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Short takes on Queen Elizabeth II — part 1

It is difficult to know where to begin, continue and end with Queen Elizabeth II after her 70+ year reign.

So many anecdotes remain.

Here are but a few of them.

Brexit referendum

I wrote yesterday about where we are with the ‘bonfire of EU regulations’ — not as far as Leave voters had hoped. Brexit was also on Her Majesty’s mind at one stage.

On June 21, 2016, two days before the referendum, The Sun reported that the Queen wanted dinner guests to give valid reasons for remaining in the European Union (emphases mine):

THE Queen asked VIP guests at a private dinner: “Give me three good reasons why Britain should be part of Europe.”

Royal biographer Robert Lacey revealed she asked close friends and family their views on whether we should be in or out of the EU.

He said yesterday: “The Queen has no vote but I think she may feel we should be Out.

“That’s only my guess as to her thoughts — but she does like robust debate.

“She likes a debate around the table like all of us round the country and she’s been debating Brexit with close friends and family.

“But from what I’ve heard, she’s been very careful to be scrupulously neutral.”

Mr Lacey said the Queen was questioning dinner guests, thought to include Prince Andrew and Princess Anne, at a private dinner a few weeks ago …

Lacey explained that she would not have asked the question of guests outside of her closely-knit private circle.

This caused MPs on both sides of the Brexit divide to opine.

In the end, we never really knew what she thought on the subject. This was part of the Queen’s seemingly magic aura. Everyone could privately impress his beliefs upon her, believing she was on their side. Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn’t. Her opinions died with her, never to be revealed.

On being Prime Minister

Having reigned through 16 Prime Ministers from Winston Churchill through to Liz Truss, the Queen was accustomed to political change, which she surely had throughout her reign.

When Boris Johnson was elected Conservative Party leader in 2019, The Star reported that Her Majesty admitted her perplexity about such high political ambition:

Allegedly, Her Majesty told him: “I don’t know why anyone would want the job.”

The source of the quote was none other than Boris himself, who should have known that no one discusses what the Queen says in private conversation.

His staff certainly knew:

His staff then reportedly chastised him, and said “not to repeat those things so loudly”.

His predecessor but one, David Cameron, made a similar gaffe in saying that, in 2014, the Queen purred a sigh of relief when the Scots voted ‘No’ to independence. He, too, was severely criticised at the time, albeit not by Her Majesty, who remained silent.

Honours medals ‘Made in France’

Over the past several years, in France, much has been made of the fine products produced there and not overseas.

To date — admittedly, I might have missed it — I have not read or heard one news item that says that some of the monarch’s medals to Britons are currently made in France.

This started early in 2016, to the consternation of British military veterans and more than one Conservative MP.

On March 1 that year, The Telegraph reported:

A decision to award the contract to manufacture 20 British honours to a foreign firm for the first time has provoked anger among veterans.

A French company is set to soon make a host of honours that are presented to military heroes or distinguished citizens, including the Distinguished Service Order, the star of the Knights of the Order of the Bath and the badge of a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Arthus Bertrand, which makes France’s Légion d’honneur medal, has been named in Cabinet Office papers as among a group of “successful suppliers”

However, it sparked criticism from Colonel Bob Stewart, the Conservative MP and a holder of the DSO for his service during the Bosnian conflict, who described it as “plain wrong”.

“My argument is rather emotive but I think that a medal awarded to a UK citizen should be made in the UK – personally I’m very glad that my DSO [Distinguished Service Order] was made in Britain,” he told the newspaper.

“Can you imagine the French allowing the Légion d’honneur to be made in Germany? When this country awards medals to its soldiers, sailors, airmen and citizens they should be made in the UK.”

Julian Lewis, Conservative chairman of the defence select committee, also told The Times: “One is used to seeing ‘made in Hong Kong’ on souvenirs from great British institutions, but the foreign manufacture of medals and honours might be a step too far, no matter what the value-for-money logic.”

The French-manufactured medals are for the following honours: the Order of the Bath, the badge and star of the Order of St Michael and St George,the medal of the Distinguished Service Order and the Citizens of the British Empire.

Margaret Rhodes, the Queen’s first cousin

Margaret Rhodes was the Queen’s first cousin and one of her best friends.

When she died in 2016, The Telegraph posted this obituary:

Margaret Rhodes, who has died aged 91, was a first cousin of the Queen and a goddaughter of George VI; in 1947 she had been a bridesmaid at the then Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to Philip Mountbatten, and for 11 years she was a lady-in-waiting to her aunt, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Late in life Margaret Rhodes enjoyed runaway success with her memoirs, The Final Curtsey, written with the help of the journalist Tom Corby and published in 2011. Although these were slight and haphazard, and not without factual inaccuracies, they caught the public imagination and shot to No 1 in the bestseller lists

The book gave a light, sometimes hearty, description of her life as a young Scottish aristocrat, with insights into the character and personality of the Queen, and charted her own far from trouble-free course through life. It was altogether an exceptional publishing triumph, especially since numerous publishing houses had turned it down over several years.

