Most joyous Queen’s day of the life – minute by mesmerising minute
As she approaches her 70th wedding anniversary, an invitation to share the . . .
ON JULY 9, 1947, Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Princess Elizabeth, 20, and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, 25. Although post-war Britain was burdened by rationing and fuel shortages, most were agreed that their wedding, just four months later, would give the nation a well-needed boost. Here, to mark the royal couple’s 70th anniversary, we reconstruct that extraordinary day.
Thursday, November 20, 1947, 7am
iN BUCKiNGHAM Palace, Princess Elizabeth looks out of her second-floor bedroom window in amazement. in the dawn light she can see hundreds of people all along the Mall lying on mattresses and under blankets. All night it’s been raining, and a light drizzle is still falling.
At Kensington Palace where he is staying in his grandmother Victoria’s apartment, Elizabeth’s fiancé is being brought a cup of tea by his valet John Dean, who thinks he looks relaxed and cheerful.
8am
AN Air exclusion zone prohibiting aircraft from flying within three miles of Trafalgar Square comes into effect. Along the route, bombsites still derelict from the war have been boarded up in case people injure themselves climbing over the walls and rubble to see the procession.
Sewage pipes and telephone, water and electricity manholes along the route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey are being rigorously checked by members of Special Branch.
once the sewer inspections are complete, their findings will be sent to the Water Board’s ‘inspector of Flushing’.
9am
NorMAN HArTNELL, who has designed Elizabeth’s wedding dress, arrives at the Palace. He and his assistants have only a couple of hours to dress the bride and her eight bridesmaids. it took Hartnell’s team of 350 dressmakers seven weeks to make the ivory silk satin dress.
To stop the Press sneaking photographs, his workroom windows were painted with whitewash, and to deter break-ins, his manager slept on the floor.
The dress has even been discussed in Cabinet. Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee wrote to Buckingham Palace expressing concern that the silk may have come from a country that was an enemy of Britain.
The Palace replied testily that the dress ‘contained silk from Chinese silk worms, but woven in Scotland and Kent. The wedding train contains silk produced by Kentish silk worms and woven in London.
The going-away dress contains four or five yards of Lyon silk which was not specially imported but was part of the stock held by the dressmaker under permit.
Hartnell pointed out sarcastically that, while the silk worms were Chinese, they were Nationalist silkworms, not Communist (China was then caught up in a lengthy civil war). The dress is covered in seed pearls brought in from the United States.
When Hartnell’s assistant was asked by customs officers at London Airport if he had anything to declare, he said in hushed tones: ‘Yes, 10,000 pearls for the wedding dress of Princess Elizabeth!’
9.30am
FiNAL preparations are being made at Westminster Abbey. A red carpet has been laid along the nave (second-hand to save money) and vases of white lilies, chrysanthemums, roses, carnations and variegated ivy are placed either side of the High Altar.
Two years ago, the Abbey looked very different. To protect the building from bombs, all its stained glass was boarded over, the Coronation Chair had been taken to Gloucester Cathedral and more than 60,000 sandbags stacked around the royal tombs.
Along the wedding route, the crowd are cheering anyone who passes — even the carts spreading sand on the road. The sandmen raise their caps in response.
10am
For the past few days, Elizabeth and Philip’s 2,583 wedding presents have been on display at St James’s Palace. in among the expensive items are gifts from members of PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER
the public from around world, including 500 tins of pineapple from the people of Queensland, a Hoover, a bath sponge, an automatic potato peeler, 76 handkerchiefs, 30 scarves and 148 pairs of stockings and 16 nightgowns.
The RAF has sent a grand piano.
10.15am
AT THE Palace, things are not going smoothly. As Elizabeth’s veil is fitted, the fringe tiara breaks. A taxi is summoned to take an aide across London to a jeweller’s to get it repaired. Then someone realises the double string of pearls the King and Queen gave their daughter as a wedding present is nowhere to be found.
10.20am
CRowds are now 50 deep along the Mall, and Trafalgar square is overflowing with people, chatting excitedly and swapping cigarettes and sandwiches.
