AS BRIDAL couples go, they were hardly in the flush of youth. He was
64, with thinning hair and a tired, jowly face. She was 61, tiny, her
hair silver, though her blue eyes were steady and her skin still clear.
Instead of a wedding gown she wore a coat-dress in metallic blue, and
carried lilies of the valley. On a cold, pale December day in 1976 in
the little chapel in the royal palace of Drottningholm, before the King
and Queen of Sweden, Prince Bertil slid the wedding ring on her finger
and kissed her hand. And she, Lilian Craig, became a princess of Sweden
and Duchess of Halland and, in Swedish eyes, an honest woman.
It was 33 years, more or less, since they had met. He always insisted their first meeting was at her 28th birthday party in 1943, at her flat in Bayswater in London, to which he had gone at someone else’s invitation carrying one white orchid for her. He tried to ask her out; she was too busy. They exchanged telephone numbers, all the same. She remembered a meeting earlier than that, at Les Ambassadeurs, a posh gambling club where she was a hostess. When she was told that the solid young man making spaniel’s eyes at her across the room was Prince Bertil of Sweden, then a naval attaché at the embassy, she pertly replied: “And I’m the Queen of Sheba.”
It seemed she had always longed to be royal; or at least to be better than a girl had a right to expect, when she came from a mid-terrace house on Garden Street in Swansea. A short Swedish film of her life showed a grim colliery scene, with belching chimneys. It was not quite that bad: her father, before he walked out on them, kept a market stall, her mother was a shop assistant. But there was no joy there, no life. From 14, when she left school and went to work at the Baths Laundry, she dreamed of a world beyond the steamed-up windows in which she would be a ballerina, or a model, or a film star, squaring her shoulders and tossing back her long permed hair, extending one perfectly gloved arm for some man—why not a prince?—to kiss.
The process of becoming royal was not quite so straightforward. She nabbed her prince quickly enough (sealing matters when he dashed away from dinner at the Dorchester to comfort her when her flat was bombed), but could not marry him. For a start, she was married already, though her husband was away fighting Rommel in Africa and, as it turned out, was happy to divorce her when he returned. Second, she was a commoner. Both circumstances put her beyond the constitutional pale. When she met him, Bertil was merely the old king’s second son; but in 1947, when his older brother died in an accident and left a baby son behind, Bertil became likely at any moment to be called to rule as regent. If he married her, he would lose his place in the line of succession and put the crown at risk. Instead, “Lily” had to become his secret woman.
Discretion suited her, as did the sunglasses and pastels she tended to wear. She said little and in English, never speaking Swedish well. There was a private wild side, featuring rock music, dancing and roaring round with Bertil in racing cars, but she never officially appeared in public with him. For 30 years she would hide, bird-like, at Villa Mirage in the south of France or later in their creeper-covered house in Stockholm, watching her darling on television carry out his duties alone.
The long-postponed wedding, however, could not happen until the old king died. The new king, Carl XVI Gustaf, had himself married a commoner; the constitutional rules were slackening. In later years, and especially after Bertil’s death in 1997, Lilian found her greatest friends in Queen Silvia and the royal children. “Aunt Lilian” was invited to every royal event; the queen would sleep on a camp bed beside her own; and they would talk for hours, like sisters, in rooms heady with the scent of white orchids, Bertil’s flower.
In effect, this was all the family Princess Lilian had. The need for
secrecy meant that she and Bertil had never had children, a deep sadness
for both of them. Her Welsh family, including the half-sisters by her
feckless father, she had rubbed out of her life. Of her Britishness she
kept mostly a liking for practical jokes (which once saw her squirting
fake ketchup on Ronald Reagan) and a labrador called Bingo. She had
given up her birth citizenship too on that pale, cold day in the chapel
at Drottningholm when Bertil had taken her hand: achieving what she had
always wanted, real, royal love, and endeavouring cheerfully not to
think about the cost.
It was 33 years, more or less, since they had met. He always insisted their first meeting was at her 28th birthday party in 1943, at her flat in Bayswater in London, to which he had gone at someone else’s invitation carrying one white orchid for her. He tried to ask her out; she was too busy. They exchanged telephone numbers, all the same. She remembered a meeting earlier than that, at Les Ambassadeurs, a posh gambling club where she was a hostess. When she was told that the solid young man making spaniel’s eyes at her across the room was Prince Bertil of Sweden, then a naval attaché at the embassy, she pertly replied: “And I’m the Queen of Sheba.”
It seemed she had always longed to be royal; or at least to be better than a girl had a right to expect, when she came from a mid-terrace house on Garden Street in Swansea. A short Swedish film of her life showed a grim colliery scene, with belching chimneys. It was not quite that bad: her father, before he walked out on them, kept a market stall, her mother was a shop assistant. But there was no joy there, no life. From 14, when she left school and went to work at the Baths Laundry, she dreamed of a world beyond the steamed-up windows in which she would be a ballerina, or a model, or a film star, squaring her shoulders and tossing back her long permed hair, extending one perfectly gloved arm for some man—why not a prince?—to kiss.
The process of becoming royal was not quite so straightforward. She nabbed her prince quickly enough (sealing matters when he dashed away from dinner at the Dorchester to comfort her when her flat was bombed), but could not marry him. For a start, she was married already, though her husband was away fighting Rommel in Africa and, as it turned out, was happy to divorce her when he returned. Second, she was a commoner. Both circumstances put her beyond the constitutional pale. When she met him, Bertil was merely the old king’s second son; but in 1947, when his older brother died in an accident and left a baby son behind, Bertil became likely at any moment to be called to rule as regent. If he married her, he would lose his place in the line of succession and put the crown at risk. Instead, “Lily” had to become his secret woman.
Discretion suited her, as did the sunglasses and pastels she tended to wear. She said little and in English, never speaking Swedish well. There was a private wild side, featuring rock music, dancing and roaring round with Bertil in racing cars, but she never officially appeared in public with him. For 30 years she would hide, bird-like, at Villa Mirage in the south of France or later in their creeper-covered house in Stockholm, watching her darling on television carry out his duties alone.
Whispering tongues
The old king, Gustaf VI Adolf, tolerated her but would not see her
married into the royal house. He told her once, gruffly, that she could
call him “Uncle”; she didn’t dare, as she also did not dare to take up
Queen Elizabeth’s invitation to have tea with her in London. Within the
royal house she was still “Mrs Craig”. Bertil’s sister, Queen Ingrid of
Denmark, and his sister-in-law, Princess Sibylla, dismissed her as a
fortune-hunter. His brothers and cousins, several of whom had forfeited
their titles by marrying commoners, sniffed at his double life. Through
these needling, whispering royals Lilian moved with exquisite elegance
and care, like the Vogue model she had been; and
at last appeared at court on Gustaf VI Adolf’s 90th birthday in 1972,
in glistening silk and in a laurel-wreath tiara.The long-postponed wedding, however, could not happen until the old king died. The new king, Carl XVI Gustaf, had himself married a commoner; the constitutional rules were slackening. In later years, and especially after Bertil’s death in 1997, Lilian found her greatest friends in Queen Silvia and the royal children. “Aunt Lilian” was invited to every royal event; the queen would sleep on a camp bed beside her own; and they would talk for hours, like sisters, in rooms heady with the scent of white orchids, Bertil’s flower.
No comments:
Post a Comment