Chapter 33

London, May 1947

‘I suppose I know why you’re here,’ the King says in a resigned voice as he studies Philip over his desk.

‘I imagine you do, sir.’

Philip is still smarting at having been refused permission to meet HMS Vanguard when she docked. Nor was he allowed to be part of the welcoming party at Buckingham Palace when the royal family finally returned from South Africa. It’s true that he didn’t want to greet Elizabeth in public, but his deliberate exclusion rankles.

All he has had is a brief phone call with Elizabeth while he was on duty at Corsham.

‘It feels strange to be back,’ she had said, and it felt strange to Philip too. Her letters have been full of South Africa and what she has seen, and he has been unable to shake the fear that the King and Queen may have succeeded in distracting her. He has done everything he can. He has written regularly and sent telegrams and remembered her birthday, but it has felt like a long three months and he has been scratchy and irritable with everyone. The unfortunate petty officers he’s supposed to be training have quickly learnt to step around him very carefully.

He is so close to his goal, Philip thinks in frustration, but it’s as if he takes one step forward only to be pushed back two.

‘I wish I could have been there to meet you,’ he told Elizabeth when she rang.

‘I do too, but Mummy and Papa thought it would be better if we met in private.’

‘That sounds good to me. I’m on duty, but the first chance I have to get away, I’ll come up to London and ask to speak to your father again.’ He had paused. ‘If, that is, you haven’t changed your mind?’

‘No,’ Elizabeth had said. ‘I haven’t changed my mind about anything.’

‘Good. In that case, I’ll see you soon.’

Perhaps not the most loverlike of farewells, but Philip was too relieved at her reply to think about a more affectionate turn of phrase until it was too late. When he realised he has missed an opportunity, he had shrugged. He’s never been one for soppiness, and besides, Elizabeth doesn’t want that. She made that clear enough.

Now at last he has leave and he has driven straight to Buckingham Palace.

‘Elizabeth is twenty-one now,’ he tells the King, standing very straight, his hands clasped respectfully behind his back. ‘We’re both of the same mind as we were last August and we’ve waited for nine months. We’d like your permission to make our engagement public and set a date for the wedding.’

The King sighs, stubs out his cigarette and pushes back his chair. He hasn’t even stood up before he is reaching for another cigarette, lighting it, and desperately drawing in the nicotine. Philip is a smoker, but he is nothing like Elizabeth’s father. He is shocked by how ill the King looks, in fact. He is gaunt and grey-faced, with deep lines carved into his cheeks and forehead.

The King stands at his study window, smoking pensively, his back to Philip. Clenching his jaw in frustration, Philip reminds himself that he cannot press for an answer. This is the King and he will speak when he is good and ready. But it doesn’t feel encouraging. Why not reach over the desk, shake his hand and tell him that he will tell Tommy Lascelles to make the announcement straight away?

When the King does speak, he seems to have ignored Philip’s request. ‘Lilibet’s come on a lot over the last few months,’ he says. ‘I was very proud of her in South Africa.’

‘I heard her broadcast,’ says Philip. ‘It was very moving.’

The King nods slowly, still looking out of the window. The smoke from his cigarette curls above his head, drifting in the sunlight. ‘It was. For her birthday, you know, Lilibet was showered with diamonds, and I felt that was only right, because that’s what she is: a diamond. She’s strong and shining and clear and true.’ He turns at last to fix Philip with his gaze. ‘Do you understand that, Philip?’

‘Of course I do,’ Philip says, smoothing the impatient edge to his voice with an effort. He wants to marry Elizabeth, for God’s sake. Why would he do that if he didn’t understand how special she was?

‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ the King says sharply. ‘You don’t know Lilibet the way we do.’

‘I know her well enough to want to marry her.’

The King makes an impatient gesture with his cigarette and then his shoulders slump. ‘For so long it’s just been the four of us,’ he says. ‘I don’t know how I would have got through if I hadn’t had the Queen and my daughters.’ He smiles fondly. ‘Elizabeth and Margaret, my pride and my joy. They are so different, and yet we fit together, like pieces of a jigsaw. And now you want to take her away.’ With a sigh he stubs out the cigarette. ‘The puzzle will be broken. Do you wonder I don’t want to lose her?’

‘You wouldn’t deny her the chance of a husband and a family of her own, would you, sir?’

‘No, of course not, but she’s young yet.’

‘She’s young but she knows her own mind,’ Philip says. ‘You said it yourself, sir. She’s strong and she is true, and she is steadfast. She won’t change her mind about me – and I won’t change mine about her.’ He pauses then says more gently, ‘You won’t lose her, sir. I know her well enough to be sure that her first duty will always be to you and to the country, to the Commonwealth, just as she said in her speech.’

The King only sighs.

Philip risks pushing harder. ‘We have waited, sir. Longer than the six months you stipulated. And I have done my bit. I have renounced my rights to the Greek throne to help defuse anxieties about me being a foreign prince. I’ve given up my title.’

Focused on getting British nationality, Philip hadn’t thought about what that would mean to him until it was too late. The moment he went to sign away his rights, he almost balked. The pen felt strange and unwieldly in his hand as he stared down at it and he found himself thinking about his father. What would he think about Philip rejecting the title of ‘Prince’ in favour of a mere ‘Lieutenant’? The Greek dynasty was not a long established one, but their roots in the royal house of Denmark and their connection with royal families across Europe had always been a point of pride. Philip was turning his back on all of that.

‘For the greater prize,’ Mountbatten reminded Philip when he hesitated.

Philip knows his uncle is right. Giving up his rights of succession to the Greek throne was a practical decision. It was not as if he would ever have been King anyway. He hasn’t expected to feel strongly about it, but rather like his father’s death, the sudden realisation of what giving up his title would mean has caught him unawares.

He is a prince no longer … so what is he? He is more than a naval officer, whatever some lines on a piece of paper may say. Inside, where it counts, he is as royal as he has ever been.

He has lost a title but gained a name: Mountbatten. Philip is ambivalent about that. On the one hand, he needs to be practical and it is just a name. On the other, it is not his father’s name. It is his uncle’s. Philip doesn’t begrudge Uncle Dickie that small victory but the knowledge that once again his father has been written out of his history niggles like a small stone in his shoe.