Ein Tywysoges

(See Cover)

Britain's elderly Home Secretary, fusty Sir William ("Jix") Joynson-Hicks, was doing his godmotherly duty. As the law required, he was standing by at the birth of a royal princeling to see that it was the genuine article. In days of yore he would have been in the bedroom, but this was 1926: Sir William waited decently outside with the nervous father, His Royal Highness, the Duke of York. Presently a small pink bundle was brought to them. Sir William peered. The bundle, third in line of succession to a royal throne, yawned magnificently. Satisfied of the infant's royalty, Sir William hurried off to break the news to the Lord Mayor of London.

Since that day, nearly 21 years ago, H.R.H. Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor has moved two steps nearer the throne, and has learned, among other things, never to yawn in public officials' faces.

A Million Eyes. Last week, as Britain's Royal Family wended their triumphal way through Africa (largely for the purpose of introducing Princess Elizabeth to her polyglot future subjects), she was often tempted to yawn. For weeks she had been through an endless procession of official receptions, tedious reviews, soporific speeches and tiresome dedications. On Tuesday, at Pietermaritzburg, there had been a presentation of local dignitaries, a civic luncheon party, a reception at the stadium to meet the white colony, a reception at the race track to meet the natives, a garden party at the Governor's mansion, an inspection of the guard of honor. At Gingindhlovu next day there had been more receptions, at Eshowe a vast war dance of 5,000 screaming, booming Zulu warriors and their womenfolk, naked to the waist. When Elizabeth's younger sister Margaret started to smile at the Zulus, Elizabeth reproved her with a headshake. At Durban, on Thursday, there were more addresses of welcome, displays of homage, a civic ball, a garden party, and another memorial to be dedicated. Princess Elizabeth complained to a friend that she was meeting very few young people. She pouted: "You would think that they almost forgot that Margaret and I were coming, when they planned the program." But the South Africans were sharply aware of the royal heiress.

To many a dusky African subject of King George, Queen Victoria is still remembered as "The Great She-Elephant across the Big Water." The prospect of another Queen Regnant on the British throne is scarcely less fascinating to George's white subjects. England has had only five ruling Queens since 1066, and none of their reigns has been quiet. There is an old belief in Britain that she always prospers when there is a woman on the throne.

The first Elizabeth had ridden high on the surging tide of the Renaissance to guide England to its golden age of literature and discovery. The beachheads of the future Empire were won by Bess's indomitable sea hawks, "singeing the Spanish King's beard" in continental harbors and on the Spanish Main. Even Queen Anne, lonely, dullwitted, and forever conniving with her disreputable friend Sarah Churchill, had labeled an age with her name and marked some imperial milestones. After Anne, England's next Queen was a demure little German Princess of 18, who stepped out of a life circumscribed by a domineering and jealous mother, to mount the throne and demand for the first time the right to a private bedroom. A half-century later, wide-eyed Victoria had become an aged Empress with drooping jowls, and her Kingdom a true Empire heavy with gold, black with industrial soot, and red with the blood of conquest.

Walk wide o' the Widow at Windsor For 'alf o' creation she owns,

wrote the Empire's unwreathed laureate, Kipling, his pen quivering with awe.

Since Victoria's day her Empire has come on troubled times. The Crown itself has lost its last remaining ounce of direct political power.* But what the Crown has lost in weight, it has gained in glamor. Princess Elizabeth, who will be the next wearer--unless her parents, most improbably, have a son--shows no more sign of greatness than the young Victoria did. She is not required to be great; she is expected to be gracious.

Britain's heiress is called "Princess" by right of her royal birth, but she has no title in the peerage, and is rated a commoner by law. She is medium tall (5 ft. 4 in.), slim (cameras give her a falsely hefty look), full-bosomed, with brown hair, a creamy, fair complexion, blue eyes, and white teeth (a shade oversize). She has neither her father's shy reserve nor her mother's dazzling charm. Last week, as she stood unobtrusively at her father's elbow, she frequently seemed plain bored. But those who looked sharp could catch an occasional rare smile, lighting her face like a searchlight, or see her knit her brow in sober perplexity over some paradox of Empire in an official's talk.

