by Anne Edwards
At 11:00 A.M. on December 12, his elder brother now safely in Boulogne, King George VI, shy, hesitant—upon his pale, haggard face the strain of his recent ordeal—slowly and stammering humiliatingly, addressed his Accession Council at St. James’s Palace. At the end of his short speech accepting all the responsibilities of a Sovereign, he read a declaration written in his own hand.* “Furthermore, my first act on succeeding my brother will be to confer on him a Dukedom and he will henceforth be known as H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor.” The title had been agreed upon after lengthy discussion with the King’s Ministers, but the exact status and rights accorded the title would not be settled for several more weeks. A few hours later, the King received a telegram that came through the Admiralty: “Glad to hear this morning’s ceremony went off so well. Hope Elizabeth better [she still had the flu]. Best love and best of luck to you both. David.”
When Lady Airlie’s son-in-law spoke sympathetically about the Duke of Windsor three days after the abdication, Queen Mary replied indignantly, “The person who needs most sympathy is my second son. He is the one who is making the sacrifice.”
She used much the same words to Lady Airlie when they were alone. Her old friend “recognised beneath them her unspoken condemnation of a Sovereign who had allowed his personal feelings to take precedence over his kingdom.” There was no feeling evoked of a mother toward a troubled son. Queen Mary’s nature had a definite side of steel. She had recently defended Catherine the Great: “She loved her Kingdom. She was prepared to make any sacrifices for it, to go to any lengths—even to commit terrible crimes for it.” With no second thoughts, Queen Mary had transferred her loyalty and allegiance from the son who had abandoned his country and duty to the son who had been forced to take on that burden.
Footnotes
*James H. Thomas was later found guilty by a tribunal appointed by Parliament of revealing Budget secrets to Sir Alfred Butt, M.P., who was also found guilty for profiting by this information.
*King Edward VIII had recently vacated St. James’s Palace. His apartments there were now occupied by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.
*Blanche E. Dugdale; this diary was published as Baffy, the Diaries of Blanche Dugdale, 1936–37.
†Sir Walter Monckton’s name is incorrectly spelled here. Walter Turner (1891–1965). First Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Attorney General to the Prince of Wales 1932–1936, Minister of Labour 1951–1955, Minister of Defence 1955–1956, and Postmaster General 1956–1957.
*This was the suggestion by the King of a morganatic marriage that was rejected in a special Cabinet meeting December 4, 1936.
*In an article written for the Daily Express on June 3, 1957, the former King Edward VIII stated, “But make no mistake, it is the circumstances, not the decision itself, that I regret. If twenty years were to be erased and I were to be presented with the same choice again under the same circumstances, I would act precisely as I did then.”
*This document with the paragraph naming Prince Edward, HRH the Duke of Windsor, written in the King’s own hand, turned up at a Sotheby’s auction in 1979. It had somehow become part of the estate of Sir Eric Leadbetter, who had been clerk to the Privy Council at the time. A great furor was raised over this, and the paper is now held in the Royal Archives at Windsor.
TWENTY-NINE
New Yorker correspondent Janet Flanner reported that on December 11, 1936—the tense day of the Abdication itself—she was lunching at the Ritz. At a table near her was seated, among others, “the venerable Mrs. Keppel,” who she could not help overhear making the devastating observation: “Things were done better in my day.”
Popular reaction was one of grief, as though the Monarch had died. Before the ex-King’s radio address announcing that he had given up the Throne, people had stood hushed and bareheaded around the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, as they had done at Sandringham during King George’s last hours. Tears were shed when the radio announcer introduced the former King as Prince Edward. Later, there had been signs of bitterness on the part of the people and great disappointment that the King (who had been called the roi des humbles, and won their hearts with his charm and his emotional attachment to the poor) had let them down. Nasty limericks made the rounds. But when the crisis was over and “God Save the King” was played in theatres, cinemas, and concert halls, the audiences rose staunchly and sang their allegiance to the new King.
