The Queen Mother Part 12
That flattered Her;
Where are the friends of yesterday,
Submitting to His every whim,
Offering praise of her as myrrh
To him?
What do they say, that jolly crew,
So new, and brave, and free and easy,
What do they say, that jolly crew,
Who must make even Judas queasy?
Sitwell was concerned that, despite their long friendship, the new Queen might not like his poem and he did not send it to her himself, telling her later that he thought it would be 'an impertinence'.155 He had no reason to worry. She loved it, writing to him, 'I must tell you first of all, that we all thought your satire absolutely brilliant. It really is perfect it hits hard (and never too hard for me) and is wickedly amusing.'
In this unusually acerbic letter, which perhaps betrayed the strain she was under at the time, she told him what a relief it was to have his amusing and friendly letter 'amongst the vast amount of begging letters, complaints, appeals, warnings, lunatic ramblings etc which go to make up one's daily postbag. Not forgetting bad poetry, bad drawings & paintings, bad music & other bad things sent by the mad & bad who seem to people the world. So you can imagine how one falls greedily on the few friendly letters that come, and yours was very welcome!'156 *
AFTER THE RELAXING sojourn at Sandringham, the family had the unwelcome prospect of beginning life at Buckingham Palace. None of them wished to leave the happy home at 145 Piccadilly for the rather grim 'office' of the Palace. Queen Elizabeth later described this as the worst house move of her life.157 The date chosen was 15 February. The King drove up from Royal Lodge and the Queen went first to an engagement at the British Industries Fair at White City in west London. The Times reported, 'The whole move was accomplished without ceremony, and no change in the exterior appearance of the Palace will be visible to the casual pa.s.ser-by. The Royal Standard flew while Their Majesties were still living in Piccadilly, and no increase in the number of sentries at the gates is made. It is understood that the King and Queen will use the rooms on the first floor formerly occupied by King George and Queen Mary.' The rooms were not yet ready for them, and they lived temporarily on the ground floor. It was not very comfortable, but at least the young Princesses enjoyed playing in the broad corridors. With her mother-in-law's diligent advice this time welcome the Queen set about acquiring some new furnishings. At the suggestion of Queen Mary, Mrs Charles Rothschild gave her several sets of silk curtains from her family's house in Piccadilly. 'Hooray!' wrote the Queen, 'what splendid news about the curtains, and how wonderful a success your letter had! It really is a triumph, and most kind of Mrs Rothschild to offer us that lovely silk. One can get nothing to touch it nowadays.' Major Williams, the official responsible for the furnishings at Buckingham Palace, 'turned quite pale with excitement when I told him!' Queen Mary also tracked down a chandelier and wall lights for her.158 The Queen had started making appointments to her own Household. She was able to surround herself with people she knew well, liked and trusted. As d.u.c.h.ess of York she had had just two ladies in waiting, Helen Graham and Lettice Bowlby (with her great friends Lavinia Annaly and Tortor Gilmour as temporary additions); now she had a hierarchy of nine ladies. Her most senior lady, the Mistress of the Robes, by tradition had to be a d.u.c.h.ess, and she chose Doris Vyner's aunt, Helen, d.u.c.h.ess of Northumberland. Below the Mistress of the Robes came three Ladies of the Bedchamber: Countess Spencer (Cynthia, sister of the Queen's girlhood friend Katie Hamilton and future grandmother of Lady Diana Spencer), Viscountess Halifax (Dorothy, wife of the Lord Privy Seal and future Foreign Secretary), Viscountess Hambleden and Lady Nunburnholme (both friends of her debutante years, and the latter a bridesmaid at her wedding). Then there were four Women of the Bedchamber: Helen Graham and Lettice Bowlby stayed on in this role, and Queen Elizabeth also appointed Katie Seymour (nee Hamilton) and Marion Hyde,* with Lady Victoria Wemyss, a cousin on her mother's side, as Extra Woman of the Bedchamber. The Earl of Airlie Joe, friend and neighbour at Glamis since the Queen's childhood became her Lord Chamberlain, while Basil Brooke, the Duke of York's Comptroller since 1924, became her Treasurer. A little later she took on a private secretary of her own, Captain Richard Streatfeild.
Their first official engagement as monarchs was a visit to the East End of London on 13 February. Originally this visit was to have been made by King Edward VIII on 12 December in the event the day after the abdication. The invitation had come from the mayors of five boroughs and it was then extended to King George VI, with the request that the Queen came too 'as she is so very popular in our district'.159 Lord Cromer, Lord Chamberlain and head of the King's Household, thought it was important to accept, for 'there is a growing impression in the minds of the ignorant that the last King was "pushed out" largely because of the interest he took in the poor, which did not find favour in the eyes of the rich, nor of the Government people who are supposed to have disapproved of the interest taken in the Distressed Areas in Wales, and elsewhere ... These ideas are, of course, fantastic but at the same time they appear to be rooted and to be spreading in the minds of the ignorant.' He recommended therefore that the King and Queen should visit the East End as soon as might be possible.160 They agreed and the visit was a great success; the streets were filled with flags, bunting and cheering crowds.
In March the first official parties of the new reign were given a tea party at Buckingham Palace for the Diplomatic Corps on 11 March was followed by an afternoon reception five days later, at which Countess Spencer took a select number of the 500 guests to talk to the Queen. The Queen, she wrote, 'did it beautifully, & appeared to wish to talk to each guest a great gift'. Queen Mary was also there, 'looking wonderful in dead black lace & miles of pearls also the two little Princesses most pleasing to the eye in the sombre atmosphere of the Palace'.161 Next day there was a formal dinner at the Palace. Afterwards, Harold Nicolson recorded, the Queen talked to her guests. 'She wears upon her face a faint smile indicative of how much she would have liked her dinner-party were it not for the fact that she was Queen of England. Nothing could exceed the charm or dignity which she displays, and I cannot help feeling what a mess poor Mrs Simpson would have made of such an occasion ... The Queen teases me very charmingly about my pink face and my pink views.'162* At the end of that week the Queen had a more amusing engagement at what was to become her favourite sport she went to the Grand National at Aintree.
