The Queen Mother Part 10
The Duke added that she was 'very proud of her bed. She is terribly sweet & was in my room the whole evening.' In her own hand the child sent a page of pencilled kisses half 'For Mummy' and the rest 'For our new baby'.101 The d.u.c.h.ess, sitting in a chair in the sunlight at Glamis, wrote back to her husband, 'It's such a lovely day, I do wish you were here duckie.' She told him that she had thought of a new exercise for him when he returned to Glamis he could 'lug' her around the garden in a bath chair. 'I miss you horribly.'102 The Duke sent her another letter from Lilibet: My darling Mummy, I am looking forward to coming on Sat.u.r.day to see my Mummy & my baby. I have been missing my Mummy very much indeed. I drove in the carriage to the gate of Birkhall but we did not go in. It has been raining all day & I walked in the puddles this afternoon. Best love to Mummy & Baby Margaret Rose.
Your very loving daughter LILIBET103.
There was still the question of where the new baby should be christened. The d.u.c.h.ess was keen for the new Archbishop of Canterbury, her friend Cosmo Lang, who was coming to stay at Balmoral, to perform the ceremony in the family chapel at Glamis. She wanted her daughter to be received into the Church as soon as possible; she worried about taking her on the long journey back to London while still 'a pagan'.104 Sadly, the official advice was that the established (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland might not view with enthusiasm the senior Anglican prelate performing the christening in Scotland.* The d.u.c.h.ess was upset and she also felt that too much fuss was being made of her second daughter. 'After all,' she explained to Queen Mary, 'the little angel is not of supreme importance at the moment, and I do hate the way that the papers make it of such moment. I always hope & pray that David will marry someone suitable he ought to have some nice children.'105 She wrote to Cosmo Lang to say how disappointed she was that he could not conduct the service quietly at Glamis.106 Perhaps realizing the d.u.c.h.ess's nervousness about the delay in administering the sacrament, he suggested that when he came to lunch at Glamis, 'if I see the little Princess ... may I be allowed to give her my Blessing antic.i.p.ating the Christening which will come later'.107 The Archbishop did come to lunch at Glamis to bless the new Princess; they agreed that the christening should be at the end of October in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace. The d.u.c.h.ess was still quite weak and she did not move much outside her room until the end of September.108 When she finally came back south with Margaret Rose she told the Queen, 'It really does take a whole year to have a baby, and I cannot manage much standing yet.'109 Princess Margaret Rose's christening took place at 3.15 p.m. on Thursday 30 October. Her G.o.dparents were the King's sister Princess Victoria, the Prince of Wales, Princess Ingrid of Sweden,* Rose Leveson-Gower and David Bowes Lyon. The d.u.c.h.ess knew already that her second child had a very different character from her first. She told Archbishop Lang, 'Daughter No. 2 is really very nice, and I am glad to say that she has got large blue eyes and a will of iron, which is all the equipment that a lady needs! And as long as she can disguise her will, & use her eyes, then all will be well.'110 *
BY NOVEMBER THE d.u.c.h.ess felt strong enough to resume her public engagements: she attended the reopening of the newly restored St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle on 4 November, the annual sale of war-disabled men's work at the Imperial Inst.i.tute a week later, and she was again at Queen Mary's side for the Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph. She also went on several shopping expeditions with the Queen one of the ways in which she fostered good relations with her mother-in-law. They went to Fortnum and Mason, the General Trading Company and favourite antique shops. She and the Queen planned a birthday lunch for the Duke on 14 December, but the day before he was kicked in the leg while out hunting.
He had to have the wound st.i.tched and he was given an anti-teta.n.u.s injection which itself gave him great pain for over a week. He was attended by Dr Varley of 21 Cadogan Place but, like many members of the Royal Family, the Duke believed in homeopathic medicine. The d.u.c.h.ess later came to be convinced by homeopathy but at this stage she seems to have been rather suspicious of it. She wrote to Dr Varley, saying she was ignorant of etiquette but she wondered if he would mind if Dr Weir* came and saw the Duke as well. Her husband, she said, 'has great faith in his little homeopathic powders, & Dr Weir is a homeopathic doctor ... If it is alright, my husband thought that he might look on whilst you are looking at the leg, and then he can swallow down his powders with joy.'111 She thought that 'the idea even of these little doses will make him feel more cheerful.' Dr Varley raised no objection he could hardly do otherwise but neither conventional nor homeopathic treatment produced a quick cure. The Duke continued to suffer considerable pain.
On Christmas Eve they travelled up to Sandringham and that evening as was their custom the family celebrated with Christmas tree and presents. 'The children delighted with their toys. Baby Margaret very composed and sweet,' Queen Mary recorded in her diary. Christmas Day was spent as always church in the morning, presents to the servants after lunch. After tea they went to the ballroom, where the children played.112 Over the rest of the holiday the Queen, the d.u.c.h.ess and Princess Elizabeth amused themselves by having dancing lessons in the ballroom. The d.u.c.h.ess later wrote to the Queen that 'Lilibet and I miss our evening "hops" very much, & often wish that we were marching or polkaing in the ballroom with you!'113 Instead they were in Northamptonshire, so that as soon as he was fit enough the Duke could once again indulge his pa.s.sion for hunting.
NINETEEN-THIRTY-ONE opened with the death of the King's eldest sister, the Princess Royal. 'A bad beginning for a New Year,' he wrote in his diary. 'I feel very depressed.' Only two weeks later, his oldest friend Sir Charles Cust, with whom he had been a naval cadet in 1877, also died. Cust, his equerry for almost forty years, was the only man who could ever contradict and even criticize the King to his face. In March, perhaps worst of all, Lord Stamfordham, the King's Private Secretary, died. The Private Secretary to the monarch fills a position of immense importance and trust none more so than Stamfordham. The King's official biographer, Harold Nicolson, later wrote, 'Protective, cautious, imaginative and stimulating had been the guidance which, for more than thirty years, King George had obtained from this wise man. George V was right when he said "He taught me how to be a King." '114 That was not the end of it. In April the King was shocked by the latest turmoil in Europe: revolution forced King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Queen Victoria Eugenia, George V's cousin Ena, to flee their country. Ferment and unrest were widespread; monarchies were again under threat. The world, and Europe in particular, was still trying to adjust to the way in which the Great War had destroyed the international economic system. Nations attempted to sh.o.r.e up their struggling economies with protectionism. The indefinite reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, while understandable, seriously restricted the development of the most powerful economy in Europe. The USA was truly the only engine of growth it produced almost 40 per cent of the world's coal and more than half its manufactures. When at the end of the 1920s the long American boom seemed to be ending and short-term money became less available, loans to Europe were called back and European businesses began to suffer. The stock market collapse of October 1929 spelled the beginning of the end of American business confidence and of overseas investment. There was a rally in 1930 but then the world fell into slump.