As an indication of the public’s mood, at Mme. Tussaud’s Waxworks the morning after the Abdication, the effigy of ex-King Edward VIII in its gold-frogged scarlet tunic was moved and placed on a dais considerably below that of the one where King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were posed beneath a red velvet canopy. A fortnight later, a model of Mrs. Simpson was hurriedly completed and placed a short distance from Prince Edward. At first, some visitors stood before her wax image and said rude and obscene things. This soon stopped. The events that led up to the Abdication were nearly forgotten, “except,” as Janet Flanner wrote, “by worldly, political minds that still wonder what effect it must eventually have on succeeding generations in the House of Windsor.”*
The masses thought of King George VI as a less lovable man than his elder brother. The Times, which was harshly anti-King and pro-Parliament (and had been hard on King Edward VIII), called King George “dry and not very human.” True, he lacked his brother’s charm and contemporary manner and his father’s quarterdeck style, but he had inherited his mother’s appreciation of “obedience, duty, rank and work.” And somehow the stammer which often caused him to pause painfully in a public address, the fact that though fragile in physique he was a good athlete, and that as a naval officer he had once taken part in the Battle of Jutland were enough to endear him to his subjects. At best, he was only moderately intelligent. According to one source, the country did not want “an inventive, brilliant monarch” and was relieved that it wasn’t getting one. What was both wanted and needed was a King who would be constitutionally useful, and King George neatly fit that requirement.
The decision had been to continue with the plans and date that had already been set for King Edward VIII’s coronation. For centuries, Hebrew elements based on the ritual used by Samuel in anointing Saul, King of Israel, have formed the basis of all coronation ceremonies in Christian countries, and in theory the English coronation is a religious rite. King Edward VIII had wanted a modification of these rituals which were supposed to pass to him a “spiritual jurisdiction and an inalienable sanctity,” an idea that he found disturbing. On the other hand, King George was certain to retain the more pious elements of the service.
To date, no British Queen Dowager had attended the new Monarch’s coronation. Queen Victoria had been crowned in 1838 while Queen Adelaide had remained sequestered in Marlborough House, and at King George V’s coronation Queen Alexandra had withdrawn to Sandringham.* The tradition was said to date back to the Plantagenet Sovereigns, although its origin was unknown. But to add a sense of solidarity to this particular coronation and to help in the smooth transference of power, Queen Mary proposed to the King a constitutional innovation: that she be in the Abbey when he was to be crowned and that she be a part of the coronation procession.
Her suggestions were quickly agreed to, perhaps because, in Wheeler-Bennett’s words, “as the Coronation approached... there swept through London a wave of idle and malicious gossip which embraced not only the general health of the King and the Royal Family but also his ability to discharge his functions as a Sovereign... [There was] a whispering campaign that the King was in such frail health that he might not be able to support the fatigue and strain of the Coronation ceremony itself.” The King’s health had been questioned by an announcement that the Indian Durbar would be postponed, and by the King’s low visibility since the Abdication. A rumour also spread that the King would not be able to get through the ordeal of the coronation, and that he “would never be able to undertake all the arduous duties which would fall to him, that he would never be able to
speak in public, and that he would be a recluse or at best, a ‘rubber stamp.’ ”
As late as May 6, at a luncheon of the Industrial Co-Partnership Association, the Reverend Robert Hyde, a close friend of the King’s, made a public statement (that obviously had official approval) defending the King’s physical stamina, mental capacity, and forcefulness. “Never have I found any evidence of these shortcomings which notorious gossip has attached to him,” Reverend Hyde declared. “Those of us who have watched him for the past twenty years conquering the hesitation in his speech which filled him with real anguish have only been filled with admiration. Those of you who hear this gossip, do not heed it; it is unkind, unworthy and untrue.”
Some of the people’s concern had been fueled by another speech made by the Archbishop of Canterbury on December 13, 1936, in which he had said, “In manner and speech he [King George] is more quiet and reserved than his brother. (And here I may add a parenthesis which may not be unhelpful. When his people listen to him they will note an occasional and momentary hesitation in his speech. But he has brought it into full control, and to those who hear it need cause no sort of embarrassment, for it causes none to him who speaks.)” This last was wishful thinking. King George bravely shouldered “the unexpected and unwanted burden of Sovereignty” and also managed to endure the tortuous task of frequent speech-giving. His stammer—or his terror at having to expose it to the public—was never to vanish, however.
Intermittent rain fell on Coronation Day, May 12, 1937. Queen Mary left Marlborough House with Queen Maud of Norway in a glass coach escorted by a troop of mounted Horse Guards at ten minutes past ten in the morning. Hers was the first Royal coach in the procession. Enthusiastic crowds along the Mall almost immobilised the vehicle as it inched its way toward the Abbey. To Queen Mary’s disapproval, extra police had to be called to hold back the crowds that surged forward to get a look at her as the glass coach passed them by. A special apparatus had been installed at Whitehall to monitor the crowds’ enthusiasm during the procession. As proof of Queen Mary’s great popularity, it recorded eighty-five decibels of public cheering on sight of her, while the new King and Queen Consort received eighty-three. The emblazoned splendours of Vienna, Madrid, Saint Petersburg, Berlin, and Constantinople had given way to shirt-sleeve or hobnailed bureaucracy. But the sight of Queen Mary, splendid in her dress and magnificent in her majesty, reinforced the belief that at least while she lived, people could still believe in the grandeur of Monarchy.
Ironically, London’s 26,000 bus drivers persisted in their strike for a shorter day. This had not kept away the estimated 2 million visitors from every part of the globe or repressed the spirit of tremendous gaiety in the streets. Britain had stood fast through near-chaos and scandal. Silk-turbaned Indian princes, ordinarily imperturbable, smiled genially. Soldiers on temporary leave locked arms with Chinese from Malaya and black troops from Africa. Liners were anchored in the Thames along with warships of the Home Fleet, and Americans (supposedly 20,000 had arrived for the coronation) were shouting, “Long live King George,” as though there had never been an American Revolution.
The Royal visitors had been arriving all week. They came as individuals, since no King officially attends another’s coronation. Foreign rulers present were Christian X of Denmark (who marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession that same week), Prince Chichibu of Japan, George II of Greece, King Haakon VII of Norway, Prince Regent Paul of Yugoslavia, and Crown Princess Juliana of the Netherlands and her Consort Bernhard. King Yeta III of Barotseland arrived late “because he and the Royal Canoe’s 40 man crew took malaria coming down the Zambesi River.” He wore an admiral’s uniform that King Edward VII had given his father in 1902 and carried a big feather flyswatter. He also “asked the government to sell him a submarine for torpedoing crocodiles.”
General John J. Pershing, one of the three representatives of the United States,* wore a fore-and-aft hat with gold braid and ostrich feathers; blue knee-length coat, high-collared with four stars and gold oak leaves on the collar, cuffs, and belt; and blue trousers with a gold stripe and a buff sash draped over his right shoulder. Quite a storm had arisen in the United States over this outfit that the aged soldier himself had designed. The controversy swept across the Atlantic with his arrival for the coronation, the English press (and, indeed, the American press as well) finding it incomprehensible that an army officer could wear a uniform of his own design.
When Big Ben boomed out 11:00 A.M., a restlessness was evident among the audience in the Abbey. The King’s procession was already twenty-five minutes late. Queen Mary had entered five minutes earlier, advancing slowly to her place in the Royal box, “an erect and royal figure in her silver gown crossed with the blue ribbon of the Garter,” Lady Airlie noted. “I saw her as the very symbol of the solidity of the British Monarchy in which she so passionately believed.” Queen Mary wrote that she was seated “between Maud & Lilibet & Margaret came next, they looked too sweet in their lace dresses & robes, especially when they put on their coronets.” The Royal Family sat on a level with and directly behind the Recognition Thrones. The rest of the guests were seated in their allocated chairs—nineteen inches wide for the brightly attired, coroneted peers and peeresses (an unprecedented twenty-seven of them American), eighteen inches for the commoners—the men in tailcoats and knee breeches,* the women in evening dresses. Bewigged justices, vestmented bishops, and gold-braided princes and diplomats had taken their places in the choir stalls.
