The Queen

The final weeks of 1935 had not been a happy period for the British Royal Family. From mid November, it had become obvious that George V’s health was in serious decline, to the extent that when the King’s physician released a notice to the Press on the evening of 20 January 1936, stating that ‘the King’s life is drawing peacefully to a close’, no one was much surprised. The doctor’s predictions proved to be correct. At 11.55 p.m. on the same evening, King George V, whom Princess Elizabeth had lovingly dubbed ‘Grandpa England’, breathed his last. He was succeeded by his eldest son, David, the erstwhile Prince of Wales, who chose to take the regnal name of King Edward VIII.

Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII (1919)

However, contrary to his doctor’s communiqué, George V’s passing was anything but peaceful. In his final years, the ailing King had been increasingly troubled by doubts regarding David’s suitability to take on the highest position in the land – and his misgivings were far from unfounded. As Prince of Wales, David had lived the life of a pleasure-seeking playboy prince. Weak-willed, petulant, yet endlessly charming, David was bored senseless by royal protocol and showed little interest in affairs of State, preferring instead to absorb himself in a number of adulterous liaisons with married women.

When George V voiced his concerns to the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, saying, ‘After I’m dead, the boy will ruin himself in a year,’ even he could not have known how prophetic his words would prove to be. In the event, it would take just eleven months for George’s wayward son to bring about his own spectacular fall from grace.

Abdication: The Year of the Three Kings

The instrument of Edward VIII’s downfall lay in the rather unlikely guise of an American woman named Wallis Simpson, who was already on her second marriage, the first having ended in divorce.

Wallis Simpson (1936)

When Mrs Simpson first appeared on the scene in 1932, her subsequent affair with the Prince of Wales initially caused little concern. However, much to the chagrin of his family and advisors, it gradually became clear that the charismatic American was not just another of David’s inconsequential dalliances. But in fact, by 1935, he had become so fond of Mrs Simpson that his affection for her bordered on obsession, one that showed no signs of abating even after he became King. Indeed, in the words of Winston Churchill, ‘[She was] as necessary to his happiness as the air he breathed’. As such, by mid-1936, he became fixated on a plan to make Wallis – who was by now about to divorce her second husband – his wife.

Therein lay the problem. As Supreme Governor of the Church of England, an institution which frowned upon divorce, such a course of action was a constitutional impossibility for the King. Ignoring the counsel of his advisors, Edward doggedly insisted on marrying Mrs Simpson, and in doing so, he plunged the country into a constitutional crisis.

King George VI

In a number of secret meetings, Edward and his Cabinet ministers earnestly tried to come up with a solution to the problem of Mrs Simpson. The ins and outs of the issue were endlessly debated, without success. At one stage, it seemed likely that he would be allowed to enter a morganatic marriage (one which conferred no royal status on his wife). But in the end, this too was rejected by the Government, who believed that the British public would be hostile to any such arrangement. Utterly dejected, Edward was forced to choose between his duty to his country and the love of his life – and, perhaps unsurprisingly, he chose the latter. On 10 December 1936, the King signed the Instrument of Abdication, ending his all too brief reign.

Consequently, when Princess Elizabeth awoke the following day, her world had changed beyond all recognition. The Crown had passed to her father, who was now King George VI, which meant her mother was Queen Consort and Elizabeth herself was the heiress presumptive. The only thing that would now prevent her from ascending to the throne would be an early death or, thanks to the existence of the concept known as male primogeniture (which gives precedence to a king’s sons), the arrival of a male sibling. In words attributed to her maternal grandmother, Lady Strathmore, it was at this stage in the proceedings that Princess Elizabeth allegedly ‘began praying ardently for a brother’.

A Change of Address

Naturally, this sudden transformation in the family’s circumstances necessitated a whole host of changes, not least of which was a rather hurried relocation to Buckingham Palace.

Up till now, the family, having moved from Bruton Street many years earlier, had lived in a rather imposing residence at 145 Piccadilly, which had a magnificent view across Green Park. However impressive its appointments, Princess Elizabeth’s childhood home paled into insignificance when compared to the ostentatious grandeur of the Palace. Nonetheless, both Elizabeth and Margaret were rather unenthusiastic at the prospect of moving to the residence which they had, until recently, always thought of as the home of their grandparents. In her book, The Little Princesses, the children’s governess, Crawfie, recounted Elizabeth’s reaction on hearing of their impending move:

When I broke the news to Margaret and Lilibet that they were going to live in Buckingham Palace, they looked at me in horror. ‘What!’ Lilibet said. ‘You mean forever?’

Their reticence was perhaps understandable. Having frequently visited their grandparents there, the girls were only too aware that, in stark contrast to the magnificence of the State Apartments, the upper floors of Buckingham Palace, with their paucity of bathrooms and their badly heated, mice-infested bedrooms, were in dire need of modernization.

Buckingham Palace, photograph by David Iliff, (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

However, the sisters had little choice but to make the most of the situation, and they soon discovered there were advantages to living in such an environment. The seemingly endless warren of gloomy passageways, through which the sisters were allowed to run virtually unimpeded, were a child’s paradise, while the Palace’s innumerable nooks and crannies provided bountiful opportunities for games of hide and seek.

