As a teenager the future queen Elizabeth II was the crush of grenadier Hugh FitzRoy, Earl of Euston. The revelation comes from the (posthumous) diaries of Lady Alathea Fitzalan Howard, recently published in the UK (title: The Windsor Diaries: A Childhood with the Princesses).
Lady Alathea nel 1940 left London under the bombs to join the viscount grandfather who lived in Windsor. And it soon became playmate of Elizabeth and her sister Margaret. Evacuate anch’esse. Together they painted, rode horses, took dance and cooking lessons.
And they also had in common the object of their teenage love dreams: Hugh, twenty-two at the time, with whom they both flirted. Alathea, however, was convinced she had no chance: “I’m sure Hugh prefers Lilibeth to me. He is not in love with her, but her attentions make him happy ».
The future queen already as a young girl “was very reserved”. But in 1941, when she was 15, speaking of Hugh, she confided to her friend: “I love it.” And the following year, showing her a letter from the boy who thanked her for his Christmas greetings, he blurted out: “It’s horrible that he has to go abroad. Maybe I’ll never see him again».
According to several royal biographers, the Earl of Euston (and heir to the Duchy of Grafton) he was the favorite candidate of George VI and Queen Mother as the husband of their eldest daughter. However, years later, Hugh himself would have declared that he never had any intention of marrying the future Queen of England. And in fact in 1946 it led to the altar Anne Fortune FitzRoy, a wealthy plebeian who today boasts the title of Duchess of Grafton and is one of Elizabeth II’s ladies-in-waiting.
The future queen’s interest in Hugh did not last long. Alathea diaries reveal with what impatience, already in 1942, he awaited the visit to Windsor Castle of Philip of Greece and Denmark, her future husband. Philip began to court her assiduously in 1943, but before the official engagement (in 1947) the young Elizabeth would have looked around a bit: seems to have flirted, absolutely innocently, not just with Hugh but also with the dukes of Rutlande and Buccleuch. And in 1945 he had a big crush on Captain Roderick Cameron Robertson-Macleod, a Scottish giant from the Skye Islands with blond hair: “This young giant is devastatingly attractive. It created a stir in my heartLilibeth confessed to her cousin Diana Bowes-Lyon.
Even this sudden crush, however, didn’t last long. Eventually Elizabeth chose Philip, the great love of a lifetime.
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