Windsor Castle: The Royal Home That Shaped a Queen

Windsor Castle is one of the most recognisable buildings in the world. Millions of tourists flock there each year. But Windsor is loved and cherished most by one person, Her Majesty the Queen. Buckingham Palace is very much the office. Windsor Castle is the kind of home, the place that she kind of goes to in a very uncelebrated way and a bit kind of on the quiet to escape. Elizabeth's love affair with the castle began over 80 years ago. She never expected to live there. But when she was just 10 years old, her uncle Edward made an extraordinary announcement that stunned the world. In 1936, Edward VIII became king. He had fallen desperately in love with a woman called Wallis Simpson, but she was divorced. He wanted to marry her, but according to the Constitution, it was impossible for him to be king and have a divorcee as his wife. So he was forced to choose between the crown and the woman he loved. The dark days in December 1936 were Edward VIII, in opposition to him marrying Wallis Simpson, basically played out at Windsor Castle. It's where he had his tortuous conversations with his brothers. It's where one of his brothers, the Duke of Gloucester, slapped him in the face. It's also where he made the very famous, probably the most famous royal broadcast of all time. This is Windsor Castle, His Royal Highness Prince Edward. But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible To carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love. Edward VIII gave up the throne and left Windsor Castle that night for a life in exile. He had been king for just 10 months. He's leaving the castle ...was deeply symbolic, because he was abandoning a ship, he was abandoning the country, he was abandoning his duty, he was sacrificing, in fact, what many people felt he was sacrificing, duty to pleasure. At the time, Princess Elizabeth lived with her family a few miles down the road at the Royal Lodge. Her father, Bertie, was now the next in line to the throne. Together with her mother and sister, the lives of this young family were about to change forever. Renamed King George VI, Bertie had to move into Buckingham Palace and take on the small task of ruling the largest empire in world history. George was naturally a shy, awkward man who wanted to live a relatively normal family, domesticated life. And so it was very much a shock to him and really meant that he had to summon up all his kind of courage and very much go against his natural instinct to take the position of king. But the stress of the abdication was nothing compared to what was coming. In 1939, just three years after George VI became king, Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Where the royal family lived, especially the royal children, became a national concern. When the war broke out, the public had no idea what was going to happen. They were completely terrified. They feared an all-out bombing raid which perhaps would flatten the country. And the idea that these two princesses and the future heir to the throne could be injured or touched by this bomb was really terrifying. It was decided that the heirs to the throne should be kept away from London. On the 12th of May 1940, Windsor Castle was chosen as the perfect safe house for 14-year-old Elizabeth and 9-year-old Margaret. With its magnificent views on the south side of the castle, the royal sisters moved into rooms in the Lancaster Tower. These two princesses had this gigantic castle to explore just for themselves. For someone like Elizabeth, who was particularly interested in heritage and history and in her family's belongings, it was somewhere that she really loved to tour and look at and explore when she was a little girl. For Margaret, it was a place of fun. You could run around the corridors, You could giggle, you could dash all over the place, you could play hide and seek. For her it was one big theme park of fun. Entrusted with protecting the two princesses inside their castle was a Scottish governess called Marion Crawford, nicknamed Crawfy. She was an inseparable and devoted part of the young princess's lives. She was indomitable, she had very high standards, she demanded loyalty the same way as she gave loyalty. She sort of put her whole life into looking after these girls. All she thought about was the life they had there. She used to talk about the fun they used to have playing. A huge space there was at Windsor. The first year of the war had little impact on the lives of the princesses of Windsor or their parents in London. But in September 1940, waves of German bombers began to destroy London street by street. The official line was that the King and Queen remained at Buckingham Palace throughout the Blitz in solidarity with their people. The King is still in London, in London, in London, like Mr Jones and Mr Brown, the King is still in London town. But that was a lie. The true refuge of the King and Queen was Windsor Castle. The theory is that the King and Queen did wonders for the morale of the people. The king wasn't still in London. The king, every evening during the worst of the Blitz, they