The Queen Mother (64 page)
Authors: William Shawcross
Just before the end, according to Lord Wigram, the Prince of Wales ‘became hysterical, cried loudly and kept on embracing the Queen’.
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‘His emotion was frantic and unreasonable’, according to Helen Hardinge.
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At the moment her husband died, Queen Mary turned to her eldest son and kissed the hand of her new king, Edward VIII. In her diary she wrote of King George V: ‘The sunset of his death tinged the whole world’s sky.’
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She was not wrong. King George had been widely and greatly loved. The next day’s newspapers appeared with heavy black borders; all broadcasting was cancelled, theatres and cinemas were closed. Millions of people across the land went to church to pray.
The following day, Wednesday 22 January, the Duchess was at last well enough to travel to Sandringham. The whole family was now there. On Thursday the 23rd the coffin was taken by train from Wolferton station to London; all the way, people stood bareheaded by the track and on the hills above it, watching the King on his last journey. From King’s Cross, King Edward and his brothers followed their father’s coffin on foot to Westminster Hall. The coffin was
enfolded in the Royal Standard and on top of it was fixed the Imperial Crown. As the procession turned into the Palace of Westminster, the jewelled Maltese cross on the top of the crown was shaken loose and tumbled into the gutter. The officer in charge of the bearer party picked it up. ‘A most terrible omen,’ Harold Nicolson thought.
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As relations and other dignitaries arrived for the funeral, almost a million men and women passed silently by the coffin in the dim and misty Westminster Hall. At midnight on 27 January, the eve of the funeral, the King and his three brothers stood guard over the coffin for twenty minutes in dim candlelight – ‘a very touching thought’, their mother recorded.
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The next day the Queen described as ‘a terrible day of sadness for us’. The coffin was drawn on its gun carriage to Paddington station ‘through wonderful crowds of sorrowing people mourning their dear King’. It was then carried by train to Windsor, past thousands upon thousands of people lining the track, and then taken through more throngs of mourners into the Castle and St George’s Chapel. After the funeral service, attended by many kings and heads of state from a Europe teetering again on the edge of horror, King George was laid to rest. Queen Mary wrote, ‘We left him sadly, lying with his ancestors in the vault. We returned to London by train & got home by 3.30.’
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Over the next few weeks the Duke and Duchess and other members of the family were constantly with the Queen, whose dignity and strength throughout moved everyone. Like other members of the family, the Duchess received and replied to many letters of sympathy. Arthur Penn was sure she felt the loss, ‘but if anything can cheer you, I think it may well be the knowledge that nothing can have added so much to the happiness of the King’s later years [as] his first daughter in law’.
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Schoolchildren all over the world wrote to Queen Mary and other members of the family. Messages from African chiefs and Tibetan lamas were widely and, it should be said, gratefully read. The poets did their best. Edmund Blunden penned an elegy in
The Times
. The Poet Laureate, John Masefield, cabled his tribute to the King from Los Angeles, praising ‘His courage and his kindness and his grace’. More evocative of the past and perhaps more prescient of the uncertain future was the young John Betjeman:
Spirits of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe
Flutter and bear him up the Norfolk sky:
In that red house in a red mahogany book-case
The stamp collection waits with mounts long dry.
The big blue eyes are shut that saw wrong clothing
And favourite fields and coverts from a horse;
Old men in country houses hear clocks ticking
Over thick carpets with a deadened force;
Old men who never cheated, never doubted,
Communicated monthly, sit and stare
At a red suburb ruled by Mrs Simpson,
Where a young man lands hatless from the air.
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The Long Weekend
was the title of a 1940 book by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge drawn upon here.
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Lady Cynthia Mary Evelyn Asquith (1887–1960), diarist, novelist and biographer. Daughter of eleventh Earl of Wemyss. She married Herbert Asquith (son of the Prime Minister) in 1910.
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Painted Fabrics grew out of painting classes run by students from the Sheffield School of Art for severely injured servicemen during the First World War. Its founder, Annie Carter, set up a business employing the men to produce fabrics for a well-off clientele, and its workshops were taken over to make aircraft parts during the Second World War. Fabric production continued afterwards, but business declined and the firm was wound up in 1958.
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Crown Prince Olav was the only son of King Haakon VII of Norway and his wife Queen Maud, King George V’s sister. He was also related to the Duke through his father, who was Queen Alexandra’s nephew.
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Sir Samuel Hoare, second Baronet (1880–1959), Conservative politician, and his wife Lady Maud, née Lygon, daughter of sixth Earl Beauchamp. Hoare was created Viscount Temple-wood in 1944.