‘The solidarity of the Blitz was here again,’ wrote a daily Mail reporter. Boy scouts selling official programmes are mingling with the crowds and rosette sellers and roast chestnut vendors are doing a roaring trade. Troops line the route exactly four paces apart.
Frank Taylor, the Conservative candidate at the Gravesend byelection to be held in six days’ time, has decided to call off his canvassers and loudspeaker vans between 11am and 1pm, ‘to avoid disturbing housewives listening to the wedding broadcast’.
After a fitting of an hour and ten minutes, Princess Elizabeth is finally in her wedding dress. Fortunately, a courtier has remembered the missing pearls are on display with the other presents at st James’s Palace, so Jock Colville, the Princess’s private secretary, is charged with retrieving them. ‘Take any car!’ Elizabeth calls after him.
Colville dashes into the courtyard, opens the door of a daimler and shouts, ‘To st James’s Palace!’ to the driver. A tall figure gets out of the back. ‘By all means take my car, but do let me get out first,’ says King Haakon of Norway.
10.30am
A GRoUP of reporters outside Kensington Palace get a surprise as Philip’s cousin and best man, david Milford Haven, rides out through the gates on his bicycle. ‘I’m going for a breath of fresh air!’ he tells the astonished press men.
10.45am
JACK CoLVILLE returns to Buckingham Palace with the missing pearls. It took him some time to persuade the detectives guarding the wedding gifts at st James’s Palace to hand the pearls over — only after they found his name in the official programme did they believe his story.
In Kensington Palace, Philip is dressed in his naval uniform on which is pinned the insignia of the order of the Garter, bestowed on him by the King the day before, and the Greek order of the Redeemer.
Today is his first day as a nonsmoker, having promised his bride, who is concerned about the nicotine addiction of her father, George VI, that he would quit. But her betrothed does fortify himself with a gin and tonic.
Philip’s three sisters have not been invited to the wedding as they married Germans, some of whom had links to the Nazis. His sisters have sent him a wedding present of a gold pen with their names engraved on it.
It was not Philip’s family that initially concerned the King and Queen when considering him as a future husband for their eldest daughter, but his politics.
Earlier in the year he had such a heated discussion with the Queen that he later had to write to apologise, saying he hoped she didn’t think him ‘violently argumentative and an exponent of socialism’.
11am
BBC radio coverage begins with the chimes of Big Ben and then correspondent Frank Gillard starts his commentary from his position outside Buckingham Palace.
‘The pavements are still damp, but it is an hour since we have had rain. The temperature has gone up and it is almost a spring morning — such a relief to the enormous crowd which has been waiting for hours through the night.’
To capture the sounds of the day, the BBC has set up 55 microphones along the route from the Palace to the Abbey.
At Kensington Palace, Philip is shaking hands with the staff, including — for luck — the Palace chimney sweep who is standing proudly with his brushes and rods. Philip asks for tea and coffee to be sent out to the reporters waiting by the gates.
11.03am
THE Queen and chief bridesmaid, 17yearold Princess Margaret, leave Buckingham Palace in the Glass Coach — the first coach of the procession.
Philip and his best man, david Milford Haven, are in a car on their way to the Abbey. They have realised that there is a danger they
might accidentally wear each other’s Navy caps, as they are identical — and if Philip wore David’s, it would cover his ears. They have put a large ink mark inside David’s cap to tell them apart.
The limousines carrying the King’s mother, Queen Mary, and other royal guests start to arrive at the Great West Door. BBC correspondent Richard Dimbleby describes Queen Mary as a ‘tall, regal figure, she walks slowly in, in her beautiful dress of aquamarine’.
It is the biggest gathering of European royalty since before the outbreak of war in 1939. Crown Princess Juliana of the Netherlands looks at her fellow monarchs in dresses and uniforms only recently out of storage, and says: ‘Everyone’s jewellery is so dirty!’
Some of the less well- off European royalty have been helped with their travel expenses and accommodation by the Royal Family and their wedding invitations came with advice about which boat train to catch.
11.05am
PHILIP and David Milford Haven arrive at the Poets’ Corner entrance to the Abbey. Yesterday, as well as awarding him the Order of the Garter, the King made Philip the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich.
