The Queen Mother (57 page)

The Duchess missed her daughter ‘dreadfully’ and many people in Edinburgh were disappointed she was not with them. ‘Not that they would have seen her, but they would have liked to feel that she was here,’ she wrote to Queen Mary. ‘In the solemn old Assembly, the Moderator mentioned in his welcoming address “our dear Princess Elizabeth”, which is, I believe, almost unique. It almost frightens me that the people should love her so much. I suppose that it is a good thing, and I hope that she will be worthy of it, poor little darling!’
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The Princess, known to herself and her family as Lilibet, was now at Windsor Castle, happily playing with her cousins, Princess Mary’s children. From there she wrote her mother a letter (which perhaps had a hand guiding her own): ‘Darling Mummy, Do come here and see the soldiers and the band I am very well and very busy. Love from Lilibet XXOO.’
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On 30 May the first general election with full female franchise took place and, appropriately, its result was almost revolutionary. Labour became the largest party in the Commons for the first time, though it lacked an overall majority. Stanley Baldwin resigned on 4 June. The King was back at Windsor but he was ill again – another abscess had formed at the site of his earlier operation, and it had burst on 31 May. The Labour Party leader, Ramsay MacDonald, recorded that the King received him in a yellow Chinese dressing gown.
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Three days later the members of the new government came by train to Windsor to be sworn in by the King, who managed this time to struggle into a frock
coat. The new Minister of Labour, Margaret Bondfield, was the first ever female member of the Cabinet. She recalled, ‘When my turn came, he broke the customary silence to say “I am pleased to be the one to whom has come the opportunity to receive the first woman Privy Councillor.” His smile as he spoke was cordial and sincere.’
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On 7 July the King participated in a service of thanksgiving for his recovery, although all was not yet well. ‘Fancy a Thanksgiving Service,’ he said, ‘with an open wound in your back.’
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A week later he had a second operation: another rib was removed and the abscess was successfully drained. The King and Queen were not able to make their cherished summer trip to Balmoral that year. Only by the end of September was the wound finally healed.

This long period of recovery alternating with relapse inevitably threw more burdens – and also more limelight – on to the King’s children. Most of all, it was the Duke and Duchess of York who came into prominence this year. Were there presentiments of their future role in the minds of some around them? The rumour that the Duke was out to usurp the throne from his brother has already been mentioned; and in the Royal Household misgivings were growing about the prospect of the Prince of Wales’s succession. Those who worked with him and knew him best acknowledged his charm and his popular appeal, but privately they despaired of his lack of seriousness.

Many years later Queen Elizabeth revealed that at this time the King himself had doubts that his eldest son would ever succeed him, and told her and her husband so. She recalled that while they were staying with the King during his convalescence he said to the Duke of York, ‘You’ll see, your brother will never become King.’ She remarked that her father-in-law was ‘extraordinary. He had such wisdom. He was a practical sort of man. He must have seen something we didn’t, because I remember we thought “how ridiculous”, because then everybody thought he was going to be a wonderful King. I remember that very very well. I remember we both looked at each other and thought “nonsense”.’
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There is nothing to show that they gave any further thought to what was to them, evidently, a very remote possibility. They simply continued to play their supporting role to the King and the Prince of Wales. The 1929 summer season was both fun and hard work. They gave several dinner parties at 145 Piccadilly. Their guests were a mixture of their friends and people prominent in public life or
literature; they included the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, Sir Samuel and Lady Hoare,
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Stanley Baldwin and his wife, the German and French Ambassadors, the writers John Buchan, Rudyard Kipling and J. M. Barrie (Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, five miles from Glamis). Both together and separately, they carried out busy programmes of functions and visits; they were now operating their public life in an increasingly professional manner.

