The touching rituals that reveal just how much the Queen loved her corgis
They’re buried at her favourite homes, each with a headstone on which she leaves posies of flowers. Now it will be the same for Willow, the last of her doggy dynasty
THE ritual is as unchanging as it is poignant. For nearly 60 years, after the death of every one of the Queen’s corgis, a quiet corner somewhere on a royal estate is made ready to receive the mortal remains of the devoted companion.
Such an intimate and private moment is entrusted to one of the Queen’s most senior servants, usually the head gardener. The Queen herself likes to oversee the burial, but there are rarely any other onlookers.
Then, within a few weeks a headstone will appear, marking the life of this much-loved pet. It will be this way for Willow, the last of the surviving corgis bred by the Queen herself and who died on Sunday.
Yesterday, the Mail revealed that the Queen had been hit especially hard by the death of the dog that had to be put to sleep at Windsor after suffering from cancer and other related illnesses. For the Queen is not just mourning Willow, but also the end of an era and of a royal dynasty that began in her childhood.
Like all 30 of the corgis she has owned — and other royal pets including gundogs, labradors and cocker spaniels — Willow’s time as part of the Queen’s menagerie will be recorded in the traditional manner.
It has been like this since 1959 when the death of Susan, the Queen’s first corgi, given to her as a puppy on her 18th birthday by her father King George VI, was marked with a headstone.
On
IT are engraved the dog’s dates of birth and death along with the moving epitaph: ‘For almost 15 years the faithful companion of the Queen.’
The same words appear on the gravestones of two of Susan’s descendants, Sugar and Heather. And, because Willow is the last of the line, the 14th generation traced back to Susan, the elegy is likely to be just as heartfelt.
There is only one unwritten rule — wherever possible, the animals are buried where they died, which means the final resting place of generations of the Royal Family’s pets can be found at Windsor, Balmoral and Sandringham.
These pet cemeteries have one thing in common: they are all in a secluded and peaceful spot with special resonance for the Queen.
Willow is believed to have been interred close to Frogmore House, the royal retreat in Windsor Great Park where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will celebrate their wedding with a party on May 19.
Other corgis have been buried closer to Windsor Castle, but Frogmore is where the Queen likes to walk, often with her dogs, far from any public access.
By far the largest animal cemetery is at Sandringham, in a tidy corner of the 20,000-acre estate, but within view of the royal residence.
It was started by Queen Victoria for her collie noble, who died in 1887, and it is where Susan was buried more than 70 years later.
There are also memorial plaques set into a stone boundary wall that separates the cemetery from the rest of the estate.
One commemorates Candy, Prince Philip’s yellow labrador, who died in 1958. Another bears the name Sandringham Slipper, a black labrador who died in 1980 after eight years as a royal pet.
Sandringham Brae, another black lab, is described as ‘a gentleman amongst dogs’ on his stone, while a roan cocker spaniel called Sandringham Fern is celebrated as a ‘tireless worker and mischievous character’.
When Holly, the Queen’s penultimate corgi, died at Balmoral 18 months ago, she directed that he must be buried in sight of the castle’s drawing room windows.
‘Even when they are no longer with her, the Queen likes to feel she is still surrounded by her corgis,’ says a friend. ‘That is why they are buried at all of her main private homes. They have been such a huge part of her life.’
The Queen is not, of course, without four-legged companionship now; she still has her two dorgis — corgi- dachshund crosses Candy and Vulcan — along with a new addition to her canine family, Whisper, a corgi who used to be owned by a Sandringham gamekeeper.
BuT
the death of Willow represents the final act in a story that began one spring day 85 years ago when the Queen’s father — then Duke of York — brought home a Pembroke corgi called Dookie from kennels in Surrey.
In her 1983 biography of the Queen, Elizabeth R, the Countess of Longford wrote: ‘1933 was the year of the corgi.’
Princess Elizabeth, then only seven, had fallen in love with a corgi she had played with in Hyde Park. It belonged to the family of Viscount Weymouth, a future Marquess of Bath.
The breed was little known outside South Wales, but the young
princess and her sister Margaret pleaded with their parents for one of their own.
The Duke and Duchess of York needed little persuading and Mrs Thelma Gray, breeder of the Weymouths’ dog and a pioneer of the breed, supplied the first royal corgi, Rozavel Golden Eagle — or Dookie, so- called by Mrs Gray because, she claimed, he acted ‘aristocratically’.
Three years later Dookie acquired a wife called Jane but this royal marriage of convenience proved unproductive.
Jane did produce two puppies with another mate, however, and Crackers and Carol joined King George and Queen Elizabeth’s household during World War II.
In 1944, Susan arrived as Princess Elizabeth’s birthday present. Mistress and pet were inseparable. She even accompanied the Princess on her honeymoon with Prince Philip in 1947, hidden from view under a blanket in the royal carriage.
The following year, when the Princess gave birth to her first baby, Charles, newspaper columns were full of advice on how she could prevent Susan from becoming jealous of the infant prince.
A year later, Susan followed her royal mistress into motherhood, producing a pair of puppies: Sugar, who belonged to Prince Charles, and Honey who, in later years, lived with the Queen Mother. It marked the beginning of a new royal dynasty.
Over the years, the Queen became one of the most experienced breeders of Pembrokeshire corgis in the country. She always chose the sire herself, aiming for good-looking puppies that maintain the red colouring of the original Pembrokes.
At one stage there were said to be 13 corgis — memorably described by Princess Diana as a ‘moving carpet’ — lolling in the Queen’s private sitting room, and nipping the heels of footmen, prime ministers, ladies-inwaiting and diplomats.
Every few years, a fresh litter arrived and older dogs passed away. No puppies were ever sold; instead the Queen ensured that they went to good homes. Susan’s descendants have gone to Australia and America.
Then came the dorgis, a cross-breed resulting from an unplanned liaison between one of the Queen’s corgis and Princess Margaret’s dachshund Pipkin.
In 2009, it emerged that the Queen had stopped breeding the dogs. It was perhaps the first public sign that our monarch was growing old.
SHE worried about puppies and lively young dogs around her feet, and the fear that she might trip over, hurting herself or them. But what was not clear then was that she no longer wanted any new fourlegged companions to replace those that died.
Then, three years ago Monty Roberts, the Californian cowboy who inspired the Hollywood film The Horse Whisperer, disclosed what many had suspected: the Queen, who will be 92 on Saturday, did not wish to leave any of her beloved pets after her death. Corgis have an average lifespan of 12 to 13 years, though some can reach 18. Willow was just a few weeks short of her 15th birthday.
Inevitably, perhaps, it took a