The Queen Mother (73 page)
Authors: William Shawcross
As the Queen was crowned, a herald turned and made a sign to the rows of peeresses, at which hundreds of white-gloved arms rose up as each lady placed upon her head her own coronet. Princess Elizabeth was struck by this moment. ‘When Mummy was crowned and all the peeresses put on their coronets, it looked wonderful to see arms and coronets hovering in the air and then the arms disappear as if by magic.’
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The Archbishop then gave the Queen her gold sceptre and ivory rod, both made for Queen Mary of Modena, wife of James II. Thus anointed, crowned and bearing her regalia, she proceeded to her throne. The Order of Service noted, ‘And as she passeth by the King on his throne, she shall bow herself reverently to his Majesty, and then be conducted to her own throne, and without any further ceremony, take her place in it.’ Together, the King and Queen then removed their crowns and received Holy Communion, probably the most moving and sacred moment of the tumultuous day for them both. They then walked together down the nave of the Abbey, outside to
the Gold Coach which bore them back by a long route to the Palace. The rain poured down but this did not seem to dampen the excitement of the crowds who cheered them with wild enthusiasm.
That evening the King had to face the dreaded ordeal of his live broadcast from the Palace. In endless rehearsals with the Queen, with Logue and with Wood, he had stumbled, but on the actual day adrenalin overcame nerves and exhaustion and he was word perfect. ‘It is with a very full heart that I speak to you tonight,’ he said. ‘Never before has a newly crowned King been able to talk to all his peoples in their own homes on the day of his Coronation … the Queen and I will always keep in our hearts the inspiration of this day. May we ever be worthy of the goodwill which I am proud to think surrounds us at the outset of my reign.’ In evening dress, he and the Queen, who was wrapped in a white fur-trimmed stole, appeared five times on the Palace balcony to wave to the crowds still braving the rain.
Before midnight, Queen Mary wrote to them, ‘I cannot let this day pass without once again telling you both how beautifully & reverently you carried out this most beautiful impressive service, I felt
so
proud of you both, & I felt beloved Papa’s spirit was near us in blessing you on this wonderful day. I could not help feeling what that poor foolish David has relinquished for nothing!!! but it is better so & better for our beloved Country.’
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The Queen described her own experience in a letter thanking Archbishop Lang.
I write to you with a very full heart … I was more moved, & more helped than I could have believed possible. It is curious, on thinking it over now, that I was not conscious of there being anybody else there at the Communion – you told us last Sunday evening that we would be helped and we
were
sustained & carried above the ordinary fear of a great ceremony. Our great hope now, is that as so many millions of people were impressed by the feeling of service and goodness that came from Westminster Abbey, that perhaps that day will result in strength and good feeling in individuals all over the world, and be a calming & strengthening influence on affairs in general.
I thank you with all my heart for what you have been to us during these last difficult and tragic months – a good counsellor and true friend – we are indeed grateful. I am, Your affectionate friend Elizabeth R.
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*
Sir Kenneth Clark (1903–83), Director of the National Gallery 1934–45, Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, 1934–44. Later Slade Professor of Fine Art, Oxford, Professor of the History of Art, Royal Academy, and chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. Author of many art-historical works, he was also an inspiring lecturer and broadcaster who reached a broad audience through his television series, notably
Civilisation
in 1969, the year in which he was created a life peer as Baron Clark of Saltwood.
*
The small Private Chapel in the royal apartments at the Castle is used only by the Royal Family. The Royal Chapel in the grounds of Royal Lodge is also a private chapel, originally built for King George IV and enlarged by Queen Victoria for the use of the Royal Family and people who lived and worked in the Great Park. It has its own chaplain, and members of the Royal Family regularly attend Sunday services there when staying at Windsor, rather than in St George’s Chapel in the Castle. St George’s is the chapel of the Order of the Garter, and the annual Garter service is held there, as well as some royal weddings and funerals.
*
Subsequently Queen Mary was quoted by one of her ladies in waiting as saying that ‘My son actually came to see me one day in November and said, “I’m going to marry Mrs Simpson on April 27 and be crowned on May 12.” I said, “But my dear David you cannot do any such thing.” Well, he said that was what he had decided to do.’ (Note by Owen Morshead, 14 January 1937, RA AEC/GG/12/OS/1)
*
According to a later chatelaine of Chatsworth, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, Queen Elizabeth never stayed at the house again, because of its association with this unhappy time in her life.
†
Reginald Herbert, fifteenth Earl of Pembroke (1880–1960), and his wife Beatrice. Their daughter Patricia (1904–94) was a friend of the Duchess of York and later, as Lady Hambleden, became a long-serving lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth.
*
She was now the Princess Royal, the title traditionally conferred on the eldest daughter of the sovereign, but held by only one princess at a time. So Princess Mary acquired it in 1931, on the death of the previous Princess Royal, Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife, the eldest daughter of King Edward VII.
*
Lieutenant Colonel Victor Cazalet (1896–1943), MP for Chippenham 1924–43. He served as political liaison officer to General Sikorski, the Polish wartime leader, from 1940, and was killed in the same aeroplane crash as the General in 1943.
*
Lady Hyde (1900–70), née the Hon. Marion Glyn, married in 1932 George, Lord Hyde, eldest son of sixth Earl of Clarendon. He was killed in a shooting accident in 1935. Their son Laurence became the seventh Earl.
*
Sir Harold Nicolson KCVO CMG (1886–1968), diplomat, author, diarist and politician, married to the writer Vita Sackville-West. He entered Parliament as a member of the National Labour Party in 1935 and quickly became a strong voice in alerting the country to the dangers of fascism. His diaries are among the most important first-hand accounts of British political and social life in the mid-twentieth century. He wrote the official biography of King George V, published in 1952.
*
The Koh-i-nûr (Mountain of Light) was the most famous of the jewels in the Lahore Treasury, ceded to Britain following the annexation of the Punjab in 1849. The diamond was presented to Queen Victoria in 1850 and recut under Prince Albert’s direction in 1852.
*
Ribbentrop, a supporter of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, had already given the Nazi salute in an even more enthusiastic manner, when he presented his credentials to the King. This had caused something of a scandal. The German diplomat Reinhard Spitzy recorded that, although the King had smiled weakly, his courtiers were furious and the press splashed the story, nicknaming the Ambassador ‘Brickendrop’. The salutes nonetheless continued. Spitzy wrote that at this Court ‘Ribbentrop delivered his three salutes in a rather more conciliatory fashion and not without a little humility.’ (Reinhard Spitzy,
How We Squandered the Reich
, Michael Russell, 1997, pp. 70–1)
*
Sitwell had written an ‘Ode for the Coronation of Their Majesties, May 12, 1937’, which began:
The King and Queen of England, what fair names
That for a thousand years have lit the flames
Within Their people’s hearts; what trumpets sound
Through timeless vistas as They both are crowned!
*
The chaplain’s faint in 1937 was recorded by King George VI himself. The 1923 incident appears only in Dorothy Laird’s
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
, Coronet, 1966; it may be that Laird confused the two occasions.
QUEEN CONSORT
1937–1939
‘From thirty to forty, one battled and remade one’s ideas’
T
HE
HISTORIAN
and royal biographer Noble Frankland observed that most biographies are about extraordinary people: they seek to explain how their subjects accomplished ‘whatever it was that caught the eye of history’, and they explore tensions related to ability, ambition and rivalry. The tension in a royal biography, however, ‘is about how the ordinary man adjusts to the extraordinary position into which he is born’. The interesting question is not the position itself, nor how the subject reached it, but what sort of a fist he made of it.
