Princess Elizabeth's real debut as a working Princess took place in 1935 when her grandfather's twenty-five years as King was celebrated. She attended the Silver Jubilee service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral and can be seen in the Salisbury painting of the service.
Afterwards she appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace (at Queen Mary's right)
The Silver Jubilee was a great Commonwealth festival. The Premiers of the Dominions arrived in London for it and took part in the royal procession through the streets. Princess Elizabeth appeared on a special green and white one cent stamp with maple leaves, one of a set of five stamps issued by the Canadian Post Office for the Jubilee which included the King and Queen, Prince of Wales, Duke of York, Windsor Castle and the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert III. Princess Elizabeth had already been depicted on a Newfoundland stamp some years earlier.
The Princess's next official public appearance was barely a year later. It was a sad one. On 28 January 1936 she watched as her grandfather's coffin was lowered into the grave at Windsor. George V had not long survived his Jubilee. Elizabeth had dearly loved the grandfather who terrified the rest of the Royal Family. And it had been a mutual affection. The old King had even been seen down on his hands and knees on the floor allowing Princess Elizabeth to pull him along by the beard. Every morning after breakfast the Princess would go to the window of 145 Piccadilly which could be seen from Buckingham Palace. At the Palace the King, binoculars trained on 145, would wave to her. Before the funeral Elizabeth went to the lying-in-state of the King when her father and his brothers held the Vigil of the Princes, taking their turn standing on guard by their father's coffin. She felt the loss of her grandfather deeply—in the way of children who soon recover of course—and grooming her toy horses at home paused and asked “Oh, Crawfie…ought we to play?”
Some of the races of the Commonwealth depicted in the Silver Jubilee window at St James' Cathedral, Toronto.
Her uncle David was now King Edward VIII and Princess Elizabeth was second in line to the Throne. Her parents tried not to let the change alter her routine. But Elizabeth sensed that everything was not right. Uncle David no longer came to tea for one of their riotous card games as he used to. She did not know it but her parents had been excluded from the new King's private circle. The King's circle and the Yorks' represented completely different ways of life. Edward VIII believed the pleasure he took in society and the night club and cocktail party circuit put him on the side of the younger generation of his subjects but in reality the young people were more attracted by the family life at Royal Lodge.
Long before his death George V knew about his son the Prince of Wales' affair with the American adventuress and divorcee Wallis Simpson, then the wife of London businessman Ernest Simpson. “After I am gone, the boy will ruin himself within six months” George V had predicted of his son to the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, in Jubilee Year. To a friend he said he now hoped the Prince of Wales would not marry and have a family, adding “I pray to God that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the Throne”. On one occasion the Prince brought the notorious Mrs Simpson to the Yorks for tea. Tension must have been in the air for, when they left, Princess Elizabeth said “Who is she, Crawfie?”
Queen Mary's belief in the Crown and her rigid sense of duty were important influences on Princess Elizabeth. Pane of the Silver Jubilee window depicting Her Majesty at St James' Cathedral, Toronto.
A crisis, personal, family and constitutional shaped up. Edward VIII determined to marry Wallis Simpson, who was now divorcing Mr Simpson, regardless of the consequences. He found the United Kingdom government led by Stanley Baldwin adamantly opposed. As the King was Monarch separately of Canada and the other Dominions his governments there had to be consulted too. Instead of exercising his right to consult them directly Edward VIII, as neglectful of his royal prerogatives as of his royal duties, allowed Baldwin to do this for him. Opposition in the Dominions to such a marriage however was even more implacable than in the United Kingdom. Canadians hated the idea of having an American as their Queen. And thanks to the American newspapers which were filled with news of the King's affair, Canadians were better informed about events than the King's subjects in the United Kingdom, where the press had only just broken its silence on the affair.
Elizabeth's favourite uncle, the still popular Prince of Wales, held the key to her future. He was the Heir to the Throne. If he ever married and had children she would be unlikely to inherit the Crown. The fashionable Prince had quite different ideas about duty than those held by his mother Queen Mary. A section of the Silver Jubilee window at St. James' Cathedral, Toronto, showing the Prince with the Royal Arms of Canada below.
Her parents said nothing about the crisis but Princess Elizabeth picked up enough of what was going on to be confused by it. She was overheard explaining the situation to her sister. “I think Uncle David wants to marry Mrs Baldwin and Mr Baldwin doesn't like it” she said. The crisis peaked. From their upstairs nursery, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret heard numerous people arriving at the house and leaving. The Duke of York was faced with the prospect of inheriting the Crown and all his personal misgivings about himself returned. To make it worse his main support, the Duchess, came down with severe influenza and was confined to bed. Looking worn and tired, the Duke, in the final days of the crisis, passed from meetings and unpleasant scenes with the King to disagreeable conferences with lawyers. He begged his brother to reconsider. “I've never seen a state paper” he told Lord Louis Mountbatten in despair. But only once did he give way and that was after his last session with his brother when he went to see Queen Mary and “broke down and sobbed like a child”.
King Edward VIII signed the instrument of Abdication at 1:52 p.m. on Thursday, 10 December 1936. Princess Elizabeth heard the noise of people gathering in the street outside 145 Piccadilly. There was cheering. She went downstairs and asked a footman what was going on. He told her that the King was abdicating and the Duke of York would be succeeding him. The Princess ran back upstairs and told her sister. Princess Margaret asked Elizabeth if that meant she, Elizabeth, would one day become Queen. “Yes, some day” her sister replied. Crawfie was summoned by the still sick Duchess and told what had happened. According to the governess's account, when their father returned from his proclamation as King George VI on 12 December, Princess Elizabeth and her sister made him a formal curtsey. “He stood for a moment touched and taken aback. Then he stooped and kissed them both warmly.” At ten Princess Elizabeth had become the daughter of a King and Heir Presumptive to the Throne.
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“Ich Dien”
1937–1951
“Ich Dien—I Serve” is the motto of the Heir Apparent to the Throne. As the elder daughter