Mr. & Mrs. To all appearances Princess Elizabeth is exactly the daughter that plain, conscientious King George and matronly Queen Elizabeth deserve. That is precisely what her future subjects want her to be. Transplanted by some magic into almost any upper-middle-class suburb in the U.S., Mr. & Mrs. George Windsor would undoubtedly be among the solidest section of the community. With her mind never quite detached from the children, well-read, talented Mrs. Windsor would find time to be popular and businesslike at meetings of the Altar Guild and the Garden Club.

George's library would feature a well-thumbed encyclopedia, and there would be tools in the basement. But George would spend most of his spare time attending to his duties as the unsung treasurer of the Community Chest. The Windsor household would revolve around their well-mannered children, and the elder at least would repay her parents' devotion by leading her local Scout troop and becoming captain of the field-hockey team.

The Bosun. For all her understandable boredom in South Africa, Elizabeth has inherited from her parents the instinctive ability to, do the right thing. At a Girl Guide (Girl Scout) review in dark Basutoland, it was she who spotted a bus full of Guides kept well apart from the rest. Despite the anguished cries of officials, she promptly went over to talk to them. They were the Girl Guide troop from a leper colony. Next day everyone in South Africa knew what the Princess had done.

In Buckingham Palace, just as she might have in some U.S. Middletown, the heiress to the throne had her own troop of Girl Guides, the 7th Westminster Company, organized by children of Palace staffers. The Queen gave the girls a company flag, and in time Elizabeth worked her way up to be patrol leader--"a distinction," her official biographers carefully point out, "achieved only through merit." At Windsor Elizabeth was the Bosun of the Kingfisher Patrol of the Sea Rangers (seagoing Guides), and woe betide any Ranger who came aboard the flagship (a whaleboat presented by King George) like a landlubber. "Here," she once told her chatterbox sister Margaret, "I am not your sister, and I'll permit no slackness." Margaret, too, can be critical. "Lilibet," she once said, "that's the fourteenth chocolate biscuit you've eaten. You're as bad as Mother--you don't know when to stop."

From the first, Elizabeth's father and mother (Papa and Mummie) were determined to keep their daughter's life as free from the shadow of the Crown as possible. But in Britain, as in most of the Empire, Princess Lilibet was the private darling of every household. Her every gurgled word, new tooth, prank or bright saying was reported and syndicated to the farthest outposts. Did Lilibet have a new camera? The press promptly drooled: "She has already taken some quite creditable photos since she mastered the art of getting her subjects into focus."

Many an echo of these lavish reports came back to Lilibet, and her sense of importance was in no way diminished by a kindly, doting old Sovereign whom she called "Grandpapa England." "They're cheering for you, you know," George V explained to her one day as he held her in his arms on the Palace balcony. Lilibet smiled radiantly. Later she was caught testing her royal prerogative by making a playmate bow low in homage.

But if her potential subjects and fond grandfather were determined to make Lilibet aware of her importance, there were others equally determined to make her aware of her responsibilities. Statuesque Queen Mary, still the greatest influence in Elizabeth's life, was never one to tolerate arrogant nonsense as she shepherded her small relative through London's museums and theaters. Once when Lilibet tugged at her impatiently because there were crowds outside "waiting to see me," Granny Queen whisked the proud Princess home via the back door. One day when furious Lilibet was demanding a favor of her governess with the words "This is Royalty speaking," her mother reminded her gently: "Royalty has never been an excuse for bad manners."

The Pinkle-Ponkle. As with any potential heir to the throne, Elizabeth's formal education was the constitutional concern not only of the reigning sovereign but of the Cabinet. It was soon decided that no school would match Princess Elizabeth's requirements. So every day from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with an hour off for lunch, she studied history, grammar, literature and arithmetic with her Scottish governess "Crawfie" (Miss Marion Crawford).

To give an added regal polish, there were lessons in French (from a French countess), German, art, and dancing. As time went on, the Vice-Provost of Eton, erudite Clarence Henry Kennett ("Shee-Kay") Marten (later knighted and promoted to Provost), was called in to brush up the Princess' constitutional history.

