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Royal, who allegedly stayed away in protest against her brother’s non-invitation, giving
ill-health as the reason, although she was seen to attend a public function two days
later.
At this time a separate event marked the end of an era in the royal family’s life: on 16
September 1947 Crawfie and Major George Buthlay were married in Dunfermline
Abbey. George Buthlay, who came from Aberdeen (the nearest big town to Balmoral),
was fifteen years her senior and had previously married and divorced. He and Crawfie
had known each other for some time. Now that Elizabeth was engaged to be married
and Margaret, at seventeen, was of an age to leave the schoolroom, the devoted Crawfie
felt she could at last lead her own life after sixteen years’ royal service. Even so, she had
found it difficult to break the news that she was going. She had consulted Queen Mary
while the family were away in South Africa. Queen Mary’s reaction was, as Crawfie
wrote, a typical one: ‘“My dear child. You can’t leave them!”’ The royal family do not
like change; they do not like trusted servants to depart and they find it difficult to
accept that their employees’ personal interests can come before their own; the closer the
person is to them – a Crawfie or a favourite lady-in-waiting – the more difficult it is for
them to accept it. Crawfie tried to put her case to Queen Mary in terms of the fact that
Lilibet and Margaret were no longer in need of her. ‘“I don’t see how they could manage
without you,” Queen Mary replied. “I don’t think they could spare you just now.”’ In the
royal tradition of non-communication, however, Queen Mary did not pass on Crawfie’s
news, or, if she did, the Queen put on a good show of being totally surprised when
Crawfie requested to see her on ‘a very urgent and important matter of a personal
nature’. When Crawfie showed her the photograph of Buthlay, there was a long silence,
interrupted by the governess’s explanation that she had wanted to get married at the
start of the war and had not done so, ‘Because I felt I had a duty to Their Majesties, and
considered it would be unfair of me to leave the Princesses when they most needed me’.
‘“Why Crawfie,” the Queen said gently, “that was a great sacrifice you made.”’ None the
less, she followed this up by saying, ‘“Does this mean you are going to leave us? You
must see that it would not be at all convenient just now. A change at this stage for
Margaret is not at all desirable.”’ The Queen said not a word about Elizabeth’s intended
engagement (close as Crawfie was to the family, she was not officially told until
Elizabeth showed her her engagement ring made up of stones belonging to Philip’s
mother, on the eve of the official announcement in July). Margaret returned to the
schoolroom after the South Africa trip as if nothing had changed, arriving for lessons
carrying the same pencil box she had used as a small child, full of very small pencils
pared down to the last stub and erasers down to the last rub, an economy both the girls
had always practised. Although even while the Princesses had been in South Africa the
popular newspapers had featured opinion polls asking readers what they thought of
Princess Elizabeth’s marriage to Prince Philip of Greece, and on a visit to a factory the
girls had shouted at Elizabeth, ‘Where’s Philip?’, within the Palace the family had played
their cards close to their chest, as usual. No one, beyond ‘us four’, had been told.
‘Suddenly that look of strain we had all been conscious of disappeared from Lilibet’s