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Beaverbrook. ‘As you assumed,’ he wrote, ‘I was the author of the paragraph in
Hardcastle about Crawfie’s departure from Kensington Palace. I printed it as part of the
pressure on her to do some more writing about the Palace. Persuasion is difficult at the
moment because she has been brought to the edge of a nervous breakdown by all the
trouble, but she will bend in good time.’ Gordon’s willingness to exploit, even to
increase, Crawfie’s misery for his own ends hardly qualified him to blame the Palace for
‘freezing her out’. ‘They put the black hand on her,’ he wrote. ‘The neighbours all living
on palace charity were afraid even to be seen speaking to her. So she decided to pack up
and go… If once this story comes to be written,’ he continued optimistically, ‘it will rock
the Palace. If one could only quote some of the Queen’s letters which I have read (bad
spelling and all) it would beat Windsor’s [the Duke’s story then being serialized in the
Express].’ 17
Gordon had an eye on the possibility of exploiting those letters and others from the
two Princesses and Queen Mary. By 1954 he managed to come to an agreement with
Crawfie over them, but he was warned off by Beaverbrook’s lawyers, who advised that
an injunction could be sought against their purchase or publication. Having failed to sell
the letters to Beaverbrook in 1954 (most of them were returned to the Royal Archives
before she died, the remainder being dealt with by her solicitor according to her
instructions), poor Crawfie saw her journalistic career come to an abrupt end in the
summer of 1955. As part of her agreement with Newnes, Crawfie had been responsible
for a sugary weekly column on royal events for Woman’s Own, trading on her position
as a former royal insider. This proved to be her downfall. ‘The bearing and dignity of
the Queen at the Trooping of [sic] the Colour ceremony… last week caused admiration
among the spectators,’ she wrote in a column dated 16 June 1955. But that year the
ceremony had been cancelled because of a rail strike. She also conjured up for her
readers a sparkling description of Royal Ascot: ‘Ascot this year had an enthusiasm about
it never seen there before.’ Unfortunately for Crawfie, that too had been postponed for
the same reason. As Robert Lacey, one of Elizabeth’s early biographers, put it, ‘her
column created a sensation she did not intend. She concluded her career as a writer
more rapidly than as a governess.’ Crawfie lived for more than thirty years in
retirement in Aberdeen, embittered by her experiences and disillusioned with her
marriage. Buthlay predeceased her, leaving instructions in his will which excluded her
from the ceremony of dispersing his ashes. Virtually friendless except for her family
solicitors, Crawfie lived until 11 February 1988. There were no flowers from the royal
family – from the Queen Mother, Lilibet or Margaret – at her funeral.
There were changes in Elizabeth’s household in 1949. Her Private Secretary, Jock
Colville, left to return to his diplomatic career and a posting in Lisbon, taking with him
his wife, the former Meg Egerton, who was replaced as lady-in-waiting by her sister,
Lady Alice. Colville was succeeded by the man who was to become her longest-serving
Private Secretary, Colonel the Hon. Martin Charteris. ‘Choosing me was an act of pure
nepotism,’ Charteris said later. ‘I knew Jock Colville… and my wife was friends with
Alan Lascelles… There was no vetting, no security clearance, no board interviews… In