Queen's House (54 page)

The kitchens are organized like those in great hotels; the Assistant to the Master of the Household will probably have had hotel experience. There are sous-chefs, senior cooks and assistant cooks working at the Palace, but the Royal Chef himself may accompany The Queen to her other residences or on the Royal Yacht. All menus for banquets are recorded in the menu book, as are also the menus for The Queen's private meals.

The Brigadier's immediate act, within weeks of taking up his appointment, was, for the first time, to give all staff a choice at their meals. His greatest concern was with the personnel of the Palace. ‘You deal with things,' he would say to his deputy, ‘I'll deal with people,' The Brigadier had a particular gift for seeing the potential in those who worked in the Palace and for encouraging them to develop. He was fortunate that he had an exceptional Deputy Master of the Household.

In 1954 Patrick Plunket, later Lord Plunket, was appointed Deputy Master of the Household. He had been an equerry to King George VI and to The Queen from the time of her accession. He was an old
personal friend of The Queen, but he never took advantage of his privileged position. As Deputy Master of the Household he gave advice on refurbishing and decoration. He was generally considered to be a consummate artist in the arrangement of the d'cor for state and private receptions at the Palace. He was an inspiration to all who worked with him: as one senior courtier has said, ‘We learned so much from him, working with him was like a university education.'

He was a discerning art critic, and, as a trustee of the Wallace Collection and member of the committee of the National Art Collection Fund, encouraged The Queen to take more interest in art than she might have done otherwise. When, at Prince Philip's suggestion, the royal Chapel, destroyed in the war, was turned into a picture gallery, The Queen's Gallery, Lord Plunket brought his enthusiasm and expertise to the project (a small section was walled off to be a tiny Chapel). The Gallery opened on 25 July 1962. It was the first part of the Palace to be opened to the public.

His death at the early age of fifty-two left a gap in the lives of The Queen and Princess Margaret which can never be filled. He will also be remembered by many a visitor to the Palace for his kindness and unfailing courtesy.

Brigadier Hardy-Roberts's reforms improved the organization of the Household. They also saved money. Much of the work that had previously been done by expensive interior decorators could now be brought in-house. Buckingham Palace is a national monument and The Queen takes her responsibility for its care and conservation very seriously. According to a senior member of the royal Household, ‘Much of what Queen Mary did, The Queen would not allow to be altered … No State Apartments are decorated without The Queen's involvement at the earliest stage and the final decisions are her Majesty's.'
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At the end of a long day, she will often call in her adviser from the Master of the Household's Department and concentrate on wallpapers and curtains before turning to her red boxes.

Nowadays much work on curtains and upholstery is done in the Household's own workshops: care is taken to preserve as much as possible of worn or faded old silk curtains and wall coverings. As Queen Mary
did, The Queen makes sure that good pieces of old material and wall hangings are used again as curtains or chair covers in offices or corridors. In 1928 Queen Mary had found a roll of the green and gold damask which Lord Duncannon had sent from Ireland in 1834 and used it to re-cover the gilt Regency chairs in the Green Drawing Room. The Queen ordered the same pattern to be used in the same colour when the curtains and upholstery needed renewing.

In the 1844 Room – so named after the visit of the Emperor Nicholas of Russia in that year – the sofa and armchairs are covered with silk embroidered with flowers by the wife of Frederick, Duke of York. Her work has been given an invisible protective cover of fine nylon netting. It is pleasant that something of the work of that eccentric, forgotten duchess has been preserved.

There is a five-year programme of redecoration, funded by moderate yearly increases in line with inflation. Like Queen Mary, The Queen is careful by nature and always conscious of cost. ‘How much?' and ‘Will it clean?', she frequently asks the Master of the Household's Department.