By the summer of 1931 banks began to close their doors across Europe, foreign deposits were withdrawn from London, the collapse of the German mark appeared imminent and a seven-power conference hurriedly called in London failed to reach a solution, largely because France refused to help the Germans. Many Germans became convinced that they had to have a more a.s.sertive policy of national self-sufficiency to preserve themselves from total ruin. Prices tumbled all over the world, the burden of national debts rose, world trade declined, markets shrank, foreign exchanges teetered, and financial crashes followed each other with terrifying speed.115 Throughout Europe, unemployment rose inexorably. In summer 1931 grim forecasts of a colossal deficit and the need for ma.s.sive (though temporary) cuts in British government spending, including unemployment benefit, led to a further collapse of confidence. The run on the pound was more like a rout. Ramsay MacDonald's minority government had to obtain hasty loans from Paris and New York. It was clear that it was incapable on its own of dealing with the financial crisis which was engulfing Britain and the world. The government reached the point of collapse on 23 August. Panic spread and there were fears that the entire financial system might disintegrate. The King knew he had to act quickly 'to prevent the old ship running on the rocks'116 and he encouraged MacDonald and the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal parties to come together to form a national government. They did so and the new administration pledged itself to economies of 78 million including a temporary 10 per cent cut in government wages and in the dole.117 The National Government was originally conceived merely as an emergency expedient, but by October 1931 ministers had decided that they needed longer and went to the country asking for a 'doctor's mandate'. On 27 October the government won one of the most sweeping victories in electoral history. The King was overjoyed. 'Please G.o.d I shall now have a little peace and less worries,' he wrote.118 Queen Mary was perhaps more prescient; she thought the majority 'rather too large for internal peace'.119 The day after the election the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess went with the King and Queen, the Prince of Wales and Prince George to Drury Lane to see Noel Coward's play Cavalcade. Queen Mary recorded that the house was packed, and that the Royal Family had a wonderful reception; the audience sang the National Anthem at the end.120 Very much part of the cultural attempt to overcome the Depression, Cavalcade was a magnificent variety show which evoked the patriotic and progressive values of the Victorian era. It was a remarkable piece of stagecraft a cast of 400 people were brought up on to the stage on six hydraulic lifts. On the opening night, Coward himself delighted the audience by declaring, 'In spite of the troublous times we are living in, it is still a pretty exciting thing to be English.' Theatregoers loved him for it and the Daily Mail ran the script of Cavalcade as a serial.121 The d.u.c.h.ess thought it a marvellous pageant, and very moving.122 Coward later became a firm favourite of hers over many decades.
That autumn the political and economic crisis dominated everything. The King decided to reduce the Civil List, the sum voted by Parliament to meet the official expenses of the Royal Household, by 50,000 a year. The Duke of York gave up hunting and sold his horses, Lord Strathmore debated whether he should shut up Glamis. 'I really feel rather worried about everything Mama,' the d.u.c.h.ess wrote to the Queen. 'The world is in such a bad way, & we seem to be going from bad to worse here too.'123 She realized that her engagements had to reflect the difficulties of the times. This applied to private as well as public events she even worried that the press would find out about a small dance being given for the wedding of Lady May Cambridge, the Queen's niece, to Henry Abel Smith at which Princess Elizabeth was to be a bridesmaid for the first time. 'Not that there is the slightest harm in a small dance, it is only the vulgar way that papers put such items before the public.'124 In fact the press coverage was kind. The Times described the d.u.c.h.ess at the wedding as a smiling and attractive figure in a golden-brown lace frock matched by a fine cloth coat finished with a luxurious roll collar of blue fox fur; the Telegraph reported that the most excitement was caused by the appearance of Princess Elizabeth in her bridesmaid's dress of blue velvet with a little Juliet cap.
Both Duke and d.u.c.h.ess found that the deeper the Depression bit the more charities and other organizations needed their support in raising funds, and it was an indication of their growing workload that they had to take on more administrative help. Their office moved from 145 Piccadilly to a rented flat near by. The Duke had appointed Commander Harold Campbell* a.s.sistant private secretary in 1929, partly to help with the d.u.c.h.ess's engagements. This relieved the pressure on the d.u.c.h.ess's sole lady in waiting, Lady Helen Graham, who had managed most of her employer's official correspondence since her appointment in 1926. She was joined by a second lady, Lettice Bowlby, in 1933.
One of the charitable causes strongly supported by both Duke and d.u.c.h.ess was the Housing a.s.sociation Movement, which aimed to provide affordable housing; it grew strongly in the inter-war years. In December 1931 the d.u.c.h.ess attended a fundraising event for the London branches of the movement.* She and the Duke continued to choose their engagements carefully: the Duke, for instance, decided that he should not attend the dinner of the Merchant Taylors' Company 'in view of the state of the country'. As his Private Secretary explained, 'the actions of the Royal Family are very carefully watched by the public, and the Duke feels it might be misunderstood if he attended a City Company's Dinner at a time when unemployment and consequent distress were rife.'125 The power of the d.u.c.h.ess's presence was already clear. She acquired a reputation for responding warmly to the lives of ordinary men and women. At the end of 1931 the Mayor of Cardiff pleaded for the d.u.c.h.ess to come on her own for just one day to raise people's spirits.126 (In the event she made a joint visit with her husband the following spring.) After she opened the Post Office Exhibition of Arts at Mount Pleasant in north London, the organizer reported that hundreds of people had expressed their grat.i.tude to him 'and it seems that Her Royal Highness has captured the hearts of all, men and women alike'; she agreed to become patroness of the Post Office Arts Club.127 She took all the hardship inflicted on the country seriously, but she retained her sense of humour and tried to see whatever silver lining there might be. Writing to D'Arcy Osborne in Washington she said, 'This country seems to have settled down to being poor, & everybody is quite cheerful, but only because it is inevitable to change one's circ.u.mstances.' Everything was simpler now and 'it is quite fashionable to be sentimental, you may like music weaker c.o.c.ktails, less food, & a slight very slender streak of patriotism starting again'. She thought people were less brittle and more serious. 'I forgot to tell you that conversation is becoming the fashion. Isn't it fun conversation & Beer & eggs instead of Emba.s.sy & champagne & twitter.'128 *
AT THE HEIGHT of the economic crisis in 1931 the King offered the Yorks the use of Royal Lodge, a charming and unpretentious house in Windsor Great Park. It was a welcome offer because, now that the Duke had given up his horses, they no longer rented houses in hunt country. Royal Lodge changed their lives and became one of the places the d.u.c.h.ess loved and lived in most for decades to come. Indeed, she died there seventy-one years later.
Royal Lodge had been the country home of the Prince Regent, later King George IV. He chose not to live in Windsor Castle where his father, George III, was confined for his last years of sickness and delusion and where Queen Charlotte and her daughters also lived. The cottage, as it was called, became a favourite residence, and even after he became king in 1820 he continued to use it.
