Homecoming

As seems always to be the case on Elizabeth's great occasions, it was chill, dank and raining as Britain's 28-year-old Queen returned to England last week for the first time in nearly six months. But not even a generous sample of what all Britons have come to call "the Queen's weather" could cool the warmth of her welcome. Crowds rivaling those which thronged London for the coronation lined the royal route from Westminster Pier where Elizabeth stepped ashore.

All along the Thames-side and along the south coast of England from Cornwall to Kent the night and day before, other eager millions had clustered, to follow the course of Her Majesty's yacht Britannia. As it steamed slowly toward the Pool of London, it was escorted by warships of the Royal Navy and the greatest flotilla of private craft since Britain's yachtsmen set forth in a body to rescue the British forces on the beach at Dunkirk. Some fresh from their beds in pajamas and trenchcoats, others stiff with long waiting, the observers on shore pinched each other at the sight of any moving figure on the yacht's deck and called excitedly: "There she is! There she is!"

The Priceless Possession. As the royal yacht moved closer to shore at the river's mouth, the Queen was more plainly discernible. Like perhaps a thousand or more other mothers on the shore at that precise moment, she was firmly gripping the coat collar of her squirming son to keep him from leaning too perilously over the rail. The cheers that rose at the sight of her familiar, youthful, dignified figure on the Britannia's deck were tinged with relief and thanksgiving. It is part of the family feeling that characterizes the British attitude toward its monarchy that all Britons feel safer when their sovereign is home in England. During the 174 days during which she had traveled by land, sea and air more than 40,000 miles, Elizabeth's subjects in Australia, in Ceylon, in the British West Indies, even in tiny Tonga (TIME, Nov. 30 et seq.), had made it plain that they considered her their Queen as well as Britain's, and that they hoped to see more of her in the future.

That was a new idea to many Britons. What had been a titular role, her trip had made real. Said the Economist sternly: "Let the bells, the bands, the saluting cannonade ring over London with no note of jealous possessiveness, no claim that the capital is taking back to itself a priceless possession that has been on loan . . . for it is the other Commonwealth countries which have a right to ask of Britain today that we should not overwork their Queen."

Ride to Buckingham. Every whistle in London Harbor let loose a blast as she stepped ashore to the roar of a 41-gun salute, to be greeted by members of her own family and by government officials headed by beaming Sir Winston Churchill, who bowed to the Queen and her husband and shook hands gravely with the five-year-old Duke of Cornwall. It was the gallant old Prime Minister's second official greeting. By special invitation he had spent the previous night on the royal yacht, and scurried home in the morning to change from his Trinity House uniform to a morning coat for the pierside ceremony. After the greetings, Elizabeth, Philip and their children entered an open landau drawn by six Windsor greys for the triumphal procession past more cheering crowds back to Buckingham. Hours later, the crowds were still pressing so thickly before the floodlit palace that the Queen was obliged to leave a state dinner to greet and reassure them all over again.

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