On 18th January 1936 the "Little Princesses" left Sandringham. Their grandfather, King George V, was gravely ill and they had seen him for the last time. Princess Elizabeth born in 1926 and Princess Margaret Rose born in 1930 were the daughters of the Duke of York and his wife Elizabeth. As their uncle Edward,  Prince of Wales,  was unmarried they ensured the line of succession and attracted enormous public interest. They were the future of the monarchy in the eyes of the public and those in the know about their uncle's passionate devotion to a married American woman would have suspected that this was not going to change. As their nickname suggests,  the Princesses were surrounded by a fairy tale aura. Together with their uncle they were probably the most glamorous faces of the monarchy at the time. In one of his novels Grahame Greene mocked the adulation they attracted.

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