George IV enjoyed grandiose schemes and he asked the architects John Nash and Sir Jeffry Wyatville to expand and improve the house. When the King died in 1830 Wyatville was in the process of building a large banqueting saloon. This room and the small octagonal room adjoining it were the princ.i.p.al features to be retained when most of the house was demolished after the King's death. Thereafter the Lodge was little used until the late 1860s, when it became a grace-and-favour residence, lived in mostly by members of the Royal Household, until the arrival of the Yorks. Alterations and additions had been haphazardly made. The front door was reached only through a long conservatory. Wyatville's splendid saloon with its five bays of tall Gothic windows had been divided into three rather poky rooms and additional rooms built above it. The rest was cramped and poorly maintained.
Queen Mary, ever practical, was at first opposed to her son and daughter-in-law taking on the property. She urged the Duke to turn it down on the grounds that the house was very small, the garden was expensive to keep up, they would be expected to contribute to all the Windsor charities, and they would need a caretaker. In a word, she was concerned that they could not afford it. 'I tender my advice for what it is worth but I believe you will agree with me, both of you.'129 They did not. They saw past the dilapidation and, like George IV always a favourite of the d.u.c.h.ess, who called him 'Old Naughty' they both loved the house at once.
The d.u.c.h.ess wrote to Queen Mary saying that they thought it was 'the most delightful place & the garden quite enchanting, also the little wood'. There were not quite enough bedrooms for the four of them, but they could manage if her husband took one of the small downstairs rooms as his dressing room. 'It would be wonderful for the children, and I am sure that they would be very happy there.'130 She understood the financial constraints they had already had to make economies but she thought they could manage. Thriftily, she told the Queen that to save on carpets they would 'fill up with linoleum'.131 (Much of that linoleum was still there when she died.) Queen Mary was not displeased that her initial advice had been ignored; once it was clear that they had set their hearts upon it, she entered into the project with enthusiasm.132 Inevitably, the more they considered it all, the more work needed to be done. The first thing was to take out the part.i.tions in the big saloon and restore it to Wyatville's intended glory. The floor there turned out to be in bad condition and so they put down parquet. They changed the old kitchen into a dining room, and moved the kitchen towards the back of the house the d.u.c.h.ess thought that would cut down on the smell of cooking around the house and would allow the staff to be more self-contained.133 Having then decided that they should demolish the enormous conservatory and build a new family wing, they found a firm of builders who would do the whole job largely to the Duke's own designs including all new bathroom and other fittings for a little over 5,000. As he observed in the history of the house which he later compiled, economic conditions in 1931 were 'not propitious for approaching the Treasury for a grant'.134 Instead, the Duke proposed to his father that they should go ahead and pay for the work themselves. He hoped his father would approve the scheme.135 The King did. Dust and debris reigned, but by the end of 1932 the rather gloomy, run-down house had been successfully transformed into a charming and comfortable home.
Their hopes for Royal Lodge, in the words of the Duke's biographer, were that it should be 'their real home', where they could relax, where 'the keynote was to be gaiety and love and laughter; above all a home where their children might grow up with the boon and the blessing of a family life replete with affection and understanding, such as the d.u.c.h.ess had enjoyed, and the Duke had never known'.136 He might have added that it was to be another St Paul's Walden.
The garden was just as important to them as the house. It offered the d.u.c.h.ess her first chance to indulge the love of gardening she had absorbed from her mother, and it gave the Duke scope to develop his talent for landscaping. He liked being out in all weathers, and would sally forth 'clad in a blue overall and armed with a double edged javelin chopper, clippers and saw' and followed by 'a small army of household servants', supplemented during Ascot week by any available visitors, to help clear the grounds.137 With the advice of Eric Savill, the Deputy Surveyor of Windsor Parks and Woods, he and the d.u.c.h.ess created what was later described as 'one of the most beautiful smaller gardens in the country'.138 They replanted and extended the existing garden, bringing in a waterfall and a series of pools to enlarge the rock garden. A woodland area containing many fine old trees was also added, and in this they took special interest and pleasure. Within it they made glades of flowering shrubs and trees and gra.s.sy walks interspersed with statues, including one, Charity, copied from the original at St Paul's Walden. The Duke loved rhododendrons, about which he became knowledgeable, and planted many new varieties; the d.u.c.h.ess had a special affection for magnolias.
In addition to its echoes of her childhood home, the garden acquired another link with the d.u.c.h.ess's youth: her convalescent soldier friend Ernest Pearce, who in 1935 was unemployed. She offered him a job as gardener at Royal Lodge, where he remained until his death in 1969.* There was also a miniature garden for the little thatched and fully furnished house called Y Bwthyn Bach, which the people of Wales presented to Princess Elizabeth on her sixth birthday in 1932, and which still stands there today. The two Princesses were given the task of looking after its garden.
In 1936 the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess called in the architect and landscape designer Geoffrey Jellicoe, who designed new terraces to link the house more harmoniously with its setting.139 The garden remained a great source of pleasure to the d.u.c.h.ess throughout her life.
PREOCCUPIED AS they were by their new home, their public duties continued. In early March 1932 the Duke made an informal industrial tour of Lancashire and later in the month they both went to Cardiff. They were touched by the courage of the unemployed miners and their families and lent their support to fundraising efforts for the Blaina and District Hospital which was perilously short of money. Afterwards the d.u.c.h.ess received a letter from a voluntary social worker in Blaina, thanking her for 'all the immense joy you gave to that sad, disgruntled people. They felt they were forgotten by all the world, & then you came & a new force of life thrilled thro' them.'140 Her involvement in the arts was developing and she was showing an interest in contemporary work. She gave her support, for instance, to the Camargo Society for the Production of Ballet,* and the matinee she attended on 29 February was devised and performed by some of the most exciting artists of the time: she met their Vice-President, Madame Tamara Karsavina, and Lydia Lopokova (wife of the economist John Maynard Keynes), Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton. William Walton's Facade and Darius Milhaud's La Creation du monde were performed. Constant Lambert and Alicia Markova were also present. The d.u.c.h.ess was developing her own style, and although her relationship with the King and Queen was never confrontational, her tastes were quite distinct, and in the case of the ballet and art could be considered relatively avant garde. She became an enthusiastic balletomane over the years ahead, and it was a pa.s.sion that she pa.s.sed on to Princess Margaret.
Other organizations she supported that spring and early summer included the Royal General Theatrical Fund, the Royal Cancer Hospital, the Child Haven children's home near Brentford, the National Council of Girls' Clubs in Liverpool, and the Forty-Five Churches Fund, through which she was involved in welfare work in east London a particular interest to her. She paid a visit to Plymouth which had had to be cancelled the year before. In June she and the Duke visited the Ex-Services Welfare Society in Leatherhead, which provided a home and workshops for those suffering severe mental breakdown as a result of the war. Ex-servicemen and their work always appealed to her and at the end of June she received purses in aid of the Duke of Richmond's Convalescent Home for Discharged Soldiers.
