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The Pinkle-Ponkle. As with any potential heir to the throne, Elizabeth's formal education was the constitutional concern not only of the reigning sovereign but of the Cabinet. It was soon decided that no school would match Princess Elizabeth's requirements. So every day from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with an hour off for lunch, she studied history, grammar, literature and arithmetic with her Scottish governess "Crawfie" (Miss Marion Crawford).
To give an added regal polish, there were lessons in French (from a French countess), German, art, and dancing. As time went on, the Vice-Provost of Eton, erudite Clarence Henry Kennett ("Shee-Kay") Marten (later knighted and promoted to Provost), was called in to brush up the Princess' constitutional history.
As a student, Elizabeth was always systematic rather than brilliant. She learned to play Schumann, Chopin and Beethoven capably and accurately on the piano, though she preferred Bing Crosby recordings. Her drawings, like the horse she executed on linoleum for Granny Queen's Christmas, were painstaking and thorough. Very different were Sister Margaret's drawings of an imagined character called the Pinkle-Ponkle, who hovered vaguely over towns. "If he were to come down," Margaret replied to all critics, "he'd find worm sandwiches and caterpillar jam—green jam." Like her father, Elizabeth worries a good deal over Margaret. "Wherever did you learn such slang?" King George once asked his younger daughter. "Oh," said Margaret, "at my mother's knee—or some such low joint."
Dumb Crambo. Wilhelmina of The Netherlands once told her doll: "If you're not good, I'll turn you into a princess and then you'll have no one to play with." In Princess Elizabeth's life there was never any such grim circumscription. At the Duke's house in Piccadilly there were always a host of little cousins, lords and honorables for playmates. Devoted to horses (she pretended her legs were a team and called them Flycatcher and Harmony), she had her own pony at four. Her backyards were the family's vast estates: Victoria's Balmoral, Birkhall, her parents house in the Highlands; and Windsor Castle.
Every August there was a visit to her maternal grandmother, the Countess of Strathmore, where Elizabeth and Margaret could romp in the ancient corridors of Macbeth's Castle Glamis. There were English Christmases at Sandringham, where the whole family gathered to sing carols, play charades, Dumb Crambo, Animal Grab and Consequences, and dance the Sir Roger de Coverley. And always & everywhere there were friendly relatives, dogs and horses.
It was all very cozy as long as her father remained Duke of York. Then in 1936 came the death of Grandpapa England and the eleven hectic months that ended in Edward VIII's abdication. Feckless little Margaret Rose was disgusted. "Now we'll have to move to the Palace," she said. "And I've only just learned to spell York and now I'm not to use it any more." But Elizabeth's eyes were round and solemn as she spied a letter on the hall table addressed to "Her Majesty the Queen." "That's Mummie now, isn't it," she said in an awestruck voice.