Easter 1937 was like the old days: they spent it once again at Windsor Castle. They and the Princesses were warmly cheered by large crowds as they drove from Royal Lodge through the Great Park. Their party included Clement Attlee and his wife Violet. Attlee wrote to his brother Tom, 'The K and Q were very pleasant and easy to get on with.'163 Osbert Sitwell was delighted to be among their guests, although he worried beforehand to his sister-in-law, Georgia, 'It will be lovely seeing it, and in grand state Windsor liveries, gold plate, bands etc. but I'm rather terrified.'164 Also invited were the Duff Coopers, who had been on the Nahlin cruise. Lady Diana Cooper decided it was best to be frank about her friendship with Edward VIII and told the King at dinner, 'I'm afraid I'm a Rat, Sir' a remark that the King enjoyed pa.s.sing on to Osbert Sitwell. When Lady Diana retired to bed, her husband stayed behind for 'an hour's so-called drinking tea with the Queen. She put her feet up on a sofa and talked of Kingship and "the intolerable honour" but not of the [abdication] crisis.' Lady Diana noted, 'Duff so happy, me rather piqued.' She thought that Windsor compared well with Fort Belvedere. 'That was an operetta, this is an inst.i.tution.'165 The figurehead of the inst.i.tution was very happy. Queen Mary wrote to her son and daughter-in-law after Easter to say, 'what a joy it has been to me to feel that the beloved old Home is in such good hands & that you two dear beloved people will carry on the tradition which dear Papa & I tried to do, in memory of our ancestors & of the wonderful history of Windsor.'166 *
THROUGHOUT ALL THIS time the King and Queen were having to prepare for the greatest event in their lives the Coronation. When they came unexpectedly to the throne, it was not just the date of the ceremony that had been fixed. Much of the basic planning had already been done, but five months was not long to complete the preparations, particularly now that a queen was to be crowned, as well as a king.
First, and perhaps most important of all, the Queen's crown had to be created. The crown jewellers, Garrard, were summoned to Sandringham in January to start to suggest designs. They produced sketches and those that the Queen and the King thought possible were mocked up in painted metal models. They found it difficult to decide whether to have one of eight arches or four. Eventually they chose a model with four arches.
The majority of the stones for the new crown came from the dismantled Regal Circlet made for Queen Victoria in 1853 and remounted for her in 1858. The band of the Circlet, which the new crown virtually replicated, but in platinum, had been set with sixteen large diamonds between sixteen crosses and surmounted by four fleurs-de-lis alternating with Maltese crosses. One of these was designed to hold the huge Koh-i-nur diamond, which could be detached and worn as a brooch.* The Koh-i-nur had subsequently been incorporated into Queen Alexandra's crown of 1902 and Queen Mary's of 1911. Now it became part of the new Queen's crown.
Queen Mary entered into the planning, as her biographer put it, 'with her characteristic vigour'.167 She was determined to break with tradition and attend the ceremony the first time that the widow of a king would be present in Westminster Abbey to see his successor crowned. She could not bear not to be present when her beloved second son went through the ritual which his brother had renounced. She accompanied the Queen to Garrard to examine the crown jewels, she went to the Abbey to see the preparations, in particular the creation of the Royal Box, she advised on the colour of the ribbon for the King's Order (the family order given to royal ladies by the sovereign she thought it should be pink), she worried about how the Princesses should travel to the service.168 The Queen realized, according to Elizabeth Longford, that her old dressmaker, Madame Handley Seymour, would be heartbroken if she were not allowed to make the Coronation robes, and so she gave her the commission. The robe was traditional, resembling that which Queen Mary had worn in 1911, which in turn reflected that of Queen Alexandra in 1902. It had a combined cape and train; the white ermine shoulder cape was fastened on the shoulders with white satin bows, and with gold cord and ta.s.sels. The train was of purple velvet, forty-four inches wide and eighteen feet long. Symbols of the British Empire the rose, thistle, shamrock, leek, maple, acacia, fern and lotus were embroidered on the velvet with gold thread. The dress itself was fashionably bias-cut white satin with square decollete and slashed sleeves flounced with old lace. It was embroidered by members of the Royal School of Needlework with diamante emblems of the British Isles and Empire. Three rows of gold galloon lace ran around the edge of the train. The Queen's shoes, made by Jack Jacobus of Shaftesbury Avenue, were white satin high heels, decorated with English oak leaves and Scottish thistles.169 The two Princesses were measured for their own robes of purple velvet lined and edged with ermine, with ermine capes tied, like their mother's, with gold cords and ta.s.sels on the shoulder. For the maids of honour, Norman Hartnell created stiff white satin dresses with embroidered garlands in pearls, diamante and crystal incorporating a Victorian wheat-ear motif suggested by the Queen herself.
As the Coronation approached, the King became increasingly nervous about how he would deal with the strain of it, and in particular whether his stammer would cripple his public responses in the Abbey and the live broadcast he would have to make from Buckingham Palace in the evening after the service. Cosmo Lang had the temerity to suggest a new voice coach, but Lord Dawson rejected this idea at once, saying that the King had full confidence in Lionel Logue. In fact, the King was also helped by a BBC sound engineer called Robert Wood, who spent many hours teaching him how best to use the microphone.170 At the end of April the King, Queen and Princess Elizabeth travelled by barge down the river to Greenwich to open the National Maritime Museum. This was the first royal progress along the Thames since 1919. The Queen unlocked the door of the newly restored Queen's House with a gold key. They returned to central London by car and were mobbed by crowds almost all the way.