For her birthday that August the King and Queen gave her a shared present with the Duke it was a Chinese screen for Royal Lodge.141 She was delighted and thanked the King 'a thousand times for your great kindness'. The bad news, however, was that with her birthday 'I am beginning to feel pretty aged, & today I found TWO GREY HAIRS!! I suppose one must expect this at 32, or shall I pay a visit to my hairdresser, & come out a platinum blonde!'142 The King had been, as usual, racing his yacht at Cowes and she hoped that sailing had given him 'a rest from the cares of these troubled times'. In a touching and significant statement of her feelings, she thanked him for all that he and the Queen had done for her. 'I was very young & ignorant of the world when I married & had no idea at all of what I would be plunged into the pitfalls were many; but Bertie was so good, and you & Mama so kind & forgiving of my mistakes that I shall always feel very grateful to you for your understanding & affection. It means so much to me, & it has helped me tremendously. I do hope that you don't mind me saying this it somehow just came as I wrote.'143 This summer they had once more asked the King to lend them Birkhall, rather than have them to stay at Balmoral. The Queen was not happy as she relied on the Yorks to be the most attentive of her children; she professed to be surprised.144 In the end she and the King did allow them to base themselves at Birkhall on one condition, that the little Princesses came to stay at Balmoral for a week as well.145 Once again Birkhall seduced them and they put off their return to London as long as they could. The d.u.c.h.ess loved the feeling of isolation in the wild, the beauty of the trees and the tumbling river outside her window. 'I am so happy here,' she wrote. 'In fact I am certain that I am a most simple creature and am most ill suited to my present calling. I inherit a hermit complex from my Lyon family side, & the older I get, the more exclusive I feel.'146 (She probably meant 'reclusive'.) During their summer in Scotland the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess had visited Glasgow. The horror of unemployment was very clear in all the villages they drove through and she told Queen Mary, 'It was very sad to see the sad & lean faces of the men. I am afraid there is a great deal of misery.' The Depression was indeed causing more and more misery and on 1 November hunger marchers reached London. Both the d.u.c.h.ess and Queen Mary were frustrated that they could not do more to help. The d.u.c.h.ess had her own solution: 'It is the men who need work so much women do not need employment in the same way they can be happy when idle, but a man ought to work. I would like to make all the women who have jobs that men could do, give them up. I know that this is impossible, but I wish that it was not.'147 Writing to D'Arcy Osborne, she said, 'I am feeling very thwarted at this moment. There is so much to be done in this country, things that I could easily do, but a combination of Press & Precedent make it impossible. And I am quite sure that it is not only useless, but almost dangerous to flout convention. Curse it!' Making the same point as she had to Queen Mary, but in stronger terms, she wrote: I cannot see how the older men can ever work again. It is a tragedy, & unless the land can absorb some work & unless some women will give up their jobs, I fear that a lot of men will be workless all their lives. Women can be idle quite happily they can spend hours trying their hair in new ways, & making last year's black coat into this year's jumper, & all this on 3 cups of tea and some buns. But a man must be seriously busy, & eat meat. Therefore, I think it a crime for women to take jobs that men can do as well.
She added, 'I am writing very wildly I am afraid.'148 Her belief that women were automatically less fitted for most jobs than men was outdated, as D'Arcy Osborne pointed out to her in response, even as he sympathized with her 'frustration complex over unemployment & other national affairs'. He suggested ironically, 'perhaps one day you will be able to take things in hand and order the women of the country from the plough and the counting house to their proper place, the home'.149 In the event, when her day did come she was to praise young women who put their hand to the plough during the Second World War and to give her whole-hearted support to organizations, both civilian and military, which provided work for women. She called herself 'anti-feminist' in 1934,150 and would still have done so a lifetime later; but her position made her a valuable catch for working women's organizations needing publicity or funds, and she gave patronage and active help to many of these, avoiding only those of 'a political complexion'.151 On Christmas Day 1932, for the first time, the King broadcast a message to the Empire, speaking into a microphone installed at Sandringham. The message was relayed widely, including to the congregation in Canterbury Cathedral. Cosmo Lang wrote to the d.u.c.h.ess to say that the worshippers had been deeply moved. 'I suppose hardly any of them had ever heard his voice before.' Dr Lang also congratulated the Yorks on the way they carried out their duties.152 The d.u.c.h.ess appreciated his 'nice and cheering letter' and told him how much she enjoyed her '(alas) rare' talks with him. She hoped to be able to see him soon. 'Life becomes more complicated daily. I am lucky in having a very happy family life, which, of course, gives one great strength, and I am indeed grateful, as without it, the hurry & rush would be too much to bear.'153 Early in the new year of 1933 she left the children with their grandparents at Sandringham. The Queen was, as always, delighted and reported that Princess Margaret 'is a great pickle & does all kinds of things to annoy Papa, tho' she seems to be very fond of him, she thinks it is funny & looks up at him with wicked eyes after she has done it, she is very attractive'.154 The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess continued to work on Royal Lodge; she had bought chairs for her bedroom, 'a rather battered but good clock', some china, and other furniture, pictures and chintzes. There were still pungent smells of new paint and fusty carpets which she hoped time and fresh air would banish. They had to put up a shed for garden furniture and build a meat larder. There was time also to relax; they went skating on the lake near by in the Great Park.155 The next need was for a dog and in summer 1933 the family took delivery of Dookie, the first of a long line of Welsh corgis, supplied by Miss Thelma Evans, of Rozavel Kennels in Reigate.156* From now on generations of corgis grew up with the d.u.c.h.ess and her daughters.
The demands of their public life in the early 1930s, as well as those of home and family, were slowly changing their priorities. Days, and sometimes evenings too, were filled with public engagements, and their social life shrank in consequence. Often they dined with a few friends and went to see a film or a play afterwards; sometimes they went to the cinema by themselves, but they did not go as often to dances and b.a.l.l.s as in earlier years.
