The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  The King and Queen and their six children now had to move from their London home, Marlborough House, into Buckingham Palace – a soulless office with residential rooms attached, which has inspired little affection among members of the Royal Family since it was transformed in the nineteenth century from an unassuming house into a grandiose official residence. They were able to enjoy both Windsor Castle and Balmoral, where Queen Mary attempted to lighten the decor without interfering with her husband’s affection for his childhood memories. At Sandringham little changed, because King Edward VII had bequeathed the house to his widow Queen Alexandra for her lifetime. The new King and his family continued to live near by at York Cottage, a small house which he and Queen Mary had been given on their marriage.

  Now that their father was king, the Princes’ status was enhanced. Prince Edward (David) became heir apparent and was created prince of Wales in 1911. Prince Albert, only eighteen months younger, had always felt unequal to his more obviously gifted brother and now he seemed more overshadowed than ever.21 One of their tutors wrote of him, ‘One could wish that he had more of Prince Edward’s keenness and application.’22 Comparisons between the two were all the more likely because their next sibling was a girl – the tomboyish Princess Mary, who became a passionate horsewoman – and five years separated Prince Albert from his next brother. Prince Henry, a cheerful boy destined for a military career, and Prince George, the most debonair and self-assured of the brothers, were the first monarch’s sons to be sent away to preparatory school. The youngest in the family, Prince John, born in 1905, suffered increasingly from epilepsy and died in 1919.

  Fortunately for Prince Albert, he was better at sports than his glamorous elder brother. His prowess in shooting was especially important because this drew him closer to his father, one of the best shots in the land. He had made his first entry – three rabbits – in his first gamebook at Christmas 1907, just after his twelfth birthday. From then on shooting and recording his bag meticulously became a lifelong passion.

  His dedication to sport reflected other qualities in which he outdid his brother: determination and conscientiousness. His confirmation in the Church of England at Easter 1912 was an important event for him. Two years later he wrote to the Bishop of Ripon, who had conducted the service, ‘I have always remembered that day as one on which I took a great step in life. I took the Holy Sacrament on Easter Day alone with my father and mother, my eldest brother and my sister. It was so very nice having a small service quite alone like that, only the family.’23 A deep and simple commitment to the Christian faith gave him comfort and strength throughout his life.

  In January 1913 he set sail from Devonport in the cruiser HMS Cumberland. His six-month training voyage was not easy – he suffered from seasickness and then from too much publicity. When the ship berthed in Tenerife and the Caribbean he was mobbed by excited crowds. In Jamaica he was prevailed upon to open an extension to a yacht club but his stammer made the ordeal almost insufferable and neither here nor in Canada later in the cruise did he enjoy the enthusiastic attentions which young women attempted to bestow upon him. He also came to understand for the first time how unwelcome the attentions of the press could be.

  In September 1913 the Prince was appointed midshipman on the 19,250-ton battleship Collingwood. For security reasons he was known as Johnson. He received no preferential treatment; like all other midshipmen, known as snotties, he slept in a hammock outside the gunroom and took his turn at all the same tasks.

  When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, Prince Albert was on board his ship off Portland. On 29 July, the day after Austria declared war on Serbia, squadron after squadron of the British Grand Fleet was dispatched north to Scapa Flow, Orkney, to guard the northern entrance to the North Sea. When Britain declared war on 4 August, Prince Albert was on station in the dark sea off Scotland. He was the only one of the royal children to be in the line of fire and his father wrote in his diary, ‘Please God that it will soon be over & that he will protect dear Bertie’s life.’24 To the Prince himself, the King wrote, ‘May God bless and protect you my dear boy is the earnest prayer of your very devoted Papa. You can be sure that you are constantly in my thoughts.’25

  To the Prince’s dismay, his chronic ill health prevented him from giving full wartime service. He had an appendectomy in September 1914, and over the next three years severe gastric problems forced him to spend long periods in sick bays or convalescing at home.

  ‘I am longing and have been longing for centuries to get back to my ship,’ he wrote, and at last in May 1916 his wish was granted.26 He was thus aboard Collingwood when she was ordered into action against the Germans at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. He later wrote a lengthy factual account of what had happened, concluding with his own impressions:

  At the commencement I was sitting on the top of A turret and had a very good view of the proceedings. I was up there during a lull, when a German ship started firing at us, and one salvo ‘straddled’ us. We at once returned the fire. I was distinctly startled and jumped down the hole in the top of the turret like a shot rabbit!! I didn’t try the experience again. The ship was in a fine state on the main deck. Inches of water sluicing about to prevent fires getting a hold on the deck. Most of the cabins were also flooded.

  The hands behaved splendidly and all of them in the best of spirits as their heart’s desire had at last been granted, which was to be in action with the Germans.27

  He was disappointed that his ship had not played a more important part in the battle that day. But perhaps he was fortunate, because the losses were terrible.