On the last stroke of eleven the great West Door slowly swung open and the people rose. Following their long and brilliant procession, the King and Queen walked up the 300-foot blue carpet without looking left or right. Passing through the theatre, they knelt before the Recognition Chairs, while the procession members took up their appointed places. As the King rose, he “bowed to Mama & the Family”; then, in his own words:
“After the Introduction I removed my Parliamentary Robes & Cap of Maintainance & moved to the Coronation Chair. Here various vestments were placed upon me, the white Cologium Sindonis, a surplice which the Dean of Westminster insisted I should put on inside out, had not my Groom of the Robes come to the rescue. Before this I knelt at the Altar to take the Coronation Oath. I had two Bishops... one on either side to support me & to hold the form of Service for me to follow. When this great moment came neither Bishop could find the words, so the Archbishop held his book down for me to read, but horror of horrors his thumb covered the words of Oath.
“My Lord Great Chamberlain was supposed to dress me but I found his hands fumbled & shook so I had to fix the hilt of the sword myself. As it was he nearly put the hilt of the sword under my chin trying to attach it to the belt. At last all the various vestments were put on me & the Archbishop had given me the two sceptres. The supreme moment came when the Archbishop placed the Saint Edward’s Crown on my head. I had taken every precaution as I thought to see that the Crown was right way round, but the Dean & the Archbishop had been juggling with it so much that I never did know if I had it right or not...* then I rose to my feet & walked to the throne in the centre of the amphitheatre. As I turned after leaving the Coronation Chair I was brought up all standing owing to one of the Bishops treading on my robe. I had to tell him off pretty sharply as I nearly fell down.”
The Archbishop gave the King to hold “the most valuable thing that this world affords”—the Bible—and quickly snatched it away in token of the Church’s independence. Kneeling gingerly, the seventy-three-year-old Archbishop rendered his homage to the King. “I Cosmo Gordon Lang... will be faithful and true... “ The other clergymen in the Abbey repeated the Oath.
Harry next knelt before his elder brother. “I, Henry, Duke of Gloucester... do become your liege man of life and limb... to live and die against all manner of folks. So help me God.” George, Duke of Kent, and all the peers then followed suit. Drums rolled. Trumpets sounded. “God save King George!” the people shouted. “Long live King George! May the King live foreve
r!”
At last, the Archbishop turned to the new Queen Consort and, in a brief ceremony significantly devoid of oaths of allegiance, bade her “receive the Crown of glory, honour, and joy,” and placed on her head the Crown with the Koh-i-noor diamond, which twenty-six years before had been placed on the head of Queen Mary.
The time was now 2:40 P.M. King George was often inaudible despite intensive rehearsals and a microphone attached to his Throne. Queen Mary watched him “like a mother eagle. With a 6-inch diadem, five diamond neckbands, other jewels, and a [silver] lame gown (total value $2,000,000) the firm-chinned widow of George the Good dominated the scene,” the American press reported. In Italy, however, obedient to Mussolini’s order to boycott the coronation, the official Stefani News Agency’s full text read: “The Coronation of King George VI took place this morning.”
Queen Mary celebrated her seventieth birthday on May 26—fourteen days after the coronation—“with a luncheon party at Marlborough House where the table was pretty with silver and pink carnations.” The occasion was not a happy one, for she had just learned that David would marry Wallis Simpson on June 3. On May 28, the King finally made legal his brother’s status as Duke of Windsor. However, in an act that shocked many, he decreed that the Duke was entitled “to hold and enjoy for himself only the title style or attribute of Royal Highness.” This meant that he and his descendants, if there were any, would be Royal Highnesses, but Wallis was never to be more than the Duchess of Windsor. When in a personal letter from King George David first learned of this, he exclaimed indignantly to Walter Monckton, “This is a nice wedding present. I know Bertie—I know he could not have written this letter on his own.” But he wasn’t really convinced of this and could not let go of his anger throughout the final preparations for the wedding.
