Why was there no engagement announcement before they set out? A belief that all was not going smoothly added to the press excitement. One former courtier suggests that – whatever the original intention – the King and Queen saw the visit as an opportunity for reflection. ‘Undoubtedly there was hesitation on the part of her parents,’ he says. ‘They weren’t saying “You must or mustn’t marry Prince Philip,” but rather, “Do you think you should marry him?” It wasn’t forced. The King and Queen basically said: “Come with us to South Africa and then decide”.’39
With Philip’s naturalization due to be gazetted in a few weeks, however, any pretence that the relationship did not exist was abandoned. A couple of nights before the departure of the Royal Family, Elizabeth accompanied both her parents to dinner with the Mountbattens, including the about-to-be Philip Mountbatten, at 16 Chester Street – serenaded by Noël Coward. ‘The royal engagement was clearly in the air that night,’ recalled John Dean, Mountbatten’s butler and later valet to Philip.40 It was a farewell meal in two senses. While the King prepared to inspect one of his domains, Uncle Dickie was about to negotiate the transfer of power, as George VI’s Viceroy of India, in another.
MUCH OF THE journey to Cape Town, aboard the battleship HMS Vanguard, was uncomfortably rough, confining the Royal Family to their cabins. When she returned to South Africa as Queen several decades later, Elizabeth recounted how sea-sick they had been. However, as they travelled south they left Europe’s worst winter weather of the century behind them. ‘Our party seems to be enjoying themselves, especially the princesses,’ Lascelles wrote to his wife, describing ‘crossing the line’ festivities, and a treasure hunt involving the King’s daughters and the midshipmen. ‘Peter T[ownsend],’ he added, referring to an equerry who was a member of the party, ‘tries hard and is doing well.’41
For the two young women, the experience was breathtaking – not least because it was the first time either of them had been abroad. In the 1930s, they had been considered too young to accompany their parents on foreign visits, and during the war it had been too dangerous, or impracticable, to do so. Thus, Princess Elizabeth had reached the age of twenty before setting foot outside the United Kingdom. The impact of the voyage and then of the journey around a very different kind of country was therefore all the greater. South Africa – with its varieties of terrain, race, wealth and culture – was a powerful reminder to Elizabeth of the Commonwealth duties that lay ahead. Both girls were struck by the open spaces: Princess Margaret recalls her sense of the vastness of the country and the contrasts with austerity Britain. ‘There was an amazing opulence, and a great deal to eat,’ she says. She remembers the change from a country still restricted by food rationing, and her delight at the endless series of meals with their abundance of delicacies, including an enticing array of complicated Dutch pastries. Huge fir cones seemed to symbolize the outsize scale of everything they encountered. The South Africans lent them horses, and they rode on the beaches, wearing double felt hats.42
The royal party arrived in Cape Town on 17 February to a tumultuous welcome that banished fears of republican hostility. There was a glittering state banquet the same night. Next day, Lascelles wrote home that while he had never attended a more dreary and miserable dinner in thirty years of attending public functions, the Royal Family seemed to enjoy it, especially the princesses. ‘Princess E[lizabeth] is delightfully enthusiastic and interested,’ he noted; ‘she has her grandmother’s passion for punctuality, and, to my delight, goes bounding furiously up the stairs to bolt her parents, when they are more than usually late.’43 The plan was to bring the British Monarchy into direct contact with every part of the Union – in the words of the tour’s official souvenir – from the seaboard of the Cape and Natal ‘to areas where African tribes live in peace and security under conditions which still suggest the Africa of history.’44
The royal party slept in a special ‘White Train’ for a total of thirty-five nights, travelling to the Orange Free State, Basutoland, Natal and the Transvaal, and then to Northern Rhodesia and Bechuanaland. South Africa was a society rigidly divided on racial grounds: but it did not yet have strict apartheid laws, and the royal party met people from different communities, even attending a ‘Coloured Ball’. The King’s daughter attracted particular attention. Africans shouted from the crowds ‘Stay with us!’ and ‘Leave the Princess behind!’45 The presence of British royalty also aroused keen interest in the small, enclosed white South African world, dominating popular entertainment. At a huge civic ball held in Cape Town the night following their arrival, five thousand guests danced to a fox-trot composed in honour of Elizabeth, called ‘Princess’. The tune accompanied a song which became the catch of the season. ‘Princess, in our opinion,’ went its loyal refrain, ‘You’ll find in our Dominion/Greetings that surely take your breath,/For you have a corner in every heart,/Princess Elizabeth’.46 Elsewhere, there were other musical tributes. At Eshowe, Zulu warriors pounded out the ‘Ngoma Umkosi,’ the Royal Dance before the King. One verse was omitted at the last minute: ‘We hear, O King, your eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, is about to give her heart in marriage, and we would like to hear from you who is the man, and when this will be.’47 On 1st April, close to the end of the tour, the not unwelcome or unhelpful news came through of the death of King George of Greece. Lascelles reported home that while there would be a week’s court mourning in London, no notice at all would be taken ‘by anybody out here because we haven’t any becoming mourning with us – a typical Royal Family compromise!’48
At East London, the second city of Cape Province, Elizabeth had to open a graving dock – it was a windy day, and she had to struggle to keep her hat on, her dress down, and her speech from blowing away.49 For much of the trip, however, the princesses’ most demanding duty was to walk behind their parents at ceremonies or sit beside them at displays. It was a long time to be away, on holiday yet constantly on show – and out of touch with ice-bound Britain, where Philip, at his naval base, lectured his students in his naval greatcoat and by candlelight, because of the fuel crisis. According to below-stairs gossip, spread by Bobo MacDonald, who had graduated from children’s nursemaid to become the Princess’s maid and dresser, ‘Elizabeth was very eager for mail throughout the tour, and so was Philip.’50 She also wrote to other friends. Lord Porchester, for instance, received letters from her wherever she went. She wrote vividly, about the tour and meeting Smuts, but also about home. In one letter she asked about her horse, Maple Leaf.51
The passivity, however, did not last until the end of the tour. The Royal Family’s departure date was fixed for 24 April. Princess Elizabeth’s twenty-first birthday fell three days earlier – a happy coincidence of timing which enabled the South African government to make it the climax of the visit. It could scarcely have been celebrated on a more elaborate, and extravagant, scale. As a token of the importance Smuts attached to the royal tour, 21 April was declared a public holiday throughout the Union. In addition, the royal birthday was marked by a ceremony, attended by the entire Cabinet, at which the Princess reviewed a large contingent of soldiers, sailors, women’s services, cadets and veterans; by a speech given by the Princess to a ‘youth rally of all races’; by a reception at City Hall in Cape Town; and by yet another ball in the Princess’s honour at which General Smuts presented her with a twenty-one-stone gemstone necklace and a gold key to the city.
The Royal Family made its own most dramatic contribution to the day’s events in the form of a broadcast to the Empire and Commonwealth by Princess Elizabeth, which became the most celebrated of her life. The author was not the Princess, but Sir Alan Lascelles, a straight-backed, hard-bitten courtier, not given to emotionalism – though with a sense of occasion and (as his memoranda and diaries reveal) a lucid, if somewhat old-fashioned, literary style. The speech was both a culmination to the tour, and a prologue for the Princess.
When Princess Elizabeth was consulted in the White Train near Bloemfontein during the preparation of a draft, according to one account, she told her father’s private secretary, ‘It has made me