Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (62 page)

Born at her maternal grandparents’ home in Mayfair, London, Elizabeth was the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York. There was little expectation of the crown until her uncle Edward VIII abdicated ten years later. Even after her father became King George VI, there was a chance that Elizabeth would not be his successor – if the King and Queen had a son, he would take precedence.

Towards the end of the Second World War, having been forbidden to volunteer as a nurse in bombed areas, at the age of eighteen Elizabeth joined the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service as Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor. Here she trained as a driver and mechanic, although she has apparently never obtained a driving licence.

By this time, Elizabeth had fallen in love with a young man she had met some years earlier, and in 1947 she married Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark.

After Greece won independence in 1832, Prince Otto of Bavaria was appointed king, but he was deposed and exiled in 1862. In a vote of 240,000 to decide who should be the new

THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN QUEEN ELIZABETH II
AND PRINCE PHILIP
(with relevant issue only)

king, Queen Victoria’s son Alfred received 95% of the votes, only one person voted for ex-King Otto. However, Victoria would not allow Alfred to take the Greek crown, as he was destined for the rule of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. So the Greek parliament elected as their new king the 17-year-old Prince William of Denmark, second son of future King Christian IX.

William took the Greek crown as King George. He was assassinated by an anarchist in 1913, and his son Constantine became king. In the First World War the Greek government wished to support the Triple Powers (Britain, France and Russia), whilst King Constantine was pro-German and wanted Greece to remain neutral. So Constantine was forced to abdicate in favour of his second son, Alexander (Constantine’s first son, George, was pro-German and unacceptable).

After the war, when King Alexander was taking a walk, his dog was attacked by a monkey. Alexander went to the dog’s assistance, and was bitten by the monkey. The monkey’s mate then came to its aid, and it also bit Alexander, causing a deep wound. Both monkeys were diseased, and King Alexander died a few days later. Constantine returned as king. After an unsuccessful war against Turkey in 1922, the army revolted and Constantine was deposed again, this time succeeded by his first son who became King George II. In the fury of defeat, many political and military leaders were arrested, and some were executed. One of those put on trial was Constantine’s brother, Prince Andrew, who was accused of disobeying orders. He was convicted and banished. However, there were fears for his life. Andrew was Queen Alexandra’s nephew, and his wife Princess Alice of Battenberg was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, so Britain sent a cruiser to rescue them and their family including Philip their one-year-old son.

Philip’s older sisters all married German noblemen and went to live in Germany. He eventually went to school in England undertheeyeofhisuncle,EarlMountbatten.In1933,Philipwas sent to secondary school at Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, part-owned by one of his brothers-in-law. The Schule Schloss Salem was one of the finest schools in Europe, scholastic and also teaching social skills, community duties and diversity. The other part-owner was the headmaster, Kurt Hahn, and he was Jewish. Hahn was seized by the Nazis, but on the intervention of Ramsay MacDonald he was released from prison and allowed to flee to Scotland. He then founded Gordonstoun School, which in due course acquired the reputation of Hahn’s first school. A little later, Philip followed his former headmaster to Scotland to complete his education. If it were not for those circumstances, Philip might have remained in Germany like his sisters.

Philip left Gordonstoun in 1939, and he joined the Royal Navy, serving throughout the Second World War. Once engaged to Princess Elizabeth, in the post-war anti-foreigner mood, Philip wasadvisedbyEarlMountbattentogiveuphisGreekandDanish titles, to renounce his allegiance to the Greek crown (his cousin, Paul, was now king), to take British citizenship and to convert from Greek Orthodox to Church of England. He did all of those things, and then discovered that he did not have a surname, the name of his House (Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg) not being the same thing as a surname.

The solution was simple. Philip’s mother was a Battenberg, so like his uncle’s family Philip adopted the English version of that name:‘Mountbatten’.Theweddingtookplaceon20thNovember 1947. As Philip was no longer a prince, he was given the title of Duke of Edinburgh. He was made Prince of the United Kingdom ten years later. Philip’s German relations, including his sisters and brothers-in-law, were not invited to the wedding. They had all supported Germany during the war, most were Nazis, and one brother-in-law had been an officer in the SS.
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It was while Elizabeth was in Kenya with Philip that she learned of the death of her father. When asked what her regnal name would be, Elizabeth responded, “My own, of course – what else?” Elizabeth was crowned Elizabeth II on 2nd June 1953.

The Queen is wearing St Edward’s Crown. It is named after Edward the Confessor’s crown, used to crown later monarchs until it was lost by King John in the Wash. Its replacement was destroyed in the Civil War. The present crown was created for the coronation of Charles II, and used to crown all subsequent monarchs other than the small Victoria and the aged Edward VII, who found it too heavy (2.2kg). Jewels for the crown were hired for each coronation and then returned, until in 1911 permanent jewels were affixed.

