The Queen Mother Part 8
* Lord Francis Scott was the uncle of the future d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester, Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, who lived at Deloraine for a time before her marriage to Prince Henry, third son of King George V, in 1935. Kenya and Deloraine would have been an added bond between the sisters-in-law, whose families knew each other in Scotland. Lady Alice's elder sister Margaret Ida ('Mida') was a friend of Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon and a frequent guest at Glamis.
* Edward Blackwell Jarvis (18731950), Chief Secretary, Uganda, and acting Governor on various occasions.
HH Daudi Chwa (18961939), King of Buganda 18971939.
KCMG Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. This Order was founded by King George III in 1818 and is awarded to British subjects who have rendered extraordinary and important services abroad or in the Commonwealth.
* This was Cold Cream of Roses, a special formula made for the d.u.c.h.ess by Malcolm Macfarlane, a pharmacist in Forfar, who had sent her a jar of it as a wedding present. In her letter of thanks she said she would use it all her life. She did, receiving fresh supplies from the pharmacy until 1990, when Mr W. Main, the pharmacist who had taken over the business from Malcolm Macfarlane's widow, retired.
Published by Gurney & Jackson, Edinburgh, 1931. Brocklehurst served with the 10th Hussars in the First World War; he rejoined his regiment in the Second World War and was drowned in Burma in 1942 trying to save his porters' lives when they got into difficulties while crossing a river in spate.
* After the a.s.sa.s.sination of Sir Lee Stack on 19 November, Lord Allenby delivered an ultimatum to Zaghlul Pasha, the Egyptian Premier, demanding, among other things, the immediate withdrawal from the Sudan of all Egyptian officers and the purely Egyptian units of the Egyptian army. At Talodi, where there was only one British officer, the Egyptian officers refused to obey orders to leave and were arrested. They broke out and caused 'mutinous disorder' in the battalion on 25 November, but after Sudanese troops had arrived three days later, they were evacuated without further trouble. (Sir Harold MacMichael, The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Faber & Faber, 1934, pp. 1548) 1. Lord Strathmore.
2. Lady Strathmore.
3. Elizabeth Bowes Lyon in 1902.
4. The Strathmores at Glamis in 1907. Back row, left to right: Alec, Fergus, Jock, Patrick, May and Rose. Front row, left to right: Michael, Elizabeth, Lord Strathmore, Lady Strathmore with David on her lap.
5. Elizabeth aged two, with her sister Rose at St Paul's Walden Bury.
6. Elizabeth and David in the Italian Garden at Glamis.
7. Elizabeth, being held aloft by her elder brother Patrick, with her sister Rose on the far right.
8. Elizabeth with her father on the cricket pitch at Glamis.
9. Elizabeth in the gooseberry patch at St Paul's Walden Bury.
10. Beryl Poignand in 1915.
11. Elizabeth with convalescent soldiers at Glamis in January 1915.
12. Elizabeth with convalescent soldiers at Glamis in 1916.
13. A house party for the Forfar Ball, 9 September 1920. Left to right: Katie Hamilton, Grisell Cochrane-Baillie, Lady Strathmore, Hilda Blackburn, Diamond Hardinge, Elizabeth, Lord Gage, Francis Doune (seated, front), James Stuart, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia.
14. Elizabeth with Arthur Penn (left) and Freddy Dalrymple Hamilton at a house party at Molecomb, January 1921.
15. Elizabeth, centre, with (clockwise) her sister Rose Leveson Gower and friends Katie Hamilton, Doris Gordon-Lennox and Mida Scott in 1921.
16. With the Duke of York in a photograph from Elizabeth's own alb.u.m, captioned by her, September 1920.
17. The Duke of York and Elizabeth at Glamis in 1921.
18. The Duke of York and Elizabeth at a shoot.
19. A cutting from the society pages showing the Duke of York as a guest at Glamis.
20. Elizabeth at her first royal engagement, as a bridesmaid at Princess Mary's wedding, 28 February 1922.
21. The Duke of York and Elizabeth soon after their engagement.
22. Elizabeth leaving Bruton Street for the Abbey, 26 April 1923.
23. The bridal party immediately after the wedding. Left to right: Mary Cambridge, Katie Hamilton, Mary Thynne, Ronnie Stanniforth, Betty Cator, Cecilia Bowes Lyon, Michael Bowes Lyon.
24. The bride and groom's carriage progressing along Const.i.tution Hill.
25. The wedding party on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Left to right: Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary, the d.u.c.h.ess of York, the Duke of York, King George V.
26. Honeymooning at Polesden Lacey.
27. Arthur Penn's characteristic souvenir of the wedding.
28. On safari in Africa, February 1925, captioned by the d.u.c.h.ess.
29. On safari in Africa, February 1925, captioned by the d.u.c.h.ess.
30. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess on safari, captioned by him.
31. The d.u.c.h.ess holding a monkey.
32. The d.u.c.h.ess with the Duke wearing, according to his own caption, 'a tribal headdress given to me by the Mukama of Toro and made of beads and colobus monkey skin'.
33. Visiting the Makwar Dam near Khartoum on the way back from safari. Left to right: J. W. Gibson, the d.u.c.h.ess, G. L. Prouse and the Duke.
34. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess driving through Belfast during their official visit in July 1924.
35. The d.u.c.h.ess fishing at Tokaanu while on tour in New Zealand.
36. With the Duke at the state opening of the Australian Parliament in Canberra, 9 May 1927.
37. Returning from the continent.
38. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess at a hunt meet.
39. The first photograph of the d.u.c.h.ess and the newborn Princess Elizabeth, April 1926.
40. The d.u.c.h.ess with Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth, September 1930.
41. The d.u.c.h.ess with the King and the Duke of York at a summer fete at Balmoral.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
BIRTH OF A PRINCESS.
19251927.
'Elizabeth of York sounds so nice'
'IT'S AWFUL COMING back to the social and unnatural atmosphere again!' the d.u.c.h.ess confided to her diary soon after their return from Africa.1 London seemed drab after their months in the wild, the restrictions of life in the Royal Family and at Court more stifling than ever. In Britain the shadow of the war still hung over everything and everyone, and for many that shadow never fully pa.s.sed. One distinguished lawyer, a boy during the war, remembered ever after those schoolfriends who had perished; he thought they showed 'a certain uncomplainingness, an acceptance, without dramatics and without self pity, of their sad and untimely fortune. Those young men, who were only promoted boys, took their lot with a dignity that we now forget.'2 War memorials were erected in villages and market towns across the land, and plaques listed the names of all those who had been sacrificed. Yet few of the new homes which Lloyd George had promised the heroes returning from war had been built.
