Corgi and Bess: More Wit and Wisdom from the House of Windsor

Every night for four weeks, in the run-up to Christmas, the Queen goes on a shopping spree in one of her own drawing rooms. A huge selection of goods, supplied by a certain London department store, is shipped in and displayed in her home shopping mall.

In the days when the Queen spent Christmas at Windsor and then moved on immediately to Sandringham, all her Christmas cards, decorations and presents, including a menagerie of soft toys given her by Hardy Amies, went with her.

The Queen takes no notice of the commonly held superstition that it is bad luck to keep your Christmas decorations up beyond Twelfth Night. Hers remain in place for as long as she feels like it.

Although in 2000 the Queen had to stay up to see in the New Year, century and millennium at Greenwich, at other times the Royal Family arranges things differently. Sometimes at ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve a message is received in the kitchens: ‘We want New Year now.’ Staff rally round, altering all the clocks to suit.

A few years ago some old friends of the Queen living in North London invited her to their Golden Wedding party. They were delighted when it was announced at the last minute that she was actually coming but, since it was a private visit, it was explained that they would have to be responsible for the state of their garden path and front steps. No official inspection would be carried out beforehand. The Queen arrived, negotiating the steps without incident. But she could not be induced to sit down and, more importantly, could not be tempted near the fabulous buffet despite various children being propelled in her direction with winsome invitations. In the end, she said, ‘I’d love to stay and have supper with you, but I’ve got so many boxes to do for tomorrow, I’ll have to go home.’ So off she went to a lonely working supper. At this time she was aged 75.

Princess Margaret may have liked to build up a huge fire in the drawing-room grate (anything combustible that came to hand might be flung on: hosts had to watch out), but she didn’t greatly care for the warmth of human bodies near her. The composer Thomas Adès was once summoned by the Master of his Cambridge college to meet the Princess after dinner. He sat gingerly on a sofa with her, making charming conversation. Who knows, maybe he was enjoying himself just a little too much for suddenly the Princess was waving her hand dismissively: ‘Could you move away? It’s getting rather hot.’ More waving indicated the far end of the sofa.

Princess Margaret dined at Moro, the Sam Clarks’ fabulous Moroccan-inspired restaurant in Clerkenwell, in 2000 after a grand Royal Ballet event at Sadler’s Wells. Or rather, she didn’t. She took one look at the glorious menu — pigeon b’steeya with almonds, sugar and cinnamon; wood-roast Middle White pork; and rosewater and cardamom ice-cream — and ordered a boiled egg.

Governors and teachers were looking forward to lunch with Princess Margaret when she visited their school in the 1980s, especially since superior outside caterers had been engaged and they knew it wouldn’t be the usual mince. But the Princess had her own unique way of expressing her disapproval of fine dining. At the end of the first course she rose to her feet and swept out of the room, leaving the others with no choice but to trot after her.

Nicky Haslam recalls that, during a little marital disagreement, Princess Margaret became alarmed at Lord Snowdon’s apparent carelessness with lighted matches. ‘Watch out!’ she said, ‘you might set fire to my dress.’ ‘That wouldn’t matter. I’ve never liked that material,’ said Lord Snowdon. There was an unnerving pause, during which onlookers could hear the air stiffening as it froze. ‘We call it stuff!’ Princess Margaret boomed.

After meeting a British journalist during a Caribbean State Visit and discovering that he had had a surprise reunion with his own father during the Jamaican part of the tour, the Queen moved on to more important matters. ‘And did he see me?’ she inquired. ‘Did he see me?’

The actor Peter Eyre explained to Princess Margaret that he’d been on a march to protest about Clause 28 and that was why he was late for the party at Kathleen Tynan’s they were both at. She said, ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ rising splendidly above politics, for Clause 28, as I’m sure you remember, was a piece of anti-gay legislation introduced by the Conservative Government in the 1980s. Peter Eyre, in rather belligerent mood, stuck to his guns. ‘Are you sure you don’t know?’ he inquired. In the end, he said, ‘It’s about gay rights.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ said Princess Margaret. ‘Well, I do hope you all sang, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching”.’