Buckingham Palace: Headquarters of State

On affairs of state, The Queen's most important adviser is the Private Secretary, who holds a most sensitive position as her link with the Prime Minister and with Parliament. Prime Ministers come and go, but Private Secretaries tend to stay for many years. It is a position that has evolved and changed over the years. George III had no Private Secretary until 1805 when, almost blind, he appointed Sir Herbert Taylor. Queen Victoria at first managed, with the help of Lehzen and clerks, to do without a Private Secretary. ‘“Are you afraid of hard work?” Melbourne had asked her. “No,” said Victoria. “In that case,” her Prime Minister advised her, “don't have a Private Secretary.”'
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In fact, the Prince Consort became her Private Secretary. After his death, the Queen took Prince Albert's own secretary, General Grey, as her own. He was succeeded
by Colonel Henry Ponsonby, who came from a family with long connections to the Crown and who stayed for twenty-five years. Arthur Bigge, who became Lord Stamfordham, succeeded him and served under three monarchs from 1895 till his death in 1931.

One of the best descriptions of the work of the Private Secretary was written in 1942 by Professor Harold Laski, in a review of Lord Ponsonby's life of his father. Although he was writing of the past, much is relevant to the present.

The royal secretary walks on a tightrope below which he is never unaware that an abyss is yawning. If the Monarch is lazy, like Edward VII, his very presence may almost become an error of judgment. If the Monarch is hard-working, like Queen Victoria, all his tact and discretion are required to keep firmly drawn the possible lines of working relations in a constitutional system … He must accept its pomps and ceremonies without fatigue; and he must be able to make the elegant minuet he is constantly performing capable of adaptation to a world which is constantly changing. Half of him must be in a real sense a statesman, and the other half must be prepared, if the occasion arise, to be something it is not very easy to distinguish from a lacquey.
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Or, as Sir Michael Adeane, a later Private Secretary, once said, ‘It is no use thinking you are a mandarin. You must also be a nanny. One moment you are writing to the Prime Minister. The next you are carrying a small boy's mac.'
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Laski reminds us that the Private Secretary's influence has been crucial in the great political crises in past reigns – for example, when ‘the dynamite might so easily have exploded at the time of Edward VIIII's abdication'. ‘Because our generation is entering upon a period in which, as in the seventeenth century, we shall be compelled to re-examine the foundations of our society, the post of the King's secretary is likely to be a post of quite outstanding importance.'
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They serve the Queen for many years, starting as Assistants before becoming Private Secretaries.

It is worth looking briefly at the men who, throughout The Queen's reign, have – to borrow the words of Harold Laski – ‘shaped the whisper of the throne'.

Alan Lascelles was a highly intelligent and cultured man. As Assistant
Private Secretary to King George V, and to King Edward VIII when he was Prince of Wales, he had endured the traumas of the abdication year. After The Queen's Coronation, he was succeeded by Michael Adeane, who was to serve The Queen as Private Secretary for the next nineteen years.

Sir Michael Adeane, like many of The Queen's courtiers, was an old Etonian. Adeane was an experienced diplomat, who, as aide-de-camp to the Governor General in Ottawa from 1934–36, brought with him a first-hand knowledge of Canada that was to be of great value to her as Head of the Commonwealth. He was Assistant Private Secretary to King George VI under Hardinge from 1937 to 1952.

Adeane was considered to be in the mould of an ideal Private Secretary. To his courage, proved in the war, was added a high intelligence. He could hold his own with the great intellects in the land, yet he wore his learning lightly and at official receptions at Buckingham Palace listened with patience and every appearance of interest to the most modest guest. Conservative by nature and steeped in tradition, he always behaved with the greatest courtesy to those with whose politics he disagreed. His influence in the first twenty years of The Queen's reign was great.

The Queen could also rely on the support and advice of her father's trusted and devoted Assistant Private Secretary, Edward Ford. He worked well with Her Majesty's ministers, by whom he was highly respected. He had first-hand knowledge of the Middle East, especially of Egypt, where he had worked as tutor to King Farouk's son. His expertise was of great value during the Suez Crisis.

His colleague, Martin Charteris, who had been Private Secretary to Princess Elizabeth, became Assistant Private Secretary in 1952 and succeeded Adeane as The Queen's Private Secretary in 1972, remaining until 1977. In his long years of service to The Queen he brought a lighter touch and a wit that enlivened the Court and The Queen's speeches. Adeane and Charteris between them saw seven successive Prime Ministers come and go.