On other formal occasions, the Imperial State Crown is worn (see the front cover). It was made in 1937 and contains 2,868 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and 5 rubies.

One of the diamonds is the Cullinan II. The Cullinan was the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found, at 3,106.75 carats (621.35g). The other part, the Cullinan I, is in the Sceptre.

The large ruby at the front of the Imperial State Crown is the Black Prince’s Ruby. It was obtained by the Black Prince in the fourteenth century as a reward for assisting Don Pedro of Castile to defeat a revolt led by his illegitimate brother. Don Pedro had stolen the ruby from the body of Abu Said, the Moorish Prince of Grenada, after murdering him.

Henry V wore the ruby in the crown on his helmet at Agincourt, as did Richard III in his desperate attack against Henry Tudor at Bos- worth.

In Scotland there was anger at the name ‘Elizabeth II’. The Scots complained that Elizabeth I had not been Queen of Scotland, so the current Queen is the first Scottish Elizabeth. As a compromise, it was announced that in future all monarchs will take either their English number or their Scottish number, whichever is the higher. Fortunately, going back to the union in 1707, no numbers would have been different.

Next, the question of the royal surname arose. It was a matter that had interested Queen Victoria. She had asked for an investigation, and the result was that having married Prince Albert, the Royal House was Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the surname was Wettin. The duchies of Saxe-Coburg and SaxeGotha
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were held by the Wettin dynasty, the rulers of much of Saxony for centuries, and they took their family name in about the year 1000 from the Castle of Wettin when they captured it from the Slavs.

During the First World War, George V issued a royal proclamation changing the name of the Royal House and the Royal Family to Windsor. That dealt with both House and surname.

By the time of his marriage, Philip had renounced his titles, yet he was still a member of his House, and he had taken the surname of Mountbatten. In 1952, the Queen declared that the Royal House name and the Royal Family name would continue as Windsor, despite her marriage. Philip’s reaction was to say that, “I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.” There would be four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward.

In 1960 there was a slight concession, when it was proclaimed that those of the Queen’s descendants who are not princes or princesses would have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. In practice it works the other way round; the Queen’s sons use the name Mountbatten-Windsor despite being princes, and the

As to the House, the Queen’s children are members of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg and also of the House of Windsor, which is a branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

The Queen is also the Queen of 15 other Commonwealth countries, and holds various other titles. Not the least are Duke of Lancaster and Duke of Normandy. Mainland Normandy is now part of France; the Duchy of Normandy comprises the Channel Islands (not part of the United Kingdom, but a crown dependency of the British monarch), where the loyal toast is “
La Reine, notre Duc
”. Linking the two historic enemies, the Queen is the 27 x great-granddaughter of William the Conqueror and the 29 x great-granddaughter of Harold.

For Britain, the remainder of the Fifties saw the end of food rationing, the start of independence for British colonies, the end of the Korean War, the retirement of Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1955 and his replacement by Anthony Eden, and the Suez Crisis when Egypt seized the Suez Canal and Britain, France and Israel invaded, but America (still in its anti-colonialist mood) took Egypt’s side and despite military success, Britain and its allies had to withdraw. Prime Minister Eden was replaced by Harold Macmillan in 1957, and 1958 saw the introduction of life peerages and consequently the right of women to sit in the House of Lords.

The Sixties witnessed the end of conscription, further independences for British colonies and a resurgence of British success and influence in popular music, fashion and theatre. In 1963, Prime Minister Macmillan was replaced by Alec Douglas Home (he was Neville Chamberlain’s private secretary at Munich, and followed the premierships of three of Chamberlain’s Conservative opponents). In 1964, Labour won the general election and Harold Wilson became Prime Minister. The following year, Sir Winston Churchill died on 24th January, the 70th anniversary of his father’s death.

In August 1969, in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, after a Protestant march celebrating the failure of James II’s siege of the city in 1689, serious fighting broke out between Catholics and Protestants. British troops were sent to keep order, but the rioting spread to Belfast and led to several deaths. Within a short time, the Provisional IRA had split away from the Irish Republican Army, intent on ending British rule in Northern Ireland. Now the ‘Troubles’ began, leading to decades of shootings, bombings and murders in Northern Ireland and England.

Despite this new eruption of violence, after a reign of nearly 20 years, Elizabeth had apparently still not been struck by the royal curse. However, a recent revelation by an Australian former police officer suggests that the curse did indeed strike. In the spring of 1970, the Queen and Prince Philip were on a tour of Australia. On 29th April, they were travelling by train from Sydney across the Great Dividing Range of mountains. It is claimed that assassins, possibly IRA sympathisers, possibly anti-monarchists, decided to kill the royal couple. Whoever it was, they took a large log and placed it on the rail track not far from Lithgow Station, intending that the royal train would hit the log and be derailed, killing the passengers.