My friendship with Queen Elizabeth II's first cousin and confidante

Margaret Rhodes was spirited and sporty, and she knew just how much to reveal about the most famous woman in the world

“We should be on a Margaret-Sally basis now,” said The Hon. Margaret Rhodes, Queen Elizabeth II’s first cousin and intimate friend since childhood. We had settled down for lunch at a pub near The Garden House, her home in Windsor Great Park. Margaret (which I’ll call her, since she gave me permission) was eighty-three years old at the time, and this was our second get-together in the winter of 2008. Over the next eight years, we would have a dozen conversations, including five over drinks or lunch—invariably simple fare such as lamb chops that she prepared herself. 

I’ve been thinking about her since last weekend when I went to Windsor to give a talk about George VI and Elizabeth at the Windsor Festival.  Her observations were invaluable for my book, Elizabeth the Queen, published in 2012 for the Diamond Jubilee that marked sixty years on the throne. When Margaret died in November 2016 at ninety-one, the Queen and Prince Philip led a group of family members at her funeral in the Royal Chapel of All Saints, Windsor Great Park.

Queen Elizabeth II with her first cousin, Margaret Rhodes, along with Corgis and one Dorgi—the Queen’s unique crossbreed of Welsh Corgi and Dachshund—at Loch Muick on the monarch’s Balmoral estate in the Scottish Highlands

Margaret was born ten months before the future Queen Elizabeth II, known in the family as Lilibet. Margaret’s mother, May Elphinstone, who married a Scottish baron, was seventeen years older than Lilibet’s mother, Elizabeth, her sister and the future wife of King George VI. But despite their difference in age, the two were exceptionally close siblings in a family of six sons and three daughters born to Scottish aristocrats, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore. Not surprisingly, Lilibet and Margaret became inseparable playmates.

Margaret Elphinstone (right) with her cousins Princess Elizabeth (left) and Princess Margaret in a lively tug of war game.

Margaret Rhodes (as she became in 1950 when she married Denys Rhodes, a writer she blithely described as “an attractive pauper”) was a familiar presence on television documentaries: a measure of Elizabeth II’s trust in her uncanny ability to shed light on her famous cousin without spilling too many beans. Not long after her eighty-sixth birthday in 2011, Margaret even published a best-selling memoir, The Final Curtsey, with the Queen’s blessing.  She included affectionate stories about Elizabeth II and her mother, Queen Elizabeth (in widowhood popularly known as the Queen Mum), who regarded Margaret as her “third daughter.”

Margaret Elphinstone’s wedding to Denys Rhodes in 1950 at St. Margaret’s, Westminster in London, when her godfather, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth headed the guest list

A number of Margaret’s insights from our conversations are sprinkled throughout Elizabeth the Queen: “She can uphold the identity of herself as Queen and still be humble.”  “She has a compartmentalized brain, with lots of boxes.” She provided indelible descriptions of the Queen driving on the private roads of her estates “like a bat out of hell.” Pursuing stags on the Balmoral hills, Margaret told me, “She would be crawling on her stomach with her nose up to the soles of her stalker’s boots.”

The Queen with Margaret Rhodes after stalking at Balmoral

Margaret had an endearing personality.  On our first meeting at The Garden House in November 2008, I noted that she was “small, trim, and sprightly.” She wore blue jeans and a pullover sweater—very much the countrywoman: “eyes bright blue, unadorned face, gray hair, aquiline nose, sparkly voice.” She was sturdy and walked quickly.

(I know how annoying the paywall is, but if you become a paying subscriber, you can read more from Margaret Rhodes on, among other things, her cousin’s favorite cocktail, the film “The Queen,” little-known aspects of Elizabeth II’s character and personality, the marriage of the Queen and Prince Philip, and Elizabeth’s relationship with her son and heir, now King Charles III.)