1
In the case of the non-royal bride of a royal prince, of course, it is marriage rather than birth that confers her position on her. As the subject of a biography, therefore, she crosses the boundary between Dr Frankland’s definitions, for the story of how she achieved her marriage may well be part of the interesting question. This is certainly so in Queen Elizabeth’s case. She was the first commoner to become queen consort since the seventeenth century – that in itself is of interest, at least to students of the British monarchy. Secondly, how she reached her position is of interest not just because it is an appealingly romantic tale, but also because it took place against a background of social and political ferment potentially damaging to the monarchy. Then there is the added curiosity that it was not a position she had sought. Indeed she rejected it at first. The story so far has tried to show why she inspired her royal suitor with so powerful a determination to win her hand. It has aimed also to show what she made of the position she took on.
The moment when the reluctant royal Duchess found herself becoming a queen
malgré elle
is an appropriate one at which to step back to consider her life as she had lived it since she had joined the Royal Family. In so doing we may ask how successful she had been in
filling the lesser role into which she had married, and how well this had fitted her for the greater one into which she was now projected.
She had been understandably nervous of marrying into the first family of the land, a family far less easy-going and openly affectionate than her own. She was reluctant to have to live a life of much more formality, constraint and public scrutiny than she had ever known. But she had adapted superbly and had quickly learned how to win the approval and affection of both the King and Queen and the wider family.
She had disliked the autocratic streak in her father-in-law which alienated his sons from him, but she treated him with a combination of respect, humour and charm which won him over. Although she enjoyed dancing, cabarets and nightclubs as much as many contemporary young women, she retained a romantic, old-fashioned seemliness which the King contrasted favourably with the fast, modern girls whom he deplored. The warm relationship she established with him – knitting him socks and sharing jokes – enabled her to stand her ground without causing friction, to protect herself, her husband and his brothers from paternal wrath, and also to use her influence with the King to good effect in her public life.
With Queen Mary she was perhaps not quite as successful, although this is largely a matter of speculation, for the correspondence between them was invariably affectionate. In character, the two women were quite different, with Queen Mary as reserved and methodical as her daughter-in-law was outgoing and spontaneous. But each made an effort to treat the other considerately, and the Duchess showed tact in consulting her mother-in-law and sharing activities that both enjoyed: shopping, interior decorating, visits to art galleries. Importantly, too, the two confided in each other about the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson, a matter on which they saw eye to eye, and which undoubtedly drew them together.
There were disagreements, resentments, near-rebellion – over White Lodge, over the naming of Princess Margaret, over the numbers of Court functions which the King and Queen insisted the Duke and Duchess attend – in other words, whenever the young couple felt their own rights and independence threatened by unwarrantable interference. But from the start the young Duchess had the wisdom and self-control to keep such feelings in check, and to encourage her husband, who was easily angered and demoralized, to do the same. She could usually turn
a situation to their advantage, or at least make the best of it. She was by nature cheerful, positive and optimistic – to a fault, some would say later. It was not a one-way process. At the start of her marriage, she knew little of what was expected of her as a royal duchess, but she had been very willing to learn and paid tribute to the King and Queen for all that they had taught her.
2
As a daughter-in-law, then, she had filled her position with great success. As a wife, she achieved even more. That she and the Duke were happily married is evident from their letters and was obvious to those who saw them together both publicly and privately. The give and take in a marriage is so subtle and private a matter that no outsider can perceive the full truth of it. But she had clearly given her husband the self-assurance and joy that he had lacked. In particular, she helped him to overcome the stammer which had embittered his relations with his father. By the Duke’s own account, the King had considered him unfit for a public role because of it. After the Duke’s marriage, however, the King had gradually lost his prejudice against him, as the Duke appeared increasingly confident in public with his wife at his side. The Australasian tour, followed by the Duke’s performance as lord high commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1929, set the seal on the King’s regard for him – not entirely coincidentally, just as his respect for his eldest son waned. It was a change to which the Duchess had contributed a great deal. She had succeeded as a mother too; the births of her two daughters brought much happiness to her and her husband, while reassuring the Royal Family and the nation that the succession was safe even if the Prince of Wales did not marry.