travel down to Windsor to spend the night. It wasn't just the royals who were sheltered at Windsor Castle. So too were some of the nation's greatest treasures. Because there'd been some bombing there around the Tower of London, they secretly took out all the crown jewels. These fabled gems, these sapphires, these emeralds took them to Windsor Castle and very secretly they used pliers, they used hammers to prise these gems out of the crowns and put them into velvet bags, then put them into hat boxes and hid them in the basement. The House of Windsor thought the family and their jewels were safe inside their ancient fortress, but the Nazis had other ideas. Bombs would be dropped all over Britain and Windsor would not be spared from Hitler's evil plans. In late 1940, towns and cities across Britain, including Windsor, were now in the German bombers' sights. The castle became the royal family's air raid shelter. Princess Margaret said that it always seemed as though they just got to sleep when the enemy aircraft started going over. They had to be roused, dressed in their little boiler suits, they got their little cases with their bits and pieces in that they wanted, and then they would make the trek. Way, way down into the cellars, the basements of the tower in which they lived. The best place to shelter from Windsor Castle was right in the depths in the dungeons. And historically, that's where their ancestors had imprisoned all the baddies, all the traitors, everyone they wanted out of the way. So they'd been a very unhappy place. Deep in the dungeons, the young girls were surrounded by the ghosts of Windsor Castle's grim past. Some of these were the innocent victims of the vicious King John. The great-great-grandson of William the Conqueror. He inherited the castle in 1199 and loved nothing more than filling its dungeons with his enemies. King John was a very, very nasty piece of work. He really was a genuine rotter. He falls out with one of his great men, William de Briose, in 1208 and he catches up with the Briose family. John gets hold of his wife and his eldest son And those two prisoners he locks up. And starves to death. The mother was in her son's arms, and she in desperation had gnawed at his cheeks because she was starving to death. If starving people to death wasn't bad enough, King John nearly managed to destroy his own castle. John was such a disastrous king. Very soon into his reign, people are rebelling against him. It comes to a head in 1215, when a group of barons get John to promise to behave better in the future. And that promise, famously, is Magna Carta. On 15th of June, 1215, John rode out from Windsor to nearby Runnymede to sign Magna Carta into law. It's seen as the most important legal document in English history. But just a few weeks later, war broke out and in 1216, Windsor Castle was under siege. John's reign ends with not just a civil war but a foreign invasion and half the country occupied by French forces. The French batter away at Windsor for two whole months, throwing everything they've got at it. Catapults, trying to tunnel underneath the walls, trying to throw incendiary bombs at it. All of these attempts at taking the castle fail. 700 years later, Windsor was again under attack. But the Blitz was just one part of Hitler's evil master plan for Britain. After the bombing, he planned to invade the country and take it by force. Windsor Castle had a top-secret escape route for Elizabeth and Margaret. If the Germans, for example, if the enemy had managed to get in, or there was a danger that they were approaching the castle in that way, and the normal avenues of escape had been sealed off, there is a secret exit from the dungeons, which is still there, which takes you out near the River Thames, and they could have been spirited away that way. At the height of the Blitz in October 1940, Britain was teetering on the brink of defeat. Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked the King to let his daughter make a crucial contribution to the war effort. He wanted the 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth to make her very first radio broadcast to millions of people around the world. It would be recorded from Windsor Castle. There were weeks and weeks of preparations with her governess. I mean, she practiced breathing. It wasn't just done like she read a script. It was very, very carefully rehearsed. And she was very nervous. She read it several times to her parents before she actually completed the broadcast. The speech was written to offer comfort to homesick young evacuees sent overseas. But there was another more important motive. Britain was desperate for an ally. And Churchill believed that the young Elizabeth could charm America into declaring war on the Nazis. The speech was recorded in one of the rooms in Windsor Castle because I think they wanted it to be as sort of homely as possible. This is the first time the public had heard the young princess's voice. Elizabeth needed to summon all her weeks of practice to remain calm and composed. Children who asked him at home and relations, who have gone overseas, Traveled