in recent years had been more popular,64 and early in 1944, the Welsh Parliamentary Party, composed of Conservative, Liberal and Labour MPs, joined the campaign. It was pointed out, on all sides, that such a gesture would be greeted with enthusiasm in the Principality, with great benefits to Anglo-Welsh relations.
The Palace, however, demurred. While appreciating the sentiment behind such a proposal, it was unwilling to be swept along by a wave of populist fervour. The key issue, it decided, was the precedent for such a bestowal of title, and the lack of one. The title ‘Prince of Wales’ had only ever been given to the Heir Apparent. Princess Elizabeth was merely Heir or Heiress Presumptive. Could the Princess perhaps be promoted from Presumptive to Apparent? The Home Office was asked to investigate. ‘I have looked into your question about HRH Princess Elizabeth’, J. A. R. Pimlott, a Home Office official, wrote to Sir Eric Miéville. ‘Where the heir to the throne is a woman her right of succession is defeasible at any time by the birth of a son to the reigning Sovereign. HRH Princess Elizabeth therefore remains Heir Presumptive till she in fact succeeds.’ This had been true, he pointed out, of Victoria in 1837. Though Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV, had no child for seventeen years, it was thought constitutionally advisable in proclaiming the accession of Queen Victoria to guard against the possibility of a posthumous birth. The new Sovereign was therefore proclaimed Queen ‘saving the rights of any issue of his Late Majesty King William IV which may be born of His Late Majesty’s Consort’.65
This, however, was not the end of the matter. Though it dealt with the Presumptive-Apparent problem – by definition, no female could be Apparent – it did not dispose of the issue of whether there was any precedent for calling a female Heir, even though only Presumptive, by the Welsh title. Indeed, an inquiry seemed to show, on the basis of records kept by a sixteenth-century German ambassador, that Henry VIII had considered that whichever of his daughters was Heir to the throne should be known as Princess of Wales.66 For a short time, there was consternation, and uncertainty. However, the evidence to support such a claim was shadowy, and when it was put to Sir Gerald Wollaston, Garter Principal King of Arms, he was dismissive. He also pointed out the danger of setting a new precedent, opening the doors to the alarming future possibility, if George VI had a son who then married, of there being two Princesses of Wales.67
The Palace view hardened. There remained, of course, the political complication of public opinion, which would be disappointed, especially in Wales, by a negative decision. But the King’s new private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, regarded this as a minor factor. ‘I have no doubt that the matter will be raised in Parliament before long, and of course the Commons have a right to do so,’ he wrote to the King in January 1944, shortly before the Allied forces landed in Anzio. ‘As long ago as 1376, they petitioned Edward III to make his grandson, Richard of Bordeaux, Prince of Wales.’68 Not everybody, however, agreed that the views of parliamentarians should be as readily ignored in the twentieth century as in the fourteenth. One objector was Herbert Morrison, who suggested that to make the King’s elder daughter Princess of Wales would deal neatly with any suggestion that the Government was anti-Welsh. It did not matter, Morrison reasonably suggested, if there was no precedent. Moreover, in the unlikely event of a male heir being born, the title could simply lapse.
The Home Secretary’s minute on the subject of 28th January 1944 was sent to the Palace, but Lascelles, no mean politician on issues he regarded as important, deliberately withheld it from the King.69 Probably it made no difference. A few days earlier, Jock Colville recorded in his diary that, while the Cabinet approved of the idea of making Elizabeth Princess of Wales, her father did not.70 The royal will prevailed. At his weekly audience, Churchill promised the King that he would tell the Minister of Information to ‘damp down all discussion of this question in the Press,’ in order to avoid a row. In February, it was officially announced from Buckingham Palace that there would be no change in the Princess’s title on her eighteenth birthday. ‘This will check the spate of press comment and general chatter,’ Lascelles recorded on 13 February. As a result, the principality was without a Prince or Princess until 1958. The oft-repeated explanation for this vacancy was ‘the very real distinction between heirs apparent and presumptive’.71
TO CONSOLE the Welsh, the King and Queen took Princess Elizabeth with them on a tour of mining and industrial areas in South Wales early in 1944. The crowds were welcoming and forgiving, and came from all classes and occupations. At Cardiff docks, according to one report, the Queen and Princess ‘mingled with a crowd of coloured Merchant Navy seamen,’ and stood beside ‘an ebony giant from British Honduras’. People from the villages walked for several miles just to see the King’s daughter, who smiled and bowed her head in acknowledgement of greetings.72
It was not just in Wales, however, that there was an upsurge of feeling in favour of Elizabeth. As the war entered its final phase, she found herself an emblematic heroine everywhere. All over the Empire, the health, beauty and emerging womanhood of the Princess were linked to the eagerly anticipated future, in which families would be brought together, sweethearts rejoined, babies born, bellies filled and freedom enjoyed. Encouraged by broadcasters and newsreels, young people took a special interest in her. On the Welsh tour, she caused particular excitement among children. In Valletta, on the island of Malta, a thousand school children assembled a few weeks before the Normandy landings to see and cheer a special film depicting scenes from her life.73
Requests for public appearances by the Princess now became frequent. For the time being the Palace was adamant: there could be no question of ‘independent engagements,’ though she might occasionally accompany her parents, as to South Wales.74 Soon, however, this rule was relaxed. On 23 May 1944, Princess Elizabeth spoke publicly for the first time at the annual meeting of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children in Hackney. In the autumn, she accepted an invitation to launch HMS Vanguard, the largest battleship ever built in the British Isles. The ceremony, in Clyde shipyards, was followed by a luncheon at which she read a short speech. The First Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander, wrote to Lascelles afterwards describing ‘the clear and decisive way’ in which she carried out both duties.75
There remained the question of whether she would enter one of the women’s services, and if so, which. Early in 1945, it was decided that she would join the Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was not the obvious choice. In view of her family’s naval traditions, the WRNS would have been more natural. The King and Queen were apparently reluctant: there is no reason to doubt Crawfie’s account of an eager and determined young woman wearing down the resistance of her parents.76 At the end of February she was registered as No. 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. The rank was an honorary one, but the training in driving and vehicle-maintenance she underwent at No. 1 Mechanical Transport Training Centre at Aldershot, was genuine. She enjoyed this sole, brief experience of communal education. Several decades later, she told the Labour politician Barbara Castle that it was the only time in her life when she had been able seriously to test her own capabilities against those of others of her age.77 After six weeks she qualified as a driver, and at the end of July, a few days before the final end to the war, she was promoted to Junior Commander.
‘The Princess is to be treated in exactly the same way as any other officer learning at the driving training centre,’ maintained the official report at the outset.78 To back this up, the Queen requested that photographers should not be given any facilities.79 This, however, did not deter the press, and during her short stay at the Centre she was photographed more intensively than at any time since the Coronation. As a result, she was scarcely just one of the girls. If it was not quite true, as a 1957 assessment put it, that ‘the rule of seclusion was maintained and she did not mix with her fellows on the course,’80 the extent of mucking in, on equal terms, was limited. She kept to the routine of the ATS mess, took her share of duties, and acquired the basics of driving, car mechanics and maintenance. But she returned to Windsor every night to sleep. She also became an unwitting mannequin for the uniform of the service – pictures of her with a spanner, at the wheel of a lorry, leaning on a bonnet, or peering purposefully and fetchingly under one, appeared in the newspapers and magazines of every Allied nation.
In such matters, it was always impossible to disentangle