There was increasing pressure year by year to involve their children, or at least Princess Elizabeth, in public events. This was a pressure that the d.u.c.h.ess tried to resist, determined to give her children the kind of happy and unfettered life she herself had enjoyed. In 1933 she took on a young Scottish teacher, Marion Crawford, as governess to Princess Elizabeth. Since finishing her two-year teacher-training course at the Moray House Training College in Edinburgh in 1930 Miss Crawford had been governess to the daughter of the d.u.c.h.ess's sister Rose. It is evident from the letter she wrote to the d.u.c.h.ess setting out her qualifications that she had received a good theoretical and practical grounding, and her teacher's certificate, she said, described her as 'Very Promising'.157 Dermot Morrah, who talked to Marion Crawford for his authorized book on Princess Elizabeth in 1949, described her as attractive and very human, kindly but with 'the high sense of intellectual discipline which is an honourable tradition of Scotland'.158 Miss Crawford was invited for a trial visit to the family at Easter, and began teaching Princess Elizabeth in the autumn of 1933; Princess Margaret joined the cla.s.s in due course. A schoolroom was set up at 145 Piccadilly and lessons were from 9.15 to 12.30 with half an hour's break. The Princesses then lunched with their parents, if they were at home. In the early years at least, there were no more lessons after that; the children spent the afternoons out of doors whenever possible, and at 5.30 they went to their mother in her sitting room for an hour before supper and bedtime.
To judge from Marion Crawford's letters and timetables preserved in the Royal Archives, she was a serious-minded young woman who did her best to give her pupils the kind of solid education, self-discipline and wide-ranging instruction that would enable them to partic.i.p.ate intelligently in conversation and make sense of the world around them, rather than to excel academically. That Crawfie, as they called her, remained with the Princesses for the next fifteen years is evidence that she got on well with them and that her efforts satisfied their parents.
The d.u.c.h.ess seems to have been content to leave timetable and curriculum to the governess and intervened very little, except in those respects which echoed her own education. Like her own mother, she wished to teach her daughters Bible stories herself, and they came to her bedroom each morning for this. Like her mother, who had curtailed her lessons and told her governess that health was more important than examinations, she insisted on the children getting plenty of fresh air. Later, when the Princesses were a little older, she copied Lady Strathmore's practice of employing a French 'holiday governess', Georgina Guerin, the daughter of her own governess 'Made' Lang.* When the Linguaphone Inst.i.tute wrote offering her their First Course in Latin, a French literary course and a set of French songs for Princess Elizabeth, she ordered only the songs.159 As time went by, Marion Crawford did not find the d.u.c.h.ess very supportive; she commented that sometimes 'things are not made easy for me.' Even when Princess Elizabeth was eleven her mother was reluctant to allow a full school day. 'I have been more or less commanded to keep the afternoons as free of "serious" work as possible,' the governess recorded.160 To her credit Miss Crawford made the best of this, giving the girls lessons as they walked in the garden and devising educational games for them. Not always successfully: she tried giving them a geographical Happy Families to take downstairs after tea, when they went to see their parents, 'but I am afraid if I am not there to play too,' she reported, 'Racing Demon wins the day.'161 Worse still, Crawfie's timetables were all too often disrupted by 'distractions like dentists, tailors and hair-dressers who seem very unwilling to come any other time of day than the morning'. When morning swimming lessons were introduced she won her point by persuading the d.u.c.h.ess to allow afternoon lessons in the garden to make up for the lost time. But she complained that her pupils often went to bed too late, so that they missed their morning piano practice and there was much yawning in cla.s.s.162 The governess found an ally in Queen Mary, who took a close interest in the children's education; her replies to the Queen's enquiries reveal the governess's frustrations with her employer.163 Another supporter was Owen Morshead, the Royal Librarian, who gave the Princesses regular historical tours of Windsor Castle when they were older. A 1941 letter from Queen Mary to Morshead shows her disapproval of her daughter-in-law's lackadaisical att.i.tude to the Princesses' education. 'Between ourselves,' she wrote, 'I asked nice Miss Crawford about your talks to the Princesses which she is so keen about, she says it is so awkward to fix definite hours or days for these as her dear Majesty constantly wants the children at odd moments, a fatal proceeding when one has lessons to do, & one which the late King & I never indulged in where lessons were concerned!'164 Morshead shared Queen Mary's view, writing to her later that Miss Crawford was 'apt to feel discouraged about her work from time to time'. He added: 'I will forbear from enlarging on this delicate point, in which I know Your Majesty's feelings are deeply engaged.' However he made clear that he was not impressed that the eighteen books recently ordered for Princess Elizabeth by her mother were all by P. G. Wodehouse.165 All this seems to show that the d.u.c.h.ess did not consider it necessary for her daughters to have any more rigorous or extensive an education than she had received herself. Instead, she wanted them to have plenty of fresh air, exercise, fun and light reading. In academic terms the education she arranged for her children was similar to that given to daughters of aristocratic families at the time, many of whom were still taught at home. But it was, inevitably, an imperfect education, dispensed mostly by a governess whose experience and expertise were narrow. Moreover the Princesses lacked the companionship and stimulation of other children as cla.s.smates, although activities outside the schoolroom, such as Madame Vacani's dancing cla.s.ses and the Girl Guides,* made up for this to some extent.
When it became clear that Princess Elizabeth needed a better training for her future role, her mother followed wise advice in arranging for Henry Marten, the Vice-Provost of Eton, to give her history lessons from 1939. For the first of these tutorials Princess Elizabeth was taken by carriage to Marten's study at Eton, where she sat and listened, surrounded by piles of books on the floor an unfamiliar sight for her. Later the carriage was sent to bring Marten to the Castle. Marie-Antoinette de Bellaigue, an intelligent and cultivated woman who taught both Princesses European history as well as French from 1942 and remained a trusted friend to them for many years, also helped give them a wider outlook. She felt strongly, however, that their mother took too little interest in their academic education.166 What always mattered most for the d.u.c.h.ess was moral and spiritual education, and here her mother's influence ran deep. She brought up her own children in the Christian principles she had learned; her letters to her daughters remind them to be kind, to be thoughtful to others, and to keep their temper and their word.167 She was also keenly aware of children's sensitivities, and believed encouragement and understanding vital to their development something that she felt her husband's upbringing had lacked. Among her private papers is a note she wrote for him 'in case of anything happening to me': Be very careful not to ridicule your children or laugh at them. When they say funny things it is usually quite innocent, and if they are silly or 'show off' they should be quietly stopped, & told why afterwards if people are there.
Always try & talk very quietly to children. Never shout or frighten them, as otherwise you lose their delightful trust in you.
Remember how your father, by shouting at you, & making you feel uncomfortable lost all your real affection. None of his sons are his friends, because he is not understanding & helpful to them.168 *
AT CHRISTMAS 1933 Archbishop Lang sent the d.u.c.h.ess another of his annual letters of praise for her public work. She replied hoping that the new year would be 'a happier one for many people in this land, and their happiness will certainly make us happier. One cannot help worrying over the misery & hardship suffered by so many good people, and their courage in facing hardship is the thing that I admire most in them. It is a great example to all of us luxurious minded creatures not you, but us I mean!'169 Her public commitments continued as usual. On 16 February 1934 she opened the X-ray department of the Marie Curie Hospital in Hampstead and that evening she and the Duke attended the Jubilee Ball at the Dorchester Hotel of the London Angus a.s.sociation. Aberdeen Angus cattle were to be a lifelong interest to her, and she felt very much among friends at this gathering.170 The Toc H League of Women Helpers was an organization in which she took a special interest and she agreed to open their new headquarters, New June, in the City of London, to be dedicated by the founder of Toc H, the Rev. Tubby Clayton, on 21 February. Her friendship with him lasted for years.171 She continued to work for 'her' hospital, St Mary's Paddington, and many other organizations claimed her time and attention over the next months.
