V.E. Day, A Royal Night Out, & The Ritz

May 8, 1945, was Victory in Europe Day, marking the Allies’ acceptance of Germany’s surrender and the end of World War II in Europe. While Japan would not surrender until August of 1945 (with the document formally signed on September 2), massive celebrations sprung up for V.E. Day, especially in the United Kingdom. One little bit that’s made it onto film twice now is when then-Princess Elizabeth, age 19, and her sister, Princess Margaret, age 14, went out into the London streets to join the crowds of people celebrating and partying.

We reviewed the movie A Royal Night Out (2015) back when it came out, and it’s a fluffy, fun, fictional version of the events. Then I was watching the final season of The Crown (2016-23) and saw how episode eight interwove yet another, also fictionalized version of that V.E. Day partying into the story of Princess Margaret’s death. While I did enjoy that episode of The Crown as a tale of sisterhood and shared memories, being a frock flicker, I gotta nitpick it for the historical details here! Not so much the costumes, but the other stuff. Let’s compare…

What Really Happened on V.E. Day With the Princesses

Tatler lays out the specifics, and I’m gonna break it down: Around 8pm, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret were given permission by their parents, the King and Queen, to join the crowds in London celebrating the end of the war.

The princesses were accompanied by a group of 16 select members of the royal household, including Henry Herbert, Lord Porchester (a friend of Elizabeth and later her racing manager); Peter Townsend (yeah, the one Margaret later had an affair with); Margaret Elphinstone Rhodes (Elizabeth’s first cousin); and Jean Woodroffe (lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth).

Queen Elizabeth II herself said:

“We were terrified of being recognised — so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes. A Grenadier officer among our party of about 16 people said he refused to be seen in the company of another officer improperly dressed. So I had to put my cap on normally.”

She’s referring to her WWII uniform for the Auxiliary Territorial Service, a women’s branch of the British Army. Princess Elizabeth joined in 1944, trained as a mechanic, and earned the rank of Junior Commander.

Jean Woodroffe described the start of the night: “We went out of one of the back doors of Buckingham Palace and headed up to the left of the Mall. There were lots of people singing and shouting.”

The Queen recalled: “Lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along.”

Lord Porchester commented: “It was such a happy atmosphere, such a tremendous feeling of being alive.”

According to Margaret Rhodes, around 11:30pm, the group arrived at the Ritz, and:

“For some reason, we decided to go in the front door of the Ritz and do the conga. The Ritz has always been so stuffy and formal — we rather electrified the stuffy individuals inside. I don’t think people realised who was among the party — I think they thought it was just a group of drunk young people. I remember old ladies looking faintly shocked. As one congaed through, eyebrows were raised.”

Rhodes also reported that the royal group danced the Lambeth Walk, the hokey-cokey, and the conga, and sang “We’re Going to Hang Out Your Washing on the Siegfried Line” and “Roll Out the Barrel.”

Jean Woodroffe confirmed the dancing, saying: “What was amusing is that we went into the Ritz hotel through one door and out of the other door, the other end, doing the conga.”

Lastly, Woodroffe described how, at the end of the evening, the group walked back to Buckingham Palace:

“There were places like Green Park and St James’s which one would never have walked through at night in the war — and there we were. There was the usual thing of people kissing and hugging — and even making love. I was shocked by it — I hadn’t experienced that sort of thing happening before in public.”

So, to recap:

1. Elizabeth wore her uniform, not sure what Margaret wore, but they were trying to blend into the crowd.
2. They went in a group of 16 people.
3. The group walked from Buckingham Palace to the Ritz hotel, where they danced and sang, and then walked back to the palace through or past various parks.

That’s it! Undoubtedly a memorable night, but nothing too wild and crazy, even for sheltered, privileged princesses.

What Happened in A Royal Night Out

1) Elizabeth doesn’t wear her uniform. Both young women are in very fancy, pretty pink dresses as a costume design choice.

2) They have only two army officers as chaperones, and both are fictional characters, Captain Pryce and Lieutenant Burridge.

3) Margaret ditches the officers, and the two princesses get separated, taking busses around London. Margaret meets up with a sketchy fella, goes to Soho, and visits a brothel, among other adventures. Elizabeth tries to find her sister, getting help from an AWOL officer. It’s all very silly and cute and entirely fictional.

4) And to add in another nitpick — both actresses were rather too old for the practically teenage princesses —  Sarah Gadon as Elizabeth was around 28 when this film came out, and Bel Powley as Margaret was 23.

What Happened in The Crown: Ritz

1) Elizabeth does wear her uniform! And Margaret wears a simple pink twinset and skirt, nothing fancy, which seems plausible.

2) They only have two officers as chaperones, again, but at least they’re fellows who were really there — Lord Porchester and Peter Townsend.

3) The group goes to the Ritz and parties at the hotel, as they did.

But that’s where Elizabeth splits off and finds a speakeasy called the Pink Sink, and she dances to jazz with a fictional Black American army officer. In the show, this club within the otherwise upscale hotel is a mixed-race dance joint. In reality, the “Pink Sink” was a nickname for the downstairs bar at the Ritz, and the name was earned because it was a somewhat notorious gay hangout and cruising spot during WWII.

Another anachronism is the tune “It Ain’t My Fault,” which the princesses dance to in this scene and the adult Margaret hums in memory of this night — the song is from 1964. But the point here is that Elizabeth is the one having a wild night instead of her sister, and on the walk home, she even mentions to Margaret that she kissed a guy (maybe the American?).

4) In favor of this version is how both actresses are spot-on for their character’s ages, with Viola Prettejohn as Elizabeth being age 20 when the show aired, and Beau Gadsdon as Margaret being 15.

The Crown wins for historical accuracy, though it still juices up the actual events to make a dramatic point — as to be expected in entertainment. What I find interesting is how much writers and audiences seem to want this story to be more than it really was.

It’s intriguing to think of the calm, placid, old lady Queen Elizabeth II, as a young, vivacious girl having a (somewhat) wild adventure — one last hurrah before she became queen. It’s like seeing the “before” version of the bird in a gilded cage or the princess in the tower. It’s a fantasy we repeat because we can’t imagine willingly choosing the weirdly constrained life she accepted, at least not without a small memory of joyous freedom.

Have you watched A Royal Night Out or The Crown?