The Queen Mother (27 page)
Authors: William Shawcross
Gossip or no, the two dined in a party at Claridge’s on 12 December before going to Lady Anne Cameron’s dance, and the next evening they were together again at a dinner and dance given by Mrs Greville. Afterwards the Prince wrote to thank Elizabeth for being ‘very kind to me … in giving me so many dances & all the rest of it. I have never enjoyed an evening more, & I rather think, at least I hope, that you did too. I only wished that we had sat next to each other at dinner. That was a slight mistake on our hostess’s part!! What do you think?’
174
They met again on 21 December when the Prince took Elizabeth, her sister-in-law Fenella and her brother David to dinner and the theatre. Then they parted for Christmas, she to St Paul’s Walden and he to York Cottage at Sandringham.
By now Queen Mary was becoming concerned by the rumours about a relationship she thought had ended. The confidence which had lately existed between mother and son seems to have disappeared, for she now used Lady Airlie as her intermediary even with him. The burden of the messages transmitted by Lady Airlie was that Elizabeth should not attend the Pytchley Ball. She told Lady Strathmore that she had been asked to ‘hint’ that Elizabeth should stay away ‘as it is perhaps wiser for the sake of the young man as your letter written early in this year made it clear that nothing further could come of the friendship, to the parents’ very deep regret’.
175
On Christmas Day Elizabeth wrote an unhappy letter to the Prince in which she said she understood his family’s point of view and would not attend the ball. She did not want to behave badly towards him – ‘you know that, don’t you? I think it is so nice of you to be such a wonderful friend to me, and I don’t want you to regret it
ever
… It is all very sad, and must be so annoying to you. We’ve had such fun these last few weeks. I do hope you don’t think I’ve behaved badly – I’m just beginning to wonder.’ She was sorry to bore him with ‘such a rambling and ill-expressed letter, but I felt I
must
tell you what I was going to do. Please tell me, have I done right? Yours in perplexity, Elizabeth.’ Across the top of the last page she wrote, ‘Perhaps you had better tear this up.’
176
They were able to meet and discuss such irritating problems at another ball, at Holkham Hall near Sandringham, on 28 December. At 3.30 a.m., as soon as he got home to York Cottage, the Prince sat
down to write to her. ‘It is the limit the way other people mix themselves in things which do not concern them.’ He urged her to go and see Lady Airlie, who had just written them a letter which does not survive but which appears to have encouraged them to resolve the situation.
177
He advised Elizabeth to be frank with Lady Airlie ‘and tell her exactly what great friends we are; & I will do the same.’
178
He was angry and ready to confront his parents. Elizabeth however was cautious and anxious to avoid a fracas. She advised the Prince to do nothing until she had seen Lady Airlie.
179
Elizabeth had not written to Beryl, who was away in Germany, for some time. But now, thanking her friend for a Christmas present, she confided, ‘I don’t seem to be able to like anybody enough to marry them! Isn’t it odd? I
love
my friends but somehow can’t do more, I daresay I shall end my days a spinster, & probably be much happier! However, one can’t tell, can one?’
180
The Prince returned to London on 2 January 1923. The next day he took Elizabeth to dinner at Claridge’s and then to the theatre, with his equerry Captain Giles Sebright and Lady Anne Cameron. After the show they returned to Claridge’s to dance. It must have been a happy evening because the Prince seems to have been emboldened, perhaps on the dance floor, to ask Elizabeth once again to marry him. The following day Elizabeth went to talk to Lady Airlie and then wrote to the Prince at length about his proposal:
It is so angelic of you to allow me plenty of time to think it over – I really do need it, as it takes so long to ponder these things, & this is so
very
important for us both. If in the end I come to the conclusion that it will be alright, well & good, but Prince Bertie,
if
I feel that I can’t (& I will not marry you unless I am quite certain, for your own sake) then I shall go away & try not to see you again. I feel there are only those two alternatives – either it will all come right, which I hope it will, or the other. I do hope you understand my feelings – I am more than grateful to you for not hurrying me, and I am determined not to spoil your life by just drifting on like this. You are so thoughtful for me always – oh I do want to do what is right for you. I have thought of nothing else all today – last night seems like a dream. Was it? It seems so now.
