Queen Elizabeth's Untold Bond with Her Lady-in-Waiting, Lady Pamela Hicks: 'A Remarkable Generation of Women' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Lady Pamela Hicks, seated, with her daughter and author India Hicks.Photo:Courtesy India Hicks

Courtesy India Hicks

Seemingly carefree, two young women are photographed smiling excitedly, the watching crowds a blur, as their open car hurtles past in the sunshine of Australia in 1954.

India Hicks, an entrepreneur, former model and writer (who was also a royal bridesmaid toPrincess Dianawhen she married Hicks’ godfatherPrince Charlesin 1981), has used old pictures, diary entries, royal memorabilia and conversations with her mother to piece her life story together.

Queen Elizabeth and Lady Pamela in a car in Australia in 1954.Courtesy India Hicks

“I found the picture among her things," she tells PEOPLE. “I imagine a member of the royal party snapped it. It is a brilliant example of what a lady-in-waiting does.”

“They’re there to represent the Queen before she comes down for dinner, at a reception to know exactly who the most senior person in the room is or to receive a bouquet. And, as my mum used to say, ‘We don’t want a crumpled Queen,’ ” Hicks says.

“But really — asQueen Camillahas now coined the term — it is a companion," Hicks adds. “That photograph absolutely shows the companionship between these two women. My mother would say, ‘You’re there to have a giggle,’ and that photograph captures that moment.”

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At the heart of Lady Pamela’s story is the late Queen. “In one of the multiple scrapbook pages you see [a] diary [entry] and it says, ‘Tea at Buckingham Palace’ in her tiny childish writing,” Hicks says. “They played horses and riders together — it’s very funny, [then Princess Elizabeth] was always the rider and Princess Margaret always the horse, and my mother was always the horse and her older sister the rider. So they were very familiar with each other.”

Also featured in the book is a moment captured on Lady Pamela’s and Princess Elizabeth’s joint birthday party in Malta in 1950 (where Elizabeth and Philip, who was serving as a naval officer, lived in India’s grandparents’ home Villa Guardamangia). “That photograph of them dancing together is particularly wonderful," Hicks says. “The romance of it, with Prince Philip looking across.”

A collection of some of Lady Pamela’s mementos, laid out on one of India Hicks' silk scarves in the book.Courtesy India Hicks

That time in Malta is often portrayed as a perfect time for the young married couple to be themselves away from the pressure of a frontline royal life. “My grandmother famously said that when [Elizabeth] left, it was like taking a little bird and putting it back inside a gilded cage and locking it,” Hicks says.

The letter written to Lady Pamela from Princess Elizabeth at Balmoral Castle.Courtesy India Hicks

‘She was the right person, she took things very seriously, took her faith very seriously. But she had a great sense of humor.”

“Every other bridesmaid had had their dress fittings, which is always part of the process and the general excitement and sharing of that time and experience. My mum had none of that,” Hicks says. “But she always says that Norman Hartnell [Elizabeth’s wedding dress designer] was such a brilliant couturier that it fitted perfectly.”

The Hicks family (India’s parents David and Lady Pamela are far left and second left) with Lord Mountbatten in Ireland.Courtesy India Hicks

In the picture on the balcony on Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding day in November 1947, Lady Pamela might have looked very serious, but, India says, “the one thing she remembers is the crowds below singing ‘All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor.’ Every young woman was madly in love with Prince Philip.”

“It was very public, but how it was dealt with was very private," Hicks says of her grandfather’s murder. “How she dealt with it needed to be told.”

“The lesson was about forgiveness and not letting bitterness ruin or erode at your life," she adds. “My aunt was very strong about that, that we will not let this affect the way we are. There is a very important lesson there about moving forward and looking to the future.”

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Hicks says that she wrote the book with her mother to illustrate the “remarkable” woman, whose life, like Elizabeth’s, spans almost a century. (Queen Elizabeth died at 96 years old on Sept. 8, 2022.)

India Hicks, at the family home in Oxfordshire, U.K. on her wedding day in Sept. 2021 with her mother.Courtesy India Hicks

“It is a disappearing world of people who do put duty and service above family, who are incredibly loyal and have a quiet introspection and think that curiosity leads to a broader mind, and who believe that manners are important,” she says. “But also have a sense of fun and sense of adventure.”

Asked if she has inherited some of that sense of duty, Hicks says “it’s hard to say,” but is set to visit Ukraine withGlobal Empowerment Missionin December for the latest of her eight trips since the invasion that took place in spring 2023.

“I know how much I struggled when I sat at a board table [to] be respected. Can you imagine as a young Queen?” Hicks says. “It must have been quite difficult as women to find their voice in those times. They’re a remarkable generation of women.”

source: people.com