The service-sheets on the chairs and pews of the Abbey were printed before these changes, so he’s described only as ‘Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten RN’.
The Mail’s reporter in the Abbey, editor Frank Owen, can see no trace of nerves on Philip’s face: ‘He talks casually to Milford Haven, strokes his chin and looks around with deliberate appraisal . . .’
11.16am
THE Irish State Coach carrying the King and Princess Elizabeth leaves Buckingham Palace with an escort from the Household Cavalry. The coach windows have been treated with an anti-dim substance so they won’t steam up and obscure cheering onlookers’ views of the coach’s famous occupants.
Although it is unknown to most people, the King is seriously ill. In the past few months he has lost a great deal of weight and, although it has yet to be diagnosed, he is suffering from arteriosclerosis and lung cancer.
The crowd rushes through the police cordon to get a closer look at the bride. Frank Gillard describes the scene to his BBC radio audience: ‘There she goes, a lovely figure sitting to the right of the King. A sight to lift the heart as they vanish down there into the grey of this misty November day.’
Riding on the back of the coach is Elizabeth’s faithful footman, Cyril Dickman. She had invited Cyril to be a part of the congregation in the Abbey but the Sergeant Footman, his boss, had told him: ‘No, you’re on duty and you’ve got to go on the carriage!’
11.20am
WINSTON CHURCHILL, now the leader of the Opposition, arrives at the Abbey and everyone in the congregation, including European royalty, gets to their feet. One notable absentee is the bride’s uncle, the Duke of Windsor — who, as Edward VIII, abdicated 11 years ago. His wife, Wallis, is not welcome at the Palace and the Queen refuses to meet the Duke.
Today, the Duke and Duchess are in New York where they’ve made no comment to the Press.
As the Irish State Coach reaches Trafalgar Square, the huge crowd wave hats, scarves and handkerchiefs. Some of them have four-shilling cardboard telescopes to see over the heads in front. An occasional camera flash-bulb lights up the gloom.
11.26am
THE King and Princess Elizabeth arrive at the Abbey’s Great West Door and are greeted by the Abbey clergy. Watching from her position on the roof of the Deanery is Mrs Wilcox, who is a guest of the Dean of Westminster.
Feeling cold, she decides to go inside and makes her way through the Deanery and into the Abbey, arriving unchallenged by the Great West Door.
Mrs Wilcox is quietly amazed that no one has stopped her, but she is delighted by the view she now has of the service.
11.30am
TO A fanfare and the hymn Praise, My Soul, The King Of Heaven, the bride enters the Abbey on the arm of her father.
They are followed by the bridesmaids and the two five-year- old pages holding the 15ft train, Prince Michael of Kent and Prince William of Gloucester.
Philip, waiting below the steps to the High Altar, turns towards Elizabeth and smiles.
The King wrote to his daughter later: ‘I was so proud and thrilled at having you so close to me on our long walk in Westminster Abbey. But when I handed you to the Archbishop, I felt that I had lost something very precious.’
One of the Princess’s bridesmaids is Pamela Mountbatten, Louis and Edwina’s daughter. She had feared that she wouldn’t be able to leave India where her father, the last Viceroy, is overseeing the violent partition of India.
They have brought with them a present from India independence leader Mahatma Gandhi — some lace that he spun himself.
‘ Such an indelicate gift,’ Queen Mary said when she saw it, thinking it was a loincloth. ‘What a horrible thing.’
In his sound-booth, high in the nave, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas is providing the radio commentary for the BBC. Two hundred million people around the world are also listening to the wedding service.
The King hasn’t given permission for the service to be televised — just the processions to and from the Abbey, so viewers have only the sound of Vaughan-Thomas’s radio commentary.
At Buckingham Palace, staff have placed a radio by an open window so the crowd close to the gates can hear the service.
11.44am
AS PRINCESS Elizabeth promises to ‘love, cherish and obey till death us do part’, Queen Mary dabs her eyes with a handkerchief.
