Fifty Years the Queen. Arthur Bousfield
Formal photograph of Princess Elizabeth in 1939.
First day cover of Royal Tour with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret depicted on Canadian postage stamp commemorating the tour.
Within the Royal Family the ocean did not provide a barrier either. The princesses had studied their parents' travel plans before the trip and followed their progress during it. With twentieth century technology it was possible for the King and Queen to telephone their daughters from Canada, an opportunity which they took full advantage of.
On her 1951 tour of the Dominion Princess Elizabeth would recall her parents' trip with fondness: “I have always cherished a dream of coming to Canada and ever since the King and Queen came back twelve years ago with tales of its splendours, the dream has been the more compelling.”
Princess Elizabeth was thirteen years old when war came to the world in September 1939, and nineteen years old when the war ended. VE-Day on, 8 May 1945, celebrated victory in the European campaign, which had ended with Germany's surrender. In the evening, after the Royal Family had appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace eight times before the ecstatic crowds, the King agreed, with some natural reluctance, to his daughters' request to join the people celebrating in the streets. Going incognito, but accompanied by their uncle David Bowes-Lyon and others as escorts, the nineteen-year-old Elizabeth and the fourteen-year-old Margaret joined the happy throngs and good naturedly returned with them to the Palace railing, calling out with everyone else “We want the King! We want the Queen!”
VE-Day in London. The King, Queen, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret are joined by Winston Churchill for the traditional balcony appearance.
The King wrote in his diary that night, “Poor darlings, they have never had any fun yet”. Some historians have latched onto this comment as evidence of the restricted and protected life that had been Princess Elizabeth's experience in her teenage years during the war. This was undoubtedly true given the combination of normal royal restrictions and the added fears and tight security of wartime, with the ever present danger of kidnapping or death. But it was, of course a comment by the King, who was also a protective father, explaining to himself, at a moment of high excitement, why he had let them join the crowds against his own instincts. Princess Elizabeth's war years had in fact elements of fun in them and her greatest concern had been not to have more fun so much as a desire to serve the war effort in a larger way than she felt she had been allowed.
When war came it had been decided that London was too dangerous for the princesses. Some in Britain thought that they should be moved out of the country altogether and the Canadian government offered to provide refuge in Canada, where the Dutch and Norwegian royal families, among others, and many children of ordinary British families went. The Queen's famous remark put an end to such speculation. “They will not go without me”, she said, “I won't leave the King, and he will never go”. Instead they were sent first to Birkhall, the Scottish home of the King and Queen before their accession, and, when security measures were provided, to Windsor Castle, which remained their home for the rest of the war. Nevertheless over three hundred bombs fell on Windsor Park during the hostilities and an airraid shelter and military defences were built.
The two princesses speak to the young people of the Commonwealth and Empire on the “Children's Hour” radio programme in 1940.
As the war progressed the Princess took a more active role with her mother the Queen in making the rounds of military bases and visiting parts of Britain to see and be seen. On 13 October 1940 she gave her first public broadcast on the BBC's Children's Hour, which was heard by millions of children around the Commonwealth and Empire. To these children she said “I feel that I am speaking to friends and companions who have shared with my sister and myself many a happy Children's Hour. Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers. My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you, as we all know from experience what it means to be away from those we love most of all. … We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well. For God will care for us, and give us victory and peace. And when peace comes, remember, it will be for us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place.” Princess Elizabeth gave her first public speech at the Mansion house three-and-half years later, on 31 May 1944. This was for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Princess Elizabeth in Victorian costume performed in her 1944 pantomime “Old Mother Red Riding Boots” at Windsor Castle.
At the Castle there was also time for Christmas pantomimes which the princesses organised and performed each year beginning in 1941, after having created a nativity play in 1940 called The Christmas Child. The pantomimes were Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin and Old Mother Red Riding Boots, the last title showing how their interest in satire had emerged. During the war years Princess Elizabeth achieved fluency in French from advanced studies with a Belgian tutor, Madame de Bellaigue, and began her interest in horse racing.
Princess Elizabeth accompanied her mother the Queen on tours of Commonwealth forces in Britain during the war. Here they visit Canadian soldiers.
Of greater concern to Princess Elizabeth was her desire to serve the war effort in what she considered a more tangible way. Several of her cousins were either in the military forces or performing other war work. When she turned sixteen in April 1942 she registered, like everyone else her age, for the wartime youth service scheme, but the King did not agree to her actually performing war work. In 1943 the Regency Act was amended however to allow her to be a counsellor of state (and Queen without a regency if her father should die) at the age of eighteen. She acted as a counsellor in 1944 when the King was in Italy. When it was asked if she should not be named “Princess of Wales”? the King said no, that was reserved solely for the wife of a Prince of Wales, and added in his diary that, in any case, “Her own name is so nice.”
The King ensured that his daughter and heir learned the skills of kingship, Royal Lodge, Windsor in wartime Britain, 1942. Reading government papers brought in the famous “red boxes”, seen on the table, would be a daily task for the future Queen as it was for the King.
One of her tasks was to sign the reprieve of a convicted murderer. She remarked: “What makes one do such terrible things. One ought to know. There should be some way to help them. I have so much to learn about people.”
The Princess persisted in her quest for military service however. She was given her first honorary appointment as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and when she inspected them she was a perfectionist. Eventually in the spring of 1945 she was allowed to join the Auxiliary Transport Service or ATS as a second subaltern. She trained as a driver and mechanic and was proud of her proficiency.
Also, not generally known to the public, but known to her family, during the war years Princess Elizabeth had fallen in love with her third cousin Prince Philip of Greece. Prince Philip's parents, Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg, had been forced into exile with the abolition of the Greek monarchy in 1922. (It was to be restored and abolished several times over the decades.) Princess Alice was herself British-born. Prince Philip therefore grew up on the continent and in Britain and was an officer in the Royal Navy.
Princess Elizabeth serving in the Auxiliary Transport Service in World War II.