Royal bathrooms always feature three basins. To avoid confusion, they are labelled, ‘teeth’, ‘hands’ and ‘face’.

The Queen’s outfits for the 1979 Gulf States visit were inspired by Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, a desert film in which she starred with Gary Cooper.

The Queen Mother was possibly the only person to get through the entire 20th century without once having to draw or open her bedroom curtains herself.

Lunching officially at the Savoy in 1994, the Queen Mother happened to be sitting next to one of her racing trainers, Nicky Henderson. Neither of them had been keeping an eye on the clock. Which was a mistake, as they wanted to catch the 3.10 at Fontwell Park and it was now 3.00. They’d better look sharp. The Queen Mother set off in her Rolls and the trainer followed behind in a taxi. They tore down the Strand, screeched through Trafalgar Square and then it was a clear, high-speed run to Clarence House. In at the front door, up the stairs, snap the set on — they were just in time. The Queen Mother was then 94.

At Badminton during the War, Queen Mary said, ‘So that’s what hay looks like!’ She was then aged 70.

When Princess Margaret was born, her father was all set to register the event at the Glamis post office when he noticed that the next slot in the book was Number 13. He thought he’d leave that for another baby and come back later. There was in fact a new-born but unregistered infant called George conveniently available for the purpose. His mother was told by the Glamis postmaster to come and register her child at once. She wasn’t too keen to be Number 13 either but conceded that ‘the Duchess was a charming person and spoke to us often as we cut through the Castle grounds on the way to church on Sundays’.

During the War, when some good folk who lived at the gates of Royal Lodge were badly bombed, their friends were most dismayed. But, rushing round to comfort and console, they found the pair in the best of spirits, indeed apparently buoyed up by the whole experience. It turned out the King and Queen had got there first. The husband was wearing one of the King’s suits and the wife one of the Queen’s dresses.

By ancient right the Lords Kingsdale are entitled to keep their hats on in the presence of the Sovereign. But the incumbent in Queen Victoria’s time came unstuck when showily trying to exercise his privilege. The tiny Queen glared at him and his hat for a good while. ‘We are also a lady,’ she said eventually, putting a stop to this nonsense once and for all.

Staying at Badminton during the War, Queen Mary took up with a little dog (dogs had never before been her scene). She used to feed it a dog biscuit in some state after dinner each night. Once an elderly bishop was dining and Queen Mary passed on to him this responsibility. But the cleric was deaf. Clearly he thought he was being asked to undergo some curious Royal test; refusal was out of the question. He ate the biscuit himself.

At a garden party on a sunny day, Queen Mary wore so many diamonds she became just a blaze of white light, not really distinguishable as a person. One evening she wore five diamond necklaces, and a miffed lady remarked, ‘She’s bagged the lot.’

For a routine visit to the East End in the morning, Queen Mary wore pale green lamé and emeralds.

Shattered by the relentlessness of Court life, especially the endless standing, Queen Victoria’s doctor fainted dead away after dinner one day. ‘And a doctor too,’ was the Queen’s only comment. Harsh but fair.

In the 1950s, the Queen Mother took control of a Comet during a test-flight and put her foot down so hard on the accelerator that the plane began to porpoise. She was thrilled although she did acknowledge the other passengers might not have been. Later on, when Comets began mysteriously to crash and the phenomenon of metal fatigue was discovered, the Chairman of BOAC always recalled this flight with horror.

During the War, the Queen Mother, then Queen, learned to use a revolver, so that, should the Germans come after her, she could resist. ‘I won’t go down like the others,’ she told Harold Nicolson, referring to all her weedy Royal colleagues, who had run away rather than face the enemy. Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, who by special arrangement walked through the grounds of Buckingham Palace every morning on his way to work, was alarmed that the gardens seemed to be alive with the sound of gunfire. ‘It is the Queen’s target practice,’ he was told. He decided to go by another route.

