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Fleet, Field Marshal and Marshal of the Royal Air Force. 11 Philip appeared at the
Coronation in the heavily gold-braided dress of Admiral of the Fleet, but, in a gesture of
independence, when he attended the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament he wore
a plain naval officer’s uniform. In the early summer of 1953, shortly before the
Coronation, she had informed the Cabinet that she wished the Duke of Edinburgh to be
appointed Regent in the event of her death or incapacity before Prince Charles (then
referred to as the Duke of Cornwall) became eighteen. The Duke of Edinburgh as Regent
would delegate the royal functions to Counsellors of State, among whom the Queen
specifically wished the Queen Mother to be nominated. 12 The Government decided that
the Regency Bill should be introduced into the Houses of Parliament in November and
passed before Elizabeth’s departure on her Commonwealth tour. The timing was
unfortunate: the press chose to interpret this as a snub to Margaret because of the
Townsend affair.
Philip’s most recent promotion, agreed in Cabinet on 22 February 1957, was the title
of Prince of the United Kingdom. This had not been Elizabeth’s idea but the suggestion
of Churchill, who told the Cabinet on 2 March 1955 that he had put it forward ‘in
informal conversation with the Queen’ and that she had been favourably disposed
towards it. 13 Elizabeth, perhaps significantly however, did nothing to follow it up for
nearly two years, not until February 1957. In Cabinet Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
characteristically claimed the credit for it. He had, he said, proposed the idea to the
Queen ‘in recognition of the great services which HRH has provided to the country and
of his unique contribution to the life of the Commonwealth, culminating in the tour
which he has just concluded’. 14 What Macmillan did not say, but which was almost
certainly his intention, was that this should knock on the head all the rumours about
rifts in the royal marriage by making Elizabeth be seen publicly to reward her husband
for his services.
If there had been a rift, there was certainly a reconciliation on Philip’s return later in
1957. Philip’s behaviour, not least in taking the prolonged tour, suggested that he had
been feeling the constrictions of marital Palace life. After ten years of marriage,
Elizabeth wanted more children and she now felt she could cope with the demands of
her job. She and her husband were very much together in the international public eye
that spring and summer – the Portuguese state visit in February was followed by a visit
to Paris in April, where the couple were mobbed by the Parisians. Outside the Opera the
welcoming crowds pressed so close that they had to be driven back by mounted guards
with drawn swords, and at a reception for 2,000 at the Louvre distinguished guests
clambered on the pedestals of statues for a better view of them. In October they were in
the United States for the 350th anniversary of the founding of the State of Virginia.
Macmillan, anxiously concerned to repair the breach in Anglo-American relations caused
by Suez, arrived in Washington to find ‘the whole country still enthralled by the visit of
the Queen’; the British Ambassador, Harold Caccia, told him that Elizabeth had ‘buried
George III for good and all’. 15
One result of the ‘rift’ episode was that Philip was increasingly seen to exercise a