In the few days that were left before the Coronation, they spent as much time as possible at Royal Lodge and Windsor Castle. After a relaxed lunch on May Day they drove, again through cheering crowds, to Wembley Stadium for the FA Cup Final Sunderland beat Preston North End by three goals to one. They listened, clearly touched, as more than 90,000 people sang 'G.o.d Save the King'.171 The first Court of the new reign was held on 5 May. It was just as splendid and as formal as any that had been held by King George V and Queen Mary. In the Ball Room, the King and Queen sat on the dais before as many as 500 members of the Diplomatic Corps. Countess Spencer thought the Queen looked 'really beautiful' but she was not impressed by many of the ladies' curtsies, and remarked on the behaviour of the emissaries of the European dictators. 'The German amba.s.sador, Herr von Ribbentrop, gave the King a n.a.z.i salute & Signor Grandi [the Italian Amba.s.sador] left the ball room as soon as possible, to avoid meeting any Abyssinians!'172*
All of Britain was preparing for a greater celebration than the 1935 Jubilee. There were official street decorations in every town, and shops and home owners made their own happy contributions to the gaiety. The London stores competed to produce the most splendid displays of imperial loyalty, with immense plaster casts and portraits of the King and Queen, ma.s.ses of red, white and blue bunting. Selfridges was widely thought to have taken the prize and an Indian rajah was said to be so impressed by its decorations that he bought the whole lot, to be reinstalled in his palace.173 Huge crowds flocked towards London in special trains and charabancs. In almost every town and village Coronation committees were formed, May queens were chosen, fireworks were purchased, commemorative trees were planted. Maypoles were erected on village greens and children were taught how to dance around them, holding red, white and blue ribbons, bands practised, people of all ages trained for sports events, marquees were erected, bonfires built, veterans of the Great War polished their shoes and prepared to act as proud stewards throughout the country.174 On the evening of Sunday 9 May, congregations gathered in churches all over the country for special services at which prayers were offered for the King and Queen. As this worship was taking place, the Archbishop of Canterbury came to Buckingham Palace for a final talk and prayers with the King and Queen. Any unease about his reference to the King's stammer was clearly forgotten. 'They knelt with me,' he wrote later. 'I prayed for them and for their realm and Empire, and I gave them my personal blessing. I was much moved and so were they. Indeed there were tears in their eyes when we rose from our knees. From that moment I knew what would be in their minds and hearts when they came to their anointing and crowning.'175 There is no doubt that for both of them the Coronation was an act of great spiritual significance. Each of them was a devout Christian with a simple faith; each of them believed strongly in the sacred nature of monarchy and of the vows that they were about to take; they both believed that they were offering themselves before G.o.d and were being consecrated in the service of their people. The King himself, according to his biographer, was very grateful for the genuine affection that people had shown for him and the Queen since their unexpected accession.176 Crowds gathered all night, with many people sleeping on camp beds in the streets. The King and Queen were awoken at 3 a.m. by the testing of the loudspeakers on Const.i.tution Hill 'one of them might have been in our room,' wrote the King in his diary. From then on marching troops, bands and tension made sleep impossible. The King could eat no breakfast and had 'a sinking feeling inside'.177 The invited congregation had to be in the Abbey by around seven in the morning. Crowds cheered them along the roads. A special underground train took several hundred peers and peeresses in their full robes and wearing their coronets, together with Members of the House of Commons, from Kensington High Street to Westminster. The fare was threepence.178 The Queen had her own box in the Abbey which she filled with members of the Bowes Lyon family and a few particular friends. They included the faithful Beryl Poignand, Osbert Sitwell* and the Rev. Tubby Clayton. Owen Morshead, sitting with other members of the Household near by, left a touching account of the service in a long letter to his aunt. Peers, peeresses, bishops, judges, the Knights Grand Cross, in robes and regalia, the l.u.s.trous colours shining against the sober grey stone. Then the various processions began. The Princess Royal arrived 'between the two darling little Princesses in their full kit, their embryo trains looking as if they would grow with their wearers ... little Princess Margaret very sweetly lifted up the front of her dress in ascending the steps, looking across surrept.i.tiously to observe how her bigger sister was tackling it.'
After the Kents and the Gloucesters and other members of the family came one of the princ.i.p.al moments for which people had been waiting. 'As Queen Mary's n.o.ble figure appeared against the sombre woodwork of the choir-entry the impression was such as to give me a catch in the throat at the memory. She was ablaze with large diamonds the size of beans, and she wore around her silvered head the circlet of her former crown with the 4 arches removed. But it was not alone the glory of her personal appointments, but the majesty and grace of her bearing that made everyone hold their breath.'179 The King and Queen drove to the Abbey in the beautifully archaic Gold State Coach first used by George III in 1762. At the annexe built on the west door their two processions formed up. The Queen was to lead, but she was delayed when a chaplain pa.s.sed out, just as her procession into the Abbey for her wedding fourteen years before had been held up by a fainting clergyman.* She entered the Abbey preceded by her cousin the Duke of Portland, who carried her new crown on a red velvet cushion. She seemed to Morshead: submissive and demure, and looking, despite her dazzling jewelry, curiously unfinished as to her costume: for not only had she no gloves (to facilitate the placing of the Ring upon her finger), but also her head was bare of any sort of covering. Her demeanour throughout was beautiful to observe, and it contributed greatly towards the impression which everyone seems to have carried away with them namely that once the doors were closed and the various pieces duly disposed upon the board the pageantry and display fell away, revealing a deeply devotional service within the framework of the Holy Communion.180 Alan Don, the Archbishop of Canterbury's chaplain, was also watching her. 'As the Queen crossed the Theatre on her way to her chair of State under the Royal box, I looked at Lord and Lady Strathmore ... and wondered what were their emotions as they watched their youngest daughter coming to be crowned as Queen. The Queen did not glance up at them (I expect that she scarcely dared), but took her place, looking neither to the right hand or to the left, to await the arrival of the King.'181 For most of the long service the focus was upon the King; the Queen stood or knelt at her chair immediately in front of the Royal Box. There, her daughter Princess Elizabeth, now just eleven, sitting next to Queen Mary, was following it all closely. 'I thought it all very, very wonderful and I expect the Abbey did, too. The arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned, at least I thought so.'182 Once the King had been crowned and had taken the solemn oaths which were to dominate his life from now on, the Archbishop made his way towards the Queen. She knelt while he prayed, 'Almighty G.o.d, the fountain of all goodness: give ear we beseech thee to our prayers, and multiply thy blessing upon thy servant ELIZABETH, whom in thy Name, with all humble devotion, we consecrate our Queen; defend her evermore from all dangers, ghostly and bodily; make her a great example of virtue and piety, and a blessing to the kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, O Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.'
