Beth Bonini's Reviews > Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown

There is a photograph of me, taken at my christening in the summer of 1932. I am held by my father, the future 5th Earl of Leicester, and surrounded by male relations wearing solemn faces. I had tried awfully hard to be a boy, even weighing eleven pounds at birth, but I was a girl and there was nothing to be done about it.

My female status meant that I would not inherit the earldom, or Holkham, the fifth largest estate in England with its 27,000 acres of top-grade agricultural land, neither the furniture, the books, the paintings, nor the silver.

Like Vita Sackville-West, who never got over being deprived by the laws of primogeniture of her ancestral birthright to Knole, Anne Glenconnor (nee Coke) would have inherited a great house and title if she had been male. Unlike Sackville-West, Lady Glenconner seems to have calmly accepted her fate. Born female, she was consigned to more of a supporting role in life, but the stature of those she has supported has been far from average. Her life, by any measure, has been pretty extraordinary - but there is no doubt that most of its historical merit relies on her close relationship to two of the British 20th century’s colourful characters: her husband, Colin Tennant (later Lord Glenconner), and her friend Princess Margaret. She served as Lady in Waiting (hence the title) to the latter for more than 30 years; she was married to the former for 54 years. Although Princess Margaret has always been known as a difficult character, compared to Colin Tennant she comes off as a sweetheart.

I read this book as a sort of biographical companion to the fourth season of The Crown. Actually Anne Glenconner features more prominently in Season 3, which delves into Princess Margaret’s years on Mustique. Lord Glenconner bought Mustique when it was a pretty threadbare island barely hanging on to its fading cotton industry. Over several decades, he turned it into one of the most exclusive holiday destinations in the world. Lord Glenconner was a savvy operator in many ways, and according to his wife he had good business brains and a larger-than-life personality. He was also a complete nutter in the high aristocratic style.

It might be going a bit too far to describe Lady Glenconner as phlegmatic, but a combination of her own natural temperament (no doubt) and some extraordinary difficulties have made her the most stolidly calm of narrators. She doesn’t avoid discussing some of the tragedies and melodramas in her life, but she is not one to wring her hands, either. Most of the tragedies are to do with the author’s five children, three of which suffer horrible fates, but her husband’s misbehaviour is pretty epic. She is more than fair, more than generous, in her description of him and his behaviour.

As for Princess Margaret, this book does provide some insight and detail into the royal’s life - but without ever ‘telling all’ or saying anything at all which might be considered disloyal. It’s a very watered-down portrait of Princess Margaret, but perhaps it does provide some counterbalance to the more typical biographical sketches of the younger sister of the Queen.

This could have been a far more colourful book. I suppose that Lady Glenconner felt, reasonably, that the facts of her colourful life didn’t need much extra embellishment.