thousands of miles to find a wartime home and a kindly welcome in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States of America. It was designed to do what Churchill was desperate to do, which was to gain the sympathy and, with any luck, the alliance of the United States. But it was also designed to show that they were good for morale. My sister is by my side and we are both going to say goodnight to you. Come on Margaret, goodnight children. Goodnight and good luck to you all. You can tell in that speech, some of the ways she pronounces her words, that that's actually how she always spoke. And I love the fact that the Americans picked up the phrase, come on, Margaret, and used it as a sort of slang phrase. Hey, come on, Margaret. The Windsor speech was a massive success. It was front-page news, and the sceptical American public were won over by the young princess. Windsor Castle itself. ...became both a symbol of defiance and a beacon of hope against a superior enemy. Windsor became a sort of centre for resistance. I mean, they used Windsor very, very well. They ploughed up Windsor Park and turned it over to vegetables. The queen distributed a lot of the furniture from Windsor Castle to people who had been bombed out. There was a huge effort to show that royalty was doing its bit. In the chaos of World War II, The princesses try to lead a normal life at Windsor. Mixing with local children helped keep their feet on the ground. They were both active members of the Sea Cadets and the Girl Guides. Every Thursday afternoon from two to four they worked for their guide's cooking badge, making cakes, making stews, learning how to cook in the kitchens of Windsor Castle where their ancestors would never have gone. No royal would ever go anywhere near the kitchens. That was the servants, you wouldn't touch them. And yet here's Elizabeth, the future queen in the royal kitchens. Surprisingly, Elizabeth's wartime experiences of Windsor Castle are some of the happiest in her long life, thanks in part to the arrival of a tall and handsome young man as a guest at Christmas 1943. Prince Philip was a 22-year-old war hero who changed the destinies of both the country and the 17-year-old princess forever. A German royal in exile, he was cash-strapped and homeless. The castle is fantastic, it's huge, it's historic. He never really had a family home. And Philip is a person who doesn't have much money and there's some rather unkind mockery made of him when he comes to visit the castle because when his bag is unpacked by the valets they realise he's only got one pair of pyjamas. He just really hasn't got very much money. His own family life had been completely sort of blown apart. His mother had a very bad nervous breakdown and was forcibly taken off to a sanatorium. His father also more or less abandoned the family as well. Despite this, Elizabeth had her eye on the young man, and she had the perfect opportunity to impress. The highlight of Windsor's wartime Christmases was the annual pantomime, performed in one of the castle's grandest spaces. Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle is huge. It has a massive ceiling which is over lit by a dome with windows in it to let the light in. The room is just surrounded by portraits of the Duke of Wellington and the generals who fought at the Battle of Waterloo, so that's a very famous room. The Waterloo Chamber was converted into a theatre fit for royalty every Christmas And in the 1943 Panto, Elizabeth demanded the starring role in Aladdin, with Margaret supporting her big sister. Philip was going to be in the audience. Elizabeth was hoping to sweep him off his feet. Here's Elizabeth on stage. She's a lead role. She's giving all the lines. She's giving them marvellously. It's a completely different view of Elizabeth and of her figure. She's 17 and she looks absolutely fantastic in these tights and in these sort of short shorts. According to the story, Aladdin is given three wishes. Princess Elizabeth was granted one. Sat in the front row, the prince was charmed by her performance. He was seen to laugh very loudly at all the bad jokes, and Princess Elizabeth, meanwhile, was more animated than anyone who'd ever seen her. The evident frisson between them seemed to continue at Windsor Castle. For Prince Philip, seeing the royal family and Elizabeth at Christmas really transformed his view of them. That was everything he'd ever wanted. A close family who talked to each other, played cards, played charades. These simple pleasures that he hadn't had because his family life had been so very unhappy. So going to Windsor was his chance to experience that family life. Over Christmas, Philip and Elizabeth's relationship went into overdrive. When the king and queen realized just how close the young couple had become, They were both shocked and appalled. When Elizabeth fell in love with Philip, and she really did, I mean, she fell head over heels in love with this very handsome man. But it was sort of ironic that Philip would have been sort of perfect by the standards of the 1930s, but now things had changed. The fact that he came from a German background