Four d.u.c.h.esses held over her head the same canopy as was used for the anointing of the King. The Queen was anointed on her head only, whereas the King had been anointed on the palms of both hands, on the breast and on the crown of his head. The Archbishop placed the Queen's ring, rubies and brilliants, previously worn by Queen Adelaide, Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary, on the fourth finger of her right hand. And then Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was crowned queen. Lifting the crown above her head, the Archbishop said, 'Receive the Crown of glory, honour and joy; and G.o.d, the crown of the Faithful, who by our Episcopal hands (though unworthy) doth this day set a crown of pure gold upon your head, enrich your royal heart with his abundant grace, and crown you with all princely virtues in this life, and with everlasting gladness in the life that is to come, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.'
As the Queen was crowned, a herald turned and made a sign to the rows of peeresses, at which hundreds of white-gloved arms rose up as each lady placed upon her head her own coronet. Princess Elizabeth was struck by this moment. 'When Mummy was crowned and all the peeresses put on their coronets, it looked wonderful to see arms and coronets hovering in the air and then the arms disappear as if by magic.'183 The Archbishop then gave the Queen her gold sceptre and ivory rod, both made for Queen Mary of Modena, wife of James II. Thus anointed, crowned and bearing her regalia, she proceeded to her throne. The Order of Service noted, 'And as she pa.s.seth by the King on his throne, she shall bow herself reverently to his Majesty, and then be conducted to her own throne, and without any further ceremony, take her place in it.' Together, the King and Queen then removed their crowns and received Holy Communion, probably the most moving and sacred moment of the tumultuous day for them both. They then walked together down the nave of the Abbey, outside to the Gold Coach which bore them back by a long route to the Palace. The rain poured down but this did not seem to dampen the excitement of the crowds who cheered them with wild enthusiasm.
That evening the King had to face the dreaded ordeal of his live broadcast from the Palace. In endless rehearsals with the Queen, with Logue and with Wood, he had stumbled, but on the actual day adrenalin overcame nerves and exhaustion and he was word perfect. 'It is with a very full heart that I speak to you tonight,' he said. 'Never before has a newly crowned King been able to talk to all his peoples in their own homes on the day of his Coronation ... the Queen and I will always keep in our hearts the inspiration of this day. May we ever be worthy of the goodwill which I am proud to think surrounds us at the outset of my reign.' In evening dress, he and the Queen, who was wrapped in a white fur-trimmed stole, appeared five times on the Palace balcony to wave to the crowds still braving the rain.
Before midnight, Queen Mary wrote to them, 'I cannot let this day pa.s.s without once again telling you both how beautifully & reverently you carried out this most beautiful impressive service, I felt so proud of you both, & I felt beloved Papa's spirit was near us in blessing you on this wonderful day. I could not help feeling what that poor foolish David has relinquished for nothing!!! but it is better so & better for our beloved Country.'184 The Queen described her own experience in a letter thanking Archbishop Lang.
I write to you with a very full heart ... I was more moved, & more helped than I could have believed possible. It is curious, on thinking it over now, that I was not conscious of there being anybody else there at the Communion you told us last Sunday evening that we would be helped and we were sustained & carried above the ordinary fear of a great ceremony. Our great hope now, is that as so many millions of people were impressed by the feeling of service and goodness that came from Westminster Abbey, that perhaps that day will result in strength and good feeling in individuals all over the world, and be a calming & strengthening influence on affairs in general.
I thank you with all my heart for what you have been to us during these last difficult and tragic months a good counsellor and true friend we are indeed grateful. I am, Your affectionate friend Elizabeth R.185 * Sir Kenneth Clark (190383), Director of the National Gallery 193445, Surveyor of the King's Pictures, 193444. Later Slade Professor of Fine Art, Oxford, Professor of the History of Art, Royal Academy, and chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. Author of many art-historical works, he was also an inspiring lecturer and broadcaster who reached a broad audience through his television series, notably Civilisation in 1969, the year in which he was created a life peer as Baron Clark of Saltwood.
* The small Private Chapel in the royal apartments at the Castle is used only by the Royal Family. The Royal Chapel in the grounds of Royal Lodge is also a private chapel, originally built for King George IV and enlarged by Queen Victoria for the use of the Royal Family and people who lived and worked in the Great Park. It has its own chaplain, and members of the Royal Family regularly attend Sunday services there when staying at Windsor, rather than in St George's Chapel in the Castle. St George's is the chapel of the Order of the Garter, and the annual Garter service is held there, as well as some royal weddings and funerals.
* Subsequently Queen Mary was quoted by one of her ladies in waiting as saying that 'My son actually came to see me one day in November and said, "I'm going to marry Mrs Simpson on April 27 and be crowned on May 12." I said, "But my dear David you cannot do any such thing." Well, he said that was what he had decided to do.' (Note by Owen Morshead, 14 January 1937, RA AEC/GG/12/OS/1) * According to a later chatelaine of Chatsworth, Deborah, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, Queen Elizabeth never stayed at the house again, because of its a.s.sociation with this unhappy time in her life.
Reginald Herbert, fifteenth Earl of Pembroke (18801960), and his wife Beatrice. Their daughter Patricia (190494) was a friend of the d.u.c.h.ess of York and later, as Lady Hambleden, became a long-serving lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth.
* She was now the Princess Royal, the t.i.tle traditionally conferred on the eldest daughter of the sovereign, but held by only one princess at a time. So Princess Mary acquired it in 1931, on the death of the previous Princess Royal, Princess Louise, d.u.c.h.ess of Fife, the eldest daughter of King Edward VII.