As a student, Elizabeth was always systematic rather than brilliant. She learned to play Schumann, Chopin and Beethoven capably and accurately on the piano, though she preferred Bing Crosby recordings. Her drawings, like the horse she executed on linoleum for Granny Queen's Christmas, were painstaking and thorough. Very different were Sister Margaret's drawings of an imagined character called the Pinkle-Ponkle, who hovered vaguely over towns. "If he were to come down," Margaret replied to all critics, "he'd find worm sandwiches and caterpillar jam--green jam." Like her father, Elizabeth worries a good deal over Margaret. "Wherever did you learn such slang?" King George once asked his younger daughter. "Oh," said Margaret, "at my mother's knee--or some such low joint."

Dumb Crambo. Wilhelmina of The Netherlands once told her doll: "If you're not good, I'll turn you into a princess and then you'll have no one to play with." In Princess Elizabeth's life there was never any such grim circumscription. At the Duke's house in Piccadilly there were always a host of little cousins, lords and honorables for playmates. Devoted to horses (she pretended her legs were a team and called them Flycatcher and Harmony), she had her own pony at four. Her backyards were the family's vast estates: Victoria's Balmoral, Birkhall, her parents house in the Highlands; and Windsor Castle.

Every August there was a visit to her maternal grandmother, the Countess of Strathmore, where Elizabeth and Margaret could romp in the ancient corridors of Macbeth's Castle Glamis. There were English Christmases at Sandringham, where the whole family gathered to sing carols, play charades, Dumb Crambo, Animal Grab and Consequences, and dance the Sir Roger de Coverley. And always & everywhere there were friendly relatives, dogs and horses.

It was all very cozy as long as her father remained Duke of York. Then in 1936 came the death of Grandpapa England and the eleven hectic months that ended in Edward VIII's abdication. Feckless little Margaret Rose was disgusted. "Now we'll have to move to the Palace," she said. "And I've only just learned to spell York and now I'm not to use it any more." But Elizabeth's eyes were round and solemn as she spied a letter on the hall table addressed to "Her Majesty the Queen." "That's Mummie now, isn't it," she said in an awestruck voice.

Two years later the country went to war. As Britain's people buckled down to their grim existence, they demanded more & more the comfort of seeing their imperial darling. "Why didn't you bring the Princess?" war-plant workers often shouted at the King and Queen. "We want Elizabeth!"

Yellow Glare. At 18 the heiress to the throne came of age, imperially, ready to assume the Crown if her father died. As a private person she would not come of age for three years. The question of her official debut could be put off no longer, and in 1943 the wartime Princess was officially introduced to her people in the vivid, yellow glare of the blast furnaces in a Welsh tin-plate mill. Miners, factory girls, housewives and dock hands turned out by the thousands to cheer her on a two-day tour. Denied the privilege of hailing her as Princess of Wales (she is still only Heiress Presumptive, on the supposition that a male Heir Apparent may be born to claim the title of Wales), the Welsh bestowed upon her their own homespun title, Ein Tywysoges--"Our own Princess."

The Smasher. In stage center, Elizabeth blossomed as she never had in the back row. Reporters called her a natural, and radiomen crooned in delight when, at the end of her first broadcast, she ad-libbed a homey little touch by asking Margaret to say goodnight to the British evacuees abroad. Stage-struck from childhood, and on her own at last, Elizabeth was in her element, even if she did sometimes take her duties too seriously. On one dreadful occasion, when she was invited to review the graduating class at a famous officers' training school, Elizabeth had promptly pointed out an unshined buckle on one cadet. An embarrassed hush hung heavy as lead as the hapless offender was called up and rebuked.