Philip then places a ring on Elizabeth’s finger that was fashioned from the same nugget of Welsh gold from which the Queen’s ring was made for her wedding at the Abbey in 1923.
Philip composed an inscription that was engraved on the inside of the ring, that was for Elizabeth’s eyes only.
Having said their vows, Elizabeth and Philip move to the altar. The train on her wedding dress catches on the steps. The King and best man bend down to release it.
Dressed in his best frock- coat, playwright and actor Noel Coward is delighted to have such a good seat — he is in the fourth row.
Coward is a friend of the Royal Family and was a guest at a party at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday to celebrate the wedding. It was a happy occasion — the King even led a conga through the corridors.
Queen Mary enjoyed the evening, too, although it was a test of her stamina. She wrote in her diary: ‘I stood from 9.30 till 12.15am!!! Not bad for 80.’
Coward is finding the service terribly moving. ‘English tradition at its best,’ he would write later.
12.05pm
AFTER the vows and prayers are over, the Archbishop of York, Dr Cyril Garbett, climbs into the Abbey pulpit for the sermon. He’d been dismayed at the prospect of preaching today.
‘As an unmarried man, I always have an inferiority complex about this,’ he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who in the end wrote the sermon for him.
‘Notwithstanding the splendour and national significance of the service in this Abbey,’ Dr Garbett reads, ‘it is in all essentials the same as it would be for any cottager who might be married this afternoon in some small country church in a remote village in the Dales.
‘The same vows are taken; the same prayers are offered; and the same blessings are given.’
12.15pm
THE signing of the register is taking place in St Edward’s Chapel behind the High Altar. The King is on the verge of tears.
He tells the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher: ‘It is a far more moving thing to give your daughter away than to be married yourself.’
The bride, groom and witnesses sign the register with a gold, quill- shaped pen presented for the occasion by the Chartered Institute of Secretaries.
12.26pm
AS THE Abbey organist plays Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, the newly-weds begin to walk towards the Great West door, hand in hand.
As she passes her parents, Princess Elizabeth drops a deep curtsey to her father and mother and then to Queen Mary. They bow in return.
Those close by could see that the King and Queen hadn’t expected this moving gesture.
Elizabeth and Philip walk slowly past the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior and later that day, at the request of Elizabeth, the Dean will lay her bouquet on the tomb.
Still standing by the Great West Door is the audacious Mrs Wilcox. She can’t believe her luck as the most famous couple in the world walk by her.
‘I could have touched them as
they passed,’ Mrs Wilcox wrote later to a friend.
12.30pm
There is a roar from the crowd as elizabeth and Philip leave in the Glass Coach. ‘There are smiles on every face,’ says the BBC’s richard Dimbleby.
12.35pm
The cars start to arrive at the Abbey to collect the wedding guests. Twelve year-old King Faisal II of Iraq, dressed in a blue suit, walks over to admire the horses of the household Cavalry.
A policeman, thinking Faisal is a member of the public who has broken through the cordon, urgently beckons to him to get back into the crowd. For a minute, Faisal does as he’s told, then jumps into a state coach that’s about to depart for the Palace.
As he waits for his car to arrive, Noel Coward is surrounded by fans wanting an autograph.
1pm
OuTsIDe the Palace, the crowd is singing a rousing version of All The Nice Girls Love A sailor when the bride and groom, King and Queen, Queen Mary, the pages, bridesmaids and best man step onto the balcony.
The police allow the crowd to run forward towards the Palace gates.
‘This is the picture of the day that we shall all remember,’ says Frank Gillard on the BBC, over the roars of the crowd. ‘This is the one that millions will cut out from the papers and illustrated magazines and treasure for years to come.’
1.10pm
IN The Palace’s Throne room, the official pictures are being taken by Prince Philip’s society photographer friend, Baron Nahum.
Bridesmaid Pamela Mountbatten watches with amusement as the long feathers on her mother’s hat obscure the guests behind her, and Prince George of Greece and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands are too busy talking to listen to Baron’s instructions.
1.45pm
GuesTs numbering 150 are taking their place in the Palace’s Ball supper room for the wedding breakfast. On the menu is Filet de sole Mountbatten to start, followed by partridge casserole, and for dessert, Bombe Glacée Princesse elizabeth.
