The Queen Mother Part 6
* The first royal wedding in the Abbey for 650 years was that of Princess Patricia of Connaught, King George V's cousin, to the Hon. Alexander Ramsay in 1919; it started a new and popular trend, and Princess Mary's wedding attracted even more attention because she was the King's only daughter and also the first of his children to follow their parents' decision in favour of marriage into British families.
It is not true, as has been stated, that she sat next to the Duke of York at the wedding breakfast. This was held in a different room and was restricted to the Royal Family, royal guests and the bridegroom's family.
* Christopher Tennant, second Baron Glenconner (18991983), married first, 1925, Pamela Winifred Paget; secondly, 1935, Elizabeth Harcourt Powell.
* The Dover Patrol, created in summer 1914, became a vital wartime command. It could call upon a motley array of sometimes obsolete cruisers, monitors, destroyers, armed trawlers, paddle minesweepers, armed yachts, motor launches and coastal motor boats, submarines, seaplanes, aeroplanes and airships. The Patrol's many tasks in the southern North Sea and the Dover Straits included escorting merchantmen and hospital and troop ships; laying sea-mines and sweeping up German mines; bombarding German military positions on the Belgian coast; and sinking U-boats.
John Colin Campbell Davidson (18891970), at this time MP for Hemel Hempstead and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. Created 1937 Viscount Davidson. Married 1919 Hon. Frances Joan d.i.c.kinson.
* Archibald Clark Kerr (18821951), diplomat; served under Lord Allenby in Cairo 19225; British Minister to the Central Americas 1925, Chile 1928, Sweden 1931. Knighted 1935; Amba.s.sador in Iraq 1935, Peking 1938, Moscow 1942, Washington 1946. Created Baron Inverchapel 1946. Married 1929 Maria Theresa Diaz Salas, daughter of a Chilean millionaire.
* Jasper Ridley (18871951), second son of Sir Matthew Ridley (later Viscount Ridley), married 1911 Countess Nathalie Benckendorff. A member of the Contemporary Art Society, he later became chairman of the Trustees of the National Gallery and the British Museum, and also chairman of Coutts Bank.
Francis G.o.dolphin D'Arcy Osborne (18841964), great-great-grandson of fifth Duke of Leeds; Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Washington DC, 19315; Amba.s.sador to the Holy See 193647; succeeded his distant cousin, Lady Dorothy's brother John, eleventh Duke, as twelfth duke of Leeds 1963.
One guest who had amused her was the American actor James K. Hackett, who had come to absorb the atmosphere of Glamis in the hope of improving his performances as Macbeth. She had never seen a man drink so much, she said.
* Bettine Malcolm (18991973), married in December 1922 Captain Henry Somerset, kinsman of tenth Duke of Beaufort; their son David succeeded as eleventh duke.
Lady Rachel Cavendish (190277), daughter of ninth Duke of Devonshire. Mary Cavendish (190394), first cousin of Rachel, married Lord Balniel in 1925, and became Countess of Crawford in 1940 when he succeeded his father as twenty-eighth earl of Crawford.
* Apart from her childhood diaries, her first surviving diary is that of 1923.
* Lady Mary Thynne (190374) married in 1921 third Baron Nunburnholme (divorced 1947). She was lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth 193747; in 1947 she married Sir Ulick Alexander, Keeper of the Privy Purse to King George VI.
CHAPTER FOUR.
A ROYAL WEDDING.
1923.
'You are perfectly safe in the hands of a Scots la.s.sie'
ON TUESDAY 16 January 1923 the papers were filled with news of the engagement.* Elizabeth read them in bed in Bruton Street. 'Great headlines & lots of rot!' she wrote in her diary. 'Telegrams poured in all day, letters & reporters tumbling over each other.'1 The King and Queen both wrote at once to their future daughter-in-law. The King told her that he was delighted she was to become a member of his family. Bertie, he wrote, was 'radiant with happiness & I most gladly give my consent to your marriage with him. I know you will do all you can to help him in his many duties ... G.o.d bless you my dear Elizabeth.'2 The Queen wrote, 'The King and I are delighted to welcome you as our future daughter in law and we send you our warmest congratulations. The news has come as a great surprise and we feel very much excited!' She invited Elizabeth and her parents to Sandringham the following weekend and promised a warm welcome. 'I hope you will look on me as a "second mother" and that we shall become great friends. May G.o.d bless you both, my beloved children, is the heartfelt prayer of your loving future mother in law, Mary R.'3 To Lady Strathmore, the Queen wrote how delighted she and the King were that Bertie's 'great wish' had come true '& that he is really engaged to dearest Elizabeth'.4 Lady Strathmore replied thanking the Queen 'many times' for her most kind letter. She was sure that Prince Bertie would make Elizabeth happy and was 'quite certain that she will make him the best & most loving of wives, & a very loyal & affectionate child to Your Majesty'.5 The Prince was overjoyed by everything. He thanked his mother for being so charming about his engagement. 'I am very very happy & I can only hope that Elizabeth feels the same as I do ... She was delighted with your letters, though feels rather shy about how to answer them.'6 In the event she did well, writing to the King, 'I am so grateful to Your Majesty for welcoming me so kindly as a future member of your family and I only hope that I shall be able to help Bertie in all his many duties, and in many other ways also.'7 To the Queen she wrote, 'my greatest wish is to be a real daughter to Your Majesty. I shall look forward intensely to my visit to Sandringham on Sat.u.r.day, and I do hope you will think I shall make Bertie a good wife, we are both so happy, and it is all wonderful.'8 On Tuesday the Prince returned from Sandringham for lunch at Bruton Street, and afterwards they faced a crowd of photographers and well-wishers when they drove off to the Palace together for the first time. There they chose the engagement ring from a selection brought by the jeweller Bert of Vigo Street: it was a large sapphire flanked by diamonds in a platinum setting.
Back at Bruton Street, Elizabeth made a mistake. She talked to two Scottish reporters.* And she also saw another journalist, 'the most fearful bounder of the gentleman cla.s.s', as Lady Strathmore described him, 'whom Father had been much too kind to'.9 This was Charles Graves, brother of the writer Robert Graves and reporter for the London Evening News. He had at first driven down to St Paul's Walden, where, stealing a march on the newsmen waiting outside the house, he simply rang the doorbell and produced his personal visiting card. The affable Lord Strathmore apologized for his daughter's absence and gave him a letter of introduction to her. Armed with this and seated in a large Daimler provided by his newspaper, Graves was able to bypa.s.s crowds, rival reporters and police in Bruton Street, and to gain admittance to the house. His interview, describing Elizabeth seated at a table stacked with telegrams, 'a charming picture of English girlhood, in a simple dark-blue morning dress edged with fur', her 'brilliant eyes ... alight with happiness as she talked of the goodwill that had been shown her by high and low',10 appeared on the front page of the Evening News and was picked up by the daily newspapers next day. Graves claimed in his memoirs that pressure was brought to bear on Elizabeth 'by royal circles' to deny the interview, which she refused to do.11 This may not be strictly true Queen Mary, for example, simply commented, 'How tiresome the newspaper people have been interviewing poor E., such a shame,'12 and Elizabeth herself, to judge from her diary, was both thrilled and appalled by the press interest. But whether as a result of a royal warning or her own decision there were no more interviews.*
Wednesday was another day of newspaper stories and the constant delivery of sacks of letters, scores of telegrams. Several of her girl friends Betty Cator, Doris Gordon-Lennox and Diamond Hardinge came to see her. Christopher Glenconner dropped in too. Elizabeth and Doris slipped out for a walk in what must have been for once welcome fog: 'Talked hard she is so pleased.' The Prince went hunting during the day but came to dinner and they talked till midnight. Thursday was the same, with hundreds more letters and telegrams, and she posed for photographers for an hour. 'When we went out at 4, there was a large crowd most embarra.s.sing.' That evening the Prince had to go to an Industrial Welfare Society dinner, but he came around to Bruton Street afterwards to see her. 'Talked nonsense till 12!'13 The Prince of Wales sent Elizabeth a warm letter of congratulation. 'I'm so glad & I do so hope you will both be very very happy.'14 Arthur Penn wrote with emotion to her and she replied at once that his letter was 'far the nicest I've had yet ... It was all so surprising and I am very pleased with being engaged!'15 Penn wrote also to Lady Strathmore and she thanked him, praising his understanding of Elizabeth's character. 'She is such a perfect being in every way that I am naturally very anxious about her future, because outside, or rather inside that bright character is a terribly acute sensitiveness, which makes life much more difficult for her. However Prince Bertie simply adores her, and I think grasps her true worth although I think he will have to grow a little older to fully appreciate her character.'16 In reply to D'Arcy Osborne's congratulations, Elizabeth wrote, 'You must come round and " 'ave one" soon, you have no idea how tiring it is being engaged! I am quite gaga already!!'17 On Friday 19 January they were again swamped with letters which she endeavoured to go through with the help of a secretary, Norah Chard, enlisted by Louis Greig. After lunch she and the Duke drove to Richmond Park to look at the garden of White Lodge, the house the King and Queen were planning to let them have. Once again, they talked long into the evening.18 *
ON SAt.u.r.dAY MORNING she had to prepare herself for her first formal meeting with her future parents-in-law. She came downstairs at 11 o'clock, and then she and the Duke set off in his car to Liverpool Street station. Her parents followed in the Daimler. 'We got to Liverpool St in about 10 minutes. Vast crowd there, & hundreds of photographers.'19 Together with the Duke and her parents, she journeyed in a special carriage attached to the 11.50 train to Wolferton, the station which served Sandringham. A cold lunch was served en route.
King George VI's biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett, commented decades later that her first meeting with the King and Queen as her future parents-in-law was 'an ordeal not to be underestimated but Lady Elizabeth came through with flying colours'.20 The King and Queen were awaiting them at York Cottage. Both immediately thought Elizabeth pretty and charming; the King wrote in his diary, 'Bertie is a very lucky fellow,' and the Queen noted that she was 'engaging & natural', adding next day, 'I am much taken with Elizabeth.'21 They took her and her parents straight to Sandringham House for tea with Queen Alexandra. Many years later Elizabeth recalled that the Queen 'looked beautiful in her old age, and tho' practically stone deaf, managed with those Danish gestures to convey quite a lot!'22 Also there to examine her were four more royal ladies: Queen Alexandra's youngest daughter Queen Maud of Norway, her sister the Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia, mother of Tsar Nicholas II, and Queen Alexandra's eldest daughter Princess Louise, d.u.c.h.ess of Fife, with her daughter Princess Maud. After tea she was taken upstairs to meet Princess Victoria, Queen Alexandra's second daughter, who was ill.
Elizabeth enchanted them all and Queen Mary thought it was 'a very happy cheerful party'.23 When they returned to York Cottage Elizabeth and the Duke spent much of the rest of the weekend reading through more piles of letters, and writing replies to their friends, relations and well-wishers. To Lady Leicester, a neighbour at Holkham, the Prince wrote, 'I am very very happy to know that my dream of some years has come true, & that the most wonderful person in the world is going to be my wife.'24 Elizabeth told her sister May that she was 'almost gaga with writing'. She said that she had just been through 'the most ghastly ordeal of going to tea with Queen A and all the old ladies. They were all too angelic to me, but it is a strain! The King & Queen are both so charming to me, but it's most terrifying! ... I really feel so happy, it's so surprising, I never thought I'd say yes.'25 To Beryl Poignand she wrote, 'I've had a ghastly time this week with reporters & photographers curse them, but hope they will very soon get tired of us.' Meeting all the relations had not been easy. 'They have all been so very kind & charming, but I'm feeling utterly exhausted.' She had already received letters from two of the former patients at Glamis, Ernest Pearce and Norman Jepson* 'such delicious letters. I was so pleased.' After exclaiming, 'I am so happy, & most surprised, as I never thought I'd marry him!!!' she added, 'I am so tired already I think I shall probably die long before I get married. How delighted the papers would be after the ROMANCE the TRAGEDY! What ho. Best love, I've got at least 500 letters to write.'26 Mike, her wittiest brother, wondered what the weekend at Sandringham was like. 'I do hope Father is behaving nicely & not pouring his cocoa backwards and forwards in four cups & two tumblers under the Queen's nose at breakfast ... Well, what ho Cheerie ho, What ho what! Your loving Mike.' In a postscript, he asked, 'Have you written to James? I think you ought to. Poor James! He will be angry, won't he?'27 James Stuart had indeed heard the news; he sent a telegram of congratulations from New York.28 George Gage's disappointment was acute, but he admitted, 'You ought to be a princess you are one naturally.' He asked for her photograph.29 From Cairo came a letter from Archie Clark Kerr, who said that he was speechless with envy but sent her every possible kind wish.* The Prince, he thought, 'is the luckiest person in the world to have for his own your happiness, your goodness, your beauty, your serenity, your everything that makes you what you are.'30 *
BY SUNDAY NIGHT the atmosphere at York Cottage was more relaxed. The Hardinges Elizabeth's friend Helen and her husband Alec, the King's a.s.sistant Private Secretary came to dinner, and afterwards, watching the King and Prince Albert playing billiards, Elizabeth and Helen 'sat on hot water pipes & talked'.31 On Monday 22 January, the Prince and Elizabeth, with the Strathmores, left Norfolk by train from Wolferton, in the same private carriage. At Liverpool Street, there was another large, friendly crowd to greet them. He returned to Buckingham Palace, she to Bruton Street. At the Palace, the Prince immediately wrote to his mother thanking her for being so charming to Elizabeth.32 The Queen replied, 'You ask what Papa & I think of Elizabeth, well we are simply enchanted with her & think her too dear & attractive for words & you have made a wonderful choice.'33 In the King's eyes she possessed the added advantage of being 'so unlike some of the modern girls', and she would be 'a great addition to our family circle'.34 To Lady Strathmore, Queen Mary wrote that the weekend had given her and the King 'the greatest happiness and it was such a joy to see the radiant faces of "our children". We are simply enchanted with your darling little Elizabeth and one and all here rave about her.'35 That afternoon the Prince and his fiancee took tea with Princess Mary. Back home, Elizabeth found that her decision was proving contagious. 'Doris came in she is engaged to Clare Vyner.* I am so glad.'36 That was only the start of it. A few days later Diamond Hardinge announced that she was engaged to Bobby Abercromby.
Next day, 23 January, the betrothed couple went with Lord Farquhar to inspect White Lodge. Farquhar, a friend of the King and until recently Lord Steward, had leased the house from the Crown since 1909, and now relinquished it for them. It had been Queen Mary's family home before her marriage, and she liked the idea of her son and his wife taking it over.37 Situated in the middle of Richmond Park, White Lodge was built by King George II between 1727 and 1729 'as a place of refreshment after the fatigues of the chace'. Queen Caroline, his wife, decided to live in it; later their daughter Princess Amelia was made Ranger of the Park and she took over the house and extended it.38 'We went all over the house. Charming place,' Elizabeth commented in her diary.39 'I was simply enchanted by it all,' she wrote to the Queen. 'There is nowhere I should like to live in more, and I have fallen in love with it.'40 She did not remain enamoured for very long.
The rest of the week was spent dealing with the continuing deluge of letters, seeing Diamond Hardinge, Arthur Penn, Freddy Dalrymple Hamilton and other friends, choosing new notepaper for herself, visiting her dressmaker, Madame Handley Seymour, for new clothes, dining at Claridge's with the Duke and friends, and going with May and David to see a revue, The Co-Optimists to find that a verse about her and the Duke had been added to one of the songs in the show. She also paid a visit to her doctor, Dr Irwin Moore, to have her throat treated. 'It makes one feel awfully tired.'41 The treatment for tonsillitis, from which she suffered frequently, could be harsh in those days: she described it as having her throat 'burnt'. She had eight more weekly sessions until the doctor p.r.o.nounced her throat better in early April.
On 25 January the Prince took the night train to Glasgow for two days of official visits. Released by their engagement from the conventions of formality, he and Elizabeth wrote to each other with a new tenderness. 'My dear Darling, I am just writing you a very little letter,' she began. 'I shall be thinking about you when you get this, & hoping that everything will go off wonderfully well. I am quite sure it will. Also, I might add that I do [underlined several times] love you Bertie, & feel certain that I shall more & more. I shall miss you terribly. You are such an Angel to me. Goodbye till Sunday may it come quickly. From your always & forever loving E.'42 This letter crossed with one written by the Duke in pencil on the train.
My own little darling one, How I hated leaving you this evening after our delightful little tete a tete dinner ... This is my first letter to you since you made me such a very happy person that Sunday at St Paul's Walden & you don't know what a wonderful difference it has made to me darling, in all ways. I think I must have always loved you darling but could never make you realise it without telling you actually that I did & thank G.o.d I told you at the right moment.
As soon as he reached Scotland, he wrote again in ink, 'My darling, I have just arrived safely & am told a letter will reach you by the morning. I wrote you a line in the train in pencil which goes as well, though I know you don't like pencil letters ... I feel it terribly to be parted from you for so long darling.'43 By the weekend, when she drove with her mother and her sister May to St Paul's Walden, the excitement had taken its toll. 'Felt very tired & rather depressed through feeling so tired,' she wrote in her diary.44 She spent Sunday morning in bed; the Duke arrived at lunchtime, in a new car. That evening they danced a little and talked a lot.
They returned to York Cottage on Monday 29 January to spend the week with the King and Queen. The days that followed were calm and predictable, as the King liked them to be, his future daughter-in-law absorbed into the routine without further ado. The men went shooting in the morning; the ladies joined them for lunch. The King wrote to his son Prince George of Elizabeth: 'The more I see of her the more I like her.'45 There were two more visits to the old ladies at Sandringham House 'Everybody as old as the hills!'46 wrote Elizabeth a trip to Newmarket to see the King's horses, lunch and a walk round the gardens at Holkham. The evenings were not lively. In other company she would certainly have preferred to dance to the gramophone, play games or sing, but she had evidently been advised to bring some kind of 'work' with her. 'Knitted my blue thing after [dinner] until nearly 11,' she noted in her diary on the first evening; and knit she did, for two more evenings. Her lack of skill at knitting socks later became a joke she shared with the King. Throughout the week, she and the Duke continued to reply to letters and to thank people for the gifts they had received.
The Duke wrote an affectionate letter to his future mother-in-law to tell her how very happy he was that Elizabeth was to be his wife.
I feel it must have come through all your great kindness to me during the last 3 years, when you were angelic enough to let me come to Glamis, St Paul's Walden & Bruton Street after all the difficulties which seemed invariably to come up year after year. Elizabeth has always been angelic to me ever since I first knew her in 1920, & even after the various vicissitudes she was always the same wonderful friend to me. And now it has all changed into something much more wonderful, and I only hope that I am worthy of her great love. I can a.s.sure you that I will do my utmost to make her happy all our lives.47 Lady Strathmore responded equally warmly. 'All I ask & pray for, is that she shld be happy, & this I feel she will be with your love surrounding her. Dear Bertie you have been so kind to me too, that I know, that tho' I must in a sense lose E. I am gaining a son who will always be very dear to me.'48 To Mabell Airlie the Duke wrote joyously, 'How can I thank you enough for your most charming letter to me about the wonderful happenings in my life which have come to pa.s.s, & my one dream which has at last been realized. It all seems so marvellous to me & for me to know that my darling Elizabeth will one day be my wife. We are both very very happy & I am sure we shall always be.' Her earlier letter after Christmas, he said, had been 'an inspiration' to them. 'It only wanted very little to make us both make up our minds, and I am sure it was your words that did it ... we can only bless you for what you did.'49 Elizabeth wrote again to Beryl Poignand, saying that she had had a 'delicious and restful week' in Norfolk. 'It is a bit of a strain staying with one's future in-laws, whoever they are. Mine have been all too angelic to me, I must say.'50 *
ON 6 FEBRUARY James Stuart, who had just returned from New York, came to call. He was very depressed, Elizabeth thought, to find all his friends 'engaged & scattered'. She recorded in her diary, 'He is just the same Very slow!'51 This private comment reveals, perhaps, that she had no regrets about him.
