Matriarch

by Anne Edwards

  Although a few days after the funeral both older boys returned to their schools—David to Dartmouth and Bertie to Osborne—life would no longer be the same for them. On June 4, the King sent for Lord Esher to discuss plans for creating David Prince of Wales on his sixteenth birthday, June 23. With great frankness, he confessed to Esher that David was young for his years, and that because of this, he wanted to postpone the boy’s entry into public life as long as possible. Esher—though he privately thought of David as “a mere child,” for which he blamed Mr. Hansell—told the King that he did not think David could be sheltered “beyond the time when the boy was ‘royally of age.’”*

  David was both Heir-Apparent and Prince of Wales, and had become Duke of Cornwall as well and independently wealthy, the entire Duchy of Cornwall now his personal estate, its holdings including thousands of acres in the West Country and valuable London property. From receiving a weekly shilling of pocket money doled out by the Naval College, he was now one of the richest young men in England. His father’s financial advisors immediately took over the administrations of the funds and the maintenance of his household and establishment. Still, his final approval had to be sought in most matters.

  At school, “subtle respect” for his new position created an unconscious barrier between him and his term mates; and when at home, the responsibilities involved (his signature on papers and reports, portraits to be painted, briefings on his affairs) left much less time for him to be with Bertie.

  Until he was back at Osborne, Bertie was unable to grasp the fact that his grandfather was dead. Of all the grandchildren, Bertie would miss King Edward the most. For thirteen years his grandfather’s infectious laugh, the warmth of that great bear body as he was held in affectionate greeting, had been Bertie’s solace and refuge. Papa and Mama being King and Queen meant he would see them less than ever, Grannie was acting strangely, a terrible row was going on between her and his mother, and David was now at Dartmouth and was the Prince of Wales. The latter was the most unbelievable to him, for, after all, that meant his brother had taken over his father’s former position. Not only had he lost all those near and dear to him, but Bertie could no longer be called “of Wales,” that name, of course, now belonging solely to David.

  Within a few weeks of his return to Osborne, Bertie’s work had deteriorated so badly that he occupied one of the lowest positions in his class (seventy-first out of seventy-four). A stern, parental rebuke was immediately forthcoming, along with a warning that he would have to give up his summer holidays to work with a tutor if his grades did not drastically improve. Bertie’s stuttering grew worse. His situation looked hopeless. Then the college’s assistant medical officer, Louis Greig,* a twenty-nine-year-old Scot, took the boy under his wing and, with confidence, affection, and gaiety, helped him through the difficult time he was to have during his last year at Osborne. Without Greig’s interest, Bertie might not have matriculated to Dartmouth the following year because of his grades and the possibility of a complete nervous collapse.

  Harry remained at Broadstairs, the King and Queen having decided he was still too frail to attend the funeral of his grandfather. From there, the little boy wrote his father, “I am so awfully sorry that dear Grandpapa is dead, and that you, Mama, Grannie, and Aunt Toria are in such trouble. I shall try to help you by being a good boy.”

  In the matter of money, the new King was one of the very few English monarchs who had ascended the Throne without a penny of debt. Unlike his father and other Royal antecedents, he was not a gambler, nor did he spend his money on mistresses. Therefore, he had no need to be beholden to men of money. And though the people did not know much about him yet, he was determined, energetic, and held strong Tory views—not the kind of man who would be content to be a mere figurehead controlled by the politicians. Still, great fear remained in the hearts of the new King’s subjects that George did not have the stature to be King.

  “I saw Francis Knollys today,” Lord Esher recorded on May 31, “and Caesar, the dear King’s dog, came to tea in Miss Charlotte’s [Knollys] room. He won’t go near the Queen—and waits all day for his master, wandering about the house. He sleeps either on the King’s bed or on ... [a bed] in a small room next to the King’s room ...”