On the tables are keepsake bouquets of white heather and myrtle from the plants on the Balmoral estate that made Queen Victoria’s wedding bouquet.
Marion ‘Crawfie’ Crawford, elizabeth and Margaret’s former governess, is enjoying the music provided by a lone bagpiper, although she notices that a French guest next to her winces from time to time.
‘But he bore it with fortitude,’ Ayrshire-born Crawfie wrote later.
3pm
AT The wedding breakfast, the King doesn’t make a speech, but instead simply toasts the bride.
Philip makes a short speech, saying: ‘I am proud — proud of my country and of my wife.’ elizabeth says that she wishes for ‘ nothing more than that Philip and I should be as happy as my father and mother have been . . .’ But it’s hard for the guests to hear every word in the large room, as there are no microphones.
The bride and groom then cut the official 9ft high, four-tiered wedding cake with Philip’s ceremonial sword.
The cake was made by McVitie & Price of edinburgh with ingredients sent from across the Commonwealth — butter from New Zealand, flour from Canada, rum from Jamaica and, from the girl guides of Australia, sugar and crystallised fruit.
4.05pm
The wedding breakfast over, the Duke of edinburgh and Princess elizabeth climb into an open landau, and the wedding guests shower them in rose petals.
The Princess has changed into a going away outfit of a blue velvet coat over a love-in-the-mist crepe dress; the Duke is still in his naval uniform.
Then, as they pull away for the short journey to Waterloo station, they are chased out of the courtyard by the King and Queen and the eight bridesmaids throwing more petals.
‘I wonder what Queen Victoria would have thought . . .’ says a baroness. Philip’s mother, Princess Alice, stands waving until the couple is out of sight.
It’s now very cold, so Palace staff have placed hot water bottles and rugs in the carriage. under the Princess’s rug is hidden her favourite corgi, susan, who was given to her as an 18th birthday present. Most of her corgis since have been descendants of susan.
Crowds ten deep cheer them on the route to Waterloo station.
4.15pm
The landau comes to a halt on platform 11 and susan the corgi is first out, showering the red carpet in rose petals. elizabeth and Philip are met by railway officials, and take their seats in the royal train.
The couple’s luggage has already been loaded — the Princess has 15 cases, her husband just two.
To make sure the train is running on time the stationmasters at Clapham Junction, surbiton, Woking and Basingstoke have been told to phone Waterloo when the train passes.
5.43pm
The royal train slowly pulls into Winchester station and the driver lines up the locomotive with a chalk mark on the platform that makes sure the newly-weds’ carriage is level with the red carpet.
The couple are met by the Mayor, Doris Crompton, and make their way through a large crowd and to the car that will take them to Broadlands, the Mountbatten family country house.
The police are outside the gates of Broadlands to keep the public at bay and have already searched the grounds and house for trespassers. even the wardrobe in the honeymoon suite has been searched, to the annoyance of the Broadlands butler.
8.30pm
BesT man David Milford haven is hosting a dinner and dance at Claridge’s for the bridesmaids. One of them, Pamela Mountbatten, is desperately hoping that the handsome French-born war hero Prince Michael of Bourbon-Parma will be there, but she is disappointed.
some older wedding guests have decided to go to the theatre. Pamela’s parents, Louis and edwina Mountbatten, are watching the new hit Annie Get Your Gun.
At Broadlands, elizabeth and Philip are eating a supper of potato soup, roast chicken and ice cream.
In a few days’ time, Philip will write to his mother-in-law: ‘Lilibet is the only thing in the world which is absolutely real to me and my only ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to withstand the shocks directed at us but will also have a positive existence for good.’
11pm
OuTsIDe the Palace, thousands of people are chanting: ‘We want the King! We want the Queen!’ The royal couple duly step onto the balcony for a final wave. Then the floodlights are switched off and the Palace is plunged into darkness.
To Jock Colville, the Princess’s private secretary, the wedding had an extra significance. As he wrote later: ‘The war, it seemed, really was over.’ n