Other homes were being constructed at speed. London was expanding outwards 'dormitory suburbs' were being created by the extension of the Underground and Metropolitan railways. The first such extension was on the Northern Line, as it became known, to Golders Green and then Hendon in autumn 1923. The President of the Board of Trade, Sir Philip Lloyd-Graeme, switched on the current on the new line with a golden key and his ten-year-old son, wearing a bowler hat, drove the first train through to Hendon. Then came the turn of south London, with the Morden line extension.3 New necessities were purchased easily from the multiple stores which spread into the modern housing estates W. H. Smith the newsagent, Sainsbury the grocer, Dewhurst the butcher, the Victoria Wine Company, MacFisheries, the tailor Montagu Burton, Woolworths, British Home Stores, Marks and Spencer all had more and more outlets as middle-cla.s.s housing spread. Architects struggled on tight budgets to make the same red-brick houses, built a dozen times in one street, different from each other. One would have a round stair window, another an unexpected gable, a third an unusual porch or a wooden garage. They could cost about 1,000 each and they rejoiced in names like Rosslyn, The Elms, Mon Abri.4 Hire purchase or 'never-never' schemes were becoming more and more popular, allowing people to acquire furniture, vacuum cleaners, gas ovens, wirelesses, even motor cars, as never before. The car greatly increased the emigration to suburbia. By 1924 the Baby Car, the Austin Seven, was on the market. It sold for 165 and was described as the Mighty Miniature but more widely as the Bed Pan. It was soon followed by the Morris Minor. The growth of the motoring population, together with the popularity of extended bus services, led to practical but ugly ribbon developments along main roads. Stanley Baldwin with reason declared, 'It is no exaggeration to say that in fifty years at the rate so-called improvements are being made, the destruction of all the beauty and charm with which our ancestors enhanced their towns and villages will be complete.'5 At the same time as this erosion of the countryside was beginning, urban unemployment remained high and the problems of the working cla.s.s were imperfectly addressed. This was true in all of Europe, not just in Britain. The crumbling of old economic patterns of exchange since 1914 made poverty and unemployment more intractable and created fertile soil for revolutionaries to till.
After the triumph of the Bolsheviks in Russia, it was inevitable that every European country would sp.a.w.n its own revolutionary communist party. Leadership was provided by the Comintern, created by Moscow in 1919 to ensure that national communist parties followed the policies of the Soviet Union. The communists may have been more alarming than effective, and in Britain they never acquired large membership. But alarming they were nonetheless, particularly after they came to power in Hungary and then, for brief periods, in Germany. In almost every European country socialists were divided into two camps those who were loyal to Moscow and called themselves communist and those who wished to remain loyal to their own nations and remained socialists. The two factions were bitter rivals for working-cla.s.s support.
In 1925 the production of food and raw materials in Europe for the first time reached the levels of 1914 and manufacturing industry revived. There were grounds for confidence it was still possible to hope for and even believe in the future of liberal democracies. But the rather efficient pre-1914 economic system had been fatally damaged and the new prosperity rested on shallow foundations. The crisis of employment for the growing working cla.s.s was a constant concern. The spectre of violent revolution and totalitarianism was ever present in Europe and it was to dominate the era.
IT WAS A COLD spring and the d.u.c.h.ess's nostalgia for Africa's warmth was intensified by the return, all too soon, of her tonsillitis.6 An additional sadness for both the Yorks was that, the day after they returned, the Prince of Wales left for a long journey to West and South Africa and South America. The Duke wrote to his brother saying, 'Between ourselves we were not very glad to get back from our travels ... We miss you terribly, of course, & there is an awful blank in London of something missing, & that blank is you.'7 They missed calling on him at lunchtime at St James's Palace for a c.o.c.ktail, they missed evenings out at slightly risque clubs with him, and they missed being able to share complaints about life with him.
For the Duke there was one compensation for his brother's absence: he replaced the Prince of Wales as president of the British Empire Exhibition. After the great success of the exhibition in 1924 it had been decided that there should be a new one in 1925, to be opened in May. Now that the Duke had experienced the Empire at first hand, he brought a personal enthusiasm, even a zest, to the task.8 As president, the Duke had to make a speech at the opening ceremony on 9 May, inviting his father to open the exhibition. He was nervous at the prospect, above all because his speech would be broadcast by the new British Broadcasting Company. He practised it many times. The closer to the day of the opening the more nervous he became. Not only did he have to speak in front of the stadium, the nation and much of the world he also had to perform in front of the sternest judge of all, his father. He wrote to the King, 'I hope you will understand that I am bound to be more nervous than I usually am.'9 He had several sleepless nights before the ordeal and on the day itself, Sat.u.r.day 9 May, he set out for Wembley 'very downhearted', according to his wife's diary. When the moment finally came, his legs were trembling, but his voice was quite steady and although he had difficulty articulating some words, he persevered.10 The d.u.c.h.ess had remained at White Lodge where she listened to the speech on the wireless. 'It was marvellously clear & no hesitation. I was so relieved,' she wrote.11 Afterwards the Duke said he thought that the speech was 'easily the best I have ever done'. Perhaps even more important, 'Papa seemed pleased which was kind of him.'12 The King wrote to Prince George, 'Bertie got through his speech all right, but there were some rather long pauses.'13 The Duke's speech defect remained a real tribulation and source of anxiety for him and his family for some time to come.
For the Whitsun weekend at the end of May the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess had a welcome short trip to Glamis, where they shot rabbits and took their dog Glen for walks with the d.u.c.h.ess's father and brothers. It was much easier for them to relax there, but the Queen took to writing slightly querulous letters reproaching them if they spent weekends away.14 They returned to London in time for Trooping the Colour the d.u.c.h.ess rode in the same carriage as the Queen and Princess Mary and then watched the ceremony from a room over the Horse Guards Arch. The next day they went together to Dudley in support of the Duke's interest in the Industrial Welfare Society and their now recognized sympathy for social and relief work. Their official files on the trip ill.u.s.trate the local impact of royal visits, of which this was but one of many.
They visited T. W. Lench Ltd, manufacturers of nuts and bolts; Harry Lench, regarded as a pioneer in welfare work and one of the most progressive employers in the Black Country, wrote afterwards of their visit that it would 'never be forgotten by my workpeople or by me'.15 Another firm, Stevens and Williams Ltd, which had been suffering badly from foreign compet.i.tion, received a similar boost from the royal visit to its Brierley Hill art gla.s.s works. The couple also went to the Guest Hospital, where the d.u.c.h.ess received cheques on behalf of the hospital this was common practice in inst.i.tutions supported by voluntary donations: the cheques or 'purses' tended to be more generous if a distinguished guest were on hand to accept them. On this occasion, apparently, the hospital's debt was completely wiped out.16 On 15 July the d.u.c.h.ess had to undertake a major engagement of her own at the British Empire Exhibition she opened the First International Conference of Women in Science, Industry and Commerce, of which she had agreed to be president. The conference was chaired by Lady Astor;* also on the platform with the d.u.c.h.ess were three formidable older women: Ellen Wilkinson, the suffragette leader, trade unionist and Labour MP; Viscountess Rhondda, 'the Welsh Boadicea', another suffragette; and the distinguished physiologist Professor Winifred Cullis. Margaret Bondfield, a prominent trade unionist and Labour politician, spoke at the lunch afterwards.
The d.u.c.h.ess was in daunting company; she felt 'very frightened', but nevertheless delivered her short prepared speech with sufficient verve to attract effusive, if patronizing, praise from one of the men present. F. S. Dutton of the Industrial Court wrote afterwards: 'Her Royal Highness's speech was a real treat! It was very bravely and charmingly done & all the women folk were lyrical about it. We men will soon have to look to our laurels!'17 She pointed out that this was the first conference of its kind for women, and also the first she had opened; referring to 'the ever-increasing scope of women's work' and 'the importance of women's activities in so many spheres', she hoped it would lead to many similar gatherings. Lady Astor, thanking her for coming, complimented the d.u.c.h.ess on her 'very practical interest in industrial welfare'. For Caroline Haslett, who as secretary of the Women's Engineering Society had organized the conference, the important thing was that the d.u.c.h.ess had allied herself publicly with women's causes.18 Emerging as a public figure, the d.u.c.h.ess was an increasing a.s.set to the Royal Family. The press noticed, and commented. According to one article, 'She has, in fact, the genius of friendship, and this is perhaps why she has the happy faculty, as Viscountess Astor MP said on one notable occasion, of "never being bored".'19 The Duke realized more and more how invaluable his wife's a.s.sistance was. He wrote to the Prince of Wales, 'She is marvellous the way she talks to old mayors & the like at shows, & she never looks tired even after the longest of days. She is a darling & I don't know what I should do without her.'20 On 17 July they gave a reception at St James's Palace for visitors from the Empire and the press. According to her diary, 'I put on white & a tiara. At 9.30 B & I went to St James's Palace, & we gave an Evening Party to Overseas Visitors. About 600. Went quite well. Home 12 Very tired & quite hoa.r.s.e!'21 Duties were mixed with pleasures, however their friend Major Walsh, home on leave from the Sudan where they had hunted with him, came to town. They were always eager to see him; later that summer they invited him to lunch to see their African trophies, which had been mounted. 'Having been entertained to a tete a tete breakfast with you, my dear white hunter on that wicked old Nile, I feel it would be proper & decent of you to partake of our hospitality, just by way of a change,' the d.u.c.h.ess wrote to him. On his next leave there was another invitation: 'Dear Walshie, Welcome home again to dear old England, the home of BEER ... All white hunters should visit their charges on instant arrival in London, so I fear that you haven't done too well. However, there is always a drink waiting here for you, or even two.'22 On 10 August they started on their annual summer holiday in Scotland, split between the gaiety of Glamis and the dull routine and restrictions of Balmoral. For some of the time the d.u.c.h.ess left her husband with his parents while she visited her sister in Edinburgh. Although she played her part in the Royal Family with enthusiasm, she was still detached enough to see it clearly. In one letter written from her sister's house she urged her husband to stick up for himself 'and remember that you are an elderly married man' not to be patronized. 'I miss you frightfully.'23 He replied at once that he had loved getting her letter. 'I am longing for Monday when you come here. I miss you terribly darling in this awful room. It wants some of your letters lying about & a few papers on the floor!! to make it at all homely.'24 *
THE AUTUMN OF 1925 brought moments of both joy and sadness. The Prince of Wales returned from his long tour to Africa and South America. 'Your trip has been the most marvellous success from all accounts,' the Duke of York had written to him. 'I hope the people here will realise it when you return.'25 In fact, the Prince received a spectacular welcome home. The Royal Family and government ministers gathered at Victoria station to greet him. 'Great embracings,' Queen Mary recorded in her diary later.26 Despite the rain, crowds cheered the King and his sons as they drove back to Buckingham Palace (the Queen and d.u.c.h.ess returned by a shorter, drier route), and cheered again when the family appeared on the balcony, before dining together that evening. It was a clear indication of the popularity of the Prince of Wales.
A few weeks later, however, family and nation were in mourning. On 20 November Queen Alexandra died at Sandringham aged eighty, after a heart attack. It was sixty-two years since she had been welcomed from Denmark as 'the Sea-King's daughter from over the sea'.27 A woman of beauty, gaiety and generosity, after the death of her husband she had continued to carry out royal duties and support her charitable causes, but she had grown very frail in the last five years. She lost her hearing completely and much of her vision, and became confused. She was tended with great affection by her unmarried daughter Princess Victoria, and her son the King visited her constantly.
He was greatly saddened by her death. 'Darling Motherdear', he wrote in his diary on 22 November, 'was taken this morning to our little church where she had worshipped for 62 years.'28 The next day the Queen's funeral took place at Westminster Abbey and she was buried beside her husband in St George's Chapel, Windsor. The d.u.c.h.ess wrote to her 'dearest Papa' to tell him how much she was thinking of him. 'Words, I know, are useless in a tragic time, but I hope you will allow me to send you my deepest & truest sympathy from the very bottom of my heart.'29 For the d.u.c.h.ess and her husband there was joyous news that autumn. They had both had one overriding preoccupation for some time. In a letter to the Prince of Wales in August, the Duke, speaking of his happiness with his wife, had added, 'I still long for one thing which you can guess, & so does she.'30 It was around this time, in fact, that the d.u.c.h.ess became pregnant. She soon felt the symptoms of it. 'I am feeling much better now, tho' the sight of wine simply turns me up! Isn't it extraordinary?' she wrote to her husband in September. 'It will be a tragedy if I never recover my drinking powers.'31 She need not have worried.
They waited until the middle of October before they told their parents. The Duke wrote to Lady Strathmore, hoping that she was as delighted as he was at the news.32 He added that it would be much easier to turn down engagements for his wife now and she clearly could not motor up and down to White Lodge a house in central London was all the more urgently needed. The d.u.c.h.ess's pregnancy was also a reason not to make constant weekend trips to Sandringham. The Queen agreed, writing to her son, 'It is most necessary that E. should take the greatest care of her precious self. It is a great joy to Papa & me to feel that we may look forward to a direct descendant in the male line of our family & the country will be delighted when they are allowed to know.'33 The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess discovered that Curzon House, in Curzon Street, was available for rent, and decided to move there and shut up White Lodge for the winter.34 They both wrote to Queen Mary explaining the idea; the d.u.c.h.ess said, 'It is rather an attractive old house, and we can all squeeze in, which will make things much more convenient. I am sure you will think this a good idea, as after October it gets very foggy and lonely in the Park here.' As for her health, she was feeling well, except for headaches, and she thought they would soon pa.s.s. 'Bertie & I are so pleased and excited about it all, & talk endlessly on the subject, which is perhaps a little previous!'35 Given the d.u.c.h.ess's condition, the Queen could hardly object to the move back into London she just hoped that it would not be too expensive.36 The d.u.c.h.ess kept many, though not all, public engagements during the first months of her pregnancy. In the second half of October she did not travel with the Duke to Sunderland, nor did she go with him to the University of Leeds, whose appeal he had headed as patron. The reason given in both cases was her 'very heavy list of engagements during the next few weeks'.37 But she did go to Hackney the site of her unsuccessful examination and the disagreeable tapioca pudding back in 1916. She had a long day there, opening both Hackney's Maternity and Child Welfare Centre and a nurses' home of the Hackney District Nursing a.s.sociation, as well as visiting the headquarters of the British Legion.
In the middle of November she went to Cheltenham to visit the County of Gloucester Nursing a.s.sociation's bazaar, at the invitation of the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Beaufort. Once she had agreed to this, other local worthies applied for parcels of her time. The Cheltenham branch of the British Legion asked her to visit them. The programme stated, 'After the vote of thanks the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess will ask Her Royal Highness if she will be so good as to come through the Bazaar to a concert in a side room, for a short time.' The Dowager d.u.c.h.ess added a further request: could two of her granddaughters make a presentation?38 In the way of royal programmes, more was constantly required, and generally given. The only invitations which the d.u.c.h.ess was always glad to refuse were formal dinners.39 After the funeral of Queen Alexandra the Duke was expected to stay on at York Cottage with his parents; the d.u.c.h.ess, feeling unwell, remained in London. He went shooting during the day but found the evenings without his wife very dull. He loved talking to her on the telephone. Because it was so easy for telephone operators to listen in, they could not say much to each other, 'but we hear each other's voices, which is the nearest we can get to each other. Darling I do feel so sorry for you feeling wretched as you do at this time, but I do hope as time goes on you will not find things such an effort.'40 She was able to join him for the traditional Royal Family Christmas in Norfolk, still at York Cottage.* On Christmas Eve he wrote her a letter recalling that it was three years since he had been waiting for her to say yes. His heart, he said, still went 'pit-a-pat' for her in the same way as it did then. This letter was one which he had to post across the abyss of only a few feet. 'Why I have written these letters to you when you're in the room, I don't know. But I just have. All my love darling.'41 They tried to cheer up the traditional Christmas events by bringing with them from London their own entertainment. 'We brought down a cinema, & a radio, & a gramophone, which are all hard at work at different ends of the house, which is much the same here as being in the same room!' the d.u.c.h.ess reported to her sister May. Christmas went off quite well, she said.42 In the New Year the Duke resumed his hunting in Leicestershire; his wife apparently felt some pangs of loneliness, telling D'Arcy Osborne that she was 'a hunting widow now, & singularly free from visitors'.43 The roads were treacherous and so she did not go to St Paul's Walden as much as she might have liked.44 She seems to have made her husband aware of her irritation for he wrote an apologetic letter to his 'own little Elizabeth darling', declaring, 'my conscience has p.r.i.c.ked me and your letter tonight made me feel that I had been very unkind to you.'45 Early in 1926 the d.u.c.h.ess made sure that the maternity nurse who had looked after her sisters and their babies would be able to come to her in April. Annie Beevers,* known as Nannie B, 'tall and dark and very Yorkshire', as Queen Elizabeth later described her, was a widow who had trained in midwifery after the death of her husband. Writing to Nannie B to confirm the arrangement, the d.u.c.h.ess asked her to recommend a tonic 'as I get rather tired (& irritable I fear!)'.46 As their lease of Curzon House was coming to an end, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess had planned to rent another house, in Grosvenor Square, where their child would be born and where they would spend the summer. But when difficulties arose over the new house in March, they abandoned the idea and decided to go instead to the d.u.c.h.ess's parents' house, 17 Bruton Street.47 The baby was due at the end of April. Towards the middle of the month the d.u.c.h.ess's doctors decided that the birth should be induced. The King's physician, Sir Bertrand Dawson, lunched with the King and Queen at Windsor Castle on 17 April and explained the situation. They both wrote at once to the Duke to say that they were sorry for the extra anxiety this would cause. Queen Mary was full of affectionate concern for the future parents but also, characteristically, for the future of the dynasty. She wished she could be with them, 'but I am afraid to go to Bruton Street on account of the Press, as the last thing one wants is for any inkling of this to appear in the papers, so I hope you will both understand & will not think me a heartless wretch as indeed my heart & thoughts are with you at this time, which is of such great importance to our family.' Alive to the ever present danger of eavesdroppers, she said that if the Duke wanted to telephone her 'you need not mention E's name as we shall understand.'48 Both the King and Queen suggested that, as Lady Strathmore had a temperature and could not be with her daughter for the birth, they should send for May Elphinstone. 'Someone who has had a baby & knows is such a comfort to one at such moments,' Queen Mary wrote.49 A little girl was born early in the morning of 21 April. It was a difficult labour and the doctors decided to perform a Caesarean section. The Duke was 'very worried & anxious',50 and paced the house, as well as looking after the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, who had been summoned in accordance with the convention that this minister must always be present at the birth of a child in the direct royal succession to see that no subst.i.tution took place.* The first medical bulletin, signed by Henry Simson and Walter Jagger, stated that 'The d.u.c.h.ess of York has had some rest since the arrival of her daughter. Her Royal Highness and the infant Princess are making very satisfactory progress. Previous to the Confinement a consultation took place, at which Sir George Blacker was present, and a certain line of treatment was successfully adopted.'
Queen Mary recorded in her diary that at Windsor Castle she and the King were woken at 4 a.m. to be given the news that 'darling Elizabeth had got a daughter at 2.40. Such a relief & joy.'51 The new child was the King's first granddaughter and third in line to the throne, after the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York.
That afternoon the King and Queen motored up from Windsor to Bruton Street. A small crowd cheered them outside the house. 'Saw the baby who is a little darling with a lovely complexion & pretty fair hair,' the Queen noted in her diary.52 To her son she wrote, 'I am so thankful all is going well with our darling Elizabeth & that adorable little daughter of yours, she is too sweet & pretty & I feel very proud of my first grand daughter!'53 Next day the Duke wrote to thank his mother. 'You don't know what a tremendous joy it is to Elizabeth & me to have our little girl. We always wanted a child to make our happiness complete, & now that it has at last happened, it seems so wonderful & strange ... I do hope that you & Papa are as delighted, as we are, to have a grand daughter, or would you have sooner had another grandson?* I know Elizabeth wanted a daughter. May I say I hope you won't spoil her when she gets a bit older.'54 Among the hundreds of letters and telegrams they received was one from Beryl Poignand. The Duke wrote to thank her and to tell her how overjoyed they were with their baby. 'You have known Elizabeth for so long & I can tell you how very proud I am of her for the way she has gone through this last week.'55 Lady Strathmore also sent a letter to Beryl saying, 'The baby is a lovely, healthy little creature ... Eliz is getting on but is still very tired & weak but the Drs are pleased with her progress, so all is well. She often talks of you & the old days & is exactly the same as ever.'56 The most urgent task was the choosing of the new Princess's names. On 27 April the Duke wrote to his father to say that their choice was Elizabeth Alexandra Mary the names of the baby's mother, her great-grandmother and her grandmother. 'We are so anxious for her first name to be Elizabeth as it is such a nice name & there has been no one of that name in your family for a long time. Elizabeth of York sounds so nice too.'57 The King approved the choices at once.58 *
THE BIRTH OF the Princess provided a welcome diversion in troubled times. Indeed a few days later Britain appeared to some (particularly in sections of the press) to be on the cusp of revolution. Both the King and the Duke had been preoccupied with the danger of a general strike, threatened by the Trades Union Congress in support of the coalminers.
Coal had for over a century been the basis of Britain's industrial power and, to a significant extent, of her imperial expansion. Mining was the biggest industry in Britain, the only one employing over a million people. It had been temporarily nationalized during the war now it had become a symbol of cla.s.s struggle.59 In summer 1925 the owners gave notice that they intended to lower wages and enforce longer hours. The Miners' Union was led by a charismatic former Baptist lay preacher, A. J. Cook, who saw himself as 'a humble follower of Lenin'. He decided to take the government and the owners' ultimatums as a challenge to join a cla.s.s war. His ambition was at the very least to refuse all concessions.60 The King was worried, writing in his diary in July 1925 that a strike 'will play the devil with the country. I never seem to get any peace in this world. Felt very low & depressed.'61 At the last minute the government surrendered, deciding to continue the subsidies pending the report of a Royal Commission. The report in March 1926 recommended complete reorganization of the industry, the end of the subsidies and a smaller reduction in wages than the owners had wanted. This last Cook refused to accept. The miners' slogan 'Not a minute on the day, not a penny off the pay' was supported by many other unions. They felt that at last organized labour should show its strength. The TUC announced a general strike for 3 May; it was to include all workers except those in the public health services.
Such dread swept the country that it might have seemed that the Day of Judgement was nigh. Many government ministers, and many members of the upper and middle cla.s.ses, their concerns whipped up by the Daily Mail and other papers, feared that this was the start of the British Bolshevik revolution. Duff Cooper recorded in his diary, perhaps with irony, that his wife Diana had asked him on 5 May how soon they could with honour leave the country. 'I said not until the ma.s.sacres began.'62 Facing the threat of a national strike, the government formed an Organization for the Maintenance of Supplies and enlisted volunteers from the middle and upper cla.s.ses as drivers to move food between cities. On 3 May itself Hyde Park was closed to the public and used as a milk depot. Troops were moved into Whitehall and used to convoy food. There was no public transport but people walked or hitch-hiked to work. Power plants were taken over by the government but illuminated signs were prohibited. Fog made life more confusing. Amateur train and bus drivers managed to get some buses and trains running, but such 'scabs' risked having the windows of their vehicles broken. Members of the gentlemen's clubs in St James's turned up for lunch in policemen's uniforms.63 Newspapers were published only with difficulty in Britain. Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, expressed government demands for the 'unconditional surrender' of the unions with his usual forthrightness; he published a government broadsheet, the British Gazette, which declared that the General Strike was a threat to the const.i.tution and warned that the army might have to a.s.sist the government more robustly. The King made it clear that he thought this imprudent.64 In the event troops were needed only in the London docks, where violence was never far distant.65 The Daily Mail, the government's princ.i.p.al cheerleader, printed editions in Paris and flew them over to London. It brandished headlines such as 'The Pistol at the Nation's Head' and under the headline 'For King and Country' (the paper's slogan) on 3 May it printed an editorial which declared, 'A general strike is not an industrial dispute. It is a revolutionary movement intended to inflict suffering upon the great ma.s.s of innocent persons in the community ... This being so, it cannot be tolerated by any civilised government, and must be dealt with by every resource at the disposal of the community.'
The strike caused the King great anxiety; he came to London on the morning it began and stayed there throughout. He had consistently shown his sympathy for the poor of his kingdom as well as his affinity with the rich. Just before the strike began he told Lord Durham, a mine owner, that he was sorry for the miners. When Durham complained that they were 'a d.a.m.ned lot of revolutionaries', the King retorted, 'Try living on their wages before you judge them.'66 The Duke of York, with his specific interest in industrial matters, was also worried and attended five of the debates in the House of Commons during the strike; on 11 May he went to see the food transport organization in Hyde Park. The King urged the government to protect those who were trying to maintain essential services but was opposed to anything that might make the strikers desperate.67 He discouraged the government from introducing legislation or even orders in council that might be seen as confiscating money from strikers and thus provoke more fury. However, while the King was sympathetic to the plight of the poor, he was absolutely opposed to intimidation or any other breach of the law by strikers.68 At one stage during the General Strike he urged new legislation to prevent intimidation of those who were trying to break the strike. The Prime Minister thought this unwise.69 On the other hand, he subtly and successfully discouraged the government from legislating to control trades union funds. As his Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham recorded, on 9 May he told the Home Secretary and the Attorney General that the situation so far was 'better and more peaceful than might have been expected. The spirit of the miners was not unfriendly, as shown by such instances as Sat.u.r.day afternoon's Football Match at Plymouth between the police and the strikers: but any attempt to get hold of or control the Trades Union Funds might cause exasperation and provoke reprisals.'70 There was not much support for the miners among the well-to-do, who found that they were able to get by surprisingly well. They rallied to voluntary organizations, as they had during the war, and paid attention to the BBC, which now had around two million regular listeners and which urged them to 'do their bit'.71 After the strike had continued for eight days it became clear that the strikers would succeed neither in intimidating the public nor in coercing the government. A rift grew between the TUC and the Miners' Union over terms for settlement and the TUC called off the General Strike on 12 May. The Daily Mail was triumphant: 'Surrender of the Revolutionaries' and 'A Triumph for the People' were among its favoured headlines. The King wrote in his diary, 'our old country can well be proud of itself, as during the last nine days there has been a strike in which four million people have been affected, not a shot has been fired and no one killed. It shows what a wonderful people we are.'72 Not everyone returned at once to work. The dockers, printers and transport workers remained out for another five days and some of the abandoned miners held out for another six months. By then they were utterly impoverished, winter was closing in and they were compelled to drift back to work. The coal strike finally came to an end only in November 1926.