The Duchess was becoming ever more active in her charitable work. In July she opened a new block of flats for the Kensington Housing Trust and attended a garden party for the National Council for Maternity and Child Welfare; with the Duke she supported a gala in aid of the Save the Children Fund and visited the free hospital for animals run by Our Dumb Friends’ League of which she was already the patroness. Sometimes friends enlisted her support: one such was Lord Gorell, who had played cricket with her brothers at Glamis house parties in the early years of the century. He was chairman of King’s College Hospital, which she visited in July to present badges to the children who had subscribed to a cot to be called the Princess Elizabeth Cot. But she firmly declined to allow Princess Elizabeth to be patroness of the Jolly Juveniles.

Such public engagements (like other members of the family she now called them ‘stunts’ in private) continued throughout the summer. But all too often she felt that the press undid her work. She wrote to D’Arcy Osborne, ‘I think that half the good of a long slaving day in Birmingham or Manchester is undone by a few paragraphs in the Daily Sketch or Mirror describing my very frequent new dresses and my alterations to this house. Already this year I have done up my sitting room five times, and the number of dresses trimmed with diamonds would keep ten families going for ten years. It is very annoying isn’t it? However, we must take the rough with the smooth & keep the old flag flying. Hooray. With kindly & Christian thoughts to ALL, I remain yours sincerely if a trifle sourly Elizabeth.’
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They spent a few days at Glamis before going on to Deeside. The Duke had asked his parents if they could rent a house on the Balmoral estate. Eventually the Queen suggested Birkhall. This charming small
house a few miles from Balmoral Castle had been acquired by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1849 for the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII), and it proved to be a godsend for the Duke and, even more so, for the Duchess of York. Thanking the King just a few days after they moved there, she wrote, ‘I am sure that we are going to love being here, in fact I already feel that I have lived here most of my life.’
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In the event, that was exactly what she did. Her delight in the place fills a letter she wrote about it to D’Arcy Osborne:

The river was the Muick, which ran through the garden past the house to join the River Dee; she found the rushing sound of the waters very soothing at night.
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The windows looked on to the wild hillsides of Glen Muick. It was a small house by the standards of most of the places they lived in – certainly compared to Balmoral. There were few bedrooms, so they were unable to have many people to stay, but the Duchess saw this as an advantage. ‘It is a very nice feeling to know that one can’t have a lot of guests, & it is so much more peaceful.’
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Milk, butter and eggs came from a farm near by. The Duchess rose most mornings at 8 o’clock and came home at sundown, weary and, in her phrase, ‘
terribly
contented’. The air was like wine. ‘I felt so well at the end of the Autumn that I kept on saying to myself, “My goodness, how well I feel.” ’
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She found time to read and that autumn finished
A High Wind in Jamaica
by Richard Hughes, Graham Greene’s
The Man Within
, which irritated her,
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and a new book by Osbert Sitwell,
The Man Who Lost Himself
, which he had sent her.
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She had met Sitwell through the well-connected Mrs Ronnie Greville; she enjoyed his wit, his books and his company – over the years he became a good friend.

