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under the age of 25 has ever known a Prince of Wales in existence, and the creation
would not therefore be merely an expected formality, but a truly significant event.’ He
advised her that her planned visit to Cardiff to speak at the closing ceremony of the
Empire and Commonwealth Games would present an ideal opportunity for the
announcement. He also thought that there should be no question of the investiture
ceremony for several years, at least until Prince Charles was eighteen. 19 Elizabeth
agreed on both counts, but the decision was kept a secret even from the Cabinet until
just two days before the Cardiff announcement. 20 No doubt it pleased the Welsh – some
36,000 Welshmen in the stadium cheered, threw their hats in the air, danced on the
terraces and sang ‘God Bless the Prince of Wales’ – but its immediate result was to focus
the spotlight even more fiercely on Charles by underlining his position as future King, a
heavy burden for a nine-year-old child to bear.
His mother was looking even further ahead; early in 1959 she suggested to Macmillan
that she should hand over Marlborough House as a Commonwealth Centre. Marlborough
House was a royal palace maintained by the Ministry of Works at public expense for
occupation by a member of the royal family. Its last occupant had been Queen Mary,
who had died there in March 1953. The house had huge rooms, no central heating and
few bathrooms. Modernization would cost a great deal of money and Elizabeth felt that
she could not ask for public money for such a purpose. As a royal residence it was at
that time surplus to requirements, but she did, however, think of providing a house for
Prince Charles when he got married and cannily asked Macmillan if he could give her
an assurance that when this happened the government of the day would ask Parliament
to provide a ‘suitable residence’ in return for the surrender of Marlborough House. 21
Early in June 1959 Martin Charteris was despatched to Accra on a special mission.
The Queen had just told him that she was expecting a baby and would have to cancel
her planned visit to Ghana later that year. She was afraid that if Dr Kwame Nkrumah,
President and virtual dictator of Ghana, a notoriously tricky personage, was just told the
bald facts in a cable he might be offended and fall into a rage with dire results.
Charteris was to tell Nkrumah the intimate truth, which was that she and the Duke had
been trying for another baby for a long time. Charteris flew to Accra on the pretext that
he was to discuss the question of decorations with the Presidential administrator, an
Englishman named ‘Jacko’ Jackson. When Jackson heard that he was to tell Nkrumah
that the tour was off, he told Charteris, ‘I wouldn’t be in your shoes for anything – you
could well end up in prison!’ Apprehensive, Charteris went to meet Nkrumah in the
Christiansborg Castle looking down over the old slave quarters and out to the Atlantic.
When he told Nkrumah the news, there was a heavy silence as the President stared
steadily with flat brown eyes at the Private Secretary; then Charteris gave him a
friendly pat on the knee to ease the tension. Finally Nkrumah said, ‘If you had told me
my mother was dead, you couldn’t have given me a greater shock. I have put all my
personal happiness into it [the royal tour]…’ Then he said, ‘I must go and see the Queen
at Balmoral’, and to Balmoral he went. When she did get to Ghana, Charteris said,
Elizabeth ‘twisted him round her little finger’. 22