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the train; Susan stole the show by tumbling out first in a shower of rose petals. The
Princess, John Dean noted, had fifteen pieces of luggage; the Duke in comparison one
big case and one small one.
The honeymoon had been tactfully divided between two locations – his and hers: the
first part was to be spent at Broadlands, the Mount-battens’ handsome Palladian-style
house beside the River Test in Hampshire, the second at Birkhall, familiar to Princess
Elizabeth as the family holiday home at Balmoral before the war. The Express, loyally
pursuing its proprietor’s long-standing vendetta against Mountbatten, alleged that
Mountbatten had been having difficulty getting licences to repair the roof and some of
the rooms at Broadlands, but as soon as the authorities learned that Princess Elizabeth
was to spend her honeymoon there, the licences were mysteriously forthcoming. The
first night at Broadlands was, as honeymoon first nights often are, somewhat chaotic.
Everything was unfamiliar. The Broadlands staff, in the absence of the Mountbattens in
India, was disorganized, the Buckingham Palace party either elated by wedding
celebrations or, in the case of the newly weds, utterly exhausted. The telephone never
stopped ringing until the Princess’s staff managed to get on to the Palace and tell them
to get the Post Office virtually to cut them off. Once they ventured outside the house,
public interest made it impossible for them to be alone. Snoopers hid in the trees and
long grass and when the newly weds went for Sunday morning service to nearby
Romsey Abbey, people climbed over tombstones to peer through the windows; some of
them carried chairs, ladders, even a sideboard, to give them a better view and
afterwards there was a queue of people waiting for the chance to sit in the seats the
honeymooners had sat in. A week later, Elizabeth and Philip returned briefly to London
to lunch with the King and Queen before taking the train to Scotland for two weeks at
Birkhall, cosy with huge log fires and surrounded by deep snow. Elizabeth, always
considerate of her staff, was concerned to see that Bobo and Cyril should have the
opportunity to get out and see their friends. ‘As soon as we’ve finished dinner, off you
all go,’ she would say.
While on honeymoon, she received from the King one of the most touching letters a
father could have written to his newly married daughter. Her wedding day had been for
him one of extreme and mixed emotions. A poignant photograph taken just as the
‘Edinburghs’ turned away to leave after the balcony appearance at Buckingham Palace
in front of the crowds shows them in brief consultation, absorbed in each other to the
exclusion of the King, who watches them from the background, the position which he
knows he must now occupy in his beloved daughter’s life.
I was so proud of you & thrilled at having you so close to me on our long walk in Westminster Abbey [he
wrote], but when I handed your hand to the Archbishop I felt that I had lost something very precious. You
were so calm & composed during the Service & said your words with such conviction, that I knew
everything was all right…
I have watched you grow up all these years with pride under the skilful direction of Mummy, who, as you
know is the most marvellous person in the World in my eyes, & I can, I know, always count on you, & now
Philip, to help us in our work. Your leaving us has left a great blank in our lives but do remember that your