The Queen Mother (70 page)
Authors: William Shawcross
The next morning, 12 December, at his Accession Council, the new King spoke with a low, clear voice but with hesitations which touched the hearts of many who heard him:
Your Royal Highnesses, My Lords and Gentlemen,
I meet you today in circumstances which are without parallel in the history of our Country. Now that the duties of Sovereignty have fallen upon Me I declare to you My adherence to the strict principles of constitutional government and My resolve to work before all else for the welfare of the British Commonwealth of Nations. With My wife and helpmeet by My side, I take up the heavy task which lies before Me.
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The following day, Sunday, prayers were offered for the new King and Queen throughout the country.
Reflecting on the abdication many years later in her series of conversations with Eric Anderson, Queen Elizabeth stressed the high
hopes that everyone had held for King Edward VIII and the shock of his departure.
It was a terrible surprise to everybody when he decided that he had to leave. It was the whole Commonwealth who said no no, we don’t want you to marry this lady. And it was just a terrible tragedy, it really was. We all loved the Prince of Wales and we all thought he was going to be a wonderful King. It was the most ghastly shock when he decided to go. It was a dreadful blow to his brother because, you see, they were great friends. It’s a terrible, bitter blow when somebody you love behaves like that. Fortunately he was never crowned, and that was one of the good things he did. If he was going to make up his mind to go away, to do it before.
I wonder. I don’t think he ever wanted to be King. I don’t think he thought of it as something he ought to do. Very odd. People do change in a strange way. He had this extraordinary charm, and then it all disappeared. I don’t know what happened. Nobody knows, really. He was frightfully popular. Everybody adored him. I think he may have thought he was so popular that people would want him back, whatever. I imagine that might have been in his mind. Oh, he was immensely popular all over the Commonwealth. He was extremely attractive. That makes it all the more strange, the whole thing. He must have been bemused with love, I suppose. You couldn’t reason with him, nobody could. The whole Government tried, everybody tried. The only good thing is, I think he was quite happy with her.
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A
FTER
A
YEAR
of sadness and constant tensions, it was a time for rest, reflection and consolidation. Fortunately the Christmas and New Year holidays gave the new King and Queen, their family, their Household and, indeed, their country time to pause and take stock of the extraordinary events they had lived through.
Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, aged only ten and six, also needed time to absorb what had happened. Their parents had protected them from the drama of the abdication, and they had been told nothing of it until it was over. Lady Cynthia Asquith, their mother’s biographer, recorded that she saw the Princesses the day after their father’s accession; Princess Margaret said, ‘Isn’t all this a
bore? We’ve got to leave our nice house now,’ while her elder sister was awestruck at the sight of an envelope addressed to ‘Her Majesty The Queen’. ‘That’s
Mummie
now, isn’t it?’ she said. Princess Margaret later recalled that she asked her sister whether this all meant that she herself would one day be queen. ‘She replied, “Yes, I suppose it does.” ’
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After that, Princess Elizabeth did not mention it again. Meanwhile the two children had to come to terms with the imminent loss not only of their happy home at 145 Piccadilly but also of their relatively unconstrained family life. There was a new formality to get used to, now that the life of the Court revolved around their parents. Now both father and mother were always in the limelight – and so too were the children, although their mother continued to try to shield them from publicity. But her new role would also mean that she had less time to devote to her daughters. At least for now, her principal task undoubtedly had to be to support and encourage her husband.
She wrote at once to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to thank him for his sympathy and good advice. She said, ‘I can hardly now believe that we have been called to this tremendous task, and, (I am writing to you quite intimately) the curious thing is that we are not afraid. I feel that God has enabled us to face the situation calmly.’ They were, she said, ‘so very unhappy over the loss of a dear brother – because one can only feel that exile from this country is death indeed … We pray most sincerely that we shall not fail our country, & I sign myself for the first time, & with great affection Elizabeth R.’
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Cosmo Lang was touched by this letter, and his chaplain Alan Don urged him to keep it carefully for it showed the Queen’s spirit – ‘we are not afraid’.
