A Brief History of the House of Windsor (12 page)

George did not fit into the post-war world. Yet ironically it was he who had made the monarchy adapt to the style of the new era. He passionately hated the changes in appearance and behaviour of women in the 1920s. They now smoked in public, wore breeches to ride (and no longer sat side-saddle), shortened their hair and their skirts, drank cocktails, drove about in motor cars, and wore make-up. It is difficult to appreciate, from the perspective of our times, just how completely the way of life of all classes changed as a result of the Great War. Social conventions that had been accepted for generations were suddenly thrown overboard. Showing deference to one’s betters was out of fashion, the class structure having been dealt a serious blow by the democracy of the trenches and the success of socialism in Russia. Church-going was out of style; respect for ‘the Establishment’ – after the fortunes made by war-profiteers and the subsequent ennoblement of many of them – greatly diminished. Nothing seemed certain or stable any longer or worthy of respect. The bewilderment of men of the king’s generation was summed up by a fictitious near contemporary – Soames Forsyte – in John Galsworthy’s epic
Forsyte Saga
, who surveys with apprehension and disapproval the new era: ‘A democratic England – dishevelled, hurried, noisy, and seemingly without an apex . . . Gone forever, the close borough of rank and polish! . . . Manners, flavour, quality, all gone, engulfed in one vast, ugly, shoulder-rubbing, petrol-smelling Cheerio . . . Nothing ever again firm and coherent to look up to . . . And when those Labour chaps got power – if they ever did – the worst was yet to come!’

‘I know there is nothing kingly about me, but I have tried to mix with the people and make them think I was one of them.’

King Edward VIII to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin

‘From his childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour of the world and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage alliance will follow, and the end of it will be the country will be called upon to pay the bill.’

The man who said this was James Kier Hardie. In this summing up of the future king’s likely career, Hardie was uncannily accurate. There were to be three tours for the new king rather than one, and the morganatic marriage was not connected with either of them. Nevertheless the country would indeed ‘be called upon to pay the bill’, and the monarchy
might well not have survived the experience. This second sovereign of the House of Windsor would come to the throne at the age of forty-one. His reign would last less than eleven months.

He was born on 23 June 1894, and burdened with a plethora of Christian names that included a reference to every patron saint in the British Isles: Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David. He would become known to his family and to intimates by the last of these. His arrival represented the first time in British history that four generations of the royal family had been alive at once, and he was repeatedly photographed with his elders throughout his early childhood. Queen Victoria was extremely fond of him (though afterwards he would scarcely remember her, as she died when he was six), and he was probably rather spoiled. At any rate he developed a sense of entitlement and self-importance – entirely understandable in a position such as his – that was, however, somehow never to be balanced by any notions of duty and obligation, and this would be his lifelong problem. He would expect to receive all the trappings that went with his position – the deference and the loyalty and service of others – yet it did not occur to him that these had to be earned, or that in return he owed his subjects willing service and an ability always to put duty above personal feelings.

He was apparently mistreated in childhood by a nurse, who habitually twisted his arm when he was about to enter his parents’ drawing-room, as a means of ensuring good behaviour – a practice not unusual among Victorian nannies. He also suffered a childhood attack of mumps, which would cause him to believe in future years that he was infertile.

Despite this, his upbringing as one of six siblings was affectionate and relatively relaxed by the standards both of royalty and the Victorian era. His childhood home was the same small, uncomfortable house – York Cottage – that his parents had occupied since their marriage. He and his brothers were given lessons in a schoolroom there, and somewhat absurdly
he was designated ‘head boy’ of a form that consisted of only four pupils. At fifteen he followed his father’s course of education by going into the Royal Navy and attending Dartmouth, though by this time it had been transferred ashore to become the imposing academy it is today. Joining the Navy required greater commitment than service in the Army would have done. At that time there were still fashionable regiments in which, when slightly older, he could have idled his time away (as his uncle the Duke of Clarence had done), whereas the Navy was a technical Service that required concentrated hard work and genuine ability. It would grant no favours to members of his family, and he would have to earn respect through aptitude alone. On the other hand it could be assumed that he would not, like many of his contemporaries, make a career there, and indeed this quickly became clear. The year after he arrived at Dartmouth his ultimate destiny advanced a significant step closer when his father became king. David was now heir-assumptive, Prince of Wales, and would soon be invested as such.