  By July 1916 the Prince’s stomach pains were worse than ever and he was diagnosed as suffering from a duodenal ulcer. After months of convalescence he joined the battleship Malaya. Shortly afterwards Louis Greig, the naval doctor who had looked after him at Osborne and had been ship’s surgeon in the Cumberland, was appointed to the Malaya too. Prince Albert was delighted. Already a friend, Greig came to play an important role in his life, not just as doctor but as mentor. His wise medical advice won him the trust of the King as well, and this led to his appointment as equerry to the Prince. Fifteen years older, and a first-class rugby player, he did not usurp the role of the King as father but he became the man in whom the diffident young Prince found it most easy to confide. From 1917 onwards Greig was constantly by the Prince’s side, advising him on matters spiritual, temporal and romantic, and the Prince acknowledged how much he owed to Greig in helping him onward towards maturity.

  The Prince’s health did not improve in the course of 1917 and Greig supported his desire for an operation to relieve his gastric problems, over the usual objections of cautious royal doctors. The operation, in November, was successful; it was evident that the Prince could have been saved two years of pain and anguish. In February 1918, fully recovered, he transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service, which was soon to join with the Royal Flying Corps to become the Royal Air Force. He reported for duty at the new flight training school at Cranwell in Lincolnshire and became the first member of the Royal Family to take to the air, a dangerous venture in those early days of flight. (After the war was over, he continued his training and passed the required flying tests, although he was not allowed to fly solo.)

  By the autumn of 1918, with the German army collapsing in retreat, the Prince was keen to see action once more and was delighted to be posted to Major General Trenchard’s Air Force staff in northern France. Soon after, on 11 November, the Armistice was declared and the King wrote to his son, ‘The great day has come and we have won the war. It has been a long time coming but I was sure if we stuck to it, we should win & it is a great victory over one of the most perfect military machines ever created.’28

  The end of the war brought the monarchy anxiety as well as relief. Revolution had swept across Europe, and in early 1919 demobilization led to serious disorders which frightened many people into thinking that revolution could curse Britain as
well. The government had planned badly, ordering those called up last to be demobilized first. This caused understandable anger among the longer-serving men; there were riots in Glasgow and Belfast and Luton Town Hall was burned down by a mob. Winston Churchill was transferred to the War Office and completely rewrote the demobilization plan, introducing a new scheme which allowed the longest serving and the wounded to be released first. This quelled any prospective mutinies but industrial relations deteriorated during 1919 as more and more aggrieved soldiers returned to their workplaces and discovered that the ‘homes fit for heroes’ promised by the government would be a long time in coming.

  The radical New Statesman complained: ‘Meanwhile, round about, shoots are going on, hounds are killing or drawing blank. Estimates are being prepared for the refitting of yachts. The merits of rival designs for new motor cars are being discussed, and dodges for enticing young women into domestic service … And the necessity of a bathroom for each guest room in the after war house is frankly admitted. It is almost astonishing: it is wildly funny, having regard to the fact that millions of people are starving in Europe.’29 Unemployment soared and strikes proliferated. There was talk of the Red Flag flying over Buckingham Palace. Anger at the sacrifices demanded of everyone during the war was widely felt, and the dread of class war if not of Bolshevism spread among the establishment and the middle classes.

  In the so-called khaki election that Lloyd George called at the end of 1918, which was the first time that women were allowed to vote, his Coalition government comprising Conservatives and one wing of the Liberal Party was returned with a large majority. Asquith and his (Independent) Liberals were swept away, and Labour became the largest party in opposition. Nevertheless discontent grew.

  The King had long been conscious of the danger. He was remarkably well informed about public opinion and was given intelligent advice by friends of the monarchy.* He took it. As the historian Frank Prochaska later observed, ‘the Crown did not lack initiative or resolve. Galvanized by the drift of politics and social malaise, it could do something positive to protect itself.’30 The King deliberately sought to strengthen the ties of affection and respect between Crown and people. In the latter part of the war he and the Queen had redoubled their visits to the armed forces, munitions factories, hospitals and other institutions up and down the land; and Colonel Clive Wigram, the King’s Assistant Private Secretary, had successfully campaigned for better press coverage of their work.† In 1917 the King had founded the Order of the British Empire, which opened up the honours system to the mass of the people, both in Britain and throughout the Empire, a hugely popular measure. The same year he had dropped the Royal Family’s German titles and adopted the name of Windsor for the dynasty. Now, in the post-war climate of social unrest, the King was urged to cultivate contacts with the Labour movement and to take an active interest in the problems of the working classes. The people must be persuaded, his Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham argued, to regard the Crown as ‘a living power for good’.31

  To advance such aims, both at home and in the Empire, the King’s advisers encouraged him also to increase the public appearances of his elder sons and his daughter. At Lloyd George’s suggestion, the Prince of Wales was sent on a series of lengthy imperial tours, beginning with Canada, to convey the King’s thanks to the countries which had come to Britain’s aid in the war. As for Prince Albert, he was given an unprecedented task – to establish closer royal links with the world of industry.