Later that week she had a difficult day, driving with the Queen, the Duke and Louis Greig to White Lodge to go over the house again. Queen Mary loved the house as she knew it and considered that it was 'in excellent order'.52 It was not easy for a young bride to suggest changes.53 After touring the upper floors for two hours they had a picnic lunch; then they descended to the bas.e.m.e.nt, whereupon Sir John Baird, the First Commissioner of Works, arrived with the architects and they had to go all around the house again. It was exhausting.54 But over the next few days a brief escape into the company of her own family and friends brought relief. With 'les fteres Stuart', James and Francis, and her brother Mike, she drove to Oxford to see David, stopping in Henley for a cherry brandy. After lunch and a walk at Magdalen, she drove for some of the way home; they stopped at Maidenhead and took tea at Skindles Hotel on the Thames 'lovely day'. That evening, however, she wrote in her diary, 'Leef rehtar desserped.' It was, perhaps, the painful recognition that she would soon have to put such carefree days behind her.55 That weekend was easier, because she and her fiance could be with her parents at St Paul's Walden. They relaxed. After he left her to return to London alone on Sunday 11 February, the Prince wrote to say, 'I loved the weekend with you & hated leaving you this evening, just a month tonight isn't it darling when you told me you loved me. What a day that was for me!!! & for you too.'56 Her time was filled now. She sat for the portraitist John Singer Sargent so that he could sketch her in charcoal, for Prince Paul's wedding present to them;* she was also sitting to L. F. Roslyn for a bust. She visited White Lodge (or 'Whiters' as she called it) again, with 'about twelve architects, plumbers etc'. She was taken to meet members of the wider Royal Family. On 17 February she and her mother went to 'Buck House' (another nickname she had begun to use) where, in a gesture symbolic of the importance of precedent in the world Elizabeth was about to enter, Queen Mary gave her 'some wonderful lace, in the same room that Queen Victoria gave her presents in'. She went to Thomas Goode's, one of London's best gla.s.s and porcelain shops, with the Duke to choose gla.s.s, and to Zyrot, a fashionable milliner, to choose hats: 'Such fun! Also country suits!' She saw her doctor for further attention to her throat. Then there were constant visitors to be entertained and all the time there was the problem of more photographers, more crowds. Thus on 23 February she recorded in her diary that 'a horrible photographer' had been lying in wait for her when she went for a sitting to Mabel Hankey, the miniaturist. 'So a crowd collected. Such a nuisance.'57 Everyone wanted to meet her, or to reaffirm acquaintanceship. But although she continued to see her friends, she was already expected to take part in some of the formal life of the Royal Family. On 21 February Elizabeth's name appeared for the first time in the Court Circular as a member of the royal party at a public event, when the King and Queen took her and the Duke to the Shire Horse Society's annual show at the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington. On Monday 5 March, at Buckingham Palace, she had her first experience of a royal ritual, standing with the Duke beside the King and Queen while 'privileged bodies' read addresses of congratulation on their engagement. This was the custom by which certain inst.i.tutions, for example Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the Corporations of London and Edinburgh, the Church of England and the Free Churches, traditionally present loyal addresses to the sovereign in person. 'Some very funny,' she remarked.58 A week later she and Lady Strathmore took the night train to Scotland. 'I love Glamis,' she wrote to the Duke. 'When I arrived this morning the sun was just rising over the Sidlaw hills, and made the snow on the Grampians look pink & heavenly. It was wonderful to be able to see about twenty miles instead of down one London street! It would be more delicious if you were here too I hate to think of you in horrible London all by yourself.'59 This letter caught the night mail and was with him the next morning at Buckingham Palace. He replied at once to say how much it had cheered him up. He hoped she was getting a rest there would not be much chance before the wedding. 'Why couldn't we be married first and do all this work afterwards?'60 The difficulties they faced in arranging their future home to their own satisfaction preoccupied them both. The Duke was irked by Queen Mary's insistence on keeping control of changes at White Lodge. He praised his fiancee's constant cheerfulness and said his own patience had been 'tried very high on one or two occasions don't you think? All I want is that you should have what you want & that you should get the benefit & pleasure of going round & finding them for yourself & not having things thrust at you by other people.'61 Elizabeth tried to soothe and rea.s.sure him as she would throughout their marriage. 'Don't worry about White Lodge and furniture. I am quite certain we shall make it enchanting you and I; so please don't fuss yourself, little darling. You are such an angel to me always, and I hate to think of you worrying about anything. "Keep calm and don't be bullied rest if you can" is my advice!!'62 Several busy days followed, looking for furniture, discussing the wedding cake, to be baked by McVitie and Price in Edinburgh, even attending a rugger match with the Duke. Everywhere, she made a good impression. The Duke's papers include a letter from Jock Smith of the Scottish Football Union to Louis Greig in which he remarks that 'HRH is d-d lucky in his choice & the couple have made a most astonishing impression on our hard-headed, hard-hearted people.'63 A crowd saw them off on the night train to London. Next day the Duke took her to both lunch and tea with his family. Everything was very formal Elizabeth's diary and, to a lesser extent, her letters suggest that she already well understood the constraints under which the Royal Family lived. Inevitably there were times when she found the new pomp and new circ.u.mstances of her life difficult and daunting. By 21 March she was feeling tired and depressed by the way in which her life was being circ.u.mscribed. The Duke came to dinner and she had a 'long talk to him about interference etc'.64 In the morning she 'dashed off' to see Lady Airlie, lunched at the Palace and chose her bridesmaids' dresses; she had decided on the design for her wedding dress at Madame Handley Seymour's a few days earlier. Next day a series of rather formal presentations 'very pompous,'65 she declared in her diary to the betrothed couple began at Buckingham Palace: silver dishes from the City of London, more from the Army Ordnance Corps. But there were moments alone with the Duke or members of her family that were fun, high spirited and to be treasured. One weekend at St Paul's Walden Bury, 'Mike, Bertie and I made a bonfire & baked potatoes. Marvellous day, sat & watched it.'66 More sittings, more fittings, more presents. On 28 March she and the Duke 'ordered the wedding ring, bought a gramophone and a dressing table'. That evening Chips Channon came for c.o.c.ktails and then she and the Duke and some of her siblings had a 'very merry' evening dancing at the Savoy.67 More humdrum matters brought them back to earth. They debated how much should be spent on their new linen. Mrs Greville had apparently offered to buy it, or at least to contribute towards it. They had been advised that it would cost 1,500, but Elizabeth thought this excessive. 'Whoever is buying it for us must remember that we are not millionaires (what ho!) and don't you think 1,000 ought to do it?'68 Meanwhile, the letters kept flooding in, among them another mournful missive from Archie Clark Kerr in Cairo,69 and more cheerful ones from many of the soldiers who had known her at Glamis. Gordon George wrote that as a New Zealander he rejoiced 'that your charm and goodness and delightfulness are to shine where the whole Empire will get the good of you'. It was four years since he had been recuperating at Glamis 'but I have always gratefully remembered how kind to me you were when I was often perplexed and disturbed: and how you won us all, as an angel that moved among us, to love you with an enthusiastic, distant, revering love'. He sent her as a present Spenser's Wedding Songs.70 Easter was early that year and at the end of March they had to separate the Duke to Windsor and she home to St Paul's Walden. He wrote to her from the Castle: 'How I hated leaving you today after lunch with the thought of not seeing you my darling till next Wednesday morning ... Only 4 more weeks darling, & then we can take a rest away from everybody & everything. I wonder how you are looking forward to that time. I know I am very much indeed & I do hope you are too, I know it is all going to be so marvellous darling for us, don't you think?'71 A letter came from her: 'Bertie my darling, I haven't got anything special to say, but am just writing this note, in case n.o.body else writes to you!!'72 On Easter Sat.u.r.day she wrote again and said she had read in the paper that he had walked from the Castle to Frogmore.* 'Having never seen Frogmore, I imagine it as a large white Tomb full of frogs! I can't think why, but that is the impression it gives me isn't it silly?' She informed him that he had 'a most changeable face. It is too odd. Sometimes you look a completely different person, always nice though, but I must not flatter you because then your head will swell, & you will have to buy new hats.' She wished he had a small aeroplane so that he could fly over to see her for an hour or two.73 Instead the Duke spent the Easter weekend at Windsor, riding, playing squash with the Prince of Wales and golf with all three of his brothers, but always feeling constrained by the precise timetables laid down by his father. By Sunday he was keen to break away. He would rather they spent the next weekend at her home, 'where there are no fusses or worries', he told his fiancee, 'as here there is no rest & the day is so marked out into minutes for this thing & the other, which is always such a bore, & we never get any real peace'. At Windsor everything was orders 'Life is not as easy as it should be but the change is coming & you my little darling I hope are going to help me with this change. You must take them in hand & teach them how they should do these things.'74 He knew how much the Royal Family would benefit from her gaiety and spontaneity.
On 4 April, at Buckingham Palace, she had to make her first speech in her new role. 'The Pattenmakers presented me with a chest full of rubber footwear, & I read a speech back,' she recorded in her diary.75 She worried about it for days and rehea.r.s.ed it endlessly, telling the Duke that if she failed, he would have to step in. She did not fail, but it was perhaps a relief, after receiving this bounty of gumboots and galoshes, that she was able to escape to Pinet in Bond Street and buy shoes. That afternoon she and the Duke, along with Louis Greig, motored to Windsor, stopping for tea with Mrs Greig on the way. After dinner at the Castle, the Royal Family and Household crossed the river to Eton to listen to a gala performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah.76 For the next two days Elizabeth had her first taste of the ordered life of the Royal Family at Windsor Castle. In fact her diary conveys a surprising informality, and none of the rigidity of which the Duke complained. She chatted with the Prince of Wales while the Duke went out riding; the King showed her his room and played gramophone records for her; the Queen gave her a tour of the Castle; Sir John Fortescue, the Librarian, took her and the Duke to see the treasures of the Royal Library. Queen Alexandra came to lunch and gave her a pearl and amethyst chain. And at dinner Elizabeth had an amusing neighbour: d.i.c.k Molyneux,* a member of the King's Household with a distinguished military past and a lively sense of humour who was to become a particular friend to her at Court.
On Sat.u.r.day, to the regret of the King and Queen, they left for London (where they opened more presents) and then drove on to the haven of St Paul's Walden. There indeed they relaxed after tea she and the Duke made a bonfire and then 'sat & drank a c.o.c.ktail & ragged about'; after dinner they played the 'grammy'.77 The weeks and then the days before the wedding became more and more crowded. Elizabeth tried to find time for herself at home in Bruton Street in the afternoons. On Tuesday 10 April she dressed in one of her new Handley Seymour outfits: a loose-fitting brown coat edged with fur and an elaborately trimmed cloche hat, and went with the Duke to Goodwood for Doris's wedding to Clare Vyner at Chichester Cathedral. Next day, at Buckingham Palace, she and the Duke received deputations bringing them loyal addresses and wedding presents, and she was created a Lady of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. That afternoon she went with her mother to Catchpole and Williams to have strung the two rows of pearls her father had given her. 'Then to Handley S. to try on my wedding dress. Rather nice I hope.'78 Next day, after choosing chintzes for White Lodge with her mother and being photographed by Hoppe for the Graphic magazine,79 she wrote an affectionate letter to D'Arcy Osborne thanking him for the two 'divinely bound' books of poetry he had sent her; infinitely more pleasurable, she said, than 'eight ropes of pearls from a new oil Lord ... I wish you would come in one evening if you can, & drink a c.o.c.ktail & exchange a few ideas on MAGIC and POLITICS and SPIRITUALISM and RELIGION, and GEORGE ROBEY and AMERICANS and all the terribly interesting things in this world.'80 After her marriage, when Osborne asked her how he should address her, she replied in a manner which typified her spirit: 'I really don't know! It might be anything you might try "All Hail d.u.c.h.ess", that is an Alice in Wonderland sort of d.u.c.h.ess, or just "Greetings" or "What Ho, d.u.c.h.ess" or "Say, Dutch" in fact you can please yourself, as it will certainly please me.'81 In fact there had been much public speculation about what she would be called after her marriage. The Press a.s.sociation reported that 'The future style and t.i.tle of the bride is a matter for the King's decision. Recent times supply no precedent ... but the Press a.s.sociation believes that Lady Elizabeth will share her husband's rank and precedence, but until the King's wishes are known, no official information is available.'82 As to what the King's decision should be, there was lively discussion between Lord Stamfordham, his Private Secretary, and the Home Office. Stamfordham asked if she would become ipso facto HRH the d.u.c.h.ess of York. And how should she sign her name? He presumed she would not be a princess. So she could not sign simply 'Elizabeth' as Princess Mary signed herself 'Mary'. Presumably she should use 'Elizabeth of York'. The Home Secretary disagreed with the Private Secretary and said that Lady Elizabeth would indeed acquire the status of princess on marriage, though she would style herself d.u.c.h.ess of York; she should certainly sign herself 'Elizabeth'. Lord Stamfordham acquiesced.83 After the marriage an official announcement was issued that 'in accordance with the settled general rule that a wife takes the status of her husband Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon on her marriage has become Her Royal Highness the d.u.c.h.ess of York with the status of a Princess.'
Stamfordham's initial att.i.tude amounted almost to treating the marriage as morganatic, which seems curious in a country where such an alliance was an alien concept.* But he, like everyone else, was feeling his way in a situation with few helpful precedents. As has already been mentioned, the King and Queen had decided as early as 1917 that their children should be allowed to marry into British families. Princess Mary's marriage to Lord Lascelles had helped accustom the public to this idea, although it was nothing new as far as princesses were concerned: Queen Victoria's fourth daughter and King Edward VII's eldest daughter had both married compatriots and commoners. But princes were different: no sovereign's son had married at least not publicly and with official sanction into a non-royal family since an earlier Duke of York, the future King James II, had married Lady Anne Hyde in 1660. Now the effect of King George V's decision was to be demonstrated for the first time by one of his sons.
The novelty and the quandaries were not only on the bridegroom's side. The Strathmores too were entering uncharted territory: there were no guidelines for marrying a daughter into the Royal Family, and they were soon to discover that the traditional roles of the respective parents in arranging a wedding would be reversed. At first Lord and Lady Strathmore evidently expected to play the part of the bride's parents in entertaining the wedding guests. They a.s.sured Gunters, the bakers, that they would receive the order for the cake and refreshments if these were to be provided by Lord Strathmore.84 They told the Queen that they would rent a large house in London 'in order to entertain and do the usual things inseparable from a wedding'. But, as the Lord Chamberlain recorded, 'this idea was of course put aside, as The King and Queen decided that a Royal Wedding should follow its usual course.'85 This meant that the responsibility and expense of entertaining fell on the King and, perhaps to the relief of the bride's parents, the Lord Chamberlain's Office took control of all the arrangements, merely consulting Lady Strathmore on the guest lists and the seating plan in Westminster Abbey.
The numbers involved were so great that it was decided to hold parties at Buckingham Palace on the three days before the wedding for those who could not be fitted into the Abbey: an evening party on Monday 23 April, an afternoon party for servants the next day, and another afternoon party on the eve of the wedding. Lady Strath-more was in constant touch with the Palace about her guest list, at the last minute asking despairingly for more Lyon cousins to be invited. 'Presents are pouring in, & I am at a loss what to do!'86 She was also concerned that the Strathmore servants and local farmers should not be overlooked, and asked for eighty tickets to the afternoon party. 'People are coming all the way from Scotland to attend it, not to mention Yorkshire & Durham! ... P.S. How many people may I ask to stand in the Fore Court to see the Bride & Bridegroom depart?'87 For Elizabeth, the fortnight before the wedding was an exhausting round of formal receptions at Buckingham Palace, last-minute shopping with friends, dodging photographers, and evenings filled with dining and dancing. She loved Paul Whiteman's band, which played at a dance given by the Mountbattens and again at Audrey Coats's dance on 18 April.* Among her many dance partners were d.i.c.kie Mountbatten, Prince Paul, Prince George and Fruity Metcalfe, amiable equerry and friend to the Prince of Wales. James Stuart called in one evening for c.o.c.ktails and chatter.88 For the Duke, work continued. He was determined to ensure that industrial welfare and the wellbeing of the young remained at the core of his public interests. On 18 April he made what appears to have been the first visit by a member of the Royal Family to a trades union: the Amalgamated Engineering Union, at its offices in Peckham Road in south-east London. He had met the President, James Brownlie, and other members of the union at the annual Duke of York's Camp the previous year. According to The Times, Brownlie told him that the union had 320,000 members and 1,800 branches. 'The Duke might suppose that in coming to the headquarters of a great trade union he was visiting some sort of Bolshevik organisation more concerned to promote strife than peace. But nothing could be further from the fact.' After they had toured the building, Brownlie proposed a toast to the Duke's marriage. 'Take my a.s.surance that you are perfectly safe in the hands of a Scots la.s.sie,' he said.89 A week later, at a reception at the Palace, the Duke introduced Brownlie to his bride with the words, 'Here is the Scottish la.s.sie, Mr Brownlie.'90 Elizabeth's last weekend as an unmarried woman was that of 2122 April. She went to the Palace again on Sat.u.r.day for lunch with the King and Queen, who gave her their princ.i.p.al presents: a tiara and a complete suite of diamonds and turquoises from the King, a diamond and sapphire necklace from the Queen. From her father she received a diamond tiara and a rope necklace of pearls and diamonds, while her mother gave her a diamond and pearl necklace and bracelet. The bridegroom's own present to her was a diamond and pearl necklace with a matching pendant. As the soldier at Glamis had hoped, Elizabeth was now hung with jewels. Her gift to her fiance was a platinum and pearl watch-chain.91 After lunch Queen Mary and Princess Mary motored over to Bruton Street to see the trousseau* and presents there; other gifts were displayed at Buckingham Palace. The Livery Company of Needle-makers had presented a thousand gold-eyed needles; South African ostrich farmers had sent an ostrich-feather mantlet, tied with ribbons; there was a gift of silver inkwells, stamp-boxes and candlesticks from the members of the Cabinet, a set of tea-trays, a hammock and a waste-paper basket made by blind ex-soldiers at St Dunstan's, and dressing-cases from the Glamis tenantry, and much more.92 A present which gave the Duke of York particular pleasure was one of the battle ensigns worn by HMS Collingwood at Jutland.*
That evening Elizabeth went home to St Paul's Walden and spent Sunday morning resting in bed. After lunch she went for short walks in between writing letters and noted in her diary, 'Feel very odd & sad at leaving home.'93 On Monday 23 April, back in London, she went to the Abbey with the Duke and all the bridesmaids for the wedding rehearsal. She was tired when she got home at 7 p.m., but after dinner, wearing her 'new pink', she set off for Buckingham Palace with her parents to attend the first of the pre-wedding receptions given by the King and Queen. There were about 800 guests members of the two families, their friends, members of the diplomatic corps and donors of wedding presents, which were on display in large gla.s.s cases. H. H. Asquith, the former Prime Minister, described the evening to a friend: 'I went in my knee-breeches and medals after dinner to Buckingham Palace, where the rooms, big as they are, were very nearly crowded ... The bride, everyone says, is full of charm and stood in a row with the King and Queen. We all shook hands with her as we pa.s.sed ... The whole of what is called the "world" was there in its best frocks.'94 In the course of the evening Asquith inadvertently stood on the train of a lady's dress, anchoring her to the floor for two minutes, a mishap observed by another guest, Freddy Dalrymple Hamilton. He recorded in his diary that Elizabeth was 'splendid & looked lovely & seemed to take everything very calmly as I never had any doubt she would ... I didn't manage to talk to Elizabeth but we had to content ourselves with making ugly faces at each other across the room!'95 The King gave Elizabeth his personal Order;* the Queen commented in her diary on how pretty she looked in pink.96 Her own diary entry ended, 'Shook hands with hundreds & talked till 11.15. Home 11.30. All the family went. Bed 1.'97 On Tuesday Elizabeth worked for a time on letters with Miss Chard and then she and the Duke attended the afternoon party at the Palace for Royal Household and Strathmore staff about a thousand in all and took tea with the King and Queen. That evening came the unexpected announcement that James Stuart was betrothed to Lady Rachel Cavendish. Everyone seemed very happy. Elizabeth and the Duke dined at Claridge's with the newly engaged couple and ten of their mutual friends and then went on to the Hippodrome and later to the Berkeley Hotel, fashionable then and later, dancing all the while. 'I was in good form! Went home, & talked to Bertie. Then talked to Mike for ages. Bed 3.30.'98 Next morning, the eve of her wedding, she awoke at 10 o'clock 'feeling very ill!' Beryl Poignand and Betty Cator both came to give her last-minute cheer. 'I talked on the telephone and did a million things before lunch.' The Duke came to settle a few final details and afterwards they drove together through the usual crowds to the Palace. In the Duke's room, Mrs Lindsay Carnegie presented the gift of the people of Forfarshire.99 Soon after their engagement, the County Clerk of Forfarshire had written to Lord Strathmore to seek his advice on a suitable present. Lord Strathmore had consulted his daughter, who had made it clear that she did not want the people of Forfar to go to any unnecessary expense. He had therefore replied 'that she would infinitely prefer that no money was spent on a wedding gift for her when unemployment and distress are so prevalent, and when almost everyone is feeling the pinch of the bad times. I entirely agree with those sentiments, which Lady Elizabeth holds strongly, although she does not wish to tie the hands of those at the meeting unduly, and, above all, does not wish to appear ungrateful.'100 After this letter was read at a public meeting, the Council decided to present her with an illuminated book, full of ill.u.s.trations of her home county.*