* Lieutenant Colonel Victor Cazalet (18961943), MP for Chippenham 192443. He served as political liaison officer to General Sikorski, the Polish wartime leader, from 1940, and was killed in the same aeroplane crash as the General in 1943.
* Lady Hyde (190070), nee the Hon. Marion Glyn, married in 1932 George, Lord Hyde, eldest son of sixth Earl of Clarendon. He was killed in a shooting accident in 1935. Their son Laurence became the seventh Earl.
* Sir Harold Nicolson KCVO CMG (18861968), diplomat, author, diarist and politician, married to the writer Vita Sackville-West. He entered Parliament as a member of the National Labour Party in 1935 and quickly became a strong voice in alerting the country to the dangers of fascism. His diaries are among the most important first-hand accounts of British political and social life in the mid-twentieth century. He wrote the official biography of King George V, published in 1952.
* The Koh-i-nur (Mountain of Light) was the most famous of the jewels in the Lah.o.r.e Treasury, ceded to Britain following the annexation of the Punjab in 1849. The diamond was presented to Queen Victoria in 1850 and recut under Prince Albert's direction in 1852.
* Ribbentrop, a supporter of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, had already given the n.a.z.i salute in an even more enthusiastic manner, when he presented his credentials to the King. This had caused something of a scandal. The German diplomat Reinhard Spitzy recorded that, although the King had smiled weakly, his courtiers were furious and the press splashed the story, nicknaming the Amba.s.sador 'Brickendrop'. The salutes nonetheless continued. Spitzy wrote that at this Court 'Ribbentrop delivered his three salutes in a rather more conciliatory fashion and not without a little humility.' (Reinhard Spitzy, How We Squandered the Reich, Michael Russell, 1997, pp. 701) * Sitwell had written an 'Ode for the Coronation of Their Majesties, May 12, 1937', which began:
The King and Queen of England, what fair names
That for a thousand years have lit the flames
Within Their people's hearts; what trumpets sound
Through timeless vistas as They both are crowned!
* The chaplain's faint in 1937 was recorded by King George VI himself. The 1923 incident appears only in Dorothy Laird's Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, Coronet, 1966; it may be that Laird confused the two occasions.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
QUEEN CONSORT.
19371939.
'From thirty to forty, one battled and remade one's ideas'
THE HISTORIAN and royal biographer n.o.ble Frankland observed that most biographies are about extraordinary people: they seek to explain how their subjects accomplished 'whatever it was that caught the eye of history', and they explore tensions related to ability, ambition and rivalry. The tension in a royal biography, however, 'is about how the ordinary man adjusts to the extraordinary position into which he is born'. The interesting question is not the position itself, nor how the subject reached it, but what sort of a fist he made of it.1 In the case of the non-royal bride of a royal prince, of course, it is marriage rather than birth that confers her position on her. As the subject of a biography, therefore, she crosses the boundary between Dr Frankland's definitions, for the story of how she achieved her marriage may well be part of the interesting question. This is certainly so in Queen Elizabeth's case. She was the first commoner to become queen consort since the seventeenth century that in itself is of interest, at least to students of the British monarchy. Secondly, how she reached her position is of interest not just because it is an appealingly romantic tale, but also because it took place against a background of social and political ferment potentially damaging to the monarchy. Then there is the added curiosity that it was not a position she had sought. Indeed she rejected it at first. The story so far has tried to show why she inspired her royal suitor with so powerful a determination to win her hand. It has aimed also to show what she made of the position she took on.
The moment when the reluctant royal d.u.c.h.ess found herself becoming a queen malgre elle is an appropriate one at which to step back to consider her life as she had lived it since she had joined the Royal Family. In so doing we may ask how successful she had been in filling the lesser role into which she had married, and how well this had fitted her for the greater one into which she was now projected.
She had been understandably nervous of marrying into the first family of the land, a family far less easy-going and openly affectionate than her own. She was reluctant to have to live a life of much more formality, constraint and public scrutiny than she had ever known. But she had adapted superbly and had quickly learned how to win the approval and affection of both the King and Queen and the wider family.
She had disliked the autocratic streak in her father-in-law which alienated his sons from him, but she treated him with a combination of respect, humour and charm which won him over. Although she enjoyed dancing, cabarets and nightclubs as much as many contemporary young women, she retained a romantic, old-fashioned seemliness which the King contrasted favourably with the fast, modern girls whom he deplored. The warm relationship she established with him knitting him socks and sharing jokes enabled her to stand her ground without causing friction, to protect herself, her husband and his brothers from paternal wrath, and also to use her influence with the King to good effect in her public life.
With Queen Mary she was perhaps not quite as successful, although this is largely a matter of speculation, for the correspondence between them was invariably affectionate. In character, the two women were quite different, with Queen Mary as reserved and methodical as her daughter-in-law was outgoing and spontaneous. But each made an effort to treat the other considerately, and the d.u.c.h.ess showed tact in consulting her mother-in-law and sharing activities that both enjoyed: shopping, interior decorating, visits to art galleries. Importantly, too, the two confided in each other about the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson, a matter on which they saw eye to eye, and which undoubtedly drew them together.