The Prince of Wales isn’t extravagant. He just doesn’t have any idea about money. He once asked if £40,000 were a lot to spend on a table. This was in the early 1990s. Somebody sensibly replied, ‘It depends on the table.’ To the suggestion that he might economise by raiding his mother’s vast store of spare furniture, he responded, ‘Oh, no, she won’t part with a stick.’

Part of the 1977 Jubilee celebrations involved a late-night fireworks display on the Thames followed by an appearance of the Royal Family on the Buckingham Palace balcony. After this, the Queen Mother, then aged 77, wanted to go to bed. Clarence House being only a few hundred yards away, there should have been no difficulty. But the crowds around the Palace were impenetrable. She was shut in. The police advised her to wait. But that, she declared, was out of the question. And who can blame her? She was after all Queen Dowager and last Empress of India. So she set off and the end of it all was that her car had to thread its way along a vastly circuitous route and it took 45 minutes to get back home. When at last, rather steamed up, she was inside the front door, she said, ‘That was most pusillanimous.’

At Eton, pupils taking A level History of Art were encouraged to develop their personal enthusiasms when it came to choosing a topic for the special project which is a required part of the course. ‘I know,’ said Prince William. ‘I’ll do Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings.’ This was a good choice and practical too, since most of the drawings are in his granny’s collection at Windsor Castle.

For Christmas 2002, Princes William and Harry received from their father — among other things, one hopes — a silk top hat apiece, acquired from Lock & Co. of St James at a cost of £1,200 each.

Visitors to Badminton in the 1980s were mystified by the sudden appearance of a mean little strip of carpet running up one side of the stairs. It turned out that, on her last visit, the Queen Mother had said, ‘Unless you do something about those treacherous bare stairs, I’m not coming again!’ Well, that was a terrible threat but the Beauforts, owners of Badminton, didn’t have much money. The miniature run of carpet for the sole use of one Royal old lady was all they could afford.

Sir Peter Hall found himself in a bit of a bind when, emerging from the breakfast room at a Royal party for the 1977 Jubilee bearing three plates of scrambled eggs and with a cigar in his mouth, he bumped into the Duke of Edinburgh. How was he to speak? His difficulty was immediately resolved by a footman, who stepped up, removed the cigar from his mouth and stood by holding it until Sir Peter’s conversation with the Duke was over. It is not known whether the attendant then put it back in the great man’s mouth.

Family Rivalry — Who is the Loveliest of Them All? (#ulink_cc59ce68-bd14-560b-9a02-c3630fb09a9d)

Big panic during rehearsals for George VI’s Coronation — the orb, part of the near-sacred Coronation regalia, was nowhere to be found, until someone heard a giveaway rumbling from under a table. Princess Margaret, aged 6, had seized it and was rolling it around on the floor.

In later life Princess Margaret was recalling younger and happier days when her father would be practising for Trooping the Colour at home and used to let her try on his bearskin. But her story came to a peculiar halt. Evidently there was something else of significance she had to say, something that almost couldn’t be said. ‘Sometimes …’ she murmured, ‘he let me put on the crown.’

At Windsor Castle Princess Margaret once flung open a door and shouted into the room where the Queen was sitting with some top person or other, ‘Nobody would speak to you if you weren’t the Queen!’

After a State Dinner at Windsor, there was a tour of the Castle, with the Queen as chief guide. The rest of the party was supposed to be listening respectfully. In a certain room, there was a pause and the Queen invited people to inspect various items that had been laid out. But Princess Margaret sat down on a sofa for a good old natter with Edna Healey about the latter’s recent meeting with Group Captain Townsend. When the Queen moved off into another room, her sister stayed put. Can you imagine? An unfortunate attendant tried to drop a hint. ‘Go away,’ Princess Margaret snapped, ‘I’m talking to Mrs Healey.’