At the third Palace party she had to shake hands with hundreds more people. It was very tiring, but at 6 p.m. she and her mother went home for a quiet family evening at Bruton Street, her last as a single woman. 'Felt terribly moved when I said good-night to the darling boys & mother. I adore them. Bed 11.'101 *
ON THE MORNING of the wedding, crowds gathered early in Bruton Street and all along the route to the Abbey. Spring was only beginning to touch the trees of London. It was a cold, damp, bl.u.s.tery day, but, in the words of Queen Mary, 'the sun came out between showers.'102 The King had commanded that flags be flown on government buildings on the day of the wedding. But there were no decorations in the Mall, for in the current economic climate he was mindful that extravagance might not be popular. There was nothing to discourage firms or private individuals from putting up bunting should they wish. Schoolchildren were given the day off school and the King requested that His Majesty's ships be dressed overall and fire a salute at noon.103 As the bride prepared, her family left for Westminster Abbey as and when the meticulous schedule required. Just after 11 a.m., Queen Alexandra left Marlborough House. One minute later the King and Queen drove out of Buckingham Palace, accompanied by the sovereign's escort of the Household Cavalry. At 11.13 the bridegroom, attended by the Prince of Wales, followed them. One minute before that, Elizabeth had set off from Bruton Street with her father. There is a famous photograph of her as she left the family home, glancing somewhat tentatively at the camera, about to step into the carriage and away from her family. She and her father drove in a state landau escorted by four mounted Metropolitan policemen. According to one of her biographers, she seemed to be both surprised and touched by the warmth of her welcome along the streets. But her father was reported to be in low spirits at the prospect of giving away his daughter.104 This was the first marriage of a king's son in the Abbey and only the third royal marriage to take place there since Richard II had married Anne of Bohemia in 1382. It had since become the custom for royal marriages to be celebrated privately, until Princess Patricia of Connaught's marriage in Westminster Abbey in 1919, followed by that of Princess Mary in 1922.
Among the guests were three prime ministers, present and past Bonar Law, Lloyd George and Asquith the first two, according to the Yorkshire Post, not flattered by the gold lace and breeches they wore as Privy Counsellors. Asquith was 'smiling and serene in his Trinity House uniform', his wife swathed in an almond-green marocain wrap. Lord Curzon, 'appearing very pleased with himself, slouched in wearing an overcoat, and with his hands in his pockets', the Post's reporter noted. Present also were Winston Churchill, looking 'chubby and sleek', Austen Chamberlain and his wife, she in a silver cloak and a gold turban decked with tall osprey feathers, while Mrs Neville Chamberlain wore an elegant gown by Worth. All parties in the House of Commons were 'well represented', as The Times pointed out Labour leaders included Ramsay MacDonald, J. R. Clynes and Arthur Henderson.105 Another notable Labour MP, Will Thorne of the Gas Workers and General Union, had asked for and obtained seats for his wife and daughter.106 Asquith, writing next day about the ceremony, remarked that the crowds in the streets were enormous and must have been drenched to the skin by the persistent showers throughout the day. 'As a pageant it was extremely well done. I sat in the stalls with a curious little knot of neighbours: Ramsay MacDonald and Clynes (who were in black frock-coats), Buckmaster,* Simon and Winston Churchill! The ennui of the long waits was relieved for me by being next to Winston, who was in his best form and really amusing.'107 Duff Cooper, with his wife Diana, was pleased to have good seats.* 'The Mosleys were next to us and the Dudley Wards immediately behind. I enjoyed it.'108 Perhaps the best view of the ceremony was that enjoyed by fifty-two boys seated high up in the Triforium. They had been invited at the Duke's special request to represent young industrial workers.109 There were considerably fewer guests than had been invited to Princess Mary's wedding: in his anxiety to keep costs low the King had ruled out the construction of the special stands which were used to increase seating in the Abbey in 1922, thus reducing the places available from 2,680 to 1,780.110 Nevertheless, as the Morning Post reported, there was 'a large and brilliant congregation which included many of the leading personages of the nation and Empire',111 with an estimated million spectators lining the processional route. As well as the huge press coverage, the ceremony and its aftermath, up to the appearance of the couple on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, were filmed the first time this had been done, and the films were ready to be shown the same evening.
The service began with the ecclesiastical procession into the Abbey. It was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Randall Davidson, who had held the post for a quarter of a century; the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev. Cosmo Lang; then the Primus of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, Elizabeth's Church, the Most Rev. Walter Robberds.
The King was wearing the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet; Queen Mary was striking in a dress and turban of aquamarine blue and silver. With the King and Queen were Queen Alexandra and her sister the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, Prince George and Princess Mary, together with some fourteen other members of the Royal Family. On the other side of the nave was the bride's family. According to the press accounts of the time, Lady Strath-more was wearing 'a handsome gown of black marocain' under a black cloak with a collar of blue roses. Her eldest daughter, May Elphinstone, was dressed in a spectacular embroidered outfit of dove-grey satin with jade and gold roses, a large plumed hat and a sable wrap. Dorothy Glamis, both beautiful and elegant, wore what was described as 'one of the most successful costumes in the Abbey' of soft silver.112 The Duke of York was the first member of the Royal Family to be married in the dress uniform of the Royal Air Force. He wore the Garter Riband and Star and the Star of the Order of the Thistle, which the King had bestowed upon him in honour of his Scottish bride. His row of medals included those he had earned by service in the war. He was supported by the Prince of Wales, wearing the uniform of the Grenadier Guards, and by Prince Henry, in the uniform of the 10th Hussars. Freddy Dalrymple Hamilton, seated with his wife Gwendolen close to the aisle, watched the Duke as he walked by. 'We managed to catch his eye as he pa.s.sed or thought we did as he grinned at us.'113 Awaiting the bride were her eight bridesmaids Queen Mary's nieces, Lady Mary and Lady May Cambridge, and four of Elizabeth's old friends, Lady Katharine Hamilton, Lady Mary Thynne, Betty Cator and Diamond Hardinge, and then her two nieces, Elizabeth Elphinstone and Cecilia Bowes Lyon. All wore ivory-coloured dresses of crepe de Chine with bands of Nottingham lace, covered with white chiffon. Around their waists they had leaf-green tulle sashes held in place by a white rose and a silver thistle. In their hair they wore bandeaux of white roses and myrtle leaves. Each bridesmaid also wore her gift from the bridegroom a carved crystal brooch in the form of the white rose of York with a diamond centre carrying the initials E and A. The older bridesmaids wore silver shoes, the two young ones, who were carrying the train, white shoes. They all carried bouquets of white roses and white heather.