meant that he was far less desirable. Any connection with Hitler's Germany was a public relations disaster. Three of Philip's four sisters had married prominent Nazis. One of his nephews was even named Karl Adolf in honour of the Fuhrer. Princess Elizabeth was madly and blindly in love. The king realises that no matter how much he distrusts Philip, no matter how much he doesn't like him, if he denies Elizabeth her chance to marry him, she will never forgive him. And so he has to do it. He has to let her marry him. King George VI didn't have the heart to end the relationship. Instead, he told the young couple that they had to keep it secret until after the war. But when the war in Europe ended in May 1945, Windsor Castle had a much more damaging problem to deal with. George had been tipped off that his brother, the exiled King Edward VIII, may have committed treason by making shady deals with the Nazis. If so, it was a dark secret that must be hidden at all costs. George VI was terrified about... was the public finding out about his older brother being basically a neo-Nazi. Here's a man who contacted the Nazis during the war has little interest in Britain's survival. So in a way it would be very embarrassing for the duke but but also crippling for the for the royal family and for the monarchy. The royal family were led to believe that damning documents existed in post-war Germany. It was thought they contained evidence that if Hitler conquered Britain Edward wanted to retake the throne with his wife, Wallis Simpson. A daring plan was hatched to recover the evidence before the press discovered it and stash it inside Windsor Castle. The royal family were anxious to make sure that any correspondence that had taken place between the Duke and the Nazi regime should be under wraps. And so it appears courtiers from Windsor Castle were sent across to Germany to bring back various manuscripts which have disappeared. In the months after the war, the royal courtiers made several trips to Germany and brought a trove of material back to Windsor Castle. It's unknown if the courtiers found what they wanted, because everything they brought back was locked away. We do not know what happened, and we probably won't know what happened, for hundreds of years, or hundred years at any rate. The documents are part of a vast cache that the royal family keep under lock and key in the Round Tower. It's called the Royal Archives. It's where the House of Windsor keeps all its most intimate secrets. Windsor, of course, is a repository for secrets. There are documents and letters there that I think probably every historian would give their eye teeth for. The Royal Family ruthlessly control who can access the archives and what exactly they're allowed to see, including Edward VIII's letters. The secret hoard of personal correspondence stretches back 250 years. For royal biographers, it's an Aladdin's cave. The first time I went to the royal archives, I found it frightfully difficult to get into, because first of all, you have to go to the Round Tower and you go up a lot of steps, and the security is intense. You aren't even allowed to go to the loo by yourself. Somebody accompanies you and stands outside the door. It is after all, they're private letters, one mustn't forget that. Any family has reservations about who sees all the most intimate diaries and letters. The royal archives contain lots of private royal things, but they also contain lots of material that ought to be in the public domain. Royalty is controlling the past and As we know, those who control the past have a great interest in controlling the future. But they're not the only secrets hidden at Windsor. The castle is the royal family's giant safe, home to a vast and private collection of artwork. It's called the Royal Collection, one of the finest, largest and most valuable hordes of art and jewellery in the world. Windsor Castle is a huge treasure chest. It's a vast... Cornucopia of art objects. Much of it is imperial loot. Every time a victorious general conquered some outpost of empire, he would send back the prized jewels. Almost every one of the castle's 1,000 rooms is crammed with priceless objects, while its shelves are stuffed full of ancient manuscripts and first editions. You've got Renoirs and Manets and Monets. It's extraordinary. It's quite extraordinary. I saw a couple of Canalettos there and I thought I wonder if they're real and I thought silly me because there's nothing fake here. Every artist you've ever heard of is represented in Windsor Castle. There must be something like two million separate objects of which the public have seen a tiny tiny fraction. This vast collection of goodies it's worth Estimates vary, but I mean, it's worth perhaps 10 billion, perhaps 50 billion. The collection is truly priceless. In 1947, it grew somewhat bigger. That year, despite doubts from her parents, Elizabeth married Philip on the 20th of November. The public were overjoyed. Wedding gifts were sent to Philip and Elizabeth from all over the world, and they were displayed on show, and there were queues of people trying to see them. They