Elizabeth the Queen by Sally Bedell Smith Page B

at the end of December, the princess flew back to England. She stopped first for several days in London, with a detour to Hurst Park to see her steeplechaser Monaveen win a race before she was reunited with Charles in Norfolk after five weeks apart.
    When Philip returned from naval maneuvers, Elizabeth rejoined him in Malta at the end of March 1950 for an idyllic six weeks. Elizabeth dispensed with the chauffeur to drive her Daimler Saloon, a gift from her father on her eighteenth birthday. If the royal couple wanted to be less conspicuous, they zoomed around in Philip’s Hillman Minx.
    Much to Uncle Dickie’s delight, the two couples spent a lot of time together, exploring the island’s coves by boat, sunbathing and picnicking. They cheered the Mountbattens’ younger daughter, Pamela, when she won the ladies’ race at the riding club, and in the evenings they went to the Phoenicia Hotel for dinner and dancing.
    During these weeks, Elizabeth grew closer to the uncle who had taken such a prominent role in her husband’s life. He gave her a polo pony and went riding with her, encouraging her to perfect her skills at sidesaddle, which she “loathed,” recalled his daughter Pamela, “because she felt out of touch with the horse. She felt marooned up there and much preferred to ride astride.” But in part because of Uncle Dickie’s persistence, “she was a very good sidesaddle rider.”
    Also at Dickie’s urging, Philip took up polo—“a very fast, very dangerous, very exciting game” that he figured his nephew would enjoy. But it was Elizabeth who shrewdly advised how to persuade her husband: “Don’t say anything. Don’t push it. Don’t nag. Just leave it alone.” Once Philip made the transition from watching matches to participating, his wife caught the action on her new movie camera, the beginning of her lifelong photographic hobby.
    On May 9 she flew back to London, six months pregnant and ready to resume some of her royal duties. Jock Colville had left the household the previous autumn to return to the diplomatic corps, and his replacement was thirty-six-year-old Martin Charteris, who was enraptured by the princess on their first meeting.
    An Old Etonian who trained at Sandhurst and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the army, Charteris was the younger brother of the 12th Earl of Wemyss, one of Scotland’s most prominent titles. He had a refreshing unconventional streak, sculpting in his spare time and indulging in the retro habit of taking snuff, which he would offer to flagging ladies on arduous royal tours. Married to the daughter of Viscount Margesson, the former Conservative chief whip and war minister under Churchill, Charteris was intelligent, worldly, decent, and free of pomposity. For more than a quarter century he was a wise and steadying influence in Elizabeth’s life. When he was well into his eighties, his eyes still lit up when he spoke of her.
    Colville had never taken to Philip, writing that the duke could be “vulgar” in his comments and “off-hand” in his treatment of the princess. With his gentle wit and easy manner, Martin Charteris was a more emollient presence in the household. He also worked to expand Elizabeth’s knowledge of public affairs, arranging in June 1950 for her to receive memoranda and minutes of cabinet meetings, as well as daily reports on the proceedings in Parliament in addition to Foreign Office papers.
    E LIZABETH GAVE BIRTH at Clarence House on August 15, 1950, at 11:50 A.M. to her second child, Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise. Philip had returned to London more than two weeks earlier, which gave him time to get reacquainted with his twenty-one-month-old son after almost a year away. But his first command of the frigate HMS Magpie —and a promotion to lieutenant commander—sent him back to Malta in early September. As she had with Charles, Elizabeth breast-fed her daughter for several months. She celebrated Charles’s second birthday, and left