The royals - Kitty Kelley [84]
The rumors dogged Philip from Melbourne to Sydney to Singapore, but as the Queen’s husband he carried a certain immunity. No one could touch him without harming her, and no one in Great Britain, not even republicans, wanted to harm the Queen, who in 1956 was still considered inviolate. So despite his protestations to Prince Bernhard, Philip enjoyed a freewheeling life away from the Palace.
On the tour he managed to relax enough to joke about his second-class status within his marriage. In Australia a young couple were presented to him as Mr. and Dr. Robinson. Philip looked surprised until Mr. Robinson explained that his wife was a doctor of philosophy and much more important than he. “Ah, yes,” said Philip. “We have that trouble in our family, too.”
During the cruise, Philip and his equerry had a whisker-growing contest to see who could grow the longest beard; they shot alligators and were photographed tromping around in matching safari suits; they sat on the deck of the Britannia, sunbathing, painting at their easels in the afternoon, and drinking gin and tonics in the evening. Philip felt at home on the yacht, which appealed to his sense of neatness and precision. Navy stewards used a tape measure to set the table so that knives, forks, and spoons were lined up evenly with dishes. They wore felt slippers so they would not make noise while delivering his messages. The British press slammed the trip as “Philip’s folly,” calling it useless, unnecessary, and a luxury that cost the nation “at least two million pounds.”* Estimating the tour’s cost at $11,000 a week, they criticized Philip’s “commando raft,” created to unload the royal Rolls-Royce in places where no docking facilities were available for automobiles, and they carped about his traveling with his own sports car. “Who pays for it all?” asked one newspaper.
While decrying the expense of the cruise, no one dared publish a word about the women who were entertained on board ship. The Queen’s husband was not an indiscreet man, and he certainly had no intention of embarrassing his wife. “He told me the first day he offered me my job,” said Michael Parker, “that his job, first, last, and always, was never to let Her Majesty down.” Still, the rumors persisted as Philip cruised the Indian Ocean, missing such family celebrations as his son’s eighth birthday, his own ninth wedding anniversary, and the tenth family Christmas.
“The cruise was a brilliant idea of Prince Philip’s and deserved much greater recognition,” Parker said years later. “The object was to put Britannia to her greatest use in visiting beleaguered British people deep in the oceans around the world—Ascension, St. Helena, Gough Island, Tristan de Cunha, the Falklands, South Georgia, Chatham Islands, Deception Island, and some bases in Antarctica open only twenty days a year. It was quite a sacrifice for all—our first Christmas away from home since the war to boot.”
Near Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Philip and his equerry watched the world almost explode. Shortly after leaving England, the Britannia was put on emergency notice to stand by for nine days as the Middle East seemed poised for war over the Suez Canal. Egypt had seized the Canal in July 1956 after the United States withdrew its $56 million commitment to help build the Aswan Dam. The U.S. move enraged Egypt’s President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who then closed the canal to all foreigners.
“I look at Americans and say: May you choke to death on your fury!” Nasser roared. “The annual income of the Suez Canal is $100 million. Why not take it ourselves? We shall rely on our own strength, our own muscle, our own funds. And it will be run by Egyptians! Egyptians! Egyptians!”
Of the 1.5 million barrels of oil that passed through the canal each day, 1.2 million went to Western Europe. So, in nationalizing the canal, Nasser had choked off the chief source of petroleum for England and France. Fearful for their survival and spoiling for retaliation, the two