The Queen Mother (81 page)

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Rachel Bowes Lyon (1907–96), née Spender-Clay, was a niece of Viscount and Viscountess Astor. Like the Duchess of York, she was a keen fisherwoman.

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Francis, Lord Doune (1892–1943), eldest son of seventeenth Earl of Moray, succeeded his father as eighteenth earl in 1930. He married Barbara Murray of New York in 1924.

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Following the death of her husband Dudley Coats in 1927, Audrey had married Marshall Field, of the wealthy Chicago department-store family, in 1930. They were later divorced and in 1938 she married the Hon. Peter Pleydell-Bouverie, son of sixth Earl of Radnor, whom she divorced in 1946.

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Reginald John ‘Rex’ Whistler (1905–44), artist, designer and illustrator, whose first great work was the mural in the café at the Tate Gallery in 1927. He illustrated his letters beautifully, including those to the Queen. He was commissioned in the Welsh Guards in 1939 and was killed in action in France.

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Lindsay thought that the King still did not feel safe on the throne, ‘and up to a certain point he is like the medieval monarch who has a hated rival claimant living in exile. The analogy must not be pressed too far because I don’t think George wanted the throne any more than Edward, and if he is there it is owing to a sense of duty which Edward lacked and not owing to a love of power which one sometimes thinks Edward may have after all. But in some ways the situation operates on the King just as it must have done on his medieval ancestors – uneasiness as to what is coming next – sensitiveness – suspicion. I greatly wonder what Edward really wants. They all say he has no will but what is hers, and what does she really want? Is she really ambitious? Perhaps; and opinion at the palace has no doubt of it, but is certainly violently prejudiced.’
(The Crawford Papers: The Journals of David Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford
, ed. John Vincent, Manchester University Press, 1984, pp. 616–21)

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The Entente Cordiale was the name give to a series of agreements made between Britain and France in 1904 following the historic visit to Paris by King Edward VII. The Entente marked the end of centuries of conflict between the two countries and laid the basis for their co-operation in the First World War and thereafter.

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In an interview in March 1991 with the historian D. R. Thorpe for his official biography of Alec Douglas-Home, Queen Elizabeth made clear that she understood all the implications of what had happened. She said that when Chamberlain and his party, which included Douglas-Home (then Lord Dunglass), arrived at the Palace she had been struck by the fact that they were all exhausted rather than elated. (D. R. Thorpe,
Alec Douglas-Home
, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996, p. 85) The balcony appearance was a constitutional error, she told Thorpe, though she believed it was a ‘venial’ one, because the British people were so relieved by Chamberlain’s agreement. ‘But one must remember it was relief for ourselves, not relief for Czechoslovakia,’ she added. (Author’s interview with D. R. Thorpe) For his part, Alec Hardinge subsequently commented: ‘I have since been reproached for what the King did on this occasion. For me, who was among those with no faith in the prospect of conciliating Hitler, it all went much against the grain; but it seemed to me to be the correct policy for the Sovereign in the circumstances – namely, to give full and public support to the Government.’ (Alec Hardinge’s notes for autobiography, Hon. Lady Murray Papers)

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In spring 1939 one could indeed still argue that appeasement had bought Britain time to rearm and to improve her air defences – the number of RAF squadrons rose from five to forty-seven. And if and when war finally came, it would be true to say that Britain could not have done anything more to avoid it. In the ‘Munich Winter’ chapter of
The Gathering Storm
, Churchill acknowledges that in the ‘vital sphere’ of air power and air defences Britain improved her position after Munich, but he concluded, ‘Finally there is this staggering fact: that in the single year 1938, Hitler had annexed to the Reich and brought under his absolute rule 6,750,000 Austrians and 3,500,000 Sudetens, a total of over ten million subjects, toilers and soldiers. Indeed the dread balance had turned in his favour.’

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Hardinge had long opposed appeasement. In early September 1938 he wrote himself a memorandum to answer the question ‘Can there be friendship between democracies and totalitarian states?’ His answer was negative. No democratic government could be real friends with states which, ‘with the acquiescence of their peoples, abolish individual freedom, preach intense nationalism, make war on religions, and subordinate them to the barbaric worship of race, show complete disregard for the sanctity of obligations and never cease to denounce and pour scorn on the principles that we hold most dear’. In April 1939 he wrote in another memorandum that, as a result of appeasement, the dictators had been able to secure a much stronger strategic position on the continent. Each successive coup – Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania – had added enormously to their actual armed power, as well as to their prestige. Each had effectively neutralized the advances made in British rearmament. Chamberlain’s policies meant that the Eastern Front was destroyed; smaller countries now doubted the democrats’ resolve and had been forced to come to terms with the dictators; fear of derailing appeasement had led to acquiescence in the victory of the fascists in Spain; optimistic forecasts of the intentions of the dictators had misled the British people and induced an unjustified complacency; finally, Hardinge argued, it had given the impression to foreign countries, large and small, that Britain could no longer be relied upon. (Hon. Lady Murray Papers)

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Joseph P. Kennedy (1888–1969), American businessman and ally of President Roosevelt, Ambassador to Great Britain 1938–40. After the war began, his enthusiasm for appeasement became defeatism and he argued against US aid to Britain. In November 1940 he gave a newspaper interview in the United States in which he asserted, ‘Democracy is finished in England. It may be here.’ His son John F. Kennedy was President of the United States 1961–3.