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Elizabeth’s pregnancy was still a secret when she arrived in Canada towards the end
of June for a mammoth six-week 15,000-mile tour in the course of which as Queen of
Canada she officiated at the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway in the presence of the
Canadian Premier, John Diefenbaker, and his wife and President Eisenhower
accompanied by his wife, Mamie. She also visited Chicago on Britannia for what Time
described as ‘the most lavish 14 hours in Chicago’s history’, and the warmest reception
she and Philip had so far enjoyed on their North American tour. She had had to take two
days off resting at Whitehorse in the Yukon, ostensibly with stomach trouble, but
otherwise, as Time put it, her long, sometimes too arduous tour had been more of a
personal success than a triumph of monarchy in highly independent, increasingly
nationalistic Canada. As the Whitehorse Star informed her, ‘QUEEN, YOU ARE OK BY
US.’ Elizabeth flew back by Comet to reveal what only the courtiers and heads of the
relevant states already knew – her pregnancy. The family were reunited at Balmoral for
the annual holiday, joined briefly by the Eisenhowers – the President, his wife, their son
John and grandchildren – who spent the night and enjoyed the inevitable picnic tea at
Loch Muick.
Elizabeth and Philip were delighted with her pregnancy. At Balmoral observers
recalled ‘how happy the prospective mother and father were – teasing each other. The
Queen was saying how extraordinary it was after so long. They were frightfully pleased
and happy with each other – after all they had had their ups and downs.’ They had been
trying for a baby for two or three years since Philip returned from the four-month
Britannia cruise to the Lisbon reconciliation. Earlier that year he had once again been on
a long sea voyage on Britannia circling the globe, visiting India and Pakistan, then
crossing the Pacific from 20 January to 30 April. The new baby was the product of their
reunion. (Years later ‘insiders’, ignoring the dates, spread rumours that Prince Andrew
was Porchester’s child, conceived while Prince Philip was away.) The birth of Andrew at
Buckingham Palace on 19 February 1960 was widely seen as setting the seal on a
successful marriage, reinforced by the revelations in a Sunday tabloid of a former
superintendent at Windsor, now publican of a Hertfordshire pub, the Plough and Dial,
about the royal couple’s sleeping arrangements (together in a huge 7ft 6in Victorian bed
with a tightly packed horsehair mattress), which earned the man an injunction. Asked
the reason for the almost ten-year gap between the birth of Princess Anne and her
younger brother, friends gave various explanations – from ‘she was too busy when she
first became Queen – then she got broody over having more babies’, to ‘Prince Philip
thought two was enough’. The baby was named Andrew after his paternal grandfather
in a further gesture towards Philip.
Eleven days before the baby was born Elizabeth had made another public gesture
intended to repair some of the hurt caused by the 1952 decision not to allow Philip’s
family name to be passed on to their children. Queen Mary was dead, Churchill in
retirement; the Queen Mother’s reservations about the name change probably remained
the same, but Elizabeth now offered a compromise. On 8 February 1960 she issued a
statement in Council: