The Queen Mother Part 5
Now that their father was king, the Princes' status was enhanced. Prince Edward (David) became heir apparent and was created prince of Wales in 1911. Prince Albert, only eighteen months younger, had always felt unequal to his more obviously gifted brother and now he seemed more overshadowed than ever.21 One of their tutors wrote of him, 'One could wish that he had more of Prince Edward's keenness and application.'22 Comparisons between the two were all the more likely because their next sibling was a girl the tomboyish Princess Mary, who became a pa.s.sionate horsewoman and five years separated Prince Albert from his next brother. Prince Henry, a cheerful boy destined for a military career, and Prince George, the most debonair and self-a.s.sured of the brothers, were the first monarch's sons to be sent away to preparatory school. The youngest in the family, Prince John, born in 1905, suffered increasingly from epilepsy and died in 1919.
Fortunately for Prince Albert, he was better at sports than his glamorous elder brother. His prowess in shooting was especially important because this drew him closer to his father, one of the best shots in the land. He had made his first entry three rabbits in his first gamebook at Christmas 1907, just after his twelfth birthday. From then on shooting and recording his bag meticulously became a lifelong pa.s.sion.
His dedication to sport reflected other qualities in which he outdid his brother: determination and conscientiousness. His confirmation in the Church of England at Easter 1912 was an important event for him. Two years later he wrote to the Bishop of Ripon, who had conducted the service, 'I have always remembered that day as one on which I took a great step in life. I took the Holy Sacrament on Easter Day alone with my father and mother, my eldest brother and my sister. It was so very nice having a small service quite alone like that, only the family.'23 A deep and simple commitment to the Christian faith gave him comfort and strength throughout his life.
In January 1913 he set sail from Devonport in the cruiser HMS c.u.mberland. His six-month training voyage was not easy he suffered from seasickness and then from too much publicity. When the ship berthed in Tenerife and the Caribbean he was mobbed by excited crowds. In Jamaica he was prevailed upon to open an extension to a yacht club but his stammer made the ordeal almost insufferable and neither here nor in Canada later in the cruise did he enjoy the enthusiastic attentions which young women attempted to bestow upon him. He also came to understand for the first time how unwelcome the attentions of the press could be.
In September 1913 the Prince was appointed midshipman on the 19,250-ton battleship Collingwood. For security reasons he was known as Johnson. He received no preferential treatment; like all other midshipmen, known as snotties, he slept in a hammock outside the gunroom and took his turn at all the same tasks.
When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, Prince Albert was on board his ship off Portland. On 29 July, the day after Austria declared war on Serbia, squadron after squadron of the British Grand Fleet was dispatched north to Scapa Flow, Orkney, to guard the northern entrance to the North Sea. When Britain declared war on 4 August, Prince Albert was on station in the dark sea off Scotland. He was the only one of the royal children to be in the line of fire and his father wrote in his diary, 'Please G.o.d that it will soon be over & that he will protect dear Bertie's life.'24 To the Prince himself, the King wrote, 'May G.o.d bless and protect you my dear boy is the earnest prayer of your very devoted Papa. You can be sure that you are constantly in my thoughts.'25 To the Prince's dismay, his chronic ill health prevented him from giving full wartime service. He had an appendectomy in September 1914, and over the next three years severe gastric problems forced him to spend long periods in sick bays or convalescing at home.
'I am longing and have been longing for centuries to get back to my ship,' he wrote, and at last in May 1916 his wish was granted.26 He was thus aboard Collingwood when she was ordered into action against the Germans at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. He later wrote a lengthy factual account of what had happened, concluding with his own impressions: At the commencement I was sitting on the top of A turret and had a very good view of the proceedings. I was up there during a lull, when a German ship started firing at us, and one salvo 'straddled' us. We at once returned the fire. I was distinctly startled and jumped down the hole in the top of the turret like a shot rabbit!! I didn't try the experience again. The ship was in a fine state on the main deck. Inches of water sluicing about to prevent fires getting a hold on the deck. Most of the cabins were also flooded.
The hands behaved splendidly and all of them in the best of spirits as their heart's desire had at last been granted, which was to be in action with the Germans.27 He was disappointed that his ship had not played a more important part in the battle that day. But perhaps he was fortunate, because the losses were terrible.
By July 1916 the Prince's stomach pains were worse than ever and he was diagnosed as suffering from a duodenal ulcer. After months of convalescence he joined the battleship Malaya. Shortly afterwards Louis Greig, the naval doctor who had looked after him at Osborne and had been ship's surgeon in the c.u.mberland, was appointed to the Malaya too. Prince Albert was delighted. Already a friend, Greig came to play an important role in his life, not just as doctor but as mentor. His wise medical advice won him the trust of the King as well, and this led to his appointment as equerry to the Prince. Fifteen years older, and a first-cla.s.s rugby player, he did not usurp the role of the King as father but he became the man in whom the diffident young Prince found it most easy to confide. From 1917 onwards Greig was constantly by the Prince's side, advising him on matters spiritual, temporal and romantic, and the Prince acknowledged how much he owed to Greig in helping him onward towards maturity.
The Prince's health did not improve in the course of 1917 and Greig supported his desire for an operation to relieve his gastric problems, over the usual objections of cautious royal doctors. The operation, in November, was successful; it was evident that the Prince could have been saved two years of pain and anguish. In February 1918, fully recovered, he transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service, which was soon to join with the Royal Flying Corps to become the Royal Air Force. He reported for duty at the new flight training school at Cranwell in Lincolnshire and became the first member of the Royal Family to take to the air, a dangerous venture in those early days of flight. (After the war was over, he continued his training and pa.s.sed the required flying tests, although he was not allowed to fly solo.) By the autumn of 1918, with the German army collapsing in retreat, the Prince was keen to see action once more and was delighted to be posted to Major General Trenchard's Air Force staff in northern France. Soon after, on 11 November, the Armistice was declared and the King wrote to his son, 'The great day has come and we have won the war. It has been a long time coming but I was sure if we stuck to it, we should win & it is a great victory over one of the most perfect military machines ever created.'28 The end of the war brought the monarchy anxiety as well as relief. Revolution had swept across Europe, and in early 1919 demobilization led to serious disorders which frightened many people into thinking that revolution could curse Britain as well. The government had planned badly, ordering those called up last to be demobilized first. This caused understandable anger among the longer-serving men; there were riots in Glasgow and Belfast and Luton Town Hall was burned down by a mob. Winston Churchill was transferred to the War Office and completely rewrote the demobilization plan, introducing a new scheme which allowed the longest serving and the wounded to be released first. This quelled any prospective mutinies but industrial relations deteriorated during 1919 as more and more aggrieved soldiers returned to their workplaces and discovered that the 'homes fit for heroes' promised by the government would be a long time in coming.
The radical New Statesman complained: 'Meanwhile, round about, shoots are going on, hounds are killing or drawing blank. Estimates are being prepared for the refitting of yachts. The merits of rival designs for new motor cars are being discussed, and dodges for enticing young women into domestic service ... And the necessity of a bathroom for each guest room in the after war house is frankly admitted. It is almost astonishing: it is wildly funny, having regard to the fact that millions of people are starving in Europe.'29 Unemployment soared and strikes proliferated. There was talk of the Red Flag flying over Buckingham Palace. Anger at the sacrifices demanded of everyone during the war was widely felt, and the dread of cla.s.s war if not of Bolshevism spread among the establishment and the middle cla.s.ses.
In the so-called khaki election that Lloyd George called at the end of 1918, which was the first time that women were allowed to vote, his Coalition government comprising Conservatives and one wing of the Liberal Party was returned with a large majority. Asquith and his (Independent) Liberals were swept away, and Labour became the largest party in opposition. Nevertheless discontent grew.
The King had long been conscious of the danger. He was remarkably well informed about public opinion and was given intelligent advice by friends of the monarchy.* He took it. As the historian Frank Prochaska later observed, 'the Crown did not lack initiative or resolve. Galvanized by the drift of politics and social malaise, it could do something positive to protect itself.'30 The King deliberately sought to strengthen the ties of affection and respect between Crown and people. In the latter part of the war he and the Queen had redoubled their visits to the armed forces, munitions factories, hospitals and other inst.i.tutions up and down the land; and Colonel Clive Wigram, the King's a.s.sistant Private Secretary, had successfully campaigned for better press coverage of their work. In 1917 the King had founded the Order of the British Empire, which opened up the honours system to the ma.s.s of the people, both in Britain and throughout the Empire, a hugely popular measure. The same year he had dropped the Royal Family's German t.i.tles and adopted the name of Windsor for the dynasty. Now, in the post-war climate of social unrest, the King was urged to cultivate contacts with the Labour movement and to take an active interest in the problems of the working cla.s.ses. The people must be persuaded, his Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham argued, to regard the Crown as 'a living power for good'.31 To advance such aims, both at home and in the Empire, the King's advisers encouraged him also to increase the public appearances of his elder sons and his daughter. At Lloyd George's suggestion, the Prince of Wales was sent on a series of lengthy imperial tours, beginning with Canada, to convey the King's thanks to the countries which had come to Britain's aid in the war. As for Prince Albert, he was given an unprecedented task to establish closer royal links with the world of industry.
In the words of his biographer, this was 'a veritable terra incognita to the Royal Family',32 but by a lucky chance the Rev. Robert Hyde, who had founded the Boys' Welfare a.s.sociation in July 1918, decided to seek royal patronage just as Prince Albert returned from France in early 1919. The organization, which was soon broadened into the Industrial Welfare Society, aimed to improve basic conditions for workers, and thus, it was hoped, improve industrial relations.
The King approved the idea of Prince Albert becoming president of the a.s.sociation. Prince Albert willingly accepted, 'provided there's no d.a.m.n red carpet about it'.33 He began work at once, visiting factories and other industrial sites across the land; he soon won the praise of the popular press for his unostentatious style and sense of purpose. He showed a keen interest in the places he visited and helped raise enough money to put the society on a sound footing. Over the years he came to acquire a unique first-hand knowledge of the workings of different industries throughout the kingdom; there is no doubt that his work helped reinforce the bonds between monarch and people.34 In October 1919 Prince Albert was sent for a year to Trinity College, Cambridge, with his younger brother Prince Henry, and under the watchful eye of the benign Louis Greig. There he studied history, economics and civics, and in particular the development of the British const.i.tution.35 He was not confined to Cambridge, but was frequently called to London and elsewhere, whether on behalf of the Industrial Welfare Society or for other royal representational duties.
But all was not work. Both the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert were keen to have their share of the gaieties of post-war social life. The King, however, worried incessantly about his sons and the new world in which they lived. Although active and conscientious in fulfilling their public duties, in private the King and Queen preferred dignified seclusion, eating alone with each other, protected by the walls of their palaces from the post-war kaleidoscope of socialism, jazz and fast young women. (The King especially feared the last for their ability to corrupt his sons.)36 And so, it must be said, the overriding quality of the Royal Family's homes was tedium. Prince Albert told his mother's lady in waiting Lady Airlie that even Ascot week at Windsor was boring. 'No new blood is ever introduced, and as the members of the party grow older every year there's no spring in it, and no originality in the talk nothing but a dreary acquiescence in the order of the day. No one has the exciting feeling that if they shine they will be asked again next summer they know they will be automatically, as long as they are alive. Traditionalism is all very well, but too much of it leads to dry rot.'37 Yet the King and Queen could not afford to discourage youth and 'new blood', especially in the form of well-born young ladies for their sons to meet. In 1917, as a logical next step to casting off their German t.i.tles, they had decided that their children should be allowed to choose British spouses,* rather than looking to royal families abroad (many of which were German or with German origins) for spouses of equal rank. Not long afterwards Queen Mary had begun to make enquiries about suitable girls, and even to invite them to Ascot parties. She was not a natural matchmaking mama, however; these efforts cannot have come easily to so reserved a person.
At this stage in his life Prince Albert was particularly close to his brother the Prince of Wales. Indeed they shared romantic secrets. At first both had seemed attracted by girls of good family of whom their parents might have approved the Prince of Wales by Portia (Lady Sybil) Cadogan, daughter of Earl Cadogan, and Lady Rosemary Leveson-Gower, daughter of the Duke of Sutherland, and Prince Albert by Lady Maureen Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Lord Londonderry's daughter, one of the girls Queen Mary had invited to Ascot.
In 1918, however, the Prince of Wales fell deeply in love with a married woman, Freda Dudley Ward. She was pretty, amusing and intelligent, married to a man sixteen years her senior from whom she had drifted apart. As if in emulation of his brother, in 1919 Prince Albert became infatuated with a close friend of Freda, another unhappily married woman, whom he had met at a ball at the end of 1918.38 She was Lady Loughborough, nee Sheila Chisholm,* a beautiful Australian whose marriage to Lord Loughborough, eldest son of the Earl of Rosslyn, had suffered because of his alcoholism and gambling. According to Lady Loughborough's memoirs, she and Freda often danced with the two Princes at b.a.l.l.s, 'which annoyed some of the dowagers. However, we didn't care. We knew no party was complete without us and them!'39 News of Prince Albert's friendship with Sheila Loughborough eventually came to his parents' ears, and it added greatly to the worry their eldest son's liaison was already giving them. The King had intended to make Prince Albert a duke in June 1920, when his year at Cambridge was over, and at the same time to give him his own establishment and financial independence. But Prince Albert's relationship with a married woman, and the risk of a scandal if she divorced, threatened to undo much of the good work, to which the Prince himself had contributed so much, in consolidating the monarchy and winning over disaffected public opinion.
In April 1920 the King confronted his second son. 'He is going to make me Duke of York on his birthday provided that he hears nothing more about Sheila & me!!!!' wrote the Prince to his elder brother, now away on his second tour, to New Zealand and Australia.40 He felt trapped, for at twenty-four he longed for his independence. Although he privately railed against his father and declared to his brother that Sheila was 'the one & only person in this world who means anything to me', it is evident that his feelings were not as deep as his brother's for Freda. He explained the situation to Sheila, who was understanding and promised to remain friends, and in May he accepted his father's terms.41 The King created him duke of York on 3 June, and wrote him a letter that, like many of his letters to his children, expressed the affection which his gruffness so often concealed from them in person: Dearest Bertie, I was delighted to get your letter this morning, & to know that you appreciate that I have given you that fine old t.i.tle of Duke of York which I bore for more than 9 years & is the oldest Dukedom in this country. I know that you behaved very well, in a difficult situation for a young man & that you have done what I asked you to do. I feel that this splendid old t.i.tle will be safe in your hands & that you will never do anything which could in any way tarnish it. I hope that you will always look upon me as yr. best friend & always tell me everything & you will find me ever ready to help you & give you good advice.
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Ever my dear boy, Yr. very devoted Papa42 The Prince had written to his father the day before, saying that he was proud to be duke of York and hoped that he would live up to the t.i.tle. He added, 'I can tell you that I fulfilled your conditions to the letter, and that nothing more will come of it.'43 However, Prince Albert was not entirely happy. He had not been looking forward to June and July, he wrote to his brother; he would be spied upon at dances by people longing to carry gossip back to his parents. He was not going to give them any chances; but 'Oh! if only one could live one's own life occasionally.' He added incredulously, 'You wouldn't think it possible but Mama actually talked about marriage to me the other day!!!!!!!'44 With the dukedom came an independent household for the Prince. Louis Greig became his comptroller; James Stuart, who had been with his army unit in Brussels in November 1918 when Prince Albert had been on an official visit there, and had helped entertain him, was appointed his equerry.
MEANWHILE, FOR Elizabeth the end of the war had brought more suitors. Among the proposals of marriage she received were yet more from Commonwealth soldiers who had stayed at Glamis. She sometimes found it hard to compose letters of rejection and asked Beryl for help with one which had to be sent 'thousands of miles'.45 She had become friendly with a Captain Gla.s.s in 1918; in March 1920, however, to her consternation he asked her to marry him. 'Awful thing happened on Thursday!' she told Beryl. 'C ... n G ... s proposed to me!! Oh Gosh, I couldn't help it, wasn't it awful?'46 He continued to write to her, but she was unmoved. 'My dearest old egg,' she remarked to Beryl, 'it never had the slightest tinge of Romance about it at all, at any time, I hated it all!'47 She had to grow accustomed to deflecting suitors. 'People were rather inclined to propose to you in those days,' she recalled many years later. 'You know, it was rather the sort of thing, I suppose. And you said "No thank you", or whatever it was.' As for the rejected suitor, she said, he would often reply, 'Oh, I thought you wouldn't,' so she felt 'it was all very nice and light-hearted.'48 Among the young men who constantly sought her attention several stood out. One was Prince Paul of Serbia.* The Prince, born in St Petersburg in 1893, had had a rather miserable childhood, abandoned by his parents. His Oxford career, reading Greats at Christ Church, was happy but interrupted by the war. He became a popular member of young London society, and a close friend of Elizabeth's brother Michael. He praised Elizabeth's prettiness 'with her shining, lively eyes and beautiful smile'.49 Many thought he was keen to marry her.
Prince Paul and Michael Bowes Lyon shared a flat in London with Lord Gage, whose family had long lived in a beautiful house, Firle Place, on the South Downs near Lewes in Suss.e.x. A slightly dour man whose nickname was Grubby, George Gage had great hopes for his friendship with Elizabeth. Their mutual friend the diarist Chips Channon later noted, 'Poor Gage is desperately fond of her in vain, for he is far too heavy, too Tudor and squirearchal for so rare and patrician a creature as Elizabeth.'50 There was also Bruce Ogilvy, son of Lord and Lady Airlie and Elizabeth's neighbour at Glamis. He was an amusing companion, 'very "norty" ', as she described him; but she dismissed him, along with Captain Gla.s.s, as 'silly nice fools', in comparison with real friends like Charles Settrington.51 A more dependable, older friend was Arthur Penn,* a charming, witty and kindly man who had been her brother Jock's contemporary at Eton; Elizabeth had met him during the war and had found him entrancing. Penn had fought heroically, winning both the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre.
The suitor who came closest to winning her hand, however, was James Stuart. Born in Edinburgh in 1897, Stuart was still at Eton when war began; he immediately joined the Royal Scots, despite being under age. He trained with Michael Bowes Lyon and they became lifelong friends. Stuart fought with great courage during the war and was awarded the Military Cross and bar. His heroism added l.u.s.tre to his enormous personal charm. There were those who said that the war had induced a depression in him, as in many other young men. But he was very attractive to women.
James Stuart had been one of the guests at that first post-war house party at Glamis in September 1919, when Elizabeth had been grieving over the death of Charles Settrington. He was engaged to Evelyn Louise Finlayson but broke off the engagement in the second half of 1920, and around that time became romantically involved with one of Elizabeth's friends, Mollie Lascelles. It is not clear when Elizabeth was first drawn to him, or he to her, but her letters to Beryl Poignand contain only pa.s.sing references to him until the end of 1920.
The London season of 1920 was filled with events and dances galore. For Elizabeth, it was sadly interrupted when she and her family had to move out of their home in St James's Square in mid-June, into a rented house in Eaton Square, a neighbourhood she disliked.52 (Later the family moved permanently to Bruton Street in Mayfair.) Soon after the move to Eaton Square, she went to Ascot and Henley, and then to the RAF ball at which, it seems, Prince Albert lost his heart to her.
Nine days later, on 17 July, the Prince went to Bisham, on the Thames near Henley, to spend the weekend in a house party given by Lady Nina Balfour.* It was probably there that he had his next meeting with Elizabeth. Her friend Helen Cecil later wrote, 'Apparently when they were all at Lady Nina's he held Elizabeth's hand under Nina's very nose in the famous electric launch. Elizabeth says it was quite worth it just to see Nina's face.'53 For Elizabeth it was perhaps no more than an amusing game; for Prince Albert it probably meant more. However, three days afterwards he was still writing wistfully to the Prince of Wales about Sheila Loughborough, and reproaching his brother for advising him, as Queen Mary had, to marry and settle down. 'I haven't thought about that yet,' he protested. But he seemed to view the prospect of Sheila's coming departure for Australia with equanimity.54 *
AS USUAL, the Strathmores took the night train to Glamis in early August 1920, and soon guests began to arrive for a succession of house parties. In early September Elizabeth and her brothers Michael and David, the only unmarried members of the family, welcomed a particularly large group of their friends for the annual Forfar County Ball on the 8th. Her dance card for the ball is preserved in the Glamis Archives. She danced with many admirers, Prince Paul, Lord Gage, James Stuart and Victor Cochrane-Baillie. The ball was only half of the fun. A house party at Glamis was always exhilarating, an informal, ever moving tableau with a panoply of entertainments tennis, cricket, shooting, walking and, in the evenings, dressing up, charades, dancing, cards and singing around the piano.
In all this gaiety Elizabeth was the carefree and enchanting centre. One of her admirers, Lord Gorell, recalled to another biographer, Elizabeth Longford, 'I was madly in love with her. Everything at Glamis was beautiful, perfect. Being there was like living in a Van Dyck picture. Time, and the gossiping, junketing world, stood still ... But the magic gripped us all. I fell madly in love. They all did.'55 At the end of the week Elizabeth reported to Beryl that she was completely exhausted by it all. 'We dressed up & ragged about, & now that the hard tennis court is finished, we played all day.' But at one point the fun and games had got a little out of hand. 'The most awful thing happened. Victor proposed to me the night we all dressed up! He looked too awful with great black smudges all over his face! I did hate it! Don't tell anybody. Still a few people here, must fly and dress for dinner.' As a PS, Elizabeth wrote across the top of the page: 'Prince Albert is coming to stay here on Sat.u.r.day. Ghastly!'56 The Prince had invited himself, from Balmoral, where he and Princess Mary were staying with their parents in gloomy isolation, with none but elderly guests and familiar royal cousins for company. It is unlikely that he had yet confided in the King and Queen about his interest in Elizabeth; but the idea of going to Glamis may have occurred to him because Princess Mary had been invited by Mabell, Countess of Airlie, to stay with her at Airlie Castle, only a few miles away.*
Elizabeth was nervous and asked as many friends and members of her family as possible for a.s.sistance. Helen Cecil wrote to her mother from Glamis, 'Elizabeth is here & a perfect angel as usual ... They have the Duke of York coming here & Elizabeth specially asked me to stay & help with him.'57 Helen was by this time engaged to Captain Alexander Hardinge, who had recently been appointed a.s.sistant private secretary to the King. He was at Balmoral, and exchanged frequent letters with his fiancee. Quite unaware of Prince Albert's feelings, Hardinge was 'green with envy' that he was off to Glamis. 'Oh the lucky brute and it means so little to him and all the world to me, and I cannot go.' Worse still, James Stuart would be accompanying the Prince. 'You won't let James cut me out, will you, Helen!' Hardinge wrote. 'He is so attractive that there would be every justification for it.'58 Other friends there to help Elizabeth included Katie Hamilton, Diamond Hardinge,* Doris Gordon-Lennox and James Stuart's elder brother Lord Doune. Helen's letters give a lively picture of the atmosphere at Glamis before the Prince arrived. 'Elizabeth is playing "Oh h.e.l.l" on the piano on purpose for me & Diamond is singing it which is most distracting! ... It is very nice being here & Elizabeth is the greatest darling.'59 The morning of the Prince's arrival she wrote, 'There is a fearful fuss over tonight & the weekend in general. We are to have reels & all sorts of strange wild things tonight which will be awful.'60 The guests were a little on edge when the Prince arrived to stay and Princess Mary came with Lady Airlie for dinner. 'Everybody made awful floaters that night, it became simply comic in the end,' Helen wrote; but after dinner they danced reels boisterously, with the dowagers giving the lead: 'Lady Airlie & Mrs James having sliding races up and down the extremely slippery floor was quite a good sight too!' Afterwards Doris and Katie courted disaster by doing 'a marvellous imitation' of the royal visitors 'when P.A. came round the screen & n.o.body could warn them that they were rushing on their fate!'61 At breakfast the next morning only Helen arrived on time; she did her part in helping entertain the Prince 'mostly by singing hymn choruses in a high falsetto which made him laugh'.62 There was tennis, and in the afternoon a service in the family chapel for which Princess Mary came over again from Airlie. Here Elizabeth takes up the tale in a letter to Beryl: 'Afterwards I showed her & the Duke [of York] the castle, & terrified them with ghost stories! We also played ridiculous games of hide & seek, they really are babies! She didn't leave till 6.30, & then we all played General Post, & Flags etc till dinner time I had played tennis all the morning, so you can imagine how tired I was!! ... Poor P. Mary really did enjoy herself she is most awfully nice.'63 At one point during the games Helen had hoped to slip away and write to Alec Hardinge, but 'Elizabeth's signals of distress' at being left alone with her royal visitors were so obvious that she felt she had to stay.64 After dinner they sang noisily all evening '& it was all quite fun', Elizabeth recorded.65 According to Helen the repertoire included 'the most appalling songs' and Prince Albert joined in 'with more gusto than any of them'. At midnight Elizabeth and her girl friends slipped upstairs and made apple-pie beds for her brother David and for James Stuart, to whom they had just said a mocking goodnight, dropping him 'a deep curtsey, in a row like the chorus'. Helen teased her fiance by writing to him that Stuart was indeed 'quite delightful ... I wonder he isn't spoilt with all the women making such fools of themselves over his good looks.'66 On the last day of Prince Albert's stay the whole party went out for a walk after breakfast. 'Elizabeth & Prince A. were allowed to go on miles ahead which agitated the former rather but we thought ourselves awfully tactful!' Helen reported. The rest of the party chased each other about, the girls hiding and the men pelting them with mud to avenge the apple-pie beds.67 Later Helen wrote to Elizabeth, 'Do tell me any particularly odious things that the Duke of Y. said about me when you betook yourselves to the garden. It would be such a waste if after my efforts to please him by leaving him in peace with you I didn't hear his remarks!! I'm sure he's grateful about that anyway tho' I'm not so certain about you! I trust you will forgive me, sweet love, because you are such an angel.'68 The Prince would have agreed with that. He was enchanted by it all. The contrast between the formality of his own family life and the relaxed joy of Glamis whirling around Elizabeth was intoxicating. The happy relationships between the Strathmores and their children and the affectionate teasing between Elizabeth and her brothers and sisters were pure delight. The weekend seems to have convinced him that Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was the woman for him.
After her guests had left, Elizabeth wrote to Beryl that she was in bed with a cold and 'utterly exhausted after 3 weeks of entertaining people!' Prince Albert's visit had 'kept us pretty busy! He was very nice, tho', & very much improved in every way.'69 The Prince wrote to thank Lady Strathmore for his stay at Glamis: 'I did enjoy my time there so much, & I only wish I could have stayed there longer, I hope you will forgive me for the very abrupt way in which I proposed myself.'70 This was echoed by James Stuart, who wrote, 'Prince Albert really did enjoy it, I know and in no other house in the United Kingdom could it have been done so well, or anywhere near it. It was perfect. Princess Mary also has talked of nothing else but her visit. I need hardly add how much I enjoyed myself also: one could not do otherwise at Glamis.'71 Elizabeth's friends too wrote her letters overflowing with thanks and praise. 'The moment I set foot in your house I feel a different person,' wrote Doris; Helen told Elizabeth she was 'just the most perfect person that ever was'; she and Diamond were driving the Hardinge family to distraction 'both talking at once & all about Elizabeth & Glamis!'72 Women as much as men adored Elizabeth.
She was by now, it seems from Helen's comments, uncomfortably aware of the Prince's interest in her, but she did not yet mention it to Beryl. Meanwhile her autumn continued much as before, with friends to stay at Glamis, and house parties elsewhere. And she was seeing more of James Stuart. He came back to Glamis on 2 October for a week to shoot, and a few days later she drove with him to Ballathie House on the River Tay near Perth, where Doris Gordon-Lennox was staying in a house party with her sister Amy's parents-in-law, Sir Stuart and Lady Coats. Doris wrote to her afterwards that the whole family adored seeing her, and she tried to put her mind at rest about her arrival alone with James Stuart a rather risque thing for a young woman to do. 'Of course we didn't think anything of you & James coming! No one thought it a bit funny. I think everyone here now realises how fashionable it is to tour round Perthshire & Forfarshire with "Les freres Stuart" & I a.s.sure you it was quite alright. I do so understand it it is such a joy to have real friends like that.' She ended by saying, 'I wish I could thank you for your saintliness to me perhaps one day I'll have an opportunity until then I can only attempt to tell you how I've adored the last two months thanks chiefly to you.'73 In November, back in London, Elizabeth sent a cryptic note to Beryl which indicates that Prince Albert came to call on her when she had been expecting to see Beryl. She asked why Beryl had not come, adding: 'As a matter of fact our Bert stayed till 7, talking 100 to 20, or even 200 to a dozen. I am just off to a smart dance, & I know I shan't know a soul, & will be miserable. I must see you some time when on earth can it be? I do wish he hadn't come this evening, but I simply couldn't stop him, & I am longing to see you.'74 She and Beryl did get together, and had a long talk, catching up on all that had happened. Writing to her friend afterwards, she had an urgent request: Don't say one word about what I told you please, as that sort of thing is too awful if it gets about, & would make things very uncomfortable so do keep it strictly to yourself it is very important. You are the only person I have told about it except Katie, so you will be discreet I know. I thank thee. Not even your Mother. Au revoir are you jazzing this week?75 One can but conclude that the Prince had begun to pay court to her in earnest, and that it worried her. At about this time she and the Prince began to correspond: her first surviving letter to him was written on 13 December 1920, in answer to one from him (which does not survive). She had been invited to a dinner which was to be given for him on 15 December, the day after his twenty-fifth birthday, by a well-known society hostess. She wrote: Dear Prince Albert, Thank you so much for your letter. I am looking forward very much to Mrs Ronnie Greville's party though the very thought of it terrifies me! I haven't been to a proper dinner party for months and months, and have quite forgotten how to behave! I expect it will be great fun though. Have you been very gay? Dancing every night I expect. Only a short note, as Wednesday is so soon.
I am, Sir, Yours sincerely Elizabeth Lyon76 In the event she enjoyed Mrs Greville's party,* as she told him in her next letter, written from St Paul's Walden. Prince Albert sent her a a little box for Christmas, for which she thanked him 'a thousand times'. Her mother was unwell and she did not expect to go to another dance for months 'I lead such a deadly existence here, that there is simply nothing to tell you oh except that I have just fallen into a pond!'77 On the last day of 1920 she wrote to Beryl saying she had been very worried about her mother. Although Lady Strathmore's health was now improving the doctor said it would take a long time for her to recover her strength. Ironically Elizabeth seems once again to have been waiting in vain for a visit from Beryl when James Stuart had called to see her. 'It was rather funny, that evening that you might have been coming round, James Stuart came in.' She added: 'he is an angel, and I should like you to see him, as you hardly know any of my friends now.'78 The dances resumed in January 1921. One was given by Lord Winterton at Shillinglee Park in Surrey, for which Elizabeth stayed with the Leconfields at Petworth.* In a letter to Prince Albert the next day she wrote, 'I am quite mad this morning, as we danced till 3 last night, and I didn't go to sleep till 5, so you must forgive me if this letter is rather odd!!' There was an enormous party of people staying at Petworth, 'some nice and some nasty! At the moment I feel, that if anybody even spoke to me, I should bite them, so I hope n.o.body will!' As a postscript along the side of the page she wrote, 'This is an awful letter I really believe I am going mad.'79 The next day she was at the other side of Suss.e.x, staying with George Gage at Firle, for the Southdown Ball at which she danced until five in the morning. She returned, exhausted, to St Paul's Walden. Sitting in the billiard room, listening to the gramophone playing 'all the most delicious tunes I feel most sentimental!' she wrote to Beryl. 'Swanee always makes me feel worst. Such memories!! Tut tut Elizabeth, compose yourself.' She loved Firle but it was 'such a funny visit. Because apparently all the servants & people there, think he [Lord Gage] is going to marry either Doris or me, and they were intensely excited! I don't think it's either of us personally, he is merely a great friend of us both, but it was so funny.'80 That month the Prince came to St Paul's Walden for the first time. Replying to his letter proposing a visit, Elizabeth invited him to lunch on 17 January: the only thing is, would you mind having it alone? Not alone by yourself I don't mean (it sounds so funny that, as if you would have it in one room, and me in another!!) But you see my mother has been very ill, and she & I are really only having a sort of picnic down here by ourselves, and I am so afraid you would be bored to tears. It would be delightful though if you are sure you wouldn't mind not having a large luncheon party? Please do say if you think you might! This is quite a small house, and no ghosts like at Glamis!
She gave him directions, telling him to 'keep to the right all the way, till you come to a tumbledown old white gate on the left. Then you go up a b.u.mpy road full of holes, and eventually reach an even more tumbledown old house, and a tumbledown little person waiting on the doorstep which will be ME!!! ... I am Sir, Yours sincerely, Elizabeth Lyon.'81 No account of the lunch survives, but they met again on 8 February when Elizabeth was a bridesmaid to Helen Cecil at her marriage to Alec Hardinge. 'I bet you I look too disgusting at it,' Elizabeth wrote to Beryl, as her dress was to be blue, a colour she then disliked.82 Diamond Hardinge, Doris Gordon-Lennox and Mollie Lascelles were also bridesmaids, and Arthur Penn was best man. The King and Queen, Princess Mary and Prince Albert were guests.
Each time he saw Elizabeth the Prince evidently fell more in love. Early in 1921 he told his parents that he was planning to propose to her. Queen Mary consulted Mabell Airlie about her son's choice and was rea.s.sured;83 thereafter, as both friend of the Strathmores and lady in waiting to the Queen, Lady Airlie became a valued mediator between the two families.* On 16 February the Prince went to tea with Lady Airlie; Lady Strathmore was there too.
The Prince asked himself to lunch again on Sunday 27 February. There were no servants, Elizabeth warned him, except the 'all-important' cook. 'So if you come to luncheon there would be n.o.body to wait on us! So if you have something more amusing to do, please don't worry to come. Otherwise if you don't mind having no servants & things, do come! This is extremely ill expressed I'm afraid, but I thought I'd just let you know about Sunday.'84 It was scarcely a pressing invitation; it may even have been a hint that he should not come. If so, the Prince ignored it. That afternoon he evidently proposed to Elizabeth and she refused him. It was upsetting and the next day she wrote: Dear Prince Bertie, I must write one line to say how dreadfully sorry I am about yesterday. It makes me miserable to think of it you have been so very nice about it all please do forgive me. Also please don't worry about it , I do understand so well what you feel, and sympathise so much, & I hate to think that I am the cause of it. I honestly can't explain to you how terribly sorry I am , it worries me so much to think you may be unhappy I do hope you won't be. Anyway we can be good friends can't we? Please do look on me as one. I shall never say anything about our talks I promise you and n.o.body need ever know. I thought I must just write this short letter to try and tell you how sorry I am. Yours very sincerely, Elizabeth85 It was the first time she had signed with her Christian name only.
He immediately tried to put her mind at rest; his letter does not survive, but she wrote again: 'Dear Prince Bertie, Thank you so much for your letter, which much relieved my mind. I feel just the same as you do about it, and am so glad ... Yes, I feel I know you so much better this last few weeks I think it is so much easier to get to know people in the country even if it's only for an hour or two don't you? One is more natural I expect.' The rest of the letter is certainly 'natural' she asked him about his hunting, congratulated him on his recent speeches, which she had read in the paper, and told him she was going to Glamis for Easter. This time she signed herself Elizabeth Lyon.86 Both sets of parents, and their go-between Mabell Airlie, were sad that the relationship seemed to have foundered. Lady Strathmore wrote to Lady Airlie: My dearest Mabel I have written to the young man as you advised & told him how truly grieved we are that this little romance has come to an end. I also suggested the alternative reason he might give to his Father, in case he had not already spoken about it. I will tell you, if he replies to this letter.
You have been so angelically kind to E. & me, all through this little episode in her life, that I shall always be grateful to you dear Mabel.
I do hope that the Queen is not very much annoyed with E. & me, altho' it wd be quite natural that she shd be, but I shd be so unhappy to cause her (the Queen) any worry in her strenuous life. I hope 'he' will find a very nice wife, who will make him happy as between you & me, I feel he will be 'made or marred' by his wife.
No one except you knows what a keen disappointment it has all been to me, but I daresay it is all for the best, & my worldliness will be well squashed!!87*
Queen Mary appears not to have been annoyed, for a few days later she invited Lady Strathmore to see her at Buckingham Palace.88 No record of the conversation has survived.
The Prince may have been downcast but he was determined to maintain his pursuit of Elizabeth and they continued to correspond. On Good Friday she wrote to him from Glamis to say she was happy that 'depressing' Lent was nearly over. She hoped to come to London soon but 'It is so impossible to make plans with my mother ill like this sometimes I get rather depressed, but I suppose that is silly of me!'
Elizabeth was busy getting up a sale for the troop of Girl Guides she had started at Glamis in 1920. 'You ought to see me in my uniform of Lord High Admiral of the Guides,' she told the Prince. 'I am an awe-inspiring figure & look most commanding. Have you been doing anything amusing lately? Please forgive such a deadly letter, I think my brain is going, through not having seen anyone for such ages.'89 She signed herself 'Elizabeth'.
PRINCE ALBERT, too, was busy with his work for the Industrial Welfare Society. Such work was needed. Throughout 1920 industrial unrest had been growing. In the first three months of 1921 unemployment almost doubled to 1,300,000, the export price of coal collapsed, and the government announced its intention to denationalize the mining industry. At the beginning of April the miners declared a strike and the railwaymen and transport workers threatened to join them. The King immediately returned from Windsor to London. 'There is no doubt that we are pa.s.sing through as grave a crisis as this country has ever had,' he wrote. 'All the troops have been called out, Kensington Gardens are full of them ... The Government have made all their preparations for distributing food &c and the public are entirely with the Govt, so perhaps these delightful people who want a revolution, will come to their senses before it is too late.'90 Prince Albert too had been at Windsor: cancelling out all else in his engagement diary are the words 'Return to London on account of Coal Strike.'91 The general sense of nervousness that the prevailing social system would not survive affected the Bowes Lyon family. In the second week of April Lord Strathmore, taking his butler Arthur Barson with him, hurried from St Paul's Walden to Glamis to raise volunteers to break the transport strike. Elizabeth wrote to Beryl, 'Bad times my dear M[edusa], but I love the calm way the British people take it all! Nothing but talks of Revolution and Ruin, & yet everybody moons along in the same old way, except that the "Boys" join anything they can. Mike has joined something, and goes to Hertford tomorrow. Very bored, but I suppose he's right.'92 The government made elaborate plans for feeding London and other cities but at the last minute, on 'Black Friday', 15 April, the railways and transport unions called off their strike. The King was relieved when, shortly afterwards, he attended a football match watched by 73,000 people: 'at the end they sang the National Anthem and cheered tremendously. There were no Bolsheviks there! At least I never saw any. The country is all right: just a few extremists are doing all the harm.'93 It was in these troubled circ.u.mstances that Prince Albert took up a suggestion by Alexander Grant, an industrialist. Grant argued that increasing contacts between young people of different backgrounds would benefit society as a whole. The Prince, who had been impressed by a football game between young Welsh steelworkers and pupils from Westminster School, hit upon the idea of a camp. Two hundred boys from public schools and 200 from firms which had joined the Industrial Welfare Society would be brought together with the aim of breaking down social divisions through a week of shared games and entertainment.
The first camp, paid for by Grant, took place in August 1921 on Romney Marsh in Kent. It was unprecedented: although camps had been held by organizations such as the Boys' Brigade and the Scouts, this was the first to mix groups which had never met. There were of course teething troubles and problems of communication, but the camp went well.* 'Your Boys Camp was a great success wasn't it?' Elizabeth asked the Prince. 'I hope so anyway, as it is such an excellent idea, and a wonderful thing for the boys.' The camps became an annual summer event for the next eighteen years. Prince Albert always spent one full day, the Duke's Day, at the camp, joining in meals and games, and in the singing of what became the camp song, 'Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree'. Although inevitably limited and too easily dismissed as naive by a more cynical generation, these camps were a genuine attempt to mitigate the harsh realities of industrial life between the wars.
The Prince of Wales, too, was playing his part, in a welcome year off from his Empire tours. He visited industrial areas and was enthusiastically received even by convinced republicans in Glasgow and Lancashire.94 In May 1921 he went on a ten-day tour of Devon and Cornwall, during which he stayed for two days with Lord and Lady Clinton at Bicton in Devon. The Clintons were the parents of Elizabeth's sister-in-law Fenella, and they had invited her to join their house party for the Prince's visit. Elizabeth was struck by his industry. 'The Prince was away all day working hard, & only got back at tea time he does have a h.e.l.lish life that's the only word for it.' For her it was a pleasant interlude: the party played tennis, 'lazed about, & occasionally did a few official Prince of Wales things and had great fun'.95 There was more amus.e.m.e.nt to come. Diamond Hardinge's father, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, had been appointed amba.s.sador to France in 1920. He was a widower and the twenty-year-old Diamond, a lively, humorous girl given to daring practical jokes,96 was his only daughter. She invited Elizabeth to go to Paris with her at the end of May 1921. Prince Paul had also written to Elizabeth from Belgrade to say that he was visiting the French capital too and hoped they would meet: he was 'simply longing' to see her again, '& also we might have some of our fast parties in the gay French Metropolis.'97 She loved this, her first visit to Paris. She and Diamond escaped from the Emba.s.sy and dined with Prince Paul and Lord and Lady Dalkeith Walter Dalkeith had married Mollie Lascelles in April. 'It was such fun,' she wrote to Prince Albert, 'and delicious seeing Mollie again also it felt very odd being chaperoned by her!'98 Afterwards they danced at Ciro's club. Then, as she told Beryl, but not the Prince, they went on to 'a low place, full of the most astounding people!... We threw b.a.l.l.s at each other, and danced, and at 1.30 Maurice and Leonora Hughes danced divinely.* At 2 we staggered out me exchanging a rapid fire of little pink b.a.l.l.s with a sinister gentleman in a black beard! It was such fun, & so indescribably Parisien as to atmosphere!' Another night they dined at the Cafe de Madrid: One ate and danced out of doors, under trees lit up with little pink lights. I do wish you could see them dancing the shimmy here!! It's too disgusting! And at the place we finished up at last night, honestly none of the women wore any clothes under their frocks! Too odd it is! The food is so good here alpine strawberries, huge asparagus & horse shoe rolls are the things I like!
There was serious sightseeing too: the two girls went to the Louvre, and Lord Hardinge drove them to Malmaison and Chartres.99 Elizabeth wrote to the Prince that she had decided to stay on for at least a week, 'as London is so dull now, and this is amusing. Are you going to Ascot? I know you love it!!'100 On 9 June she wrote again. She had been to a ball the night before 'and I am in the last stages of exhaustion! They dance the Tango a great deal out here rather an amusing dance I think. I danced it with a Russian called Constantine Somebody the other evening I never found out his other name! It was so funny, one is suddenly hurled into the air, and then bounced on the floor till one is gaga, ou la la! Very painful.'101 Back in England she continued to correspond with the Prince, to meet him at dances and to play tennis with him. They were not well matched on the court he had won the RAF Doubles Compet.i.tion in 1920, playing with Louis Greig, whereas she was 'getting worse & worse!' as she told him.102 There was more tennis, without the Prince, at a lively house party at Welbeck Abbey, home of Elizabeth's relations the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Portland.* 'We played tennis violently all day, & danced violently all night, so I'm now even more of a wreck than I was!' she reported to the Prince in a letter thanking him for a book he had sent for her birthday.103 She was expecting him at Glamis at the end of September 1921, just as the year before. She was happy to be friends with him, she said in her letters. This must have encouraged his ambitions.104 Queen Mary came to see for herself. On 5 September she arrived at Airlie Castle to stay with Lady Airlie, and Lord Strathmore and Elizabeth were invited for tea; Lady Strathmore was unwell and could not come. Four days later the Queen lunched at Glamis. 'Went over the Castle which is most interesting,' she recorded, with characteristic brevity.105 According to Mabell Airlie, 'Lady Elizabeth filled her mother's place as hostess so charmingly that the Queen was more than ever convinced that this was "the one girl who could make Bertie happy".' But Queen Mary was determined not to interfere. 'I shall say nothing to either of them. Mothers should never meddle in their children's love affairs.'106 On 24 September Prince Albert duly arrived at Glamis. While he was there his mother wrote, sending 'many messages to the Strathmores and E' and hoping he was enjoying himself.107 He replied, 'It is delightful here and Elizabeth is very kind to me. The more I see her the more I like her.'108 With her mother still in bed, Elizabeth continued to play hostess. Her father, Michael and David were there; so were Rose and Wisp, together with Mida Scott,* Katie Hamilton, Doris Gordon-Lennox and James Stuart. After three days of partridge driving, which the Prince enjoyed, although he felt he had not shot as well as he could, he joined his brother David on the London train at Glamis. James Stuart, alone of the party, stayed on at Glamis for three more days.
Back at Buckingham Palace the Prince wrote to his father that his week at Glamis had been 'delightful' and 'they were all so kind to me'.109 To Elizabeth he wrote: My dear Elizabeth, Thank you ever so very much for all your kindness to me last week at Glamis. I did so love my time there, & hated having to leave you all on Friday night to come South ... It is very sad to think that we shall not meet now for some time, but do please write to me & let me know when you are coming back to London ... Thanking you again ever so much for asking me up to Glamis, & being so kind to me in every way.110 On 2 October Lady Strathmore had an operation; a tumour had been feared but fortunately the surgeon found and removed only a large gallstone.111 Nonetheless, she suffered shock and the doctors feared for her life, Elizabeth told Beryl. 'I can't tell you how awful it is this is the 6th day of suspense, but I believe she will recover somehow.'112 She began to do so.
To the Prince Elizabeth wrote, 'I'm afraid this is a very depressed letter, but you know, it is such a relief to write about it, & does one so much good, that I hope you don't mind. I'm afraid I must have made a lugubrious hostess last week, but I enjoyed having everybody here, and I only hope that it wasn't too depressing for you ... Shall I write a little later on, & let you know how my mother is? You are very sympathetic about it all worry is awful, isn't it? ... Thank you again for your letter, it is such a help to have the sympathy of one's friends on these occasions.'113 She had found that she could rely on him in times of stress; she welcomed that at difficult moments, an important element of their developing relationship.
The Prince wrote back at once and on 11 October Elizabeth was able to tell him that her mother was better. 'The relief is so intense that I don't know what to do! ... It was nice of you to take so much interest.' Under her signature, she wrote: 'Don't lead too fast a life in London, & above all don't have anything to do with "FASTY": she's dangerous.'114 (Fasty was a nickname for Doris Gordon-Lennox.) To this the Prince replied that he was 'so happy that all anxiety and worry for you are over' and a.s.sured her that London life was dull 'with no fast little parties as you call them ... I heard from "Fasty" yesterday who sent me her photos which she took at Glamis, & they are so good. She is not in London now, but I will keep your warning about her in mind!!!!'115 At the end of October, however, Lady Strathmore had a relapse and developed pleurisy. Once again, the burden of looking after both her mother and the household fell upon Elizabeth. She shouldered it. Lady Strathmore wrote to a friend after she had recovered, 'I can't tell you how wonderful my little Elizabeth has been all this time, looking after everybody & everything, in fact I have hardly been missed at all.'116 Inevitably it was a strain upon Elizabeth. 'My brain is a blank,' she wrote in one letter to the Prince.117 On the advice of her mother's doctor she decided to take a break, and went to London. Prince Albert visited her after consulting a French therapist who claimed to be able to cure stammering by the use of will power and imagination.118 She wrote to him afterwards, 'I was so interested to hear about the Frenchman is your will power becoming intense? Next time I see you, you will probably have your will under such marvellous control, that having said to yourself "I don't know Elizabeth" I shall receive a stony stare.'119 There was someone else she saw in London. 'I got off quite alright the other evening,' she wrote to Beryl after her return to Glamis, 'as James Stuart turned up and insisted on taking me to Euston, where he placed me in the train & stalked off! Rather funny.'120 Elizabeth's comment suggests that all was not well between them. Stuart had just left Prince Albert's service; by his own account the job was neither well paid nor congenial enough for him to want to remain.121 Queen Mary had taken a kindly interest in Elizabeth and her family; Lord Strathmore sent her telegrams recounting his wife's progress and Elizabeth wrote to her. The Queen replied that she 'felt so deeply for you all during your time of anxiety, & shared your feelings to the full, for I have become much attached to your dearest Mother, especially since my delightful afternoon at Glamis'.122 Now, in late November, although Lady Strathmore was improving, she was still too weak to leave her bed, and the Queen sent her a present of a basket for her letters.123 Elizabeth returned to her duties at Glamis, with little prospect of travelling south again before January when, she told the Prince, she would have to buy some clothes. 'What colours do you like? Most men like blue or black for ladies' dresses, both of which I look like nothing on earth in!'124 In mid-December she was cross with herself because she had missed his birthday; she wrote to apologize and to wish him 'a very happy and successful 26th year'. It was impossible to buy presents in Glamis, she said, 'otherwise I should have bought a large and magnificent offering. The only thing one can buy are bull's eyes very sticky and they won't travel!'125 Christmas at Glamis that year was muted. Lady Strathmore was still unwell and Elizabeth also spent much of the time in bed with flu. The Prince was, as usual, with his parents at York Cottage at Sandringham, and she wrote to him in pencil to thank him for 'the most darling little clock', a present perhaps inspired by her habitual tardiness. 'It really is too pretty for words, and besides being pretty is useful too. I am enchanted with it. Also that is an excellent photograph of you I wish I had got something to send you too.'126 There was just one guest at Glamis over the New Year holiday James Stuart.127 He was saying goodbye. Early in 1922 he left for the United States, where he had been offered a job in the oil business through Sir Sidney Greville, a long-serving courtier whose sister was one of Queen Mary's ladies in waiting. Much later Stuart claimed that he and Elizabeth had been in love, and that Queen Mary had intervened to remove him as a rival to her son.128 If Queen Mary was indeed involved in his departure, no evidence has been found in the Royal Archives. However, many years later King George VI told Princess Margaret that her mother had almost married James Stuart, but that he had gone abroad.129 Later still, Queen Elizabeth herself acknowledged that her 'very serious' suitor had gone away to America.130 *
MEANWHILE PRINCESS MARY had become engaged to Viscount Lascelles;* Prince Albert had written to tell Elizabeth that they had 'fixed it up themselves, and are frightfully happy'.131 The Princess invited Elizabeth to be one of her bridesmaids at the wedding in February 1922. She added, 'Bertie tells me you are coming south shortly and he is so looking forward to seeing you.'132 Elizabeth and the Prince saw each other on the weekend of 1315 January at her G.o.dmother Mrs James's house, Coton, near Rugby, where they had both been invited to stay for the Atherstone Hunt Ball. Prince Albert drove her and Katie Hamilton to the ball. The party at Coton was 'quite good fun', he told his mother afterwards, without elaborating.133 Queen Mary replied at once from York Cottage, 'I was longing to hear how Elizabeth had behaved & whether she is beginning to thaw or not! Your letter does not enlighten me on this point so I must have patience till we next meet.' She reminded her son that Lady Airlie was ready to a.s.sist in any way.134 In fact, as the Prince revealed to the Queen, he was 'rather depressed' about the weekend at Coton. The weather had been bad and everyone was cooped up in the house. He did not think Elizabeth was very well, as she had 'lost her good spirits after the first evening'. He had danced with her both nights 'and I think things were going better, but I would like to have a talk with you some time on your return on this subject. I am sure Lady Airlie could help a lot now.'135 In a letter to the Prince of Wales, away on tour in India, he said he was making only very slow progress towards the engagement he hoped for.136 In early February Elizabeth's paternal grandmother died, and the Prince sent his commiserations, hoping that this bereavement would not prevent her being a bridesmaid to his sister. She replied that, while Glamis would be filled with relations and the burial in the family cemetery would be sad, her death had been long expected.137 On 28 February there were large, enthusiastic crowds outside Westminster Abbey* for Princess Mary's wedding. Elizabeth thought her bridesmaid's dress white satin and silver lace was very pretty.138 At the rehearsal she found it quite difficult to walk slowly and steadily in the high heels she had to wear. 'I am so afraid I shall appear intoxicated, which would be awful,' she wrote to the Prince.139 In the event she managed her heels perfectly well, and afterwards she and the other bridesmaids lunched with members of the Royal Household and wedding guests at Buckingham Palace. Years later her biographer Elizabeth Longford pointed out that this occasion gave her 'her first glimpse of what it was to partic.i.p.ate in a royal public event. With her flair for happiness, she could not but find it enjoyable.'140 But this brief experience did not at once persuade her to change her mind about marrying into the Royal Family. On 7 March 1922 Prince Albert provoked another crisis in their relationship: he proposed to her again. She was apparently taken by surprise and once more she said no. She wrote to him next day from Bruton Street: Dear Prince Bertie, I am so terribly sorry about what happened yesterday, & feel it is all my fault, as I ought to have known. Will you please forgive me? You are one of my best & most faithful friends, & have always been so nice to me that makes it doubly worse. I am too miserable about it, and blame myself more than I can say. If you ever feel you want a talk about things in general I hope you will come and see me, as I understand you know. I do wish this hadn't happened. Yours Elizabeth141 The same afternoon he replied that her letter had somewhat depressed him: I have been thinking over what happened yesterday all today & I feel that you must think so badly of me. For my sake please do not make yourself miserable or worried about it, as I should never forgive myself. I was entirely in the wrong to bring up the question in the