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The Archbishop told her he was eager to discuss the plans for the Coronation of not only the new King but also ‘forgive me if I say Hurrah! – of the Queen’.
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One decision had been already made. The Coronation was to be on 12 May 1937, the day planned for Edward VIII.
Dr Lang also made his own controversial intervention. In a post-abdication address to the nation, the Archbishop criticized the late King’s conduct: ‘Even more strange and sad is that he should have sought his happiness in a manner inconsistent with the Christian principles of marriage, and within a social circle whose standards and whose way of life are alien to all the best instincts and traditions of his people.’
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These words aroused widespread distaste and hundreds of
critical, even abusive letters, were received at Lambeth Palace in the next few days. A doggerel made the rounds:
My Lord Archbishop what a scold you are!
And when your man is down how bold you are!
In Christian charity how scant you are!
Oh! Old Lang Swine, how full of Cantuar!
Many of those who criticized him feared that his words would have upset Queen Mary. On the contrary: Queen Mary told those around her that she thought the Archbishop ‘was quite right in saying what he did’.
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Queen Elizabeth agreed. To one friend she wrote of the Archbishop’s address, ‘I think the nation vaguely
felt
it, but
he
put the issue clearly and as no one else had the right to do. Nowadays we are inclined to be too vague about the things that matter, and I think it well that for once someone should speak out in plain and direct words, what after all was the truth.’
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King George VI celebrated his forty-first birthday on 14 December by bestowing upon his wife the Order of the Garter. She was delighted and wrote at once to give the news to Queen Mary. Bertie, she said, ‘had discovered that Papa gave it to you on his, Papa’s, birthday June 3rd, and the coincidence was so charming that he has now followed suit’.
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His biographer pointed out there was more to it than that – it was also ‘a public declaration of gratitude and affection to one who had shared with him so bravely the burdens of the past, and was to bear with him so nobly the trials of the future’.
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Queen Mary, moved by the kind letters she had received, asked her son’s permission to issue a message of thanks to the British people.
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The King immediately gave his assent. ‘It will be such a great help to me,’ he told her.
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Cosmo Lang wrote the message for her; this time, his words were without controversy, intended both to give some credit to Queen Mary’s eldest son and to beg for support of her second. She declared that her heart had been filled with distress when her dear son laid down his charge. ‘I commend to you his brother, summoned so unexpectedly and in circumstances so painful to take his place … With him I commend my dear daughter-in-law who will be his Queen. May she receive the same unfailing affection and trust which you have given to me for six and twenty years.’
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Queen Mary was indeed shattered – her daughter-in-law wrote to
Victor Cazalet
*
that the abdication ‘very nearly killed poor Queen Mary, there is indeed such a thing as a broken heart and hers very nearly collapsed’.
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Widowed and, as she saw it, abandoned by her firstborn, she wanted to gather the rest of her family around her to try and recreate as much as possible the atmosphere that she and King George V had created for both family and Household. On 22 December the family left for their traditional Christmas at Sandringham and, but for a short break, remained there until the end of January. Not surprisingly, after the stress of recent months Queen Mary spent most of Christmas week in her own set of rooms.
She was greatly relieved that the new King was able to act just in time to stop the sale, arranged by Edward VIII, of thousands of acres belonging to Anmer and Flitcham farms, part of the Sandringham estate. Unlike his brother, the King loved the place. To the relief of retainers and Household alike, he immediately reversed many of the other changes proposed by Edward VIII at both Sandringham and Balmoral.
Owen Morshead was invited to Royal Lodge the weekend after the accession, and then to Sandringham, and recorded that he found both King and Queen ‘exceedingly kind and frank’. Understandably, there was only one topic of discussion: Edward VIII’s almost casual manner of handing the reins to his brother. ‘Here you are; I can’t do it; you take it on.’ The King and Queen dwelt upon his extraordinary personality – ‘his amazing power of charming people, his flair for making any party go’. The Queen praised his ‘unique talents’ but was concerned that if he parted from Mrs Simpson ‘it would be dangerous to have such a powerful personality, so magnetic, hanging about doing nothing.’