weren't resentful of this big wedding, they were actually excited about it and very hopeful that this meant the end of the dark days and the beginning of a marvellous future for Britain. That future soon began to take shape in 1948, when Princess Elizabeth gave birth to Charles Anne followed two years later. Apart from rare appearances in front of the cameras, raising children at Windsor has always been a private affair. But in 1950, The world got a unique insight of behind-the-scenes life inside the castle. Devoted to the royal family, the Scottish governess, Marian Crawford, had looked after Elizabeth and Margaret for 17 years. Now she would find out what happens if you reveal Windsor secrets. Normally a governess would expect to be the governess to the next set of children but that doesn't really happen and instead she's given a grace and favour cottage, she's given her own cottage to live in and instead what she does is she's rather naive, she thinks I know, I'll write a book. Crawfey wrote an account about her life with the royals and seemed to have no idea she was crossing a line. Called the Little Princesses, its pages are full of memories like tea parties with the girls inside the castle, sheltering in the dungeons and the royal pantos. At the time it was totally unprecedented. Something that people can pick up, they can read and they can get an understanding of what happened the ordinary parts of the days with the royal family, you know, when they're not out on state visits, what they do at home. How they are as a family. The extremely private lives of Elizabeth and Margaret, as well as the King and Queen themselves, were now on full public display in Crawfey's book. In royalty-obsessed America, it became a bestseller, and Crawford became a very rich woman. There is this amazing advert at the time for the Little Princesses in the American newspaper, and it says, come into our castle, come into our castle. And they've got this really brilliant picture of Windsor Castle. So they're saying, if you read this book, you will get privileged access into Windsor Castle. But the Little Princesses also revealed that the king and queen were old-fashioned and often absent parents. It was an embarrassing and deeply personal leak of royal secrets that could not go unpunished. Marian Crawford was shut out of royal circles and expelled from Windsor. It became a tragedy. Just because there was a lady who had done everything with the finest intentions, there is no salacious gossip. It is all just straight reporting, and reporting with love. She then had to live her life as the outcast. Crawfey never saw the princesses again. Banished from castle life, Her treatment was intended to prevent anyone else from selling out the royal family. She held them in very high esteem. I found it absolutely amazing that she never said a bad word about them and I was never allowed to say a bad word. I've always wanted to meet the Queen and explain to her how Crawley felt. But that wasn't the end of the family's trouble with the servants of Windsor Castle. In the 1950s it was the king's equerry. Group Captain Peter Townsend, who became an even bigger problem for the royals. His presence at Windsor set in train a scandal that ruptured the family and set sister against sister. Peter Townsend, he was a very distinguished Battle of Britain fighter pilot. He was highly decorated. He was very much a firm favourite and a firm fixture within the royal family and within the royal household. Townsend and his young family had been a fixture at Windsor since 1945, when he was given an exclusive royal residence, Adelaide Cottage, in the grounds of the castle. Adelaide Cottage is a beautiful, grace and favour home. It's very pretty. Parts of it look a little bit like a Swiss cottage, I suppose. A very large Swiss cottage, because it has five or six bedrooms and very, very nice reception rooms, but inside it feels cosy. This handsome new arrival at Windsor made an instant impact on one impressionable member of the family. Princess Margaret began to make excuses to visit Townsend at Adelaide Cottage, just a stone's throw from the castle. He was extremely good looking, very, very charming, great company and Princess Margaret, it was felt like a lot of girls that she'd got a crush on him. He was 16 years older than the young princess, but Margaret didn't care. Windsor was her private playground and Townsend was a willing participant in their flirtation. Windsor was where he and Margaret could be free. No one was looking at them, no one was watching them or photographing them. They went out walking together, they enjoyed the outside together, they could really spend time together. So to him, Windsor is this idyllic place that developed their relationship in privacy. In the secure sanctuary of Windsor, Peter and Margaret's friendship developed into a full-blown affair. But a dark cloud would threaten this charmed and secret world. King George VI's health was rapidly deteriorating. In June 1951 he escaped to Windsor in the hope the country air might help his recovery. Windsor once again was this kind of place of refuge where he