One day Prince William was moaning about the forthcoming but surely distant burden of kingship. Quick as a flash, Prince Harry said, ‘If you won’t do it, then I will.’

There was an accident during a shooting lunch at Sandringham. A footman picked up a coffee pot and failed to notice that the gas burner it had been sitting over had somehow remained attached. It fell onto Princess Margaret whose napkin went up in flames. ‘Oh, look, they’re trying to set fire to Margo,’ the Queen commented, with not a great deal of dismay.

The Queen Mother gave her eldest daughter not only her own first name but her own initials too. The Queen Mother was Elizabeth Angela Marguerite and the Queen is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary.

At her wedding, the Queen Mother left her tiny handbag in the carriage on arrival at the Abbey. When the Queen, as Princess Elizabeth, was married, she did exactly the same thing — either on purpose or by coincidence.

At Birkhall the Queen Mother had a huge ER cut out in a lawn and planted with French marigolds (not African, which she disliked). She said, ‘One will do for me and the other for the Queen.’ But which one? The R or the E?

The Queen Mother reeled in astonishment when, at lunch, the usually abstemious Queen asked for a second glass of wine. ‘Are you sure, dear? You have got to reign all afternoon, you know.’

Before it was modernised in the 1970s, Sandringham was a terrible fire hazard. Frequent fire drills were necessary, during which members of the Royal Family would stand in one corner of the lawn, waiting to be counted, while other departments of the Household stood in other corners. On one occasion, Princess Margaret failed to appear. A harried maid appealed to the Queen Mother for help in getting her out of bed but the Princess’s mother just said, ‘Oh, well, she’ll just have to burn, won’t she?’

When the Royal Family were touring South Africa together in 1947, Princess Elizabeth, as she then was, used her umbrella as a kind of cattle-prod if her mother, the Queen, was lingering too long in idle conversation. A quick jab in the ankles usually did the trick.

Princess Margaret claimed that she drove the Lord Chamberlain up the wall by forever altering her funeral arrangements. At one time she had a whim to be buried at sea. But all the chopping and changing was worth it because what could have been more perfect than the ruse she finally came up with — to be cremated (never mind the indignity of Slough public crematorium) in order to be sufficiently reduced in size to fit snugly into the kingly tomb of her parents, George VI and Queen Elizabeth, leaving Lilibet to fend for herself elsewhere.

At lunch at Windsor the Queen mentioned Gravadlax, at the time a novelty. ‘It’s pickled,’ she explained. ‘Raw salmon. Pickled. Quite extraordinary.’ The other guests were intrigued, but Princess Margaret took exception. ‘No, it isn’t. It’s smoked,’ she insisted. The Queen explained patiently she had tried it herself, had made inquiries as to how it was made. ‘No, it’s smoked,’ said Margaret. ‘Otherwise it would go bad.’ They carried on like this, good-naturedly, for some time until the Queen deftly changed the subject.

(#litres_trial_promo)

At a military dinner a drunken soldier staggered towards Princess Margaret, but before he could say anything disgraceful, the Colonel-in-Chief had the presence of mind to shout: ‘Go away and sit down!’ As they watched the man lurching back to his place, the Princess said, ‘That’s just what the Queen’s always saying to her corgis but they don’t take a blind bit of notice.’

It’s bad form to wear white to a wedding — competing with the bride. So why did the Queen choose a white wool coat for the Charles and Camilla Blessing Service in 2005? Especially suspicious when you think it’s not a colour she usually wears. And then, during the service, she upstaged the entire congregation by being the only one who could sing the whole of ‘Immortal, invisible’ without once referring to the service sheet.

Early on in her affair with the Prince of Wales, Wallis Simpson began to get ideas above her station. Visiting Buckingham Palace at the Prince’s insistence but, as far as everybody else was concerned, absolutely on sufferance, she looked out of the window and saw some of Queen Mary’s favourite flower-beds. ‘When I live here,’ she remarked appreciatively, ‘those will be tennis-courts.’