There were disagreements, resentments, near-rebellion over White Lodge, over the naming of Princess Margaret, over the numbers of Court functions which the King and Queen insisted the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess attend in other words, whenever the young couple felt their own rights and independence threatened by unwarrantable interference. But from the start the young d.u.c.h.ess had the wisdom and self-control to keep such feelings in check, and to encourage her husband, who was easily angered and demoralized, to do the same. She could usually turn a situation to their advantage, or at least make the best of it. She was by nature cheerful, positive and optimistic to a fault, some would say later. It was not a one-way process. At the start of her marriage, she knew little of what was expected of her as a royal d.u.c.h.ess, but she had been very willing to learn and paid tribute to the King and Queen for all that they had taught her.2 As a daughter-in-law, then, she had filled her position with great success. As a wife, she achieved even more. That she and the Duke were happily married is evident from their letters and was obvious to those who saw them together both publicly and privately. The give and take in a marriage is so subtle and private a matter that no outsider can perceive the full truth of it. But she had clearly given her husband the self-a.s.surance and joy that he had lacked. In particular, she helped him to overcome the stammer which had embittered his relations with his father. By the Duke's own account, the King had considered him unfit for a public role because of it. After the Duke's marriage, however, the King had gradually lost his prejudice against him, as the Duke appeared increasingly confident in public with his wife at his side. The Australasian tour, followed by the Duke's performance as lord high commissioner to the General a.s.sembly of the Church of Scotland in 1929, set the seal on the King's regard for him not entirely coincidentally, just as his respect for his eldest son waned. It was a change to which the d.u.c.h.ess had contributed a great deal. She had succeeded as a mother too; the births of her two daughters brought much happiness to her and her husband, while rea.s.suring the Royal Family and the nation that the succession was safe even if the Prince of Wales did not marry.
With the marriages of the Dukes of Kent and Gloucester in 1934 and 1935 the d.u.c.h.ess had acquired two sisters-in-law within a year, after more than eleven years as sole daughter-in-law to the King and Queen. She was no longer the only buffer between the King and his younger sons; and the larger family circle eased some of the pressure on the Yorks to be constantly on call for Court functions, or to spend more time at Sandringham or Balmoral than they wished. As for the Prince of Wales, his charm, high spirits and love of amus.e.m.e.nt appealed to the same qualities in her, and she remained devoted and sympathetic to him. But in the 1930s their lives diverged, they met less often and he seemed resolutely fixed on a path which dismayed and alarmed her, and which she was convinced was wrong.
For all her commitment to her royal role, contact with her own family was vital to her wellbeing and she made sure that there was room for them in her life. If her parents were in London, she would lunch or dine with them when she could. She saw her brothers and their wives fairly often, especially David and his wife Rachel, whom he had married in 1929.* She saw her eldest brother Patrick and his wife Dorothy, to whom she had never been close, less frequently. Her sisters were habitual visitors, as were her nephews and nieces, especially the Elphinstone children, who came to stay at Birkhall in the summer holidays; and she and the Duke often stayed with the Elphinstones at Carberry when they had engagements in Edinburgh. Each year they and their daughters would spend several weeks at Glamis in the late summer and autumn, and at other times of the year they visited her parents in Hertfordshire.
In the first few years of their marriage, as we have seen, the Yorks had no really satisfactory home of their own, either in London or in the country. The gradual resolution of this problem was a minor triumph for both of them, which took patience on their part and forbearance on Queen Mary's. The exchange of White Lodge for 145 Piccadilly in 1927 was accomplished with the Queen's help, when she might have taken umbrage; when the King offered them Royal Lodge as a country home, they accepted it against Queen Mary's advice and won her round. In Scotland, meanwhile, they gradually established a claim on Birkhall as their base, although the King and Queen seemed not to understand why they preferred this extra expense to free accommodation at Balmoral.
By 1935 the pattern had been set: from January to early August the York family was based at 145 Piccadilly, with most weekends and much of April spent at Royal Lodge. They stayed at Windsor Castle with the King and Queen for a few days in April, sometimes over Easter. From early August to mid-October they were in Scotland, with visits to Glamis at the beginning and end, and six weeks or so at Birkhall in between. Then they returned to London, with occasional shooting weekends for the Duke often accompanied by the d.u.c.h.ess in the country, until Christmas, when they all went to Sandringham to stay with the King and Queen for about three weeks. Sometimes the children would remain longer with their royal grandparents; at other times they would go to stay with the Strathmores.
Since the giddy days of the 1920s when, as Queen Elizabeth later expressed it, 'we did night club life madly for a few years, but also mixed with dinners & country house visits,'3 the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess's social life had become quieter and more sedate, as the demands of both public and family life grew with their own maturity and sense of purpose. 'Out of the welter, one gradually found one's feet & head,'4 she wrote. They still dined out frequently with friends and went to private dances charity b.a.l.l.s at the great London houses or hotels were an obligation. More often, the dinner parties they gave or attended were followed by film shows, trips to the theatre and occasionally to the ballet. Their circle of friends had changed little since their marriage. The d.u.c.h.ess had kept many of her girlhood friends, habitues of Glamis house parties and London dances notably Doris and Clare Vyner, Lavinia Annaly, who had accompanied her to East Africa and was still an 'extra' lady in waiting, Katie Seymour and Helen Hardinge, James Stuart and his elder brother Francis, the Earl of Moray.* Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and his wife Princess Olga visited them on their trips to England. Patricia Herbert, now Lady Hambleden, remained a lifelong friend, as did Tortor Gilmour, who had shared the Yorks' Australasian tour with them; another friend was Audrey Field, formerly Coats, one of the flightier members of their set in the early 1920s. Among the couples they saw most often were Teddy and Dorothe Plunket, whom they had known since their early married days; Maureen and Oliver Stanley were also good friends, she the daughter of Lord Londonderry, and once admired by the Duke, he a rising politician, the younger son of the Earl of Derby. It was not a fiercely intellectual set, but nor was it as frivolous as that of the Prince of Wales. The d.u.c.h.ess enjoyed people who had brains as well as charm and throughout her life she made sure that her close circle included people whom she found stimulating and amusing.
As well as those of her own generation, there were older friends. She and the Duke were often entertained by her G.o.dmother Mrs Arthur James, whom she described as 'one of the survivors of the Edwardian era'.5 Another Edwardian survivor and friend was Mrs Ronnie Greville, with whom they regularly spent a June or July weekend at Polesden Lacey. Each summer they also visited Trent Park in Middles.e.x, the home of the rich and hospitable Philip Sa.s.soon, who entertained them lavishly at his London house as well. Here they met his cousin Hannah Gubbay, nee Rothschild, who acted as his hostess and later inherited Trent Park: she was a friend of Queen Mary and became the d.u.c.h.ess's friend too. When public duties took them north, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess might stay at Studley Royal with the Vyners, at Lumley Castle with Katharine (the d.u.c.h.ess's girlhood friend Katie McEwen) and Roger Lumley or at Darnaway in Morayshire with Francis and Barbara Moray; they were invited occasionally to Chatsworth, Longleat, Knowsley and other great houses. In the winter they spent shooting weekends at Elveden, Wilton and Lord Mildmay's house, Flete, in Devon.