Perhaps you had better not say anything just yet to
anybody
– what do you think? Do as you think best.
181
At this complicated, emotional moment of her life, she took up her diary again.
*
She wrote, ‘I went to see Lady Airlie – talked a long time & explained everything. She was so nice. I ma tsom dexelprep.’
182
Elizabeth used mirror writing several times in her diaries at this time for her most private thoughts.
She also recorded that George Gage had been to lunch with her, and had ‘bullied’ her into going down to Firle next day for the Lewes Hunt Ball. On Friday 5 January she woke feeling tired, and wrote in her diary, ‘Ma gnikniht oot hcum. I hsiw I wenk.’ Troubled, she set off for Firle. Someone brought evening papers from London and she noted in her diary that they reported ‘that I was engaged to the Prince of Wales – not mentioning my name, but quite obvious enough.
Too
stupid & unfounded.’
183
The report in the
Daily Star
declared, ‘Scottish Bride for Prince of Wales; Heir to the throne to wed Peer’s daughter; an Official Announcement imminent … One of the closest friends of Princess Mary’. The paper’s description of the ‘young Scottish lady of noble birth … daughter of a well-known Scottish peer, who is owner of castles both north and south of the Tweed’ could fit no one else.
184
Chips Channon, a member of the house party, thought that she seemed perturbed. ‘The evening papers have announced her engagement to the Prince of Wales. So we all bowed and bobbed and teased her, calling her “Ma’am”: I am not sure that she enjoyed it. It couldn’t be true, but how delighted everyone would be! She certainly has something on her mind … She is more gentle, loving and exquisite than any woman alive, but this evening I thought her unhappy and distraite. I longed to tell her that I would die for her, though I am not in love with her.’
185
Even so, according to her own account she enjoyed the evening. ‘Great fun. Danced with some very nice old friends – John Bevan, Tom Bevan, Ian Melville, Mr Wethered, besides our party. Danced till nearly 4! Home 4.30. Ate biscuits & sherry. Bed 5.’
186
A few hours later she arose, returned to London and drove down to St Paul’s Walden with her parents. After a quiet weekend, breakfast on Monday brought ‘a sheaf of cuttings about my rumoured engagement
to the Prince of Wales. Too silly.’
187
She wrote to Prince Albert to thank him for his latest letter; she repeated that the evening at Claridge’s seemed like a dream to her. ‘I think the great thing is to be
with
the person, or it all seems too unreal – do you feel that at all?’ She asked if he had seen the stories about her and the Prince of Wales. ‘It’s too extraordinary, why can’t they leave one alone? And in this case, it was so utterly absurd. I’m so sleepy, I must go to bed – thank you again so [underlined four times] much for your letter. God Bless you, Yours Elizabeth.’
188
She went to another ball, this time at Longleat, for her friend Lady Mary Thynne,
*
daughter of the Marquess of Bath. Back in London on 11 January, Doris Gordon-Lennox came to lunch and they had a long talk. The Prince then arrived for tea and they talked until 7.30, which led to another cryptic entry in her diary. ‘I ma yrev deirrow oot.’
189
By now the King and Queen had been made aware that their son was still pursuing Elizabeth and she was resisting him. They were not pleased. The Queen wrote to Lady Airlie on 9 January thanking her for her help ‘in this tiresome matter. The King & I quite understand from yr & Com: Greig’s letters what is going on. I confess now we hope nothing will come of it as we both feel ruffled at E’s behaviour!’
190
Her own family was concerned too; she acknowledged later that one of her brothers said to her, ‘Look here. You know you must either say yes or no. It’s not fair.’ ‘I think he was right,’ she said. ‘It’s a good thing having brothers.’
