The royals - Kitty Kelley [58]
From the moment she stepped off the plane in London, the new Queen was engulfed by courtiers and advisers and equerries, all urgently directing her on her father’s formal lying-in-state at Westminster Hall, his burial in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, and the long period of national mourning. She was briefed on the protocol for entertaining prime ministers and high commissioners of Commonwealth countries attending the funeral and greeting the seven sovereigns from other countries, including her uncle David, the Duke of Windsor, who posed a ticklish problem. He wanted to discuss continuing the $70,000-a-year allowance he had been receiving from her father since 1936. Because those personal funds were now hers, she had to decide whether to keep paying him.
The Duke’s lawyer argued that the money was a lifetime pension and his brother’s compensation to the Duke for renouncing his inheritance. The Duke knew the new Queen would discuss the allowance with her mother and Queen Mary. “It’s hell to be even that much dependent on these ice-veined bitches,” he wrote to the Duchess from London. “I’m afraid they’ve got the fine excuse of national economy if they want to use it.”
They didn’t need it. The Queen Mother said the Duke already had millions of his own, which the Duchess simply squandered on fripperies like satin pillows for her dogs and Diorissimo perfume, which she sprayed on her flowers to give them added fragrance. Queen Mary, who collected antiques—frequently while visiting friends’ homes and then sending her servant to “inquire” (that is, collect) the pieces she admired—said the spendthrift Duchess would only waste the money on her addiction to shoes, pointing out that she had once bought fifty-six pairs during one shopping spree. The new Queen deferred to her mother and grandmother and decided not to pay the Duke.
Upon the King’s death, all royal possessions passed directly to the new sovereign, including the King’s palaces, his twenty mares, his courtiers, and his private secretary, Sir Alan (Tommy) Lascelles. So, technically, Elizabeth’s mother and sister no longer had homes or horses or courtiers. Worse, their eviction from Buckingham Palace would mean that Elizabeth and Philip would have to leave Clarence House, something neither wanted, and move into Buck House, as they called Buckingham Palace.
“Oh, God, now we’ve got to live behind railings,” she said.
“Bloody hell,” said her husband. He dreaded exchanging the modern comforts of Clarence House for the drafty caverns of Buckingham Palace, with its 10,000 windows, three miles of red-carpeted corridors, 1,000 clocks, 10,000 pieces of furniture, 690 rooms, 230 servants, and 45-acre backyard. King Edward VII had referred to it disparagingly as “the Sepulchre.” King Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, complained of the “dank, musty smell,” and the Queen’s father, King George VI, called it “an icebox.” So Prince Philip, who said he “felt like a lodger,” proposed using the Palace as an office and place of official entertainment while maintaining Clarence House as their home. The Queen put the idea to Winston Churchill, who sputtered indignantly. He insisted that Buckingham Palace was the sovereign’s home as well as the sovereign’s workplace—a focal point for the nation, the locus of the monarchy.
Hesitant to argue with the venerable Prime Minister, the Queen acceded and dutifully scheduled the move. Her husband was so incensed that he had the white maple paneling stripped from his study at Clarence House and moved to his bedroom in Buckingham Palace. Churchill then recommended that the Queen consider exchanging residences with her mother and sister. The Prime Minister confided his concern over her mother’s mental state. He said he had heard that in her grief the distraught widow had turned to spiritualism and even participated in a séance to speak to her dead husband. Churchill was so disturbed by the notion of the Queen Mother