The Investiture of a Prince of Wales had not previously had any impact on the Principality, because it was carried out at Court in London. In 1911, however, the Home Secretary happened to be the Welshman Lloyd George, and this time the arrangements were to be different. He had persuaded the king to hold the ceremony in Wales itself, and the setting agreed upon was the castle at Caernarfon. The prince could be presented to the people, just as the first such prince had been by King Edward III almost six hundred years earlier. David, who would never see the point of state ceremony, did not undergo the experience willingly, and especially disliked the neo-Tudor costume (a ‘preposterous rig’ he called it) that he was obliged to wear. In a curious foretaste of the rest of the century in which he would live, the teenager argued with his parents about the clothes he was expected to wear on a formal occasion. Nevertheless he learned to say a few words in Welsh, and to sound sincere when taking the oath.
The ceremony, in effect a tradition invented for the occasion, was acclaimed as a success both in Wales and throughout the empire – a solemn occasion, aspects of which could be shared by the public through photography and film, that brought the royal family closer to their people. It would be a harbinger of the more accessible and inclusive monarchy that was to become the norm within a few generations.

David was to gain great popularity under the title of Prince of Wales. A small, rail-thin man with a face that was described as looking like that of ‘a wistful choirboy’, he was handsome, well-dressed, and charming when he wanted to be. After his spell in the Navy he had attended Magdalen College, Oxford (he was to describe this as ‘a dreary chore’), the snobbish Master of which naturally regarded him as a considerable catch, socially if not academically. ‘Bookish he will never be,’ lamented his tutor, and with good reason. Under the pseudonym Lord Chester, the Prince of Wales then travelled the Continent to learn something of the places in which he had relatives.

The prince was anything but thoughtful or intellectual. As has been seen, his father was no intellectual either, yet King George possessed a sense of duty that his son would never have. George also had a thoughtful and sensitive nature beneath an often frightening exterior. This enabled him to understand and empathize with others, and to achieve flashes of great wisdom and insight. David lacked any of these qualities. Inherently selfish, he never understood the notion of being a servant of his people, and saw no reason to exert himself in situations that did not arouse his interest, or for which he did not feel in the mood. His tastes never developed beyond mildly strenuous sports or puerile parlour games, and he made no attempt to grasp important issues. Nor did he make any secret of his hatred of official occasions. (‘What bally rot these state visits are!’ he had said as a young man. ‘A waste of time, money and energy.’) His outspoken and indiscreet views, which caused embarrassment both to his family
and to courtiers, made it obvious that he was simply not suited by temperament to be king. Priding himself on the ease with which he could charm an audience and indeed win over an entire country, he came to think himself more important than the office he would ultimately hold. When one newspaper commented that his easy manner had ‘silenced criticism of the monarchy for current lifetimes’, it surely uttered one of recent history’s greatest misjudgements.

When war broke out in 1914 the Prince of Wales proved to be highly adept at boosting public morale. Genuinely frustrated at being forbidden to serve on the frontline or be exposed to danger anywhere else (‘Oh, that I had a job!’ he lamented), he was at least able to make official visits to the different fronts. These gave him a more-or-less authentic experience of the war, so that, to himself and to others, he seemed shaped by the same terrible events as the rest of his generation. He went to the Middle East and to Italy, as well as gaining a posting behind the lines in France. From here he made visits to scenes of action once the fighting was over, becoming a familiar sight as he travelled the roads in a staff car or on an egalitarian bicycle. (‘A bad shelling always produces the Prince of Wales!’ said the soldiers.) On one occasion a ‘bad shelling’ very nearly killed him. He had gone by car to a sector of the front. He stepped out of the vehicle, and moments later it was hit by a shell. His driver was killed. It is interesting to speculate that if the prince too had died his reputation as a martyr would have ensured him of lasting popularity throughout the empire, and his contribution to history would have been seen as heroic rather than shabby.