That summer Lady Strathmore was ill again and the Duke suffered acute pain from a poisoned hand, which required surgery. He was out of action for weeks and the d.u.c.h.ess had to make a long-planned trip to Sheffield on her own. The fifth-largest city in the country, Sheffield had a substantial working-cla.s.s population and had borne the Depression and unemployment bravely. She had a full programme and she was delighted with the warm welcome she received. She visited the Painted Fabrics workshops and the disabled ex-servicemen it employed.* On the way she stopped at the home of one of the workmen, a much decorated but badly injured old soldier, Sergeant 'Taffy' Llewellyn, who was too weak to go to the workshops for her visit. She talked to him, according to the administrator, 'with such perfect understanding, that his poor shattered body and entire system received just the tonic it needed to put up a fresh fight against the terrible depression from which he has been suffering for so many months, and for which the doctor could do nothing'.172 Her private account of her visit to the city, in a letter to Osbert Sitwell, was exuberant. She declared, 'It took me three baths and three days to become clean after my two days in Sheffield never have I been so dirty. Smoke, steel filings, oil & coal dust all gathered to cast a dusky hue over my person, & five hours on end with the charming and very Labour Lord Mayor completed my rout.'173 Later that year she had an artistic diversion. Oswald Birley, one of the most successful painters of the time, was commissioned to paint a group of her friends known to each other (and to no others) as the Windsor Wets' Club. The club had been founded a few years earlier with the d.u.c.h.ess as patroness and it reflected her sense of mischief. The Wets were, in a phrase, a secret group of like-minded tipplers intent on raising their collective spirits. Their motto was Aqua vitae non aqua pura. 'The great thing was', she explained many years later, 'that being a SECRET SOCIETY we had to have a secret sign, & this was, to raise the gla.s.s to other members without being seen by the disapprovers!'174 Most of its devotees were members of the Royal Household, and their clandestine a.s.sociation enlivened the tedium of many a Court function.*
The d.u.c.h.ess's chief co-conspirator was d.i.c.k Molyneux, the club's Honorary Treasurer, to whom she wrote a spoof letter in June 1931 accepting the post of patroness: 'It is with pride and pleasure that I accept this responsible position, and if the occasion arises, you may rest a.s.sured that your Patroness will be with you to the last gla.s.s.' They kept up a humorous correspondence about club business, including her suggestion of a club tie with champagne stripes on a claret ground.175 In May 1934 the lure of immortality encouraged the Wets to have their portrait painted. The d.u.c.h.ess was also enthusiastic; she had liked Birley's work he had painted her portrait for one of her regiments, the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. In August that year, when she was staying with the Elphinstones at Gannochy, she wrote to Molyneux although he was in the same house party to inform him that: I have decided to make Lady Eldon (spouse of our valued Secretary) an honorary Lady Member of the Club. And no interference from you please. It's quite time that I took the reins again I can see.
Well, aqua vitae non aqua pura still holds good, & I hope that you will have a good week here & will live up to the motto of the Club. Elizabeth (Patroness).176 Birley accepted the commission; his excellent and humorous portrait still hangs at Windsor Castle.177 It shows a number of the gentlemen members of the Club sitting and standing around a table laden with port and wine after dinner at Windsor. Since women were not supposed to partic.i.p.ate in such occasions, the d.u.c.h.ess of York and the d.u.c.h.ess of Beaufort are present only as portraits on the wall, while Lady Eldon peers from around a screen; the Duke of York's membership is also signalled by his portrait. 'It was a silly, but most enjoyable underground movement,' Queen Elizabeth said later, '& we laughed a lot.'178 *
AT THE END of July 1934 the d.u.c.h.ess went to Cowes with the King and Queen. She looked forward to it. 'I like the feel of yacht racing it is very exciting, & very peaceful. No noise, except the creak of the sails & the water rushing by & a glow of health after a few days at sea!!'179 In the event the weather was poor and she only had one day racing on Britannia;* they spent more time than they expected aboard the royal yacht, the Victoria and Albert. The d.u.c.h.ess made the best of it, writing to Osbert Sitwell 'in a little house on the top deck. It has leather seats, silver fittings and too many ta.s.sels to count. Extremely Edwardian, & of course extremely comfortable. I am looking at a battleship as I write, hundreds of seagulls are crying & n.o.body bothers me, so I am happy.'180 She left Cowes on her thirty-fourth birthday and that day Britannia had a spectacular win, beating her rival Astra by twelve seconds.181 The d.u.c.h.ess wrote to the King to say that she 'would have blown up with excitement!' if she had been there. 'It is very odd, but nothing in the whole year gives me such pleasure as my few days at Cowes, I feel quite different, & so happy ... there is something so exhilarating about the elements, the sea & the wind & the sun, and one feels far away from the horrors of modern civilization with its noise and eternal hurry.'182 She and the Duke and their daughters now travelled, as every August, to Scotland where they divided their time between Glamis and Birkhall. It was an idyllic interlude; the girls in particular loved it. They took Princess Margaret for the first time to the Braemar Gathering; this display of Highland Games was a regular engagement for the Royal Family but not one in which many members rejoiced. This year the King escaped it, on grounds of a slight chill. At the end of their holiday the family was as sad as ever to leave Birkhall. The d.u.c.h.ess told the King, 'Lilibet nearly wept when we left the other day.'183 However, they were soon caught up in the preparations for the major royal event of the year. In the autumn of 1934 the King's fourth son Prince George, Duke of Kent, became engaged to and married Princess Marina of Greece. The d.u.c.h.ess had discussed this possibility with the Prince himself and with Queen Mary while they were together in Cowes. She told the Queen that she hoped something would come of the idea but 'He must get to know her well, because with his character it would be madness to marry somebody who was not congenial to him.'184 Before the Duke left to meet the Princess in Yugoslavia in August, he wrote to the d.u.c.h.ess to say that he doubted anything would happen. In the event, he was pleasantly surprised by the beautiful Greek Princess by the end of the month he was engaged and the d.u.c.h.ess wrote to congratulate him. 'She is so sweet, & so pretty, and do tell her that n.o.body will welcome her more than her future sister in law ... Darling, Bertie & I, the old married couple, pray that you will both be as happy as we are.'185 In mid-September the bride-to-be and her parents, Prince and Princess Nicholas of Greece, accompanied by Prince George, came to Balmoral to meet their future in-laws. The d.u.c.h.ess may well have sympathized with Princess Marina, whose introduction to the Royal Family was, in its way, as daunting as her own had been. Ironically, Princess Marina would have been perfectly at ease with the bevy of royal cousins and aunts gathered at Sandringham to inspect Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon in 1923. Lady Elizabeth, on the other hand, would have seen nothing odd in the King and all the male members of his family turning out in kilts to greet her, nor in the Ghillies' Ball to which the Greek visitors were subjected two days later. But they at least 'seemed to enjoy' the ball, as the King noted cautiously in his diary.186 The d.u.c.h.ess then arranged for Beryl Poignand to come in to deal with Princess Marina's correspondence. 'Don't forget to make a nice curtsey to Marina, her mother & father, & anybody that should be curtseyed to!' she warned her old friend. 'Practise shaking hands & bending those proud knees of yours. A curtsey in the morning ought to get you through the day!' But of course, she added, 'this doesn't apply to you & me. It's only for other members of the Royal family ... Au revoir and sharpen up the old pencil. Your loving E.'187 Most of the important members of the remaining royal houses in Europe came to London for the wedding on 29 November 1934. At the first 'family' dinner, for seventy-five, the d.u.c.h.ess sat between Prince Charles of Sweden and Prince Nicholas of Greece, the father of the bride. Her old friend Prince Paul of Yugoslavia was also at her table. Another guest was Princess Marina's thirteen-year-old cousin Prince Philip of Greece, who was at school at Gordonstoun. The next night the King and Queen gave a party for 800 people at the Palace.