  Of all creatures large and small who had been devoted to King Edward VII, Queen Alexandra had taken a strong dislike to Caesar. “Horrid little dog!” she exclaimed to Margot Asquith (Prime Minister Asquith’s wife) just a few days after the funeral, and she was furious when an enterprising publisher issued a memoir of the late King, with Caesar’s picture on the cover, entitled, “Where’s Master?” Since no provision was made for the little dog in the King’s will, Alice Keppel inquired of Charlotte Knollys if the Queen might not let her care for him. Queen Alexandra, upon being asked, had returned to Mrs. Keppel her gift to King Edward for his sixty-third birthday (a blue enamelled-and-diamond Fabergé cigarette case), and so her refusal to grant this request was surprising.* More unexpectedly, she made a complete about-face and took an immediate interest in Caesar and his welfare. (In fact, two years later she was to confide to a friend that she could not help but spoil Caesar because the King had been so strict!)

  Extravagant eulogies filled the world’s newspapers. Lord Esher’s was, perhaps, the most simply eloquent. “I have known all the great men of my time in this land, of course,” he wrote, “and many beyond it. He was the most Kingly of them all.”

  A fortnight after the funeral, Asquith spoke in the House of Commons of the King’s “abiding sense of his regal responsibilities,” a tribute that would have greatly pleased his mother, Queen Victoria. Her grandson did not have King Edward’s great human qualities. He was without political experience and knew very little about the minds and power drives of men. With Britain on the verge of a crisis almost without example in its constitutional history, the question on everyone’s mind was whether the new King could deal competently with the matter. Most were doubtful. Even Queen Mary, whom it was rumoured the King stood much in awe of, wrote Aunt Augusta, “The whole task seems so stupendous, so difficult, one can only pray for guidance and courage to be given us.”

  But the people needed more than a new Queen’s frightened prayers. Edwardians had felt confidence in the dead King’s familiar Royal bulk. They believed he could achieve prosperity for the nation and keep the peace that had been established in his decade of rule. A charwoman in the popular Pelissier’s Follies of 1909 had sung:

  There’ll be no wo’ar

  As long as There’s a King like old King Edward

  There’ll be no wo’ar

  For ’e ’ates that sort of thing!

  Mothers needn’t worry

  As long as we’ve a King like good King Edward

  Peace with ’onner

  Is ’is motter

  So God Save the King!

  Now the rotund Edward with his barrelling laugh and good nature was dead, and a solemn monarch sat in the place of the King who, people felt, had “kept things together somehow.” King George had made no great impression as Prince of Wales. So little was known about him that the people were not aware of his single-mindedness and insecurity. Equally, they were uninformed as to the new Prince of Wales’s immaturity and his loathing of the idea of one day becoming their King. To add to their ignorance, the public had no inkling of Bertie’s current unsuitability to take his elder brother’s place, if necessary. They did have great admiration for the majesty of their new Queen Consort, a source of much comfort in a transition that appeared to many to augur trouble.

  Footnotes

  *In Biarritz.

  *Sir Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969), author and member of one of England’s most celebrated literary families. Succeeded his father as 5th Baronet in 1943. Lady Geraldine Somerset was his great-aunt.

  *It was the use of this method of speaking to his wife that caused the rumour that the King spoke with a German accent.

  †Sir Ernest Cassel (1832–1921), financier. Grandfather
of Edwina Ashley, who married Lord Louis Mountbatten (later 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma).

  *The Battle of Ramillies (1706—one of the Duke of Marlborough’s most notable victories over the French) mural on the wall of the staircase at Marlborough House was painted by Louis Laguerre, a Frenchman, and was completed in 1711.

  *Prince Henry was still at Broadstairs.

  †Prime Minister Asquith subsequently recorded, “I went up on deck. I felt bewildered and indeed stunned. At a most anxious moment in the fortunes of the State we had lost, without warning or preparation, the Sovereign whose wide experience, trained sagacity, equitable judgement and unvarying consideration counted for so much.”

  *Sir Schomberg McDonnell (1861–1915), formerly Lord Salisbury’s Private Secretary.

  *Reference to the crown made especially for Queen Victoria. Part of the Crown Jewels and worn by custom by the Queen to the opening of Parliament.

  *The nine sovereigns and their relationship to King Edward were: King George V (son); Kaiser Wilhelm, German Emperor (nephew); King George I of Greece (brother-in-law); King Frederick VIII of Denmark (brother-in-law); King Haakon of Norway (son-in-law); King Manuel II of Portugal (cousin); King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria (cousin); King Alfonso XIII of Spain (cousin); King Albert I of the Belgians (cousin). Also in the procession in carriages were ex-U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt; the French Foreign Minister, M. Stephen Pichon; the Grand Duke Michael of Russia; and the Duke of Aosta (the former Princess Hélène’s husband), representing the King of Italy.

  *The Crown Princes of Rumania, Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece, and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

  †Queen Alexandra, Queen Mother; the Dowager Empress Maria of Russia; the Queen Dowager of the Netherlands; Queen Emma of Waldock-Pyrmont; Queen Mary; Queen Ena of Spain; and Queen Maud of Sweden attended the funeral.

  ‡The Dead March from Saul and Chopin’s Funeral March were the selections played.

  *Master of the Household, Charles Frederick.

  *Eighteen.

  *Sir Louis Greig (1880–1953), Comptroller and Equerry to Duke of York (1920–23).

  *Alice Keppel in turn gave this cigarette case to Queen Mary in 1935 to include in her famous Royal Fabergé collection.

  P A R T T H R E E

  PAPA AND MAMA

  ARE CROWNED

  FIFTEEN

  “Life is too fatiguing for me, I have too much to do, to think of, I am getting worn out & people bother one so, I am sick of the everlasting begging for favours of all kinds!” the new Queen wrote Helene Bricka shortly after her husband’s succession. The coronation had been set for June 22 the following year. Even so, this presented overwhelming pressures. The greatly enlarged Household; the planned move and takeovers of the Royal homes of Buckingham, Windsor, and Balmoral; and the difficulties caused by Queen Alexandra’s reluctance to let go of these, her Crown Jewels, and her position at Court—all were to be dealt with. King Edward had bequeathed Sandringham to Alexandra for her lifetime. So, though altogether too small and unsuitable for a Monarch’s residence, King George still had to make do with York Cottage as his family’s country home.

  June 1910, momentarily unable to cope with the problems, Queen Mary rested at Balmoral. She had visited Balmoral numerous times over the past nineteen years. Now her return proclaimed the end of one era and the beginning of another. The young woman who had come here years before to seek Queen Victoria’s approval to marry the unsound Prince Eddy so that she might one day be Queen had fulfilled her greatest desire and her mother’s dream. A bright sun was overhead as she stepped down from the Royal train—a stately, slim, imposing woman of forty-three, dressed in a subtle and elegant mauve travelling suit with a matching toque and parasol, arrayed in a quantity of jewels. Those members of Balmoral’s Household who came to greet her claim that she was the most queenly Queen they had ever seen—and that despite the fact that several of them had been in the Household of Victoria and Alexandra, and had met numerous visiting monarchs.

  The trip from the station to the castle was made in a grand-looking “Silent Knight” motor which had replaced the old Royal coach. The staff that curtsied to Queen Mary as she entered the sombre panelled and tartaned entrance were now part of her own Household. She had no hesitation in taking over Queen Victoria’s old rooms, which Queen Alexandra had never liked. Her various ladies-in-waiting recorded Queen Mary’s straightforward acceptance of her new position, but she was lonely for the first time in many years, for her husband was now overburdened with the problems of making a smooth transition from one King and Court to another. Curiously, Queen Mary turned for companionship at this time to her brother Frank, to whom she had hardly spoken since their mother’s death when he had given Princess Mary Adelaide’s jewels to his mistress.