Nevertheless with the coming of peace his stock was about to rise. As had happened after the Boer War, it was felt fitting that the overseas territories should be thanked for their contribution to the cause by a visit from royalty. Lloyd George, now prime minister, suggested that the prince should go. The idea proved immensely popular with the public, both at home and in the colonies. One trip took in the Dominion of Canada and
the then-separate colony of Newfoundland. On the other he visited India, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. David had already been portrayed in the illustrated press as a figure of film-star glamour. He was boyishly handsome, smiled often and with a hint of shyness that many found irresistible, and looked very attractive in uniform. In 1915, when a Welsh regiment had been added to the four existing Foot Guard units, he had become its Colonel-in-Chief. His picture appeared everywhere in the khaki service dress of the Welsh Guards, his peaked forage cap with its prominent badge – a leek – tilted at a slight but rakish angle (a major breach of regulations that no one else could have got away with). He wore either this or his naval uniform at ceremonial events. Otherwise, he had a penchant for checked suits in a light grey (this pattern was named Prince of Wales check in his honour) and his trademark suede brogues. These outfits suited his slight, slim figure, and young men everywhere sought to look like him.

His manners were naturally pleasing. He made charming little speeches. He flattered officials, and was grateful for courtesies shown and trouble taken on his behalf. In Canada he shook hands with so many people that he had to stop offering his right hand and use his left instead. In New York – for he visited the USA as well – he received a ticker-tape parade. In Australia his train suffered an accident and he remained calm, which enabled him to be portrayed as heroic. Everywhere vast crowds turned out to see him. His face became what would nowadays be called ‘an international icon’. Women, naturally enough, dreamed of marrying him, or at least meeting him, or even just catching a glimpse. One of the popular songs of the era was entitled ‘I Danced With a Man Who Danced With a Girl Who Danced With the Prince of Wales’.

Yet he was never quite as agreeable as he seemed. His affability was no more than skin-deep, a veneer that rubbed off very quickly. His charm, which was mentioned by numerous observers, could turn abruptly and without warning to childish petulance, and his thoughtlessness often caused offence.
One lady living at a remote house in Australia held a dance at which he was to be the guest of honour, having invited him and secured his acceptance. The evening wore on without any sign of him and the guests became more and more anxious. Eventually a telephone call from his equerry announced that he was not coming. The road, apparently, was not passable owing to recent rains. The guests, naturally disappointed, set out in their own vehicles to test the road and found it entirely dry. He had obviously decided not to bother attending. This sort of cavalier behaviour – in this case he would have humiliated his poor hostess in front of all her friends – was not forgotten.

Perhaps, however, she was lucky in that she did not actually meet him, for a personal encounter could be worse. A typical instance was seen on a visit he made to his old Oxford College, Magdalen. When he entered the Junior Common Room the assembled undergraduates rose to their feet. Flashing his trademark wry smile, he chided them for being so formal. He had been one of them, he said, and need not be treated with such deference. An hour or more later, having toured the College with the Master, he once again entered the JCR. No one stood up. He stated, with voluble irritation, that when the Prince of Wales came into a room people were expected to get to their feet!

He had few close friends (one of them, Lord Mountbatten, genuinely liked him but later said he would never have made a good king), and did not attract the loyalty of staff, who were often at their wits’ end trying to keep up with his changes of mind and mood. The prince was a nightmare to organize. It is incumbent on royalty to plan their activities far in advance. Arrangements must often be timed to the minute so that a multitude of visits, meetings, speeches, ceremonies, can be fitted in. David had the exasperating habit of changing plans at the last minute, and without explanation, throwing into chaos all the hard work of the half-dozen or so people who had expended much time and effort on organizing the occasion.