth should do; when she agreed to commute to London every few months, the King agreed to release Philip from his desk. The Duke of Edinburgh left in October 1949 for Malta, where his uncle Dickie Mountbatten, second in command of the Mediterranean Fleet, eventually gave him command of his own frigate, HMS Magpie. Respected, not loved, he was called “Dukey” by his crew.
As she promised, Elizabeth remained in England for a few weeks with her baby. Soon, though, she left the eleven-month-old infant with his nannies and grandparents. She skipped her baby’s first birthday to join her husband in Malta for their second wedding anniversary.
“[The] Princess had no very clear understanding of the way people lived outside Palace walls,” said her governess, Marion Crawford. “But… when she flew to visit Prince Philip in Malta, she saw and experienced for the first time the life of an ordinary girl not living in a palace.”
Lady Mountbatten agreed. In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, she wrote: “It’s lovely seeing her so radiant, and leading a more or less human and normal existence for once.”
The Mountbattens turned over their hilltop quarters in Villa Guardamangia to Elizabeth and Philip during her visits, and the Princess so enjoyed herself that she extended her stay to spend Christmas with her husband. So little Prince Charles spent the holidays with his nanny, his grandparents, and his great-grandmother Queen Mary, whom he called “Gan Gan.”
“He is too sweet stomping around the room & we shall love having him at Sandringham,” the King wrote of his two-year-old grandson. “He is the fifth generation to live there & I hope will get to love the place.”
Elizabeth returned home only when her husband went to sea, and Lady Mountbatten accompanied her to the airport.
“Lilibet had left with a tear in her eyes and a lump in her throat,” Edwina Mountbatten wrote to a friend. “Putting her into the Viking when she left was I thought rather like putting a bird back into a very small cage and I felt sad and nearly tearful myself.”
Back home, Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant. So she returned to Malta in March 1950 to tell her husband the news and stayed with him for another month. She returned to London in May and did not see Philip again until he came home for the birth of their daughter, Anne, on August 15, 1950. He stayed for four weeks before returning to Malta.
Elizabeth rejoined him there in November for three months, again leaving her children with their nannies and grandparents. Accompanied by her maid, her footman, and her detective, she arrived on the island with her sports car, forty wardrobe trunks, and a new polo pony for her husband. She spent her days relaxing in the sun, shopping, lunching with officers’ wives, and getting her hair done in a beauty salon. Occasionally she toured military installations, cut ceremonial ribbons, and visited nursery schools. She filled her evenings with dinner parties, dances, and movies. On later trips she traveled with Philip to Italy and Greece.