191
The Prince felt that this was the moment to tell his parents what was really happening. On Friday 12 January he wrote to his mother at Sandringham, saying he hoped she and his father would not think badly of him for having left them with the impression that it was all over between him and Elizabeth. In the last two months ‘a distinct change’ had come over her and he had seen a good deal of her ‘in a quiet way’, and she had been charming to him ‘in every way’. He said that on his return from Sandringham at the New Year he had told Elizabeth how he felt and she had asked for time to think over what he had said. If her mother gave him permission, he was intending to go to St Paul’s Walden at once; Elizabeth had promised him ‘a definite
answer one way or the other’ on Saturday. ‘This is all very difficult to write to you darling Mama, but I know that you and Papa will give me your blessing if this all comes right & I shall be very happy.’ He knew it had all taken a very long time but he was certain that he had been right ‘to play the waiting game’ because ‘I know she would have said no, had I pressed her for an answer before now.’
He was still waiting for Lady Strathmore’s response. ‘I am sending this by messenger if I know I am going down to her family & will send you a telegram at once; if her answer is as I hope it will be, in 3 words “All right. Bertie.” Not another soul will know what has happened until I hear from you & I will let you know where I am.’ As he was finishing this letter, he heard that he was indeed invited to St Paul’s Walden. ‘So I do hope you will wish me luck. I am very very excited about it all. Best love to you darling Mama, I remain Ever Your very devoted boy Bertie.’
192
While the Prince had been waiting and writing at Buckingham Palace, Elizabeth awoke in Bruton Street feeling ‘
very
tired. Up by 11. Doris came round & talked till 12.30 … I sat before the fire in a stupor till 1.30. Dashed off to be photographed for Vogue.’ Back at the house she telephoned the Prince on her father’s behalf – ‘he was out, so left a message to bring guns … Home ¼ to 6. Prince Bertie called for me at 6 & we motored down to St Paul’s Walden.’
193
There has till now been some uncertainty about just when Elizabeth finally accepted the Prince. Records in the Royal Archives and at Glamis tell a coherent story of the weekend. According to her diary, on the morning of Saturday 13 January she had ‘breakie’ at 10.30 and then went for a walk with the Prince. After lunch they both went to saw wood with her father. ‘Prince Bertie sawed
hard
. Talked after tea for hours – dediced ot tiaw a elttil – epoh I ma ton gnivaheb yldab.’
194
So, on Saturday night, the Prince once again went to bed uncertain.
On Sunday morning after breakfast she sat and talked with the Prince until 12.30 ‘& then went for a walk in the enchanted wood. Long walk after lunch & long talks after tea & dinner.’ She did not record it in her diary, but late that evening she did finally accept his proposal of marriage. Lady Stathmore’s account, written to her daughter May, put it like this: ‘He came down to St. P.W. suddenly on
Friday
, & proposed continuously until Sunday night, when she said Yes at 11.30!! My head is completely bewildered, as all those days E
was hesitating & miserable, but now she is absolutely happy – & he is
radiant
.’
195
On Monday morning the happy Prince drove Elizabeth up to London and dropped her at Bruton Street. Later he took her to lunch with Princess Mary and Lord Lascelles at Chesterfield House. The Prince of Wales came to congratulate them and then escorted her home while Prince Albert set off with Louis Greig to Sandringham to tell his parents. He appears not to have sent the agreed telegram. The King recorded in his diary, ‘Bertie with Greig arrived after tea and informed us that he was engaged to Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, to which we gladly gave our consent. I trust they will be very happy.’ The Queen was less reserved. ‘We are delighted and he looks beaming. We sent off telegrams, wrote letters & were very busy.’
196
The same was true of Elizabeth. At home in Bruton Street with her mother, she wrote ‘
lots
’ of letters, including one to her friend Arthur Penn. ‘I must tell you, I am going to marry Prince Bertie – I
do
hope you like him – I feel terrified now I’ve done it – in fact no one is more surprised than me. Arthur, you have been my best friend for years
please please
don’t cast me off as one now, will you?’
197
She went out to tell Lady Nina Balfour and Lady Airlie. Back home she wrote more letters. Then the news was released from Sandringham. ‘The telephone rang the whole evening – hundreds of reporters clamouring! Last day of peace I suppose! Bed 11.’
198
*
In 1919 there were three special garden parties at Buckingham Palace to which 15,500 were invited, including thousands of debutantes who had missed their presentation at Court. The traditional Courts began again in 1920, although at first ‘shorn in some small measure of [their] former full magnificence by the decision not to permit the wearing of feathers and full Court train’, as
The Times
recorded of the first peacetime Court on 10 June 1920. Feathers and trains reappeared in a modified form in 1922 and continued to be worn until 1939, with a brief interruption in 1936 when King Edward VIII decided not to hold Courts.