Another benefit of living at Buckingham Palace was the vast gardens, and both Elizabeth and Margaret spent many happy hours exploring the grounds. One of their favourite features was ‘the hill’, a large mound of earth which rose above the Palace walls, allowing the girls to get a glimpse of the outside world. Indeed, years later Elizabeth would admit to her portrait painter, Pietro Annigoni, that she spent many hours watching all the cars and activity in the Mall, and often wondered what life was like beyond the confines of the Palace walls.

And so it seems, for all the advantages and privileges afforded to her, the young Elizabeth could not escape the fact that she was, in effect, a princess trapped in her ivory tower.

The Coronation of George VI

If the family were hoping for a little time to come to terms with their greatly altered circumstances, they were to be sorely disappointed. No sooner had Elizabeth’s father been proclaimed King than all thoughts turned to the impending coronation.

The previous year it had been decided that Edward VIII’s coronation would take place on 12 May 1937. By the time of his abdication, plans for the ceremony were so far advanced that it was thought wasteful to abandon them, and so the new King agreed to take over the slot originally intended for his brother. However, while this was undoubtedly a thoroughly sensible decision, it left precious little time for George and his family to ready themselves for the big day. Their parents threw themselves into the preparations, which, for George, included lengthy sessions with the maverick Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue, in a bid to overcome a debilitating stutter that had plagued him since childhood. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and her sister were subjected to an intensive course of tutoring on the significance of the event by their grandmother, Queen Mary.

Stamp Commemorating the Coronation of George VI

It seems, for Elizabeth at least, these lessons paid off. So impressed was she by the magnitude of the occasion, she took it upon herself to record the day’s events for posterity. In the document – which was dedicated to her parents with the words ‘To Mummy and Papa, In Memory of Their Coronation, From Lilibet. By Herself.’ – she displays a keen eye for detail and a remarkable perceptiveness for a girl of her age. She wrote: ‘At 5 o’clock in the morning, I was woken up by the band of the Royal Marines striking up just outside my window. I leapt out of bed and so did Bobo. We put on dressing-gowns and shoes. . and we crouched in the window looking on to a cold and misty morning.’

After a hurried breakfast, both Elizabeth and Margaret donned identical dresses of ‘white silk with old cream lace’ and ‘robes of purple velvet with gold on the edge’. Following a ‘jolty’ ride to Westminster Abbey in a horse-drawn carriage, the sisters took their place alongside their grandmother in the Royal Box. ‘I thought it all very, very wonderful. . the arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned, at least I thought so.’

Badge of the House of Windsor during George VI’s Reign

However, as the two-and-a-half hour ceremony dragged on, Elizabeth’s attention began to wane: ‘At the end the service got rather boring, as it was all prayers. Grannie and I were looking to see how many more pages to the end, and we turned one more and then I pointed to the word at the bottom of the page and it said “Finis”. We both smiled at each other and turned back to the service.’

Although she was most likely unaware of it at the time, her father’s coronation was to prove to be an excellent training ground for the young Princess – in just fifteen short years, she would find herself following reverently in his footsteps, as she made her way into the Abbey to be crowned Queen Elizabeth II.

A Queen in Training

Prior to 1936, the Yorks had placed little emphasis on their daughters’ schooling. This was mainly due to the fact that the Duchess herself had never received much in the way of educational instruction, while the Duke harboured less-than-fond memories of a miserable childhood spent in a grim schoolroom, an experience he did not wish to replicate for Elizabeth and Margaret. Consequently, the girls’ education was limited to sporadic lessons in basic subjects, like reading, writing and a little mathematics, from their governess, Crawfie. Later, this rather meagre curriculum was supplemented with French lessons from another governess, along with history and geography tutorials from Queen Mary. In addition, both Elizabeth and Margaret devoted a significant amount of time to non-academic pursuits such as riding, music, dancing and drawing.

For Elizabeth, this all changed following her father’s ascension to the throne. As heiress presumptive, it was now imperative for the Princess to receive an education which would adequately prepare her for her future role as Queen. And so, from the age of thirteen, she began taking intensive lessons from the Vice-Provost of Eton College, Sir Henry Marten. He instructed her on a variety of difficult subjects including constitutional history, the role of monarchy, and parliamentary procedures. Her father also took an interest in her training, allowing her to look over his shoulder as he studied State papers, as well as quietly coaching her on the monarch’s duties and responsibilities.

Although this new state of affairs was a big departure for Elizabeth, she diligently applied herself to the task in hand. Displaying a sharp intellect, she absorbed information rapidly, and had little difficulty understanding even the most complex of subjects. It soon became obvious that, despite the shortcomings in her early education, Elizabeth was an exceptional student. It was not deemed necessary for Margaret to receive the same lessons as her sibling, and the exclusion irked her. But like it or not, the two sisters, who were once so close, were now on vastly divergent paths. With Elizabeth’s star now in the ascendancy, Margaret had little choice but to fade, somewhat begrudgingly, into the background – a situation which would be perpetuated long into adulthood.