The princess wrote to her mother telling her how happy she was, but also to say she realised how many changes marriage would bring to her life. She wanted to ask her mother’s advice on how to deal with her husband’s free spirit and the tradition of the old-fashioned formalities of the Court. ‘Philip is terribly independent,’ she wrote, ‘and I quite understand the poor darling wanting to start off properly without everything being done [underlined] for us.’ She knew it would be difficult for them both, with him so used to doing what he wanted, to be tied to a suite of rooms in a huge, old-fashioned palace where everything was subject to endless protocol. She already knew he found many of the courtiers pompous, ridiculously conservative and stuffy, while they in turn found him abrasive and rude. Clearly, it had to be looked at as a long-term strategy if he was to earn the respect his position demanded.

‘It is so lovely and peaceful just now,’ the princess continued with her letter. ‘Philip is reading full length on the sofa, Susan is stretched out before the fire, Rummy is fast asleep in his box beside the fire, and I am busy writing this in one of the armchairs near the fire (you see how important the fire is!). It’s heaven up here!’

‘It was bitterly cold with heavy snow, but big log fires kept the house cosy,’ Philip’s valet John Dean remembered. Dean and the princess’s maid, Bobo MacDonald, were thrown together by their position and Dean says he greatly enjoyed her company once she had ‘thawed’: ‘She was a lovely dancer and very good fun with a nice sense of humour. But even when we were staying in some village and were out socially in the local pub, she always addressed me as Mr Dean.’

Bobo’s presence in Prince Philip’s life was much more of a problem. Philip and Lilibet were young lovers and wanted the privacy frequently denied them. The princess was used to being surrounded by staff and often ignored their presence, but Philip was not. He resented not being able to be alone with his wife when he wanted to be and did not expect to find Bobo at her mistress’s side at all times, even when she was in the bathroom.