The bride arrived punctually, just as the sun came out from behind the clouds. She was wearing a dress of cream chiffon moire with appliqued bars of silver lame, embroidered with gold thread and beads of paste and pearl. It had a deep square neckline and short sleeves, a straight-cut bodice and a slightly gathered skirt with a short train set into the waist seam at the back. Over the dress she wore a long train of silk net with a lace edging, and a point de Flandres lace veil, both of which Queen Mary had lent her. The veil was drawn down low over her forehead; a simple wreath of myrtle leaves, white roses and white heather held it in place. Her shoes were of ivory silk moire embroidered with silver roses, and she carried a bouquet of roses and lily-of-the-valley.
When Elizabeth and her father entered the Abbey, one of the clergy preceding her fainted. As they waited for the procession to reform, she suddenly left her father's side and went to lay her bouquet of white roses on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, placed at the west end of the nave in honour of the countless British dead of the Great War whose bodies had never been found and who had had no proper burial.* This gesture was unexpected. People speculated afterwards that at the door of the Abbey she might have thought suddenly of her brother Fergus, killed in 1915 at the Battle of Loos.
On the arm of her father, Elizabeth then moved towards her future. Freddy Dalrymple Hamilton reflected the emotion of many of her friends and family in the account he wrote in his diary.
The organ which had been crashing loudly for some time suddenly broke into 'Lead us Heavenly Father lead us' very softly which gave a most wonderful effect I thought & there was Elizabeth with her father & looking extraordinarily nice & I couldn't help feeling most extraordinarily proud of her as if she'd been my own sister. She did it amazingly well & even appeared to be enjoying it as she smiled up at Lord S when he bent down & asked her something.114 According to The Times, 'The Duke of York faced with shining eyes and a look of happiness the girl who, hand in hand with her father, was advancing in her lovely old fashioned dress, gleaming with silver and veiled in old lace ... they seemed to think of no one but each other.'
The bride and groom had asked Cosmo Lang to give the address. He pleased everyone with his words. 'Will you take and keep this gift of wedded life as a sacred trust?' he asked. 'With all our hearts we wish that it may be happy. You can and will resolve that it will be n.o.ble. You will not think so much of enjoyment as of achievement. You will have a great ambition to make this one life now given to you something rich and true and beautiful.' He commended the Duke for his work in industrial welfare and then, turning to the new d.u.c.h.ess, he said, 'And you, dear bride, in your Scottish home, have grown up from childhood among country folk and friendship with them has been your native air. So have you both been fitted for your place in the people's life. The nations and cla.s.ses which make up our Commonwealth too often live their lives apart. It is ... a great thing that there should be in our midst one family which, regarded by all as in a true sense their own, makes the whole Empire kin and helps to give it the spirit of family life.'115 While the families signed the registers in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, the choir sang an anthem composed by Sydney Nicholson for Princess Mary's wedding, 'Beloved, Let Us Love One Another'. After the signing, the princ.i.p.al guests took their places again in the Sanctuary. Then as Mendelssohn's Wedding March began, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of York returned to the heart of the Abbey. They smiled at Lady Strathmore, who had tears in her eyes. She was feeling both moved and saddened by it all; she thought that her daughter looked 'lovely ... so dignified and restful, just her own sweet little self as usual'.116 The couple then bowed and curtsied respectively to the King and the Queen before walking back through the full length of the nave, and then emerging from the Abbey into a sunnier day. Elizabeth Bowes Lyon had arrived at the Abbey as a commoner; she left as the fourth lady in the land.
She and the Duke stepped into their scarlet and gold coach and drove by a long route back towards the Palace, through Marlborough Gate, St James's Street, Piccadilly, around Hyde Park Corner and finally down Const.i.tution Hill. All the way they were cheered. When she arrived at Buckingham Palace, her bridesmaids and her friends, who had returned directly from the Abbey, all curtsied to her. As her sympathetic biographer Dorothy Laird put it, 'she had stepped across the barrier into the closed circle of the Royal Family for ever.'117 At the Palace, the wedding breakfast for over sixty people, mostly from the two families, was prepared by the royal chef, Gabriel Tschumi, and included Consomme a la Windsor, Supremes de Saumon Reine Mary, Cotelettes d'Agneau Prince Albert, Chapons a la Strathmore and Fraises d.u.c.h.esse Elizabeth.118 There was just one toast, proposed by the King. 'I ask you to drink to the health, long lives and happiness of the bride and bridegroom.'
The wedding cake was cut in the Blue Drawing Room. It was nine feet high and weighed 800 pounds. It was the one that they had helped design on their visit to the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in March, and was a gift of the Chairman, Alexander Grant. Its three tiers were decorated with the coats of arms of the Strathmores and the Duke of York, and surmounted by an ornamental confection symbolizing love and peace. At the couple's request, Grant arranged that slices of identical cake were distributed at the Duke's expense to thousands of poor children at wedding tea parties arranged for them in London and other cities.119 While the d.u.c.h.ess and her family, old and new, lunched at the Palace, other friends and guests at the Abbey were meeting and lunching all over London. Duff and Diana Cooper had 'skipped out' by the North Door of the Abbey and got an excellent view of the couple driving away. In the crowd they met Jasper Ridley, and drove him home. 'In an outburst of confidence he told us that he had long been in love with Elizabeth Lyon and that he was miserable about her marriage. He had never believed she would do it and it had been a very sudden volte face on her part as she had refused the Duke of York several times.'120 At the Palace, the d.u.c.h.ess changed into her going-away dress, a soft shade of dove-grey crpe romain, over which she wore a travelling coat wrap. Her brown hat was small, with an upturned brim and a feather on the side. She chose it, apparently, so that the crowds would not find their view of her impeded.121 As they left for their honeymoon in an open landau, their friends and relations threw rose petals over them. The Duke's brothers and the bridesmaids ran into the arch of the forecourt after the landau, throwing more petals, and were pushed against the wall of the arch as the escort of cavalry moved briskly after the carriage 'for an alarming moment they were caught between the stone wall and the quarters of the great black horses.'122 Cheering crowds accompanied the couple to Waterloo where a special train awaited them. Their carriage was, according to The Times, 'upholstered in old gold brocade and decorated with white roses, white heather, white carnations and lilies of the valley'. The train drew out at 4.35 p.m. and after a gentle ride through south London into the Surrey countryside arrived at Bookham at 5.10 p.m. There the newly-weds received bouquets and listened to an address of welcome before they were taken by car to Polesden Lacey, the home of Mrs Ronnie Greville, who had been delighted to offer it to them. One of the first things that the new d.u.c.h.ess did there was to send a telegram to her mother saying, 'Arrived safely deliciously peaceful here hope you are not all too tired love Elizabeth'.123 Her diary records her wedding day thus: Thur 26 Apr. Woke at 8.30. Up by 10. Put on my wedding dress, aided by Suzanne & Catherine. It looked lovely. All the family went off early, also mother. Miss Chard came & talked to me. At 11.12 the carriage came, & father & I started off for the Abbey. Lots of people in B St., & crowds in the streets. Did not feel very nervous. Bertie smiled at me when I got up to him & it all went off well. We had a long drive home to B.P. Crowds very kind. We were photographed, & also w