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Elizabeth. It was noticeable, however, that the title ‘Her Royal Highness’ was not on the
plaque; even more curiously her name was not mentioned even once during the
ceremony. Afterwards her coffin was followed out of the chapel by the principal
members of the royal family to be taken to its final resting-place in the lawn at
Frogmore beside the Duke. In death there was final reconciliation between the family
and the woman who had shaken the British throne to its foundations. Elizabeth was seen
to weep.
Elizabeth was fifty in April 1976, settled in her job and way of life and looking
distinctly middle-aged. On the social side the atmosphere at Court became perceptibly
duller after the death in 1975 from cancer of Patrick Plunket aged only fifty-one.
Plunket was a life-enhancer who loved parties, which he endeavoured successfully to
make both lively and splendid. Elizabeth was an excellent hostess who took care that
every detail of any guest’s stay was looked after. She would personally supervise the
guest bedrooms, checking the choice of books and seeing that all was in order. Intensely
practical and with an eye for detail she enjoyed overseeing the running of her houses
and feeling that she kept in touch. Friends found it endearing to see how much she
delighted in laying the table for informal meals in the log cabin at Balmoral and doing
the washing-up afterwards, almost as if it were a therapeutic change from the remote
grandeur of her everyday life. Unlike her mother, she was not, however, a natural
party-giver and had relied on Patrick Plunket to organize the social side of the family’s
life. It was he, with the help of Elizabeth’s cousin, Lady Elizabeth Anson, who had
organized the teenage parties for Anne and Charles, drawn up the guest lists, found
suitable and amusing people, overseen the food, flowers and lighting and set up a
discotheque for the night in the heart of Windsor Castle.
It is a fact of royal life that the family do not have a wide circle of friends as most
families do and the Master of the Queen’s Household is responsible for drawing up lists
of the people they invite. ‘When they have their shooting-parties and other parties at
Balmoral, Sandringham, Windsor or wherever,’ a friend said, ‘the Queen doesn’t think of
the people – the Master of the Household comes with a list and says, “Would you like
these people asked?”’ The circumstances of being royal made it difficult for the children
to make friends in the normal way; while Anne got on all right at Benenden, Charles
had no Gordonstoun friends and not many from Cambridge. The people they knew well
tended to be the children of courtiers or royal relations; it was difficult for them to have
friends round on an informal basis to Buckingham Palace or Windsor. The importance of
Patrick Plunket in the social life at Court was in his wide circle of friends and his ability
to put people together so that they would enjoy themselves. He could make a party go
and he made sure that Elizabeth enjoyed herself. While Prince Philip was off dancing
with one of his woman friends, Plunket would whirl Elizabeth on to the floor. ‘He’d
notice at parties if she was looking lonely, scoop her up and dance with her until she
saw somebody she wanted to be dropped off with and drop her off. Always keep an eye,
always be there if she looked a bit lonely.’ He was almost like a brother to her and, for
the children, he, like Susan Hussey, formed a bridge between the generations. ‘It was a