This relaxed and agreeable social life amid a group of good friends was something of an innovation in the Royal Family. Had the d.u.c.h.ess been born a princess, she would not have been brought up among such people as her equals, and would have been far less able to form close and lasting friendships with them. Her friends had become the Duke's friends. Although the King and Queen appeared in society and the King had his shooting and sailing intimates, their sons yearned for a new, less formal life. For the Prince of Wales this quest ultimately led to complete rupture with the world of his parents, but for his younger brother and successor it helped shape his idea of kingship, in which the sovereign would be a far less remote figure than his father had been. It was a social life the d.u.c.h.ess thoroughly enjoyed: although a member of the Royal Family, her position was still sufficiently untrammelled for her to choose, and see, her own friends, yet exalted enough to include plenty of delightful evenings and weekends in beautiful surroundings at the grandest of houses in London or the country.
She had many friends, but she was well aware that the motives of those who sought her friendship might be suspect.6 She said some years later that she had very few intimates, and in 1936 she was still asking herself who her real friends were.7 Despite her caution, she retained several very close friendships, and in particular those which sprang from family contacts in her unmarried days, notably Arthur Penn, D'Arcy Osborne and Jasper Ridley. Less a confidant or mentor than a clever and well-placed friend was Duff Cooper, politician and diplomat; he and his wife Diana belonged to her social circle.
With these friends she discussed literature, art, education, social problems, domestic and international politics, people and places. She wrote them vivid and amusing letters, roving over serious subjects with a deceptively light touch. Given the reputation she acquired of reading nothing more challenging than the novels of P. G. Wodehouse, the books she discussed with D'Arcy Osborne, Duff Cooper and later Osbert Sitwell, all of whom kept her supplied with reading matter, come as a surprise. As we have seen, she read Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Radclyffe Hall.8 She read Duff Cooper's biographies of Talleyrand and Earl Haig, and he recommended The Tale of Genji, the tenth-century j.a.panese romantic novel by Lady Murasaki, a work which delighted her.9 Thornton Wilder sent her his Woman of Andros.10 Osbert Sitwell too sent her his own prolific oeuvre, together with finds on subjects he thought would interest her, such as the letters of William Beckford.11 D'Arcy Osborne gave her the American Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace's Statesmanship and Religion, which he said showed that politics could be combined with Christianity a proposition after her own heart and urged her to send it on to the Prince of Wales, as one of the future 'leaders of the world'.12 It might not have had much effect on him. But the Christian faith she had learned as a child remained strong; like her mother, she took seriously the need to pa.s.s it on to her own children, and she was equally convinced of the importance of Christianity to the wellbeing of the nation as a whole, and of the power of prayer. Archbishop Lang remained a friend and counsellor; and her patronage of philanthropic causes showed that she was drawn to those with a Christian basis, like the Church Army and Toc H.
Owen Morshead later commented that the Queen was 'noticeably modern in her tastes, whether in books or pictures, or in her outlook on life; and this makes it easy for her to establish contacts in circles new to Court life.'13 Where pictures were concerned, as d.u.c.h.ess she had not yet the means, nor perhaps the motivation, to involve herself in the patronage of modern British artists that she would pursue so successfully as queen. But with the guidance of d.i.c.k Molyneux, a considerable connoisseur, and of Kenneth Clark, the Surveyor of the King's Pictures, she had begun to learn about the Royal Collection. She had some acquaintance with the younger artistic and literary scene; she liked the work of Rex Whistler, and she liked him; he wrote her a kind letter after the abdication and promised to design a bookplate for her;* modern ballet was another enthusiasm and Frederick Ashton became a lifelong friend.
Brought up in a traditionally Conservative family, she had decided political views which remained, on the whole, constant, although she was careful not to betray in public the strict neutrality required of members of the Royal Family. Her comments to D'Arcy Osborne on the first Labour government in 1924, flippant and whimsical in the manner of her youthful letters to him, conveyed a fundamental distrust. 'I am extremely Anti-Labour. They are so far apart from fairies & owls and bluebells & Americans & all the things I like. If they agree with me, I know they are pretending in fact I believe everything is pretence to them.'14 It was an intuitive antipathy, a sense, perhaps, that socialism sought to drag everything down into uniform and unimaginative drabness and political humbug. Her views matured, she could be critical of governments of right as well as left, and in fact she got on well with many Labour politicians, whether Ramsay MacDonald or the Labour Mayor of Sheffield; this sympathy continued all her life, Ernest Bevin and James Callaghan being later examples of socialists she liked.
In a different life she might have become politically active: indeed, despite her position, she did do so to the extent of sending 'a busload of servants', as she afterwards confided to Duff Cooper, to vote for him in the by-election in March 1931 in which he stood as official Conservative candidate against the Empire Free Trade candidate supported by Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook.15 It was not the battles of party politics that attracted her, however. It was that her public life had brought her increasingly into contact with poverty and unemployment and she felt that she knew what needed to be done. Despite the occasional frustration her position caused her, her correspondence shows her both deeply concerned about social conditions and aware that sometimes she could do something about it.
