The Queen: An Elegant New Biography of Her Majesty Elizabeth II by Matthew Dennison

Author:Matthew Dennison [Dennison, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Royalty, Presidents & Heads of State, History, Europe, Great Britain, 20th Century, Social History, Modern, General, 21st Century
ISBN: 9781788545907
Google: MjztDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Head Of Zeus
Published: 2021-06-03T20:35:17+00:00

CHAPTER XI

‘Still the age of the golden cobwebs’?

‘RATHER WISTFULLY ALONE, and very solemn, no doubt owing to the gravity of world events’ was ‘Jennifer’ of the Tatler’s description of Elizabeth at the State Opening of Parliament in November 1956.1

Elizabeth certainly had reason for solemnity as autumn gave way to winter; she also had grounds for loneliness. On 15 October, Philip had set off for a four-month Commonwealth tour without her. The next day, in the short service of dedication that followed her opening of a new reservoir in the Lowther Hills, she joined in a prayer for Philip, ‘as he travels across the world’.2 She was accompanied to the State Opening by Margaret. After the tensions of the previous year, it appeared a show of sisterly unity that reduced a number of onlookers to tears. At no point had Elizabeth had such need of her husband as trusted and confidential adviser. Decisions taken by Anthony Eden, with many of which he had familiarized Elizabeth in advance, shortly earned Britain resounding international condemnation. The Suez Crisis resulted in an enforced British volte-face that served as an act of national humiliation, a threnody for empire and a jolt to the sunshine complacency of the dawn of the second Elizabethan age. Privy to Foreign Office and intelligence agencies telegrams, Elizabeth knew more than most the strength of opposition across the Commonwealth and the severity of threatened Soviet hostility in the wake of British aggression. Alone within her family she shouldered her anxiety.

She had agreed to the extended tour on Britannia that Philip would justify as his ‘personal contribution to the Commonwealth ideal’.3 Within her marriage acquiescence was her default setting, established in her wedding vow of obedience and her reminder to the young women of Durham University of women’s place within the family; if she had misgivings, she shared them with no one but Philip, perhaps not even very strenuously with him. Observers noted her seriousness at the airport with Charles and Anne for Philip’s departure. Subsequently, her failure to muster a smile would be interpreted as evidence of her marital unhappiness. Philip opened the Olympic Games in Melbourne in November; he travelled to New Zealand, Norfolk Island and Antarctica, where he visited British scientific stations. In her Christmas broadcast Elizabeth described his journey as encompassing ‘some of the least accessible parts of the world, those islands of the South Atlantic... linked to us with bonds of brotherhood and trust’, including the Falkland Islands and Ascension Island. Philip travelled on to Gambia, the Canary Islands and Gibraltar. On their ninth wedding anniversary in November, he sent Elizabeth white roses and a photograph of two iguanas embracing, but before their reunion in Lisbon in February, Elizabeth had authorized her antediluvian press secretary, Commander Richard Colville, to issue a terse statement about her marriage: ‘It is quite untrue that there is any rift between the Queen and the Duke.’ The tour was dogged by speculation about the reason for Philip’s solo adventure and lurid surmise about his activities ashore.

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