*
It may also have reflected the King’s predilections: like his future daughter-in-law he was an avid theatregoer. But he had given up this pastime for the duration of the war, as well as racing, most other social activities and the consumption of alcohol, as part of the exercise in setting an example of restraint which the government had urged upon him.
†
Helen Cecil (1901–79), daughter of Lord Edward Herbert Gascoyne Cecil, married in 1921 Major the Hon. Alexander Hardinge (1894–1960), later second Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, equerry and Assistant Private Secretary to King George V and later Private Secretary to King Edward VIII and King George VI.
*
James Stuart (1897–1971), third son of seventeenth Earl of Moray, captain 3rd Battalion Royal Scots and brigade major 15th Brigade (dispatches), First World War. Equerry to the Duke of York 1920–1. MP for Moray and Nairn 1923–59, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury 1941–5, Conservative Chief Whip 1941–8, Secretary of State for Scotland 1951–7. Created Viscount Stuart of Findhorn 1959.
†
This letter clinches the vexed question of when their meeting took place. James Stuart’s memoirs put it at the right place – the RAF ball – but in the wrong year, 1921. King George VI’s official biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett, and Hugo Vickers in his biography of Queen Elizabeth place it at a dance given by Lord Farquhar on 2 June 1920. Prince Albert went with Queen Mary, Princess Mary and Prince Henry to the dinner Lord Farquhar gave before the dance, but James Stuart did not go with him. Stuart and Elizabeth may have been among the 150 guests at the dance afterwards, but it was evidently at the RAF ball that she first danced with the Prince.
*
His papers in the Royal Archives include a file entitled ‘Unrest in the Country’ containing letters between his Private Secretary, Lord Stamfordham, and various correspondents offering information and advice from 1917 onwards. See Frank Prochaska’s
The Republic of Britain
, pp. 159–80, for details of these and related papers, which show both the concerns of the King’s advisers and their views on how the monarchy should adapt itself to meet them.
†
This led to the appointment in 1918 of the first full-time press secretary at Buckingham Palace.
*
In the King’s diary entry recording the Council meeting at which he made his declaration about the House of Windsor, he went on to say: ‘I also informed the Council that May and I had decided some time ago that our children would be allowed to marry into British families. It was quite an historical occasion.’ (RA GV/PRIV/GVD/1917: 17 July, quoted in Kenneth Rose,
King George V
, p. 309)
†
In 1920 Queen Mary invited two girls to Windsor with their parents for the Ascot house party; in 1921 she selected eight other girls, including Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, to invite to lunch at Ascot, two each day, when Prince Albert and Prince Henry were there. (RA MRH/MISC/227, 228; list by Queen Mary, [1921], British Library, Add MSS 82748)
*
Margaret Sheila Mackellar Chisholm, daughter of Harry Chisholm of Sydney, NSW; married in 1915 Francis Edward Scudamore St Clair-Erskine, Lord Loughborough, eldest son of fifth Earl of Rosslyn; divorced 1926; she married secondly, 1928, Sir John Milbanke, eleventh baronet (d. 1947), and thirdly, 1954, Prince Dimitri of Russia. She died in 1969.
†
In her memoirs she also recalled one evening when she had been dancing with Prince Albert, and noticed ‘a young girl standing alone by the doorway with no partner and felt sorry for her. I asked somebody who she was and they told me she was a debutante called Elizabeth Bowes Lyon.’ (Princess Dimitri, ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (unpublished memoirs of Lady Loughborough), 1948, p. 40, private collection)
*
Prince Paul (1893–1976) was the son of Prince Arsène Karageorgević (brother of King Peter I of Serbia) and his Russian wife Aurora Demidoff. After his parents separated he was taken in by King Peter, who brought him up with his own sons.
†
Sir Henry Rainald (‘George’) Gage (1895–1982), sixth Viscount Gage, lord in waiting to King George V, King Edward VIII and King George VI; Parliamentary Private Secretary to Secretary of State for India 1924–9. Married 1931 Hon. Alexandra Grenfell.