The trades unions realized that they had been beaten and did not voice any strong objection when, in 1927, much more draconian legislation made general strikes illegal.73 Instead they began to cooperate with industrialists and took part in a new National Industrial Council formed in 1927. But many workers remained suspicious and gradually the feeling grew that the miners had not been fairly treated. Coal remained the largest single employer in the country until the Second World War and nationalization of the mines was one of the first acts embarked upon by the Labour government elected in 1945. Harold Nicolson, King George V's official biographer, put it well when he wrote that the strike 'was felt to be a common tragedy and not a purely cla.s.s tragedy; there was little heresy hunting and no victimisation. Every section of the community felt sorry for the other sections, as well as for themselves.'74 But at the same time the strike seemed to reduce militancy. The Communist Party had doubled its membership during 1926 it lost large numbers of recruits afterwards. And many middle-cla.s.s 'blacklegs' suddenly realized for the first time how difficult manual labour could be, and began to harbour a new respect for workers. The historian A. J. P. Taylor was surely exaggerating when he declared that 'The general strike, apparently the clearest display of the cla.s.s war in British history, marked the moment when cla.s.s war ceased to shape the pattern of British industrial relations.'75 But perhaps he was right in the sense that 1926 showed that Britain might be able to deal reasonably with the issues of industrial discontent and thus avoid the totalitarian responses which began to scar Europe.
IN THE IMMEDIATE aftermath of the strike, the Royal Family could afford some happiness. It centred upon Princess Elizabeth who straight away became the focus of attention in her extended family. The newspapers had reported the birth with enthusiasm and reflected the affection in which the d.u.c.h.ess was already held, after three years of marriage. Not only that they tried to a.s.sume the mantle of fairy G.o.dparents around the crib, each bearing good wishes and glorious predictions. The Morning Post remarked, 'For the Royal Family the day was one of congratulation and satisfaction, a feeling which the public cordially shared, because in three short years the d.u.c.h.ess has become universally and outstandingly popular.' The Daily Telegraph declared, 'The d.u.c.h.ess has taken a full share in our national life, working for all sorts of philanthropical inst.i.tutions, and with her husband she has visited many centres of industry.' The Daily Graphic showed remarkable foresight when it wrote that the family's happiness was shared by the nation and added, 'The possibility that in the little stranger to Bruton Street there may be a future Queen of Great Britain (perhaps, even a second and resplendent Queen Elizabeth) is sufficiently intriguing; but let us not burden the bright hour of its arrival with speculation of its Royal destiny.'
On 26 May (Queen Mary's birthday) a photograph of the d.u.c.h.ess with her baby was published in the Sketch, and the Daily Mirror reported 'a charming incident' outside Buckingham Palace. 'About noon two nurses came out into the courtyard, and one of them was carrying the d.u.c.h.ess of York's baby.* The infant Princess was shown to the crowd which lined the railings, and people were obviously delighted to enjoy this homely privilege. Later the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of York drove up to the Palace and were very cordially greeted by the sightseers.'76 The baby was christened on 29 May in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace, with water from the River Jordan. She was dressed in the same cream satin and Honiton lace robe which her father had worn at his christening; it had been made for Queen Victoria's eldest child in 1841 and royal babies had been christened in it ever since. The service was conducted by Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of York, and the G.o.dparents were the King and Queen, Princess Mary, the Duke of Connaught, May Elphinstone and Lord and Lady Strathmore. The choir of the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, sang and the Princess cried forcefully during the service. Afterwards there was a christening tea at Bruton Street at which the d.u.c.h.ess of York cut a cake bearing a single silver candle. The next day her photograph appeared in the papers, smiling broadly.
In early August the family went up to Glamis as usual, with the baby now in the care of Alah Knight, the d.u.c.h.ess's own nanny. The Scottish air agreed with the little Princess she put on weight and she slept soundly in her pram in the open air, in the Italian garden designed by her grandmother, the rhythmic sounds of tennis from the court near by. Queen Mary was anxious that Princess Elizabeth should visit Balmoral too, but this the d.u.c.h.ess parried, writing to her mother-in-law, 'I am longing for you to see her. She has grown so round and pink [and] merry. The country air suits her marvellously well I am glad to say. I would have so loved to bring her up, but I am sure you will agree that so many changes is not a good thing.'77 When the Yorks made their own trip to Balmoral at the end of September, they left the baby with the d.u.c.h.ess's mother at Glamis.
The Prince of Wales asked the d.u.c.h.ess if he could come and stay with them at Glamis. She was delighted and told her mother, 'he would love to come unless he's in the way. Do tell me when I come up. He is so frightfully modest, & is terrified of pushing in where he's not wanted.'78 He did come, and afterwards wrote euphoric letters of thanks to both Lady Strathmore and her daughter.79 To the d.u.c.h.ess he wrote, 'Darling Elizabeth, It was fun at Glamis & very sweet of your family to have me stop there & I was sad to leave you all last night ... I miss you both & you've been so sweet to me these last days Yes you really have & I mean that absolutely.' He gave her the good news that he had received 'a parcel of new records from N.Y. & there are some peaches of tunes fine for Charleson Carleston'.80 But Glamis was no longer just for holidays the d.u.c.h.ess had official functions to perform in Scotland. She opened the Dundee Horticultural Society's Flower Show and, accompanied by the Duke, she enjoyed launching the new Montrose lifeboat.81 In the second week of October, the end of their Scottish sojourn, they went to stay with the Elphinstones at Carberry Tower for a round of engagements in Edinburgh on 9 October, which marked the d.u.c.h.ess's full return to public life. Their schedule helps to show the role which the Royal Family played in attracting funds for civic inst.i.tutions which at that time depended on philanthropy and public subscription.