The wedding day was overcast but fortunately there was no fog as had been feared and the marriage was clearly popular. Princess Elizabeth was again an excited bridesmaid. The four-year-old Princess Margaret was keen to go to the wedding too; the King and Queen agreed on condition that the d.u.c.h.ess could 'really guarantee that Margaret will behave like an angel & that you will keep her near you'.188 The d.u.c.h.ess complied. She wore what The Times called 'an unusual shade of j.a.ponica-pink velvet. The coat had a collar of blue fox fur and wide sleeves drawn into a band at the cuffs. Her close fitting hat had two tufts of shaded pink feathers at the side.'189 She led Princess Margaret, who was wearing a cream satin coat and bonnet trimmed with narrow bands of beaver, by the hand into the Abbey. The Princess sat on a stool at her mother's feet and, according to her grandfather, Lord Strathmore, she was 'as good as gold' during the service.190 The Daily Telegraph recorded that when her sister appeared, holding the train, only a few feet from her, Princess Margaret waved to attract her attention, whereupon Princess Elizabeth gave her a stern look and shook her head. 'Thenceforth all exuberance was quelled.'191 *
DURING 1935 THE Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Kent began to play an active part in public life, which relieved the pressure upon the Prince of Wales and the Yorks. This was welcome to them all, because it was an especially busy year, the year of the King's Silver Jubilee. The d.u.c.h.ess of York's files show her turning down as many engagements as she accepted. She rejected most charitable film premieres because she believed that they did more for the film companies than for the charities. She was firm about where she wanted to go and what she would do, but flexible and generous in her approach to the people on the ground, and ready to change dates or times to suit them. Charity organizers were often pleasantly surprised by her willingness to shake more hands and spend more time than expected, because she knew the pleasure it gave.
The King and Queen asked them to attend more functions at Court than usual this year, but both she and the Duke much preferred their relatively independent public work with their own patronages and charities to the predictable and repet.i.tive formalities of Court life. The d.u.c.h.ess scored a small but important victory in this respect by writing the King a cleverly worded letter asking him to allow her to accept the honorary colonelcy of the London Scottish Regiment. If he agreed, she said, 'I promise you that I should behave very quietly and not traipse about Hyde Park in a grey kilt!'192 She pointed out that the Scots so easily felt left out and she would be sorry if she had to cancel her attendance at the regiment's annual prize-giving and concert in order to attend a Court. As usual her charm worked the King gave way to her on both issues.
The Jubilee was a much greater success than anyone, in particular the King, had dared to hope. Indeed it was in every way a vindication of the King's low-key but steadfast approach to his task, his devotion to his duty, his acceptance of political change and his strategy of reaching out to his people.
On 6 May, the actual anniversary of the King's accession, the four Yorks led the royal carriage procession to St Paul's for the thanksgiving service. The King wrote in his diary, 'A never to be forgotten day, when we celebrated our Silver Jubilee. It was a glorious summer's day 75 in the shade. The greatest number of people in the streets that I have ever seen in my life, the enthusiasm was indeed most touching.' After returning to Buckingham Palace he was gratified to be cheered by an enormous crowd. 'By only one post in morning I received 610 letters. At 8.0 I broadcast a message of thanks to the Empire. After dinner we went out on the balcony again & there must have been 100,000 people.'193 Every night that week, the King and Queen appeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony and every night it was the same. Every day he and the Queen were driven in an open coach through London. In all the poorest areas Lambeth, Whitechapel, Battersea, Kennington, Limehouse they were greeted by rapturous crowds. Hordes of children waving flags and shouting, their parents smiling, laughing and clapping, greeted the dignified elderly couple everywhere. Houses were exuberantly decorated with streamers, flags and bunting and the King remarked in his diary that all this decoration had been put up 'by the poor'. The King's official biographer, Harold Nicolson, noted later that students of ma.s.s behaviour were 'fascinated and perplexed' by this popular rejoicing. Among the reasons he gave were deep affection for the King, pride that Britain's monarchy, unlike so many others, had survived, reverence for the Crown as a symbol of patriotism, and more. 'Comfort in the realization that here was a strong benevolent patriarch personifying the highest standards of the race. Grat.i.tude to a man who by his probity had earned the esteem of the whole world.'194 Dedicated left-wingers like the distinguished radical sociologist Beatrice Webb disliked what they saw. More flexible ones rejoiced. George Orwell suggested that it was possible to see in the expressions of loyalty 'the survival, or recrudescence, of an idea almost as old as history, the idea of the King and the common people being in some sort of alliance against the upper cla.s.ses.'195 The Jubilee gave a great fillip to thousands of charities which launched Jubilee appeals and enlisted different members of the Royal Family in their causes. The King's Fund sold 11,000 worth of seats at Jubilee processions. Canada raised 250,000 for a Silver Jubilee Cancer Fund within weeks of its being launched. All over the Empire Jubilee contributions came pouring in.196 The King was surprised and moved by it all. After one happy drive through the East End, he said to his nurse Sister Black, 'I'd no idea they felt like that about me ... I am beginning to think they must really like me for myself.'197 The Yorks played their part in the celebrations. On 9 May they went with the rest of the family to Westminster Hall where the King received loyal addresses. There were 2,000 people there they sang the National Anthem robustly and cheered wildly. The next night the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess took the night train to Edinburgh to a.s.sist in Scotland's own Jubilee festivities.