  When his sister telegraphed him to join her at Balmoral, Prince Frank was recovering from minor nasal surgery necessitated by an injury suffered some years before. Leaving hospital premature to doctors’ orders, he arrived at Balmoral in a weakened condition, having hemorrhaged profusely. His sister was now Queen, and though he was not a man to beg favours, he knew his life, which had been difficult in the last few years, could be considerably easier with her patronage. Frank became Queen Mary’s constant companion. They had breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner together. They walked the grounds of the castle daily, though the Scottish summer had turned suddenly to drizzle and dampness. Frank agreed not to act in a foolish manner ever again, and they reminisced over childhood memories and sat up late at night, talking about their parents and the past.

  At the end of the week, Frank suffered severe coughing spasms. Sir James Reid, Queen Victoria’s old doctor, insisted he remain in bed under his care while the Queen returned to London. Within days, pleurisy developed, and, accompanied by Sir James, Frank made a long, agonising train trip back to London, where his lungs were immediately operated upon by a specialist. He did not survive the surgery, and Frank’s death at thirty-nine was a blow to Queen Mary, “for we were so very intimate in the old days until alas the ‘rift’ came,” she wrote her husband. “I am so thankful I still had that nice week with him at Balmoral when he was quite like his old self ...”

  Displaying emotion she seldom revealed, Queen Mary, as she wrote to her Aunt Augusta, “broke down and wept freely” at Frank’s funeral in St. George’s Chapel, where his coffin “lies with that of dear Mama.” She added that the Royal vault was well lit and that King Edward lay “on the stone in the centre for the present. Ultimately he is to be moved to the Memorial Chapel where Eddy & Uncle Leopold are.”*

  Less than a week later, Prince Frank’s former inamorata, who still had in her possession Princess Mary Adelaide’s jewels, was requested by Queen Mary to return them. Princess Alice, Queen Mary’s sister-in-law, records a great deal of family discussion about this unusual action by the Queen, for her other brothers—Alge (Princess Alice’s husband) and Dolly—feared the woman might refuse and an incident develop. But, in fact, the jewels—all in perfect condition—were delivered to Queen Mary just a few days after the Royal request was made.

  The problem of where to live was a pressing one for King George and Queen Mary throughout the summer of 1910. The Queen packed up all her treasured possessions in Marlborough House and turned the premises immediately back to Queen Alexandra, thinking that with her beloved “Marl House” hers again, her mother-in-law might begin to move her things out of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

  Queen Alexandra made no step in that direction, and the Royal Family spent the month of August at Balmoral, which Queen Alexandra had never liked and had given over to her son and daughter-in-law without a struggle.

  On August 21, Lord Esher was at Balmoral with the King and Queen. “It is altogether different here from former years,” he wrote in his journal on that date. “There is no longer the old atmosphere about the house—that curious electric element which pervaded the surroundings of King Edward.” Dreary as it was, Balmoral had now become a home a
nd a rather domestic one at that. The children and their parents and the Royal Household all had lunch together. John was six, a small boy, already showing signs of mental retardation, and who, Esher notes, kept “running round the table all the while” they ate.

  “I went yesterday with the Queen and the Girl [Princess Mary] and two others to ‘Rob Roy’s Cave,’ a purely fictitious place,” Lord Esher writes on August 23. “But they ran over the heather and ate tea spread out on rugs on the hillside. Simplicity itself.” And the next day, “We had a drive down the Dee yesterday and tea on the river bank, quite in public ... Most unsophisticated. Last night the French governess [Princess Mary’s tutor] sat on the King’s right hand at dinner. Imagine the Courtiers of Berlin or Vienna if they could have seen.”

  Unsophisticated though their life-style might have appeared, the truth was that the new King and Queen adhered much more strongly to Royal protocol with their Household and family than had King Edward and Queen Alexandra. To David, Queen Mary wrote at this time, “I believe the right way for you to address me is the Queen and to Grannie Queen Alexandra, as she is now the Queen Mother and I am the wife of the King.”

  York Cottage was unable to accommodate the new, enlarged staff and the vast number of visitors whose business it was to confer with the King.* With no home as yet in London, Queen Mary had combined the life-styles of her country home and of Marlborough House, which had the effect of giving the family a sense of continuity.