The royals - Kitty Kelley [55]
The royal couple left London by plane on January 31, 1952, with a small traveling party. The King and Queen and Princess Margaret went to the airport to say good-bye. Aboard the blue-and-silver royal aircraft, the King turned to BoBo MacDonald, his daughter’s personal dresser.
“Look after the Princess for me, BoBo,” he said. “I hope the tour is not going to be too tiring for you.”
He disembarked and stood at the bottom of the steps, hatless and haggard. Newsreel cameras captured him in an overcoat, standing in the bitingly cold wind. He waved to his daughter and watched the plane until it became a speck in the sky. He never saw her again.
Five days later at Sandringham, in the early hours of February 6, 1952, he suffered a coronary thrombosis and died in his sleep. That morning, as the Queen was drinking her tea, Sir Harold Campbell came to her room to tell her that the King was gone. She hurried to her husband’s chamber, walked to his bed, and kissed his forehead for the last time. She issued instructions for a vigil to be kept at his open door. “The King must not be left alone,” she said. “And Lilibet must be informed.” Quickly she amended her sentence. “The Queen must be informed.”
The equerry backed out of the room to relay the awful news to the young woman, who had departed England a Princess and would be returning as Queen. Campbell did not reach the royal party because a tropical storm had knocked out the telephone lines in Kenya. So he contacted Reuters, which he deemed the most responsible news service, and asked that the message be conveyed to the royal party. Elizabeth and Philip had spent the night at Treetops, the remote observation post in the African jungle, where they watched animals gather at a salt lick in the shadow of Mount Kenya. At dawn the exhausted couple returned to the Sagana Royal Lodge to sleep for a few hours. A Reuters reporter received the news flash from London and located the Queen’s private secretary, Martin Charteris.
“I remember he reached for a cigarette with trembling hands before he could tell me the King was dead,” said Charteris, who relayed the news to Michael Parker, aide-de-camp to Prince Philip. “Mike,” he said, “our employer’s father is dead. I suggest you do not tell the lady at least until the news is confirmed.”
The British Broadcasting Corporation made a formal announcement at 10:45 A.M., February 6, 1952, and, in a gesture of respect, went silent for the rest of the day. Stunned crowds filled the rain-drenched streets of London, and motorists stood in the middle of the street by their cars, weeping. Church bells tolled fifty-six times, one for each year of the King’s short life. England’s sorrow echoed around the world. In Australia a member of Parliament said, “We have lost a great bloke.” In America the House of Representatives passed a resolution of sympathy and adjourned. President Truman wrote in his diary: “He was a grand man. Worth a pair of his brother Ed.”
That brother, the Duke of Windsor, received the news in New York City, where he and the Duchess were staying at the Waldorf-Astoria. Winston Churchill advised him to return to England at once but cautioned against bringing the Duchess, who would not be received with propriety. The Duke sailed for England by himself, looking like a forlorn little man who had fallen off a charm bracelet. He stayed with his mother at Marlborough House, although he resented Queen Mary’s hostility to his wife.
In Kenya Michael Parker hurried to Prince Philip’s room to wake him. “It was his job to tell the Queen,” said Parker. “Probably the worst moment of his life. All he could say was, ‘This will be a terrible blow.’ He took her out into the garden and they walked slowly up and down the lawn while he talked and talked and talked to her…. I’ve never