Like her Uncle David, the Duke of Windsor, Elizabeth loves horses (she rides superbly), racing (if possible, she never misses a race when the royal stable is entered), swing music, nightclubs, and having her own way. But Elizabeth's rebellions are those of any headstrong, well-reared child suffering an overdose of family. "I'd like a car of my own," she told a friend recently, "but there's so damn much family talk about which make I must have that I don't think I'll ever get one." Her greatest insubordination to date followed the King's official announcement that the Princess would join none of the women's services. Elizabeth had other ideas, and not long afterward the King meekly announced that his daughter had been granted a commission in the A.T.S. (British WACs). As Elizabeth, dungaree-clad, her pretty face smeared with grease, learned to drive and dismantle Army trucks, the Empire beamed with approval. Fundamentally Elizabeth is a dutiful and levelheaded daughter who enjoys reading the latest best-sellers (For Whom the Bell Tolls was a favorite), knitting (she hates sewing), and gossipy teas with Margaret and a few girl friends before an open fire at the Palace. Even her revels are circumspect affairs. Once when she led a conga line around the Palace the sentries saluted as the dancers passed. The nightclubs she haunts are the most fashionable, her guests impeccably aristocratic, and a Scotland Yard operative is always on hand to choose a table and clear a path to the ladies' room. Elizabeth is sometimes curt and often imperious. At a Palace party, when she found a friend powdering her nose in a corridor, Elizabeth snapped: "This is not the cloakroom." Nevertheless she is highly popular among her wellborn friends. "A smasher of a girl," most of them say of her.

Prince Charming? The great question mark that hovers perpetually over any heiress has never left Lilibet. Since she was first able to blow a kiss from her cradle, Britain's cooing matchmakers have been at work on her. When the Princess took to nightclubbing, the speculation, abetted by trigger-fingered columnists, increased tenfold, until any sleek young lord seen dancing twice with Lilibet was a marked man. Since she seldom sits one out (she is a gifted and tireless dancer), the field was enormous. But during the last year it has narrowed to a single contestant: a well-scrubbed, curly-haired lieutenant of the Royal Navy, who was born sixth in line to the throne of Greece.

Prince Philip of Greece is the nephew of Elizabeth's cousin Lord Mountbatten, with whom he has lived all his life. Recently he renounced all rights to his Greek heritage and applied for British citizenship. Philip's picture sits prominently on Elizabeth's desk. From Africa she writes him several letters a week. He is such a family fixture at the Palace that Queen Elizabeth has sometimes had to rebuke him for ordering the servants about too much. King George can approve his daughter's marriage only with the consent of the Cabinet, and so far Philip's connection with the Greek regime, remote as it is, has been a slight hitch. But last week, as plain Lieut. Philip Mountbatten, Prince Philip was granted his British citizenship, and even that hitch seemed to have been overcome. When Elizabeth is asked about her engagement, she replies with a coy, "For that you must wait and see." But the Empire is quite prepared to welcome

Philip as future Prince Consort, and expects the announcement any day now. It may come on her birthday.

Apologies & Diamonds. Princess Elizabeth's 21st birthday party in Cape Town will be the last grand ceremonial of the African tour. There will be more salutes, more reviews, more fireworks, and another grand ball. There will be state presents for everyone: a gold box full of diamonds (to put on his Garter star) for the King; an engraved gold tea service for the Queen, 17 graduated diamonds for Margaret--and for Elizabeth herself, 21 graduated brilliant-cut diamonds interspersed with baguettes to string on a necklace. For Elizabeth that day will mean also a rise in income from -L-6,000 to -L-15,000 a year, and the chance to manage her money.

Back home in Britain last week, the people were only slowly recovering from The Crisis. Some of the worst floods in history were wreaking havoc throughout the country. And at blitz-damaged Buckingham Palace 150 repairmen were holding a protest meeting in "disgust at being employed on such a site when the suffering of the working class through inadequate housing is deplorable." "Personally," Elizabeth told a South African M.P., "I feel rather guilty for being here enjoying myself when the people at home are suffering so." It was a statement worthy of a future Queen, not only because it was gracious and considerate, but because the royal heiress, for all her pretty apology, was not really having much fun.

*The Crown's sole positive duty is now "to consult, to encourage and to warn." But the King can still--theoretically--without consulting Parliament, disband his country's Army, sell all the Navy's ships, dismiss most of the civil servants, pardon all criminals, close all churches, create every citizen a peer, pick his own Prime Minister, and declare war on anyone he chooses. In practice, no King--or Queen--would dare do one of these things.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.