recuperated and it was hoped would actually fully get better. It did seem like he turned the corner and was on a road to recovery. But it was only temporary, as a lifelong smoker, George was terminally ill with cancer. An emergency operation to remove a lung couldn't save him. He died suddenly on the 6th of February 1952, aged just 56. To Royal Windsor, home of kings for 900 years, he comes home. Through the old town and on towards the castle the procession heads. Journey's end is near. On the 15th of February 1952, the coffin of King George VI was brought to St. George's Chapel. In the heart of Windsor Castle. His death triggered huge changes to the lives of his family. Now, aged just 25, his daughter was on the throne. Elizabeth was the youngest monarch since Queen Victoria. She now had to lead not only a shocked nation, but her grief-stricken family. The family was fractured. Elizabeth became queen. She was a wife, she was a mother. She's got all the responsibility of sovereignty on her shoulders. Her mother widowed. ...was totally in a dark world of grief. She'd got Margaret on her own, feeling lost and pretty vulnerable in many ways. Utterly distraught, Princess Margaret turned to the man who was secretly her lover, group captain Peter Townsend. The relationship between Margaret and Peter really accelerates, it really hits a second level. And Peter Townsend has divorced his wife and he decides he wants to marry Princess Margaret. In early 1953, Townsend and Margaret met up in one of the most private and opulent rooms in the castle, the Crimson Drawing Room. It's named after the crimson silk damask wallpaper and curtains which hang in that room, and famously two very important portraits of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in their coronation robes are either side the fireplace. Free to marry again and away from prying eyes, Peter proposed to the 22-year-old princess. They decided to keep their engagement under wraps. But this was one secret that couldn't be hidden away inside Windsor Castle. The Queen's coronation at Westminster Abbey on the 2nd of June 1953 was the most spectacular display of royal power ever caught on camera. The eyes of the world and the press were watching, hungry for any royal gossip. It's all gone brilliantly, Elizabeth's got the crown on her head, it's all great, but then Margaret is in the porch of Westminster Abbey and there's Peter Townsend. She's talking to him, he's in front of her, no problem with that, but then she sort of flicks some dust off his collar and that seems an incredibly intimate move and unfortunately because the world's press is there, they realise it's a romantic relationship. One sharp-eyed reporter blew the affair wide open. The handsome divorcee and the beautiful princess was a huge story. It is an incredible shock to Margaret and Peter that when their relationship is no longer this private thing at Windsor, but this huge public affair. Everything that they had in Windsor is pretty much shattered. The innocence that they had is shattered. They suddenly realise that their marriage cannot be a private thing. Margaret's a public figure, and so it has to be a public cause for concern. Margaret's engagement suddenly became her sister's most difficult challenge. If Margaret married a divorcee, she would have to live abroad, lose her court status and come off the royal payroll. With echoes of the abdication crisis in 1936, Queen Elizabeth had to make her see sense. On a personal level, the Queen was delighted that her sister had found love. But the Queen also is a very uncomplicated woman. She really couldn't understand her sister. She couldn't understand why Margaret had to complicate her life by becoming involved with the married man. Elizabeth made the first big decision of her reign. She put duty first and separated the couple. Six weeks after the coronation, Peter Townsend had to leave Adelaide Cottage and was sent to work abroad for two years. When he returned, the separation from Windsor had done its job. Margaret ended the engagement, and their famous romance was over. She did say to me on one occasion, how do you know after two years of being apart if you still want to marry somebody? My own feeling is that whilst they still had enormous affection for one another, they'd actually fallen out of love. Through the betrayals and the scandals of those closest to her, Queen Elizabeth learned harsh lessons the hard way. Duty always came before pleasure. For the rest of her life, she would keep her own secrets close to her chest and safe inside her favorite home and fortress, Windsor Castle. Next time, through the formal 50s and the less than formal 60s, we discover the secrets of the Queen Mother's infamous parties. She was never known to be drunk, but she was never, ever completely sober either. Why the Queen first let the TV cameras into the castle? People still talk to this day about the sight of Prince Philip flipping burgers on a barbecue. And how a young Camilla burst onto the Windsor scene. She said to him, sir, my great-great-grandmother, Alice Capel, was your great-great-grandfather, Edward VII's mistress.