The Two Knights

One morning last week Anthony Eden skipped an important Cabinet meeting. At the summons of Queen Elizabeth, he hurried to the white and gold drawing room of Buckingham Palace. The young Queen bade him kneel before her, and with a glittering sword touched him on each shoulder. When he arose, Britain's handsome Foreign Secretary was Sir Anthony Eden, Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

To the surprise of just about everyone (including, it seemed, Eden himself), the Queen thus conferred the highest honor a British politician can hold and yet remain in the House of Commons on the man who stands ready to succeed Sir Winston Churchill as Prime Minister. Eighteen months ago the Queen had bestowed the same honor on Sir Winston.*

Everyone agreed it was a handsome way to reward a knight-in-waiting. And last week it was abundantly clear that Sir Anthony still had some waiting ahead of him. Sir Winston rejuggled his government, shaking out seven relative oldsters (averaging 61 years) and bringing in seven young replacements (average age: 41). The changes were convincing evidence that 79-year-old Sir Winston intends to hang on awhile.

Most important was the elevation of Harold Macmillan to Minister of Defense, replacing Lord Alexander. A tough-minded Scotsman who dresses with Edwardian elegance, Macmillan, 60, is a member of the publishing Macmillan family. After Eton and Oxford, he served as a Grenadier and was wounded three times in World War I. In World War II he was Churchill's resident minister at Allied headquarters in North Africa, where he became both a valued adviser and a friend of Dwight Eisenhower. A Tory reformer, he has been an outstandingly successful Minister of Housing, getting houses built at the surprising pace of 300,000 a year.

He is considered the likeliest candidate to succeed his good friend Eden at the Foreign Office when Sir Anthony becomes Prime Minister.

* Thus, for the first time in history, two commoners in one government wear the Garter. Others, in past times: Walpole, Castlereagh, Palmerston, Balfour, Edward Grey, Neville Chamberlain.

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