The successor to Martin Charteris was Sir Philip Moore. He came to Buckingham Palace with a distinguished record in many fields. He was serving as Chief of Public Relations at the Ministry of Defence
when the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Cobbold, persuaded him to become an Assistant Private Secretary to Martin Charteris in 1966. After he became Private Secretary in 1977 his wide experience of the Common-wealth made him invaluable to The Queen during the period of constitutional changes made in Canada and Australia in 1982 and 1986, which gave them complete independence. On royal tours to these countries he not only showed sensitivity in dealing with their governments, but also encouraged The Queen and Prince Philip to break through old barriers, to ‘go walkabout' and to meet the people.

This informality was encouraged by the other Assistant Private Secretary, William Heseltine, an Australian who had made a great impression on Princess Marina when he accompanied her in 1964 on her tour of Australia and was thereafter appointed Press Secretary at the Palace. He then joined Sir Philip Moore as The Queen's Assistant Private Secretary and when Moore retired became the first Australian to become Private Secretary to The Queen. He retired on his sixtieth birthday in 1990, having played an important part in the Silver Jubilee celebrations of 1977.

He was succeeded by the present Private Secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes. He has had long experience of Court life, since he was brought up at Sandringham, where his father was Land Agent to King George VI. His easy, friendly manner conceals a keen intelligence and understanding.

So in her role as Head of State, The Queen has been guided by a succession of exceptionally qualified Private Secretaries.

Less well understood than the work in the Palace undertaken by The Queen's Private Secretaries is the important role of her private staff, the Mistress of the Robes, and the Ladies and Women of the Bedchamber. The archaic names mislead. These are highly professional personal assistants who, in a comparable business, could command high salaries. In fact, they receive no salaries, only expenses and allowances; and as one courtier has remarked, it is just as well that they have their own private incomes. They themselves do not complain; they count it an honour to serve The Queen for as long as she needs them: there is no retiring age. Whether young women in the future will be so self-sacrificing is another matter.

The Queen herself chooses them, sometimes on the recommendation of friends. The Mistress of the Robes is usually a Duchess: at present it is the Duchess of Grafton, who has been in her position for nearly thirty years. Her husband's title, it will be remembered, was given by Charles II to his natural son – and the ‘Fitzroy' in the family name is a reminder of their royal blood.

As Mistress of the Robes she usually appears on great State occasions, standing behind The Queen, and she sometimes accompanies The Queen on important overseas tours; she is also responsible for the organization of the rotas for the Ladies and two Women of the Bedchamber. The former are always wives of peers and, like the Mistress of the Robes, are called upon mostly on great ceremonial occasions. Gone are the days of the power of the Duchess of Marlborough, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Anne. She is, however, a valued assistant to The Queen, with long experience of the Court. She is assisted by a Lady of the Bedchamber, Lady Airlie, who is the wife of the Lord Chamberlain; although usually in the background she is herself an excellent public speaker with long experience in charitable work. She also gives support to the Women of the Bedchamber when they are exceptionally busy.

There are usually two Women of the Bedchamber, one of whom is on duty for a fortnight at a time. When The Queen is at Buckingham Palace they have the use of a small bedroom and sitting room on the second floor. They accompany The Queen on tours at home and abroad and are seen, elegantly dressed, in the background, often buried under The Queen's bouquets. Like Ladies-in-Waiting throughout history, as Fanny Burney and others have recalled, they have to have one essential qualification – the ability to stand for long periods.

The work of the Women of the Bedchamber is not merely social. Lady Susan Hussey and the Hon. Mary Morrison are responsible for answering the letters of thousands of children who write to The Queen. Some years ago the telegrams of congratulations to centenarians were sent from their department; but it is an interesting reflection on the changed expectation of life that now there are so many that it needs a special department to deal with them. During times of celebration
and crisis, the Women of the Bedchamber have an enormous pile of correspondence to deal with. In Jubilee year, from midsummer, when they started counting, to the end of the year, they answered more than 4,000 letters on The Queen's behalf.