The royals - Kitty Kelley [69]
“This was her first visit to Scotland as Queen, and, naturally, everyone expected her to come in her coronation robes,” recalled Margaret McCormick, who attended the event. “I was in my Sunday best and was shocked when she appeared in a simple gray blue coat, because she looked so… so… so… ordinary. She should’ve honored the occasion more.”
In St. Giles Cathedral, the Queen, who was surrounded by the Scottish peerage in their velvet cloaks and coronets, looked strangely out of place in black leather shoes, a gray blue felt hat, and a street-length coat, especially next to the Duke of Edinburgh, who was dressed magnificently in a plumed helmet and gold-braided uniform. The most jarring part of the Queen’s attire was the big black purse she was carrying in the crook of her arm. To the Scots she looked like a middle-class housewife on her way to the grocery.
At the altar she stepped forward while the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon knelt before her in his coronation robes to proffer the crown of Scotland on a velvet cushion with gold tassels. As she reached toward him, her leather handbag, which was as large as a breadbox, almost hit him in the face. He quickly moved his head to avoid getting smacked by the royal purse.
In the official painting commemorating the ceremony, the Queen is shown receiving the ancient crown of Scotland but without her handbag. The Scottish portrait artist deliberately left out the purse because he could not bear to render his sovereign looking like a commoner.
The atmosphere around the Queen was so reverential that no one dared utter a word of criticism about her attire, which was viewed by some in Scotland as insulting. She would falter a few more times in her new role, but each misstep would be carefully papered over by her courtiers, whose mission in life was to burnish the myth that the monarch was perfect.
These courtiers, whose families had been in royal service for hundreds of years, were either military men or from the landed gentry. “The circle around the throne is aristocratic,” editorialized the Daily Mirror, “as insular and—there is no other word for it—as toffee-nosed as it has ever been.” The courtiers felt that their positions were ordained in the Book of Proverbs: “A scribe skillful in his office, he shall find himself worthy of being a courtier…. Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings.” With a heightened sense of superiority, these courtiers did for the Queen what they had always done for her father: they determined what she would do and say publicly and whom she would see, from debutantes to diplomats. The courtiers also protected the Crown from stain, blemish, and disgrace. They did this by controlling the flow of information to the public.
In the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, the courtiers expected reporters to be deferential, and for the most part the press obliged. This fandango between press and palace enabled the courtiers to fabricate news, withhold information, and impose restrictions without question. The courtiers manipulated the press to mold public opinion, and some of their efforts to make the monarch appear worthy of respect seem ridiculous in retrospect, but their dedication was unquestionable and their loyalty unswerving. In the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, her courtiers sought to present her as grand yet genteel. They refused to admit that she enjoyed playing canasta or that for her first royal portrait sitting, she arrived carrying her tiara in an egg box. They reluctantly admitted that she loved horse races, a fact not worth denying because she was constantly at the track, but they claimed she never gambled.
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