A few guests did come – Clare and Doris Vyner, the Duke’s brother Prince Henry, and King George of Greece.
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The pleasure of it all was complete when Lilibet joined them from Glamis; she was ‘in seventh heaven’ there, the Duchess told Queen Mary.
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Before they ended their Scottish holiday they were faced with a major public duty: the first Assembly of the newly united Church of Scotland on 2 October. The Duke had to stand in for his father, who was to have come but was not yet well enough. Once more he and the Duchess stayed in state at Holyroodhouse, and they invited the elderly and frail Lord Davidson of Lambeth, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who was to speak at the ceremony, to stay with them. Despite gales, torrents of rain and the depressing surroundings of the only hall large enough for the 10,000 people present – ‘really a garage’, wrote the Duke – it went well. The King wrote a brief line of congratulation to his son on the two speeches he had been obliged to make.
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The Duchess also had solo engagements. On 1 October she laid the foundation stone of the Edinburgh Hospital for Crippled Children. On 5 October it was the turn of the Scottish National Monument to David Livingstone at Blantyre. To a plea that Princess Elizabeth might attend the reply came: ‘it will be quite impossible for Princess Elizabeth to accompany Her Royal Highness on that occasion, as she is never allowed to take part in public ceremonies.’
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Back in England, the autumn work began, with visits for both Duke and Duchess to different areas of London and to Birmingham. For 29 October a day of functions in Eastbourne was planned. They firmly pushed away any suggestions that were too elaborate: no Scottish pipers at luncheon in the Grand Hotel, no giant box of chocolates to be presented for Princess Elizabeth, street decorations provided only they did not put the people of Eastbourne to expense and certainly no mounted escort, because recently in Edinburgh a horse had been alarmed by the enthusiasm of the crowd, and a nasty accident had nearly occurred in front of the Duchess.
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The public acquisition of the beautiful Downs and the Beachy Head area near Eastbourne was marked by a ceremony at which the Duke and Duchess unveiled commemorative stones. The afternoon was given over to the Princess Alice Memorial Hospital and the Conference of the British Commercial Gas Association. The Duke put personal emphasis on this because of the interest that he and the Duchess took in industrial questions and the significant part played in industrial life by the Association.

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A
FTER
C
HRISTMAS
1929 the Yorks left Princess Elizabeth with her grandparents at Sandringham, from where she wrote, ‘Darling Mummy, A hapy new year to you and Papa. Wet day. Grandpa cant shoot. I had lovely presents this morning. Will you come back to your darling E.’
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In January 1930, the Duke had to go to Rome for the wedding of Crown Prince Umberto of Italy and Princess Marie José of Belgium. The Italians were disappointed that the Duchess did not come, but she was at home suffering from another attack of bronchitis. More importantly, she had discovered that she was pregnant, and had written to her monthly nurse Nannie B to say she would be needed in August. But she hoped to keep it a secret for some time.
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In the event it was just as well the Duchess stayed at home – the Duke did not enjoy the trip and was relieved his wife had not had to endure it.

Italy was the first country in Europe to abandon liberal democracy. The Italian fascist movement had been founded by a journalist and ex-soldier, Benito Mussolini, in 1919. His Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (‘union for struggle’) grew through the 1920s. Initially its members were gangs of thugs who terrorized socialists and working-class
organizations; the elected authorities were unable to stop their violence. In 1922 the King of Italy felt compelled to ask Mussolini to form a government. The violence ceased. Mussolini gradually created a dictatorship, and gave himself the title Il Duce.

The Duke reported to the Duchess: ‘Every station in Italy was covered with the Fascisti & Italian detectives galore, looking for any signs of anti fascist people.’ He went on a shoot in which he was expected to kill fallow deer, which he refused to do; to please his chasseur he shot one buck. He saw the Sistine Chapel, which he thought was ‘marvellous’, but the wedding was the worst-organized ceremony he had ever attended. The delays were endless, there was no singing and the Cardinal seemed ‘gaga’. There were ‘literally millions’ of ‘Kings, Queens, ex Ks, ex Qs, ex enemies, ex allies, all mixed up together, to say nothing of ex neutrals’. The only people with whom he could have a decent conversation, he found, were their old friends Paul and Olga of Yugoslavia. Princess Olga – who had had to spend ‘goodness knows what’ on her clothes – was very envious of the Duchess for having been able to stay at home. ‘Thank God there is only one more day now before I start back. I have started to count the hours darling before I see you again … All my love to you darling angel.’
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No sooner were the Duke and Duchess reunited than, on 7 February 1930, her brother Jock died of pneumonia at the age of forty-three. He was the fourth child that Lady Strathmore had lost and she was distraught; ‘He was so loving, so interesting & interested in everything – & this world will be much poorer without him,’ she wrote to Beryl Poignand. She worried about his wife Fenella and their four young daughters.
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Two of them had inherited a mental condition through Fenella’s family and needed special care.
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