The celebrations continued until early June. On the 8th (the day after Ramsay MacDonald resigned as prime minister on grounds of health, and Stanley Baldwin was sworn in) the King and Queen made the last of their triumphal drives around London. The emotion and enthusiasm engendered by such an event as the Jubilee produce many monuments. One of the most important from 1935 was King George's Jubilee Trust, a national appeal headed by the Prince of Wales to 'promote the welfare of the younger generation'. A total of 1 million was quickly raised and distributed between existing youth organizations and the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.
Soon after the Jubilee Trust was launched, Punch published a cartoon of a man in uniform looking angry as he read in the Daily Mail the news of the 'King's Call to Youth' and saying, 'I thought I had the best youth movement in Europe, but I begin to think I am mistaken.' The uniformed man was Adolf Hitler.198 *
THROUGHOUT MOST of the 'long weekend', successive British governments of the early 1930s had encouraged the people to believe that another appalling war could be best avoided by the magic of collective security. The League of Nations, created with great optimism in 1919, was portrayed by most people as by far the best hope of avoiding the cataclysm of war. Mutual restraint and the spirit of co-operation under the aegis of international law were offered as the best deterrents to aggressors. Such hopes were completely understandable given the horrors of 191418 but, after the rise of the dictators, less and less realistic. In Britain governments and most people believed that, after Pa.s.schendaele and the Somme, no one would ever wish to go to war again. They failed to reckon with the fascist mentality, which derived an entirely different lesson from the Great War that their countries had not been ruthless enough.
In September 1930 the German people, terrified by the economic crisis and the threat of runaway inflation, awarded Hitler's National Socialist Party 107 seats in the Reichstag. In January 1933 Hitler was invited to form a national government and the Reichstag fire a few weeks later gave him an excuse to arrest all communist deputies; that summer he a.s.serted that n.a.z.ism was now the only legitimate force in Germany. His dictatorship was established. In March 1935, he defied the Treaty of Versailles by introducing conscription. As Harold Nicolson put it, 'to attentive ears there came, in the last months of George V's life, the distant grumble of the thunder of a second war.'199 But not everyone wished to hear it and those, like Winston Churchill, who heard it most clearly were often denounced as selfish warmongers.
Soon after Hitler seized total power, Kathe Kubler, who had been the d.u.c.h.ess's governess at Glamis from 1913 until the outbreak of war in 1914, had written to her former pupil protesting that the British press was horribly biased against Herr Hitler and a.s.suring her that the stories attacking him were completely untrue.200 No reply from the d.u.c.h.ess has been found, but Fraulein Kubler may have come to regret her pro-Hitler views. Queen Elizabeth said later, 'She was the headmistress of a big school in Munich and then those horrible n.a.z.is discovered she was a Jew and she was out in a day. She was sacked.'201*
More influential with the d.u.c.h.ess was undoubtedly her friend D'Arcy Osborne, still at the British Emba.s.sy in Washington. By early 1934 he was increasingly alarmed by the breakdown of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism in Europe. n.a.z.ism appalled him: 'what a nauseating and ridiculous affair it all is with its spurious Aryanism and its Germanic theology.' He evidently shared the d.u.c.h.ess's misgivings about Germany. 'Apparently the Germans are miserable unless they can be drilled and driven like a mob of halfwits. I would dearly like to wipe Germany and j.a.pan off the map of the world with two neat smudges of the thumb and I am sure we would all be a lot better off.'202 In another letter he asked if she was as depressed about the world as he was. 'What are we going to do to stop the Germans from planning and making a new war in their own good time?'203 On this matter the d.u.c.h.ess and the King were not far apart. George V had always distrusted and disliked both Mussolini and the n.a.z.is. He talked of 'those horrid fellows, Goering and Goebbels'. He detested the n.a.z.is' Jew-baiting and the brutality with which the fascists achieved power. In April 1934 he warned the German Amba.s.sador that his country's ma.s.sive rearmament was threatening Europe with war and 'ridiculed' the Amba.s.sador's explanation.204 In September 1934 the British Amba.s.sador to Berlin, Sir Eric Phipps, wrote to the King predicting that the regime would not change 'The n.a.z.is have their hands on every lever now; besides, and this also is important, large numbers of Germans regard Hitler with a species of mystic adoration: some pick up the earth upon which he treads to keep as a precious souvenir.'205*
The King understood. A few months later, in January 1935, his Private Secretary Sir Clive Wigram wrote to the Amba.s.sador saying the King felt that 'we must not be blinded by the apparent sweet reasonableness of the Germans, but be wary and not taken unawares.'206 But, like millions of his subjects, the King dreaded the prospect of another war. In May 1935 he told Lloyd George, 'I will not have another war. I will not. The last one was none of my doing and if there is another one and we are threatened with being brought into it, I will go to Trafalgar Square and wave a red flag myself sooner than allow this country to be brought in.'207 As the joy of the Jubilee celebrations faded, the King and his government were compelled to spend more and more time contemplating the threats from the dictators. In October 1935, deriding the notions of collective security and international law, Mussolini declared war on and invaded Abyssinia. The King was more concerned about the future than ever; he repeatedly consulted the new Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel h.o.a.re, who later wrote, 'I believe that it was the anxieties of Abyssinia, coming as they did on the top of the Silver Jubilee celebrations, that killed the King.'208 *
ON 6 NOVEMBER Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was to be married to Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, who became one of the most dedicated and beloved members of the Royal Family. She was the sister of the d.u.c.h.ess's girlhood friend Mida (Lady Margaret Ida Montagu-Douglas-Scott). The two Princesses were to be bridesmaids. The bride and maids were dressed by Norman Hartnell; and the d.u.c.h.ess took her daughters to his shop for a fitting. 'I noticed then, for the first time,' Hartnell wrote in his memoirs, 'the intentionally measured and deliberate pace of Royal ladies. With lovely smile and gracious movement the d.u.c.h.ess of York acknowledged on either side the reverences of the women present and very slowly moved on and out of sight.'209 She liked Hartnell's ideas and he subsequently became one of her most important dress designers. Alice Scott's father, the Duke of Buccleuch, died shortly before the wedding; instead of postponing the ceremony, the families decided that it should take place privately in the chapel at Buckingham Palace. 'Now all the children are married but David,' the King recorded laconically in his diary.210 On 29 November the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of York left London on the Golden Arrow for Paris. There they were to attend the annual banquet of the Caledonian Society of France, which wanted to make a special Silver Jubilee occasion of its annual dinner on St Andrew's Day.211 They had accepted on condition that there was no general election taking place in Britain at that time and that the political situation in France was quiet.212 In the event the expected election had taken place on 14 November the National Government, led by Stanley Baldwin, was returned. As for