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These were prints of famous people by the Victorian satirical cartoonists Spy (Leslie Ward) and Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) collected by Sir Dighton Probyn VC (1833–1924), who had lived in the house. He had won the Victoria Cross in the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and was the founder of Probyn’s Horse. He was Keeper of the Privy Purse to King Edward VII and Comptroller to Queen Alexandra in her widowhood.
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A High Wind in Jamaica
by Richard Hughes was published to great acclaim in 1929; it did away with Victorian sentimental visions of childhood. Set against a tropical landscape and the ever present sea, it told the story of a family of English children who, on the voyage home from Jamaica, fell into the hands of pirates.
The Man Within
was Graham Greene’s first novel, published in 1929. The title was taken from a line by Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82), ‘There’s another man within me that’s angry with me.’
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King George II of Greece (1890–1947), Queen Alexandra’s great-nephew, succeeded his father Constantine I as King of the Hellenes in 1922, was deposed 1924 and lived in exile at Claridge’s Hotel in London until restored to his throne by plebiscite in 1935. During the Second World War he again lived in exile in England from 1940 before returning to Greece in 1946, not long before his death.
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Their first child, Patricia, born in 1916, had died at eleven months. The second, Anne (1917–80), married, first, Viscount Anson in 1938 and, second, Prince George of Denmark in 1950. Diana, the fourth (1923 -86), married Peter Somervell in 1960. Their other two daughters, Nerissa (1919–86) and Katherine, born in 1926, inherited a mental condition from which three of their cousins, children of Fenella’s sister, also suffered. Their grandfather Lord Clinton paid for the five children to be looked after at a home not far from St Paul’s Walden Bury. They later moved to a hospital in Surrey. Their cousin Lady Mary Clayton, daughter of the Duchess of York’s sister Rose, described them as ‘lovely children … like easily frightened does’. She added, ‘Though none of these children recognised their mothers they knew each other and used to walk together in the park which interested the doctors very much.’ Their aunt Elizabeth sent Nerissa and Katherine presents each year.
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‘Twilight sleep’ was a form of anaesthetic consisting of injections of morphine and scopolamine, used especially to relieve the pain of childbirth. It fell out of favour because it provided inadequate relief and could be dangerous for the baby.
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Clive Wigram, the King’s Assistant Private Secretary, recorded that when the idea was broached after dinner at Balmoral, he, the King’s Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham and Dr Stirton, the Minister at Crathie Church, ‘raised a cry of horror. Firstly the Church of Scotland is recognised in Scotland as the C of E is in England … There might be something in the proposal of her baptism in the C of Scotland … At the same time we said that there would be an awful outcry in England if the possible heir to the throne was baptized in the C of S. – Should this Princess ever succeed there would be a shout for her Coronation in St Giles.’ (Sir Clive Wigram to Lady Wigram, 27 August 1930, copy, RA AEC/GG/6)
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The future Queen of Denmark, she was the daughter of King George V’s cousin Princess Margaret of Connaught, Crown Princess of Sweden. She married Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark in 1935.
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Sir John Weir (1879–1971), homeopathic doctor who was physician to many members of the Royal Family.
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Louise, Princess Royal, Duchess of Fife (1867–1931). She married in 1889 Alexander Duff, sixth Earl of Fife, who was created duke of Fife by Queen Victoria. He died in 1912.
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Captain Sir Harold Campbell (1888–1969), Assistant Private Secretary and equerry to Duke of York 1929–33, Private Secretary 1933–6, Groom of the Robes and equerry to King George VI 1937–52, Groom of the Robes and equerry to Queen Elizabeth II 1952–4.
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Lady Helen Graham (1879–1945), daughter of fifth Duke of Montrose.
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The Hon. Mrs Geoffrey Bowlby (1885–1988), née Annesley, daughter of eleventh Viscount Valentia. Her husband Captain Geoffrey Bowlby was killed in the First World War.
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The Duchess was patron of the St Marylebone Housing Association; after she had laid the foundation stone of the Association’s first block of flats in 1928 the Honorary Secretary commented on the effect on ‘what is supposed to be a “Red” neighbourhood. Anything less “Red” than the demonstration on June 9th it would be hard to imagine – yet the Police had asked me if it would be wise to allow Her Royal Highness to visit one of the cottages.’ (Letter to Lady Helen Graham, 17 July 1928, RA QEQMH/PS/PS/St Marylebone Housing Association)
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Rhododendrons were not Ernest Pearce’s favourite plant, however, to judge by the letter he wrote asking for a boiler suit to wear while doing the ‘long dirty sticky job’ of picking the blooms. ‘I have to get right inside some of them … and I get in a very dirty mess – much to the annoyance of Mrs P. when it comes to washing day.’ (Letter from Ernest Pearce to the Privy Purse, 3 June 1956, RA QEQMH/HH/INDIV/PEARCE)
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The Camargo Society, named after Marie Camargo, a renowned eighteenth-century ballerina, was created by ballet lovers in 1930 with the intention of stimulating the idea of a national ballet. It gave a platform to Frederick Ashton, Ninette de Valois and other choreographers. The society staged the first British productions of
Giselle
and
Swan Lake
, Act II. In 1933 its repertoire was incorporated into the Vic-Wells (later the Royal) Ballet.
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Sir Frederick Ashton (1904–88), leading ballet dancer and choreographer. Director of the Royal Ballet 1963–70, he was a friend of Queen Elizabeth till the end of his life.
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Dookie’s kennel name was Rozavel Golden Eagle; when he was sent for training, servants in the house, knowing he was destined to live with the Duke of York, called him Dookie – he learned to respond to that name and so it remained with him.
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Mlle Guérin came several times in 1935–9; her letters home give a glimpse of life at Birkhall and Balmoral, and reveal that she detested Crawfie. She was succeeded in 1939 by Madame Montaudon Smith, ‘Monty’, who taught the Princesses in term-time as well, and to whom they were devoted. They also had a German governess, Hanni Davey.
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A Girl Guide company was formed at Buckingham Palace, into which friends of the Princesses and daughters of Royal Household staff were enrolled.
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In 1935 the enterprise’s fundraising campaign in London, essential to give its disabled employees a summer holiday, had been a complete flop owing to the illness of its royal patron, the Princess Royal. They turned to the Duchess for help, asking her to come to a special sale at Claridge’s. She hesitated, not wishing to encroach on her sister-in-law’s territory. But as her lady in waiting wrote, ‘the Duchess of York, having seen the men at work and met their families, is deeply interested and intensely anxious that they should not have to forgo their holidays this year.’ She went; the sale raised enough to guarantee the men their holiday, and there was great jubilation, the administrator reported. (Captain Scott to Lettice Bowlby, 19 June 1935, and to Lady Helen Graham, 18 July 1935, RA QEQMH/PS/ENGT/1935/17 July)
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The roll-call of members, eventually, was the Duke of York, the ninth Earl of Airlie, Sir Reginald Seymour, the ninth Duke of Devonshire, the tenth Duke of Beaufort, the ninth Duke of Rutland, the fifth Earl of Erne, the Hon. Sir Richard Molyneux, the fourth Earl of Eldon, the nineteenth Duke of Norfolk and the third Viscount Halifax (later first Earl); apart from the Duchess there were only two lady members, the Duchess of Beaufort and the Countess of Eldon.
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Britannia
was King George V’s racing yacht, built on the Clyde in 1893 for his father the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). She was a 121.5-foot steel-framed, cutter-rigged yacht and won many races in the 1890s. King George V inherited
Britannia
and his father’s love of racing, and the yacht continued to compete successfully at Cowes in the inter-war years. She was scuttled after the King’s death in 1936, in accordance with his wishes.
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Victoria and Albert
was the third of three royal yachts of this name built for Queen Victoria, launched in 1901. She was used for cruises around Britain and to the Mediterranean by King Edward VII and King George V; she was replaced in 1953 by the new royal yacht
Britannia
, named in honour of King George V’s racing yacht.
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After the abdication Käthe Kübler wrote to the Duchess, now Queen, saying she would like to come to see her, and asking permission to dedicate her memoirs to her. She did come, and took tea with the Queen on 13 October 1937. Her book,
Meine Schülerin, die Königin von England
, was published that year.
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Phipps recounted also how Mrs Greville, the Yorks’ friend and benefactor, had sought an appointment with Hitler while a guest of the German government in Nuremberg. A short meeting had been arranged with some difficulty. ‘Mrs Greville was, it seems, delighted.’
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This attack by Italian forces on the Ethiopian Empire – also known as Abyssinia – began the Second Italo-Abyssinian War (October 1935-May 1936). Abyssinia never surrendered but it was annexed into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa. The crisis demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League. Both Italy and Abyssinia were member nations and yet the League was unable to control Italy or to protect Abyssinia. Italy’s invasion was accepted by Britain and France because they sought to retain Italy as an ally in case of war with Germany.