First the Duke opened the new radiology department at the Royal Infirmary. The Infirmary was maintained entirely by voluntary contributions, and the staff of physicians and surgeons the leading members of the medical profession in Edinburgh gave their services voluntarily. Afterwards the Duke was presented with the Freedom of the City, and the d.u.c.h.ess inspected the Edinburgh Company of the Girls' Guildry, of which she was patron, before a civic luncheon. (This was her first patronage; she had accepted it during her engagement.) In the afternoon, the d.u.c.h.ess unveiled a plaque commemorating the new installation of the Edinburgh Corporation's gas works. Later they visited the club rooms of the Cameron Highlanders' a.s.sociation (the Duke was colonel-in-chief of the 4th Battalion), and finally they went to visit the Royal Soldiers' Home at Colinton. This last visit was arranged only because of the persistence of a Miss Mina Davidson who had known Lady Strathmore as a girl. Like the administrators of the Royal Infirmary, she knew how important the patronage of members of the Royal Family was to ensure the flow of voluntary support.82 *
THE d.u.c.h.eSS'S delight in her infant daughter was overwhelming, but she had one cause for serious concern. The Prime Minister of Australia, Stanley Bruce, had asked that one of the King's sons come out in early 1927 to open the new Federal Parliament buildings in Canberra.
Australia had become a federation on 1 January 1900. Under the Commonwealth of Australia (Const.i.tution) Act, the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania became states federated together under one Dominion government. It was the last great imperial measure of the Victorian era. In May 1901 the first session of the Commonwealth Parliament was opened by the Duke of Cornwall and York, the future King George V.83 At that time the Commonwealth government had been housed in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, but in 1911 the government obtained an area of some 900 square miles from the government of New South Wales on which to create a new capital, Canberra. These plans were delayed by the First World War, but the construction of the town finally began in 1923 and the government intended to have the new Parliament buildings ready to be opened in 1927.
The Prince of Wales had made a very successful tour of Australia in 1920; he had been welcomed with rapture and became known as 'the travelling salesman of Empire'. Robert Graves wrote of him, 'He became a symbol of industrious go-ahead youth, fully acquainted with all the world's problems; having, it is true, no plan by which to solve them, but at least a determination to tackle them and to struggle through.'84 The Prince would have been welcomed back to Australia. But the Duke of York was keen to go, and had told Leo Amery, the Dominions Secretary, that he had 'much enjoyed his unofficial visit to Kenya and would welcome an opportunity of obtaining further experience of the Empire'.85 Amery put the Duke's name forward, but the King was initially sceptical. Lord Stamfordham replied to Amery that 'the Duke of York is the only one of the Princes who could undertake this duty; and for many reasons His Majesty cannot, at this distance of time, hold out much hope of such an arrangement being carried out.'86 In early April 1926 the Governor General, Lord Stonehaven, wrote to Stamfordham urging the importance of the royal visit, and asking him to help persuade the King: 'The Crown is becoming more and more the only real link which unites the Empire.'87 In July, finally, it was announced that the Duke and the d.u.c.h.ess of York were to go.
Since there was, in those days, no question of children, let alone infants, accompanying their royal parents on such a tour, this would mean that they would be parted from their daughter for at least six months. The d.u.c.h.ess was dismayed by this prospect. There was another anxiety. Both the King and Bruce were anxious that the Duke might not be able to sustain all the pressures of such a tour. In particular there was apprehension which the Duke himself shared that his stammer would make it impossible for him to deliver all the speeches that a formal tour would require.88 Bruce was said to be appalled by the inhibitions that the Duke's speech defect would necessarily impose upon him.89 For the Duke himself the crisis was far worse. Despite the support and rea.s.surance of the d.u.c.h.ess, he had begun to despair about his stammer and his failure to conquer it. According to his official biographer, he had even begun to fear that the problem might be a mental rather than a physical one. But help was at hand.
The Duke's first broadcast speech at Wembley had been heard by an Australian therapist named Lionel Logue. He had originally trained as an engineer, but he later discovered he had a power of healing and had taken up speech therapy in order to help Australian soldiers traumatized in the First World War. In 1924 he had come to Britain and taken rooms in Harley Street in which to practise. He was recommended to the Prince's Private Secretary, Patrick Hodgson. The Duke himself was not keen to try yet another therapist; he had had his hopes raised too many times, always to be dashed. It was the d.u.c.h.ess who persuaded him to have 'just one more try'.90 Lionel Logue recorded this impression of the Duke's first appointment with him on 19 October 1926. 'He entered my consulting room at three o'clock in the afternoon, a slim, quiet man, with tired eyes and all the outward symptoms of the man upon whom habitual speech defect had begun to set the sign. When he left at five o'clock you could see that there was hope once more in his heart.'91 Logue evidently did have an extraordinary gift. He saw his first task as being to persuade stammerers that there was nothing 'wrong' or fundamentally different about them, that they were normal people with a common affliction which could usually be cured.
The first stage of his treatment was to teach patients to breathe correctly. He showed the Duke how to regulate his lungs and breathing so as to enable himself the better to relax. He had to do exercises at home, lying on the floor and reciting devilishly difficult tongue-twisters. The d.u.c.h.ess encouraged him in the whole process. She often went with him to Logue's Harley Street rooms or to his flat in South Kensington for his sessions. But in the end he could only cure himself and Logue said later that the Prince was 'the pluckiest and most determined patient I ever had'.92 It is hard to exaggerate the almost instant, indeed superb effect Logue had upon the Duke's self-confidence. As the tour of Australasia loomed closer, his fear of it diminished rather than grew. This was remarkable and deeply heartening for him, and for his wife. Shortly before he left, he wrote to Logue, 'I must send you a line to tell you how grateful I am to you for all that you have done in helping me with my speech defect. I really do think you have given me a real good start in the way of getting over it & I am sure if I carry on your exercises and instructions that I shall not go back. I am full of confidence for this trip now.'93 Before they left there was still much to do. They had finally found a house in place of White Lodge. Number 145 Piccadilly was perfect, a stone-built house, close to Hyde Park Corner and facing south with a view over Green Park towards Buckingham Palace. They were able to lease the house, and in return White Lodge was leased out by the Crown.