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There was no Christmas Broadcast this year, but the King released a New Year message dedicating himself to the peoples of the British Empire. ‘I realize to the full the responsibilities of my noble heritage. I shoulder them with all the more confidence in the knowledge that the Queen and my mother Queen Mary are at my side … To repeat the words used by my dear father at the time of his Silver Jubilee, my wife and I dedicate ourselves for all time to your service, and we pray that
God may give us guidance and strength to follow the path that lies before us.’
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T
HE
TWO
Q
UEENS
agreed on their principal shared duty – sustaining the King. In their letters they were solicitous of each other. The new Queen thanked her mother-in-law for ‘your unfailing sympathy & understanding through those first bewildering days when we were still stunned by the shock of David’s going … It was so wonderful having the old family atmosphere again. I feel sure that it is our great strength in these difficult days.’
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She was receiving support from the wider Royal Family as well. The King’s great-aunt Princess Beatrice tried to reassure her: ‘You are so sweet & good & have always adorned your position so well, that I am [sure] you need have no diffidence about becoming Queen.’
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Queen Mary’s niece Mary, Duchess of Beaufort, recalled how long ago they had danced about together – Elizabeth in a blue dress covered in red cherries. ‘What ages ago it seems and
what
things have happened through the years that have gone. There is one thing that has never changed – and that is yourself. What a relief it is to find that!’ The feelings of disquiet she had had during the previous ten months were gone now.
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Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, sent a long affectionate letter full of sympathy for the loss of freedom and ‘untrammelled family life’ that lay ahead.
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Queen Mary wrote to thank Cecilia Strathmore for her sympathy over the ordeal she had suffered. But in the end, she thought, all was for the best and ‘dear Bertie and Elizabeth will carry out things in the same way that King George V did … Elizabeth is such a darling and is such a help to Bertie.’
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Lady Strathmore agreed. She had been horrified by the events of the last few months. ‘I still can hardly believe that my darling little daughter is the Queen of this great Empire,’ she wrote to Sir John Weir, who was treating the Queen’s influenza, but she was sure that she and the new King ‘will be great examples of all that is good & best in this world’.
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The Queen told Queen Mary that she felt very emotional at this time, and set enormous value on friendship – particularly from those whom she felt liked her and the King for their own sakes. One evening at dinner Owen Morshead told her that Eric Savill, the presiding genius of Windsor Great Park who had helped them create their garden at
Royal Lodge, was perfectly devoted to them both. At this she seemed on the verge of tears.
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She and her husband were genuinely worried that people would not like them, and that King George VI would be seen as a poor substitute for King Edward. Friends and family advised them to take things quietly and allow the public to get to know them in their new role.
It was a role the King at first thought he could never properly play. Suddenly he had all the burdens of a constitutional monarch with, in Walter Bagehot’s famous formulation, the right to be consulted by his ministers, the right to advise them and the right to warn them. These rights were in effect duties, and were only part of his myriad new obligations. His brother the Duke of Windsor later explained well the drudgery of much of the work. ‘From long observation of my father’s activities, I knew only too well what I was in for. The picture of him “doing his boxes”, to use his own phrase, had long represented to me the relentless grind of the King’s daily routine.’
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Never had the new King more depended on his wife’s reassurance and her ability to calm his ‘gnashes’.
As well as calming and bolstering her husband and reassuring her daughters about the future, the Queen was kept busy replying to the flood of letters which now landed every day on her desk. Many, from both friends and strangers, expressed relief that the uncertainty was over and some reflected confidence that she and her husband would, much more than Edward VIII, embody the solid values of King George V and Queen Mary. Jasper Ridley was sure that the frightening task they were taking on ‘
must
be lightened by the conviction you will have of goodwill around you. You see, we do want the Monarchy, and we must have it in hands like yours.’
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