Margaret Rhodes was born in London as the Hon Margaret Elphinstone on June 9 1925. She was the youngest daughter of the 16th Lord Elphinstone and his wife, Lady Mary Bowes-Lyon, second daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Thus she was a first cousin of the Queen and Princess Margaret, and she was so much a part of their lives that the Queen Mother sometimes referred to her as her “third daughter”.

Margaret had two older brothers, John Elphinstone (the 17th Lord), who was imprisoned in Colditz during the war, Andrew Elphinstone (who just predeceased his brother), Elizabeth, who was unmarried, and Jean, who married John Wills and served for many years as a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. So close to the Royal family was Jean that the family found it appropriate that she collapsed at lunch at Clarence House, dying in hospital soon afterwards.

Margaret was raised at Carberry Tower, the Elphinstone seat near Edinburgh, frequently visited by royalty. In her early life she was placed under the care of Clara Knight, who later became nanny to the two princesses. There were many holidays at Glamis and at Birkhall (where the then Duke and Duchess of York spent their summers). She was a childhood playmate of Princess Elizabeth. As Margaret revealed: “When we were very small, it was mostly playing at being horses. It involved a lot of neighing and cantering and galloping.” In her book she wrote: “I seemed then to live in a very safe world.” When the Second World War broke out and the two princesses were kept at Birkhall for safety, Margaret was sent over to keep them company.

During the war she lived first in Chelsea and later at Buckingham Palace, spending time with the princesses at Windsor Castle and holidays at Balmoral.

When Margaret reached majority age during the Second World War:

She joined the WRNS, but was moved to MI6. Only 18 years old, she worked at an office euphemistically called Passport Control near St James’s Underground Station. Her department coordinated the work of secret agents in the Near East.

After the war Margaret was one of eight bridesmaids at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth in November 1947. Soon afterwards she met Denys Rhodes when they worked together for the European Movement set up by Duncan Sandys, which founded the Council of Europe. Since 1945 he had been married to the actress Rachel Gurney, with whom he had a daughter. They sought a divorce but ran into numerous complications. Eventually an annulment was granted and Margaret was able to marry him at St Margaret’s, Westminster, on July 31 1950, in the presence of the King and Queen and with Princess Margaret as her bridesmaid.

Margaret Rhodes described her husband in her book as “an attractive pauper”. She commented: “I suppose, in my parents’ view, he was not the most suitable bridegroom”, and he was never as popular with the Royal family as she was. The Rhodeses settled in Devon, creating a fine garden.

Her husband was a novelist. When his health took a turn for the worse, the couple moved near the Queen, to:

the Garden House in Windsor Great Park in April 1981 in response to the Queen’s invitation: “Could you bear to live in suburbia?”, but Denys Rhodes died the following October.

Margaret Rhodes lived near her first cousin for the rest of her life:

Margaret Rhodes lived in the house the rest of her life and in 1991 was appointed a Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen Mother, undertaking fortnightly duties. She served for 11 years until the Queen Mother’s death, after which it became the Queen’s habit to go to the Garden House after church on Sundays instead of to Royal Lodge.

Margaret was the close companion of the Queen Mother during the last three weeks of her life …

Finally, on March 30, Margaret was present when her aunt died at 3.15 in the afternoon. Hardly was this over than Peter Sissons of the BBC telephoned her to ask for details. His interview was generally deemed to be too intrusive …

The sadness of the next days was briefly alleviated when she was assigned the job of registering her aunt’s death. “Right, what was the husband’s occupation?” asked a fierce lady registrar. “King”, she replied, feeling that the Queen Mother might have enjoyed that. Later she spent some time sorting the Queen Mother’s papers on behalf of the Queen and deciding what should be placed in the Royal Archives.

Margaret Rhodes spoke as she found:

In recorded television tributes to the Queen Mother, she expressed her dislike of Caithness, with its trees blown almost horizontal, and just before the Queen turned 80, she declared: “I’m perfectly certain she will never retire as such. It’s not like a normal job and, to the Queen, the vows that she made on Coronation Day are something so deep and so special that she wouldn’t consider not continuing to fulfil those vows until she dies.”

Of Princess Margaret she wrote: “It was hard to resist her, but she did have the most awful bad luck with men. However, the Almighty usually gets the right person to be born first.”

She was survived by her two daughters and two sons.

As I’ve said before and will say again, truly, we have seen the end of an era.

More tomorrow.



This post first appeared on Churchmouse Campanologist | Ringing The Bells For, please read the originial post: here

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Short takes on Queen Elizabeth II — part 1

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