  In the words of his biographer, this was ‘a veritable terra incognita to the Royal Family’,32 but by a lucky chance the Rev. Robert Hyde, who had founded the Boys’ Welfare Association in July 1918, decided to seek royal patronage just as Prince Albert returned from France in early 1919. The organization, which was soon broadened into the Industrial Welfare Society, aimed to improve basic conditions for workers, and thus, it was hoped, improve industrial relations.

  The King approved the idea of Prince Albert becoming president of the Association. Prince Albert willingly accepted, ‘provided there’s no damn red carpet about it’.33 He began work at once, visiting factories and other industrial sites across the land; he soon won the praise of the popular press for his unostentatious style and sense of purpose. He showed a keen interest in the places he visited and helped raise enough money to put the society on a sound footing. Over the years he came to acquire a unique first-hand knowledge of the workings of different industries throughout the kingdom; there is no doubt that his work helped reinforce the bonds between monarch and people.34

  In October 1919 Prince Albert was sent for a year to Trinity College, Cambridge, with his younger brother Prince Henry, and under the watchful eye of the benign Louis Greig. There he studied history, economics and civics, and in particular the development of the British constitution.35 He was not confined to Cambridge, but was frequently called to London and elsewhere, whether on behalf of the Industrial Welfare Society or for other royal representational duties.

  But all was not work. Both the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert were keen to have their share of the gaieties of post-war social life. The King, however, worried incessantly about his sons and the new world in which they lived. Although active and conscientious in fulfilling their public duties, in private the King and Queen preferred dignified seclusion, eating alone with each other, protected by the walls of their palaces from the post-war kaleidoscope of socialism, jazz and fast young women. (The King especially feared the last for their ability to corrupt his sons.)36 And so, it must be said, the overriding quality of the Royal Family’s homes was tedium. Prince Albert told his mother’s lady in waiting Lady Airlie that even Ascot week at Windsor was boring. ‘No new blood is ever introduced, and as the members of the party grow older every year there’s no spring in it, and no originality in the talk – nothing but a dreary acquiescence in the order of the day. No one has the exciting feeling that if they shine they will be asked again next summer – they know they will be automatically, as long as they are alive. Traditionalism is all very well, but too much of it leads to dry rot.’37

  Yet the King and Queen could not afford to discourage youth and ‘new blood’, especially in the form of well-born young ladies for their sons to meet. In 1917, as a logical next step to casting off their German titles, they had decided that their children should be allowed to choose British spouses,* rather than looking to royal families abroad (many of which were German or with German origins) for spouses of equal rank. Not long afterwards Queen Mary had begun to make enquiries about suitable girls, and even to invite them to Ascot parties.† She was not a natural matchmaking mama, however; these efforts cannot have come easily to so reserved a person.

  At this stage in his life Prince Albert was particularly close to his brother the Prince of Wales. Indeed they shared romantic secrets. At first both had seemed attracted by girls of good family of whom their parents might have approved – the Prince of Wales by Portia (Lady Sybil) Cadogan, daughter of Earl Cadogan, and Lady Rosemary Leveson-Gower, daughter of the Duke of Sutherland, and Prince Albert by Lady Maureen Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Lord Londonderry’s daughter, one of the girls Queen Mary had invited to Ascot.

  In 1918, however, the Prince of Wales fell deeply in love with a married woman, Freda Dudley Ward. She was pretty, amusing and intelligent, married to a man sixteen years her senior from whom she had drifted apart. As if in emulation of his brother, in 1919 Prince Albert became infatuated with a close friend of Freda, another unhappily married woman, whom he had met at a ball at the end of 1918.38 She was Lady Loughborough, née Sheila Chisholm,* a beautiful Australian whose marriage to Lord Loughborough, eldest son of the Earl of Rosslyn, had suffered because of his alcoholism and gambling. According to Lady Loughborough’s memoirs, she and Freda often danced with the two Princes at balls, ‘which annoyed some of the dowagers. However, we didn’t care. We knew no party was complete without us – and them!’39†

  News of Prince Albert’s friendship with Sheila Loughbo
rough eventually came to his parents’ ears, and it added greatly to the worry their eldest son’s liaison was already giving them. The King had intended to make Prince Albert a duke in June 1920, when his year at Cambridge was over, and at the same time to give him his own establishment and financial independence. But Prince Albert’s relationship with a married woman, and the risk of a scandal if she divorced, threatened to undo much of the good work, to which the Prince himself had contributed so much, in consolidating the monarchy and winning over disaffected public opinion.

  In April 1920 the King confronted his second son. ‘He is going to make me Duke of York on his birthday provided that he hears