Almost a year after their wedding, Elizabeth and Philip celebrated the birth of their first child. Prince Charles, now the Prince of Wales, was born on the evening of November 14, 1948, at Buckingham Palace. The Queen was 22-years-old.
For the first time since the 18th century, there was no government minister present at the birth of a future heir to the throne. Elsewhere in the Palace, the newborn’s grandfather, George VI, lay ill as the King’s health began a slow, but steady, decline.
Charles Philip Arthur George was christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Music Room at the Palace on December 15, 1948.
His godparents were: George VI; his great-grandmother Queen Mary; his aunt Princess Margaret; his paternal great-grandmother Victoria, Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven; his great-uncle the Hon. David Bowes-Lyon; Lady Brabourne, daughter of Earl Mountbatten of Burma; and his great-uncles King Haakon of Norway and Prince George of Greece, neither of whom was able to attend the ceremony.
Princess Anne, now the Princess Royal, was born at Clarence House, close to the Palace, on August 15, 1950. She was christened Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise in the Palace Music Room on October 21, 1950, by the Archbishop of York, Cyril Forster Garbett.
Anne’s godparents were: her grandmother Queen Elizabeth; her paternal great-grandmother Princess Andrew of Greece; her aunt Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg; Earl Mountbatten of Burma; and Reverend the Honourable Andrew Elphinstone.
After a gap of almost 10 years, Prince Andrew, now the Duke of York, was born at the Palace on February 19, 1960, the first child to be born to a reigning monarch since Queen Victoria’s last, Princess Beatrice, in 1857.
Christened Andrew Albert Christian Edward on April 8, 1960, in the Music Room by the Archbishop of Canterbury, his godparents were: his great-uncle Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester; Princess Alexandra; Lord Elphinstone; the Earl of Euston; and Mrs Harold Phillips.
Prince Edward, now the Earl of Wessex, was the royal couple’s fourth and final child, born at the Palace on March 10, 1964, when the Queen was nearly 38. He was christened Edward Antony Richard Louis on May 2 by the Dean of Windsor in the private chapel at Windsor Castle.
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Edward’s godparents were: Prince Richard of Gloucester; the Duchess of Kent; his uncle the Earl of Snowdon; Princess George of Hanover; and Prince Louis of Hesse.
All of Elizabeth and Philip’s children – as well as their grandchildren – were christened in a robe of fine Honiton lace, lined with white satin, made in 1841 for the christening of Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter Victoria, Princess Royal.
The raising of the children was not easy – being head of state was a full-time job and left the Queen as a young mother with too little time for her children. Nannies were called upon and boarding school was considered essential for her royal youngsters.
Being educated away from home was also regarded as a progressive choice at the time and encouraged the Queen’s offspring to mix with children from different backgrounds.
According to his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby, the Prince of Wales, in particular, disliked being a boarder. The separation from his home accentuated the emotional distance Charles, a sensitive child, felt had opened up between him and his mother and father.
Even in later life, the relationship between the Queen and her eldest son was sometimes difficult. The expression of mutual affection does not come easily to the older Royals. Courtiers have testified that the Queen was not a tactile mother and was not a natural at emotional hugging and kissing.
There were those, however, who considered the Queen showed firmness in every area of her life except with her children.
With his parents so often away, Charles’s nurse Mabel Anderson played a vital role in his life.
She became in effect surrogate mother and even in adulthood the Prince would turn to Mabel as often as he would to his parents for comfort and advice.
Dimbleby wrote of how the Queen was absorbed in her own hectic schedule and would withdraw from friction or disputes, leaving the more abrasive Philip to police the family and discipline the children.
According to the Rt Rev Michael Mann, former Dean of Windsor and a close friend of the Queen, the monarch was left upset by Charles’s criticism and felt she had tried to be as normal a mother as possible Yet the Prince did tell Dimbleby that he recalled much happiness in his childhood and believed his parents had tried their best.
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In 2002, Charles paid a warm tribute to his mother during the Golden Jubilee. In front of 12,000 people at a pop concert in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, he turned to her, remarking, “Your Majesty” before pausing to add “Mummy” to the delight of the crowd. Yet the Queen still looked a little uncomfortable at this public display of affection.
Charles declared: “We feel proud of you; proud and grateful for everything you have done for your country and the Commonwealth over 50 extraordinary years, supported unfailingly throughout by my father.
“You have embodied something vital in our lives – continuity. You have been a beacon of tradition and stability in the midst of profound, sometimes perilous change.”
The Queen’s relationship with Anne was an easier one. In many ways a clone of her father, Anne’s headstrong ways were accommodated by the Queen who had already learned to make allowances for Philip.
They shared a love of horses – the Queen taught her daughter to ride – and Anne’s practicality, hard work and devotion to royal duty was much admired by both her parents.
However, if the Queen was a less natural mother with Charles and Anne, observers said she appeared more relaxed and doting with her younger children, Andrew and Edward.
Certainly during the 1982 Falklands War, for example, when Andrew was in the front line as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot, the Queen’s fears and anxieties were no different from those of other mothers with loved ones fighting in the South Atlantic.
Andrew, an uncomplicated, rumbustious child, was said to be her favourite. But it was Edward, the Queen’s fourth and last child, who was the baby of the family.
“Goodness what fun it is to have a baby in the house again,” the Queen told a friend. “He’s a great joy to us all, especially Andrew who is completely fascinated by him. In fact he considers him his own property, even telling Charles and Anne to `come and see my baby’.”
Royal biographer Sarah Bradford suggested that, in the 1960s, when Charles and Anne were teenagers and Andrew and Edward were still young children, the Queen seemed to have found a better balance between the demands of her work and her children.
The queen’s grandchildren began arriving in the late 1970s and are, in order of their birth, are Peter Phillips, Zara Phillips, Prince William, Prince Harry, Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie and Lady Louise Windsor. On his grandmother’s 90th birthday, William paid a heartfelt tribute to her, telling her “granny, thank you for everything you’ve done for your family.”
The Queen had seven/eight great-grandchildren, beginning with Savannah Phillips, the daughter of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly. Her sister is Isla Phillips Prince William and Kate’s son George was born in 2013, followed two years later by 5Princess Charlotte and in 2018 Louis.
Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall have two children Mia and Lena.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born in May 2019.
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