Her views on the international political scene, like those of most of her correspondents, were inevitably dominated by the threatening developments in Europe and the worldwide economic crisis in the early 1930s. She shared the fears D'Arcy Osborne expressed to her about 'a regression from civilization under economic pressure', and about the growth of the malign forces of fascism and n.a.z.ism.16 By nature more optimistic, however, she praised Britain's recovery from economic depression and considered that it was 'the only civilised country in Europe today'.17 She had no illusions about the effectiveness of the League of Nations.18 By 1937 she had come a long way since the early days of her marriage when she had taken on a modest round of public duties. At first inclined to regard public engagements as mere 'stunts', often tedious, she had characteristically got what fun she could out of them like the fundraising dinner in 1924 at which she looked forward to extracting as much money as possible from 'RICH Sn.o.bS'.19 Nevertheless she was lucky to find herself in a role for which she had a talent, and she had taken to it with an ease born of her natural self-confidence, and out of the early training she had received from helping her mother in charitable activities, and in the wartime convalescent hospital at Glamis. She had gradually built up her own long list of patronages, while at the same time accompanying her husband on many of his public engagements. As a pretty young woman with a charmingly friendly manner she often attracted more favourable press comment than her husband, and she could easily have outshone him and taken the starring role. She never did so.
Her handling of her public life became more professional and focused; she took care to select and combine engagements in different areas; she built up relationships with certain organizations and followed up promises to return, using her excellent memory for detail and instant rapport with people to skilful effect. She was well aware of how best to please singling out individuals in crowds, concentrating her attention fully on each person she spoke to, and falling back on her acting skills where necessary. 'It amused me to hear that your sense of drama took you through any awkward moments of official entertaining!' she wrote to D'Arcy Osborne. 'It sometimes helps me when I am faced with difficulties in that line. What a lot of our life we spend in acting.'20 It helped that she enjoyed it and genuinely liked people. But it would have been impossible to continue smiling and shaking hands so tirelessly if she had not known that what she did really helped, in terms of giving pleasure, raising funds for philanthropic works and extending the reach and popularity of the monarchy.
Meanwhile she had also learned a painful lesson: that her private life would have to take second place to her husband's and her own public role, never more so than during her six-month separation from the infant Princess Elizabeth in 1927. Sometimes she wondered whether it was worth it, especially when her efforts were wilfully shown in the wrong light by the press. But 'Keep the old flag flying' was her characteristic response.21 By any standards she had played her first part with great aplomb, and in so doing she had acquired the qualifications for the much more demanding and important role which she now had to fill. As d.u.c.h.ess of York, however, she had enjoyed greater freedom, in both her private and her public life, than she would as queen. Now she would have to work harder than before, and here the observant Owen Morshead had reservations. 'She is full of ideas, public spirit, and good intentions,' he said; but he considered that she was much less energetic and punctilious than Queen Mary.22 Or was private indolence perhaps the other side of the coin to her indefatigable sense of public duty?
What concerned the Queen in 1937, however, was not so much the many tasks that faced her and the King as the fear that they might not be accepted and liked, and that they could never adequately replace her glamorous brother-in-law. But as her mother put it, they were determined to do what was 'really good & best for the Empire'. Lady Strathmore's heart ached, she said, when she thought of the burden on her daughter 'but she is so more than wise, & foreseeing & full of tact, & the King takes her advice so wonderfully & charitably, that I do feel very proud as well as anxious.'23 *
THE CORONATION was a process, not just an event. The consecration of the King and Queen in Westminster Abbey was undoubtedly the most significant moment of the year, but it was followed by many engagements, public and semi-public, in which the new King and Queen were introduced to their people.
Two days after the Coronation the King presented medals to detachments of overseas troops, and there was a dinner at the Foreign Office, followed by a state ball at Buckingham Palace. That night the King and Queen went out on the balcony again and were cheered with great enthusiasm by the crowds braving the rain in the Mall. After a welcome weekend resting at Royal Lodge the King and Queen, together with Queen Mary, attended the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland's ball at Hampden House in Mayfair. Queen Mary wrote in her diary that it was 'a lovely sight, all the Royalties and Representatives were there, the tennis court was turned into a ball room with the fine tapestries hanging on the walls'.24 Next day there was an official luncheon with the Lord Mayor of London at the Guildhall, and then the King, Queen and Princess Elizabeth took the train to Portsmouth and embarked on the royal yacht, Victoria and Albert, to prepare for the review of the fleet at Spithead. It was a magnificent occasion to which eighteen countries had sent warships. From the flagship the King sent out the traditional signal, 'Splice the mainbrace.'
The rest of May's engagements included a thanksgiving service at St Paul's on Empire Day and a dinner given by the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. This was by way of a farewell, for Stanley Baldwin had decided to resign, having skilfully guided the new King and Queen to the throne. Both regretted his departure and the King wrote to him of his 'real sadness' at accepting his resignation.25 Baldwin was made an earl and a Knight of the Garter, and his wife a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. After a farewell lunch with the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, Lucy Baldwin wrote to the Queen, 'Both our hearts are beating so warmly in grat.i.tude to you both that I felt I must put pen to paper & try and express a little of what we feel.'26 Baldwin was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The King and Queen then made the customary post-Coronation visits to the four quarters of the United Kingdom Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. The country they visited was changing fast. Britain had been led out of the worst of the Depression by a housing boom, and by the accompanying growth in consumer industries. There had been one million telephones in the country in 1922 by 1938 there were three million. Shops were full of electrical goods, often made of newly versatile plastic materials. In the 1920s, motor cars had belonged only to the rich. Now they were becoming cheaper and ever more popular.
Bypa.s.ses were being built to spare town centres from heavy traffic. These were soon lined with new suburban villas. 'Roadhouses' became popular if not fashionable. They sprang up all along the Great West Road and other highways; some even boasted swimming pools and invited people to 'Swim, Dine and Dance'. Road accidents were frequent and the Ministry of Transport introduced more regulations to try to improve safety. In 1934 driving tests had been introduced and that year the minister, Leslie h.o.r.e-Belisha, had given his name to the orange beacons which began to mark road crossings for pedestrians, and introduced speed limits of thirty miles an hour for towns. Motorists complained, and one magazine criticized the Belisha beacons as giving London the feel of 'being prepared for a fifth rate carnival'.27 This feeling was increased by the new neon lighting with which shops could now decorate their fronts.