Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip had been married for five years when, in 1952, they received the news that King George VI had died and Princess Elizabeth was now the Queen. Lady Pamela Hicks, the Duke’s cousin, was a lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty at the time, and was accompanying her on a trip to Kenya when the news came through.

Speaking on her daughter India Hicks’ podcast this week, Lady Pamela recalled how the Queen had been staying at the remote Treetops guest lodge in Kenya, which was accessed via a ladder.

She said: “She goes up as a princess. The King dies that night. She comes down the ladder as Queen.”

Speaking of that fateful day, Lady Pamela said: ”We were the last people in the world to hear.”

She explained how secret ciphers had been sent by the British Embassy to announce the King’s death, but the coded messages could not be deciphered as the code was not on hand.

The Queen’s private secretary, Martin Charteris, was in the nearby town when a writer approached him to ask about the news.

He told the Duke of Edinburgh’s equerry, Mike Parker, who had to take unusual steps to prevent the new Queen finding out via the radio.

Lady Pamela said: “Prince Philip is sitting, reading a newspaper, while the princess is in another part of room, at the desk, writing to her father.

“Mike crawls in as he doesn’t want the princess to look up and see him so he’s crawling out of her sight line and gesturing to get hold of the radio.

“He secretly turns it very, very low and hears all the stations (playing) the same dirge-like music, being very solemn, so it’s obviously true.”

Mr Parker secretly got the Duke to listen to radio to hear the news for himself.

Lady Pamela continued: ”Philip just takes the newspaper and covers his face with it, hides behind it and says: ‘This will be such a shock!’”

She said the Duke convinced his wife to go for a walk in the garden, where he told her of her father’s death and that she was now Queen.

Lady Pamela added: “As she comes into the room. I think ‘Oh, poor girl, her father’s died’.

“So I go over to her, give her a hug and think ‘Oh my God, it’s the Queen’, so I go into a deep curtsey.

“And she says ‘I’m so sorry. It means we’ve all got to go back’. She was only thinking of all of us.”

Lady Pamela also revealed that the Queen’s mourning dress had to be hurried on to the plane when the royal party arrived back in London.

She said: ”A black dress was quickly smuggled on board because we didn’t have a black dress. So she quickly has to change.”

Lady Pamela also praised Philip’s handling of the situation.

She said: “Philip was superb because it was much worse for him – the end of his career – he would have been First Sea Lord.

“He gives up his career. He’s always going to be walking three paces behind his wife, and the whole court and aristocracy are against him.”

She added: “For months he has no job. The Queen thinks of several jobs for him but Churchill says no … Greek, not a well-born Scotsman.”

Lady Pamela is the daughter of Philip’s uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was murdered by the IRA in 1979.

She and her sister, Lady Patricia, have been close to the Royal Family for years, with the Queen and Prince Philip’s budding romance first becoming public knowledge when they were photographed together at Lady Patricia’s 1946 wedding.

Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2013, Lady Pamela recalled how Elizabeth had to convince her parents to let her marry Philip when she came of age.

Lady Pamela continued: “The King and Queen were appalled.

“The thought that he might become a son-in-law was most unwelcome. Why wasn’t she marrying some respectable English duke?

“Yes, he was a Prince of Greece and Denmark. But very suspect, Greece – they get rid of their royal families regularly. And he had no money.”

Lady Pamela’s daughter India rose to public prominence in 1981 when she was one of Princess Diana’s bridesmaids at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Source: Read Full Article