The new house needed a great deal of attention. Queen Mary was, naturally, keen to be deeply involved in all the works. She insisted on inspecting the house early on, declaring, 'I should like to see it before the improvements are commenced as it is always interesting to see a house before & after it has been done up.' She also warned her son not to mention to the King loans of furniture to them belonging to the Crown, 'because the dear soul does not understand about these things'.94 She thought they should keep all the furniture they wanted from White Lodge and she promised them a cheque for 750 to do up a room at her expense. She found them some chandeliers at Osborne and the King lent them another from Balmoral.95 Other furniture, including a walnut bureau and an octagonal card table, came from Lady Strathmore. The d.u.c.h.ess was grateful for all help like everyone moving house she found the expense much greater than she had antic.i.p.ated. None of the curtains from White Lodge were big enough for the windows at 145 Piccadilly she had to get fourteen new pairs, all four or five yards long and she found that decent material cost more than 1 a yard. 'However if it is good wearing stuff, we shall be able to move it and use it for years and years,' she told her mother.96 For the d.u.c.h.ess, moving home was a diversion from the thought of parting from her baby for the tour. Princess Elizabeth was the object of her parents' adoration. 'I am longing for you to see her,' the d.u.c.h.ess wrote to Nannie B. 'She is growing so big and is as sharp as a needle, & so well. She sleeps beautifully, and has always got a smile ready.' She asked Mrs Beevers to visit them at Bruton Street, where they were busy preparing for 'this horrible trip'.97 Perhaps nothing before had brought home to her so clearly the conflict between duty and family, work and pleasure. She told Major Walsh, 'by next June I shall be old & worn & grey after our Australasian tour. You must prepare for a cynical & hardened old woman of the world by the time I've finished with the Aussies.' She thought she would have to come to Africa, to recover. 'I'll bring my gramophone and my '275, & we'll vary the Charleston with a little letting off at crocs & other four-legged animals.'98 They stayed at Sandringham House for Christmas that year for the first time, returning to London soon afterwards to make final preparations for their departure to Australia and New Zealand at the end of the first week in January. As the date approached everything became more hectic. 'I don't dare think of the 6th it is so awful,' the d.u.c.h.ess confessed.99 She felt in a complete whirl and all the arrangements she had to make reduced her brain, she said, to 'chaos'.100 They spent New Year's Eve, as they preferred, with her family at St Paul's Walden. On the first day of 1927 the men went shooting and she had 'a lovely long lie in!' reading a thriller by Edgar Wallace. 'Mother and I had lunch and talked hard' her way of recording in her diary that she and her mother, on whom she still relied a great deal, had a serious conversation. On Sunday they went as usual to the Church of All Saints. The vicar, Mr Whitehouse, 'boomed' at them and after lunch they drove back to London where she found Catherine Maclean, her maid, exhausted from the packing. That night she had a typhoid inoculation and, unusually for her, she had a bad reaction she hardly slept and felt ill next morning.101 As the departure date grew closer, the d.u.c.h.ess became 'more and more miserable'.102 'The baby was too delicious having her bottle & playing & being naughty,' she wrote in her diary.103 One of her friends supposed that the child would spend the time with Lady Strathmore in the country, but there were other claims upon her, as the d.u.c.h.ess explained. 'I expect I shall have to divide her! You see the Queen wants to have her for at least three out of the six months.'104 On Tuesday 4 January, the d.u.c.h.ess tried on clothes and had 'dozens of questions to answer & decide at home'. James Stuart came to lunch and then she and her sister Rosie went to Heal's to buy nursery things. That evening the Prince of Wales threw a farewell party for them. Many of their friends came to say goodbye, including Fred Astaire and his sister Adele. The Plantation Orchestra played 'marvellously'. It was a moment for abandonment: 'I did a Charleston with David [the Prince of Wales] for nearly 20 minutes!! Home at 3.30! Bed 4. Oh Lord.'105 Wednesday was another day of goodbyes; George Gage came to see her; so did Adele Astaire, who brought her a gramophone record and a book. She 'felt ill all today'.106 The paediatrician to whom she was entrusting the Princess, Dr George F. Still, came to talk to her about his charge and promised to send her regular reports. They dined with her parents and the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace.
On the morning they had to leave, she awoke and rose early. 'Feel very miserable at leaving the baby. Went up & played with her & she was so sweet. Luckily she doesn't realize anything.'107 When they were finally ready to depart, Alah Knight brought the baby downstairs for the final goodbye. The d.u.c.h.ess was very emotional. Watching Princess Elizabeth play with the b.u.t.tons on her father's uniform 'quite broke me up'.108 The Duke was miserable too and felt that his daughter 'will be so grown up when we return'.109 The d.u.c.h.ess knew she had to drag herself away and so she 'drank some champagne & tried not to weep'.110 At Victoria station Queen Mary saw that her daughter-in-law was being as brave as possible, and so she said nothing about the little Princess as she put it in a letter, 'I purposely did not allude to yr leave taking of yr angelic baby knowing only too well you would be bound to break down.'111 After long farewells on the platform, the special train drew them away on the start of their journey towards the furthest reaches of the Empire.
At Portsmouth Harbour the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess had a rousing send-off from large, enthusiastic crowds. One of the officials with them wrote next day, 'If you wanted evidence that the country was not going Bolshevik, you could not have had better proof than was afforded yesterday.'112 * Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (18791964). Born Nancy Langhorne in Virginia, USA, she married Waldorf Astor, second Viscount Astor, in 1906. A prominent and controversial politician and society hostess, in 1919 she became the first woman to take a seat in Parliament.
* The King and Queen did not move into Sandringham House until 1926. Both were sad to leave York Cottage, despite its cramped rooms, uninspiring furnishings and cooking smells, for they had lived there for thirty-three years. But they soon came to appreciate the advantages of the main house.
* Anne Beevers (18621946), nee Greaves, born in Clayworth, Nottinghamshire, daughter of a carpenter from Yorkshire. Her husband died following a rugby accident, leaving her with a small son. After training as a midwife at the London Hospital, she became a much loved private maternity or monthly nurse employed by many society families, and the d.u.c.h.ess remained in touch with her until her death in 1946.
* This practice had been established following the rumours, probably untrue, that a baby had been subst.i.tuted for the rightful heir to King James II and his second wife, Queen Mary of Modena. The custom was suspended during the Second World War, and King George VI, who thought it 'archaic', later abolished it.
Sir Henry Simson (18721932), obstetric surgeon at the West London Hospital. He had attended Princess Mary at the births of her two sons.
Dr Walter Jagger (18711929), physician. He also attended the d.u.c.h.ess of York during bouts of influenza after the birth of Princess Elizabeth.
Sir George Blacker (18651948), obstetric physician at University College Hospital.
* The first grandchild of King George and Queen Mary was George, the elder son of Princess Mary and Lord Lascelles, who had been born on 7 February 1923. A second son, Gerald, was born on 21 August 1924.
* The nurse carrying the Princess was Nannie B. She stayed with the family for about two months; in July the d.u.c.h.ess wrote to her to say she was glad she had been so happy, and hoping that 'the next time' would be the same. She sent a gold wrist.w.a.tch as a memento of 'us three here who are so fond of our dear Nannie B'. (d.u.c.h.ess of York to Nannie B, 7 and 9 July 1926, private collection)