‡
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon (1897–1958), knighted 1957, Conservative politician and diarist.
*
Arthur Horace Penn (1886–1960), son of William and Constance Penn of Taverham Hall, Norfolk. Served in Grenadier Guards in 1914–18 war (MC, mentioned in dispatches). Afterwards practised as a barrister, then worked in the City. Appointed groom in waiting to King George VI 1937. Rejoined his regiment in Second World War and served as regimental adjutant, combining this with working as acting private secretary to Queen Elizabeth. Remained in her service as private secretary, and then treasurer, until his death.
†
Vreda Esther Mary (‘Mollie’) (1900–93), daughter of Major William Frank Lascelles. In April 1921 she married the Earl of Dalkeith, eldest son of seventh Duke of Buccleuch, who succeeded as eighth duke in 1935.
‡
The Strathmores were unable to renew the lease on the house. Elizabeth was heartbroken at leaving ‘this darling house’, so full of happy memories. They rented 20 Eaton Square and then 6 Upper Brook Street until moving into their new permanent home at 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair, in late 1921 or early 1922.
*
Lady Helena (‘Nina’) Balfour (1865–1948), daughter of fifth Earl of Antrim, married 1888 Captain Charles Barrington Balfour. She was a great friend of Cecilia Strathmore.
*
The Prince may also have received encouragement from someone else who knew Glamis and Elizabeth very well. The minister at Crathie, the church attended by the Royal Family at Balmoral, was now the Rev. Dr John Stirton, who had previously been minister at Glamis. ‘I am really responsible for the Duke having first gone there,’ he recorded in his diary two years later, as Prince Albert set out for Glamis again. (Rev. John Stirton, Diary, 26 September 1922, RA AEC/GG/026)
*
Alec Hardinge’s sister, another of Elizabeth’s friends. Born in 1900, she married Major Robert Abercromby in June 1923. She suffered from ill health and died in 1927 following a serious illness.
†
Venetia James, née Cavendish-Bentinck (1863–1948), a cousin of Lady Strathmore, and Elizabeth’s godmother. She married, in 1885, John Arthur James of Coton House, Rugby, who died in 1917.
*
The Hon. Mrs Ronald Greville, née Margaret McEwan (1863–1942), the presumed only child of the Scottish brewer and philanthropist William McEwan MP, whose fortune and fine collection of pictures she inherited when he died in 1913. In 1891 she married the Hon. Ronald Henry Fulke Greville: he died in 1908. Her husband was a friend of King Edward VII, which led to a continuing friendship with the Royal Family. She entertained generously and in grand style at her London house in Charles Street, Mayfair, and at her Surrey mansion, Polesden Lacey. A forceful character, notorious for her acerbic wit, she had many critics, but she could also be kind and generous, and she was shrewd, witty, interested in people and an excellent hostess whose cuisine and cellars were renowned. During the First World War, like the Strathmores, she set up a convalescent hospital at her house, and for this and for other war work she was in 1922 made DBE – Dame Commander of the British Empire.
*
Charles Henry Wyndham, third Baron Leconfield (1872–1952), and his wife Beatrice, whose home, Petworth House, is renowned for its Grinling Gibbons carvings and its fine collection of paintings.
*
Her edited memoirs,
Thatched with Gold
, much quoted by other biographers, tell the story but are not wholly reliable and are imprecise about the sequence of events in the courtship.
*
This letter is quoted, inaccurately, in
Thatched with Gold
, p. 167.
*
The first Duke of York’s Camp started on 30 July 1921, when the Duke welcomed the 400 participants at the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace, after which they were taken to the camp site at New Romney. The Duke visited them there on 3 August. Despite an unsympathetic press beforehand, the camp was indeed a great success.
†
Lord Clinton (1863–1957) was a member of the Council of the Duchy of Cornwall, Keeper of the Privy Seal to the Prince of Wales, and Lord Warden of the Stannaries at this time, and the Prince’s visit (16–25 May) was in his role as duke of Cornwall.
