QEII at 3

I get the pulp version of Time magazine delivered at home. It's been a biweekly magazine ever since COVID-19 broke out across the U.S., although they call everything a "double issue."

They often feature thumbnail pictures of the alternate covers of the magazine on one of the early pages, and occasionally covers of that fortnight's cover story subject from the past. The latter was the case with the current issue reporting Queen Elizabeth's death. I don't recall having seen a couple of the more recent covers, which must have been of Time's European edition.

Outside of the large-font decades from the '70's to the '00's, it's impossible to read the text on those tiny cover images, and I wondered how little Princess Lilybet rated a cover story when she was three years old and the niece of George V's heir apparent, Edward, Prince of Wales.

I mean, there has been plenty of press coverage of Harry and Megan's newborns, but I don't expect to see them on the cover of Time — even the European edition — while they're still toddlers. If one of them grows up to be a TV star, maybe, or Governor of California, sure.

They'd have a better chance if they go into television. Time only puts governors on the cover if they've just been nominated for Vice President.

As it happens, in 1967, Time published a series of books of snippets of articles from various years in the magazine's history, and I have the book about 1929. Sure enough, it includes a paragraph from this April 29, 1929 cover story. I don't know how the actual article began, but the excerpt launches by positing the prospect, however remote, of Elizabeth acceding to the throne.

If Death should come soon and suddenly to three men — George V, Edward of Wales, the Duke of York — England would have another Virgin Queen Elizabeth.

She did indeed eventually become Queen, of course; but Edward was still alive, and she was married with two children by then, so nix the Virgin Queen thing.

The 1929 article cites some palace gossip that forecasted that P'incess Lilybet becoming Queen someday wasn't such a far-fetched idea. George V had had been gravely ill that winter (but would survive another seven years). Prince Edward, then 34, was still a bachelor, as you may recall, and a story had circulated that he once vowed to renounce his rights to the throne upon his father's death. The palace gossip reported in Time was that he was already teasing Lilybet's mother, the Duchess of York, by calling her "Queen Elizabeth."

By the way, the folks at Time will happily sell you their Elizabeth Windsor magazine covers as framed  pictures, in case you happen to need something impressive on the bookshelf in the background of your next television interview.