Queen Mother's financial woes revealed
By Ben Fenton, Media Correspondent Financial Times Published: March 7 2008 22:33
Harold Macmillan tried to orchestrate a secret plan to spare the Queen Mother public humiliation after her financial adviser begged for help to spare the widow of King George VI "severe embarrassment", according to newly released documents.
Sir Arthur Penn, the widowed-Queen's treasurer, approached Mr Macmillan in April 1959, bewailing the fact that her prominent role in public life required her to spend far more than the £70,000 fixed annuity granted under the Civil List in 1936.
Sir Arthur appealed to Mr Macmillan, a fellow Old Etonian and Grenadier Guards officer, to raise the annuity by at least £26,000 because inflation had left Her Majesty unable to make ends meet. Sir Arthur had a point: using average earnings as a comparator, the £70,000 she was granted in 1936 would have to have risen to £337,000 in 1959 to keep pace with inflation. Today it would have to have been £12.5m.
But after a detailed study by 10 Downing Street, in which priority was given to keeping details of the Queen Mother's finances secret from parliament, Mr Macmillan could offer only to transfer £8,000 of her expenses on to the public purse. The annuity stayed fixed at £70,000 for a further 11 years and it was the Queen who had to close the gap between her mother's expenditure and income from her own resources.
The Queen Mother was insouciant about domestic economy. Brian Hoey, author of more than 20 books on British royalty, said "She didn't handle money and hadn't since she was a child. She had others to worry about it for her. She was protected by those around her, such as Sir Arthur Penn. I doubt she ever knew the extent of her overdraft."