*
Maurice Mouvet (1888–1927), professional dancer in cabarets and nightclubs, and his partner Leonora Hughes. They danced with great success in London and Paris in the early 1920s; Maurice was particularly famous for his skill in the tango, the Brazilian maxixe and the Apache.
*
The sixth Duke of Portland (1857–1943) was a first cousin of Cecilia Strathmore, the son of her father’s younger brother.
*
Lady Margaret Ida Montagu-Douglas-Scott, daughter of seventh Duke of Buccleuch and elder sister of Lady Alice, the future Duchess of Gloucester. She married Captain Geoffrey Hawkins in 1926.
*
Henry George Charles Lascelles (1882–1947), Viscount Lascelles, succeeded his father as seventh Earl of Harewood in 1929.
†
Frances Dora, widow of the thirteenth Earl of Strathmore (1832–1922).
*
The first royal wedding in the Abbey for 650 years was that of Princess Patricia of Connaught, King George V’s cousin, to the Hon. Alexander Ramsay in 1919; it started a new and popular trend, and Princess Mary’s wedding attracted even more attention because she was the King’s only daughter and also the first of his children to follow their parents’ decision in favour of marriage into British families.
†
It is not true, as has been stated, that she sat next to the Duke of York at the wedding breakfast. This was held in a different room and was restricted to the Royal Family, royal guests and the bridegroom’s family.
*
Christopher Tennant, second Baron Glenconner (1899–1983), married first, 1925, Pamela Winifred Paget; secondly, 1935, Elizabeth Harcourt Powell.
*
The Dover Patrol, created in summer 1914, became a vital wartime command. It could call upon a motley array of sometimes obsolete cruisers, monitors, destroyers, armed trawlers, paddle minesweepers, armed yachts, motor launches and coastal motor boats, submarines, seaplanes, aeroplanes and airships. The Patrol’s many tasks in the southern North Sea and the Dover Straits included escorting merchantmen and hospital and troop ships; laying sea-mines and sweeping up German mines; bombarding German military positions on the Belgian coast; and sinking U-boats.
†
John Colin Campbell Davidson (1889–1970), at this time MP for Hemel Hempstead and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. Created 1937 Viscount Davidson. Married 1919 Hon. Frances Joan Dickinson.
*
Archibald Clark Kerr (1882–1951), diplomat; served under Lord Allenby in Cairo 1922–5; British Minister to the Central Americas 1925, Chile 1928, Sweden 1931. Knighted 1935; Ambassador in Iraq 1935, Peking 1938, Moscow 1942, Washington 1946. Created Baron Inverchapel 1946. Married 1929 Maria Theresa Diaz Salas, daughter of a Chilean millionaire.
*
Jasper Ridley (1887–1951), second son of Sir Matthew Ridley (later Viscount Ridley), married 1911 Countess Nathalie Benckendorff. A member of the Contemporary Art Society, he later became chairman of the Trustees of the National Gallery and the British Museum, and also chairman of Coutts Bank.
†
Francis Godolphin D’Arcy Osborne (1884–1964), great-great-grandson of fifth Duke of Leeds; Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Washington DC, 1931–5; Ambassador to the Holy See 1936–47; succeeded his distant cousin, Lady Dorothy’s brother John, eleventh Duke, as twelfth duke of Leeds 1963.
‡
One guest who had amused her was the American actor James K. Hackett, who had come to absorb the atmosphere of Glamis in the hope of improving his performances as Macbeth. She had never seen a man drink so much, she said.
*
Bettine Malcolm (1899–1973), married in December 1922 Captain Henry Somerset, kinsman of tenth Duke of Beaufort; their son David succeeded as eleventh duke.
†
Lady Rachel Cavendish (1902–77), daughter of ninth Duke of Devonshire. Mary Cavendish (1903–94), first cousin of Rachel, married Lord Balniel in 1925, and became Countess of Crawford in 1940 when he succeeded his father as twenty-eighth earl of Crawford.
*
Apart from her childhood diaries, her first surviving diary is that of 1923.
*
Lady Mary Thynne (1903–74) married in 1921 third Baron Nunburnholme (divorced 1947). She was lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth 1937–47; in 1947 she married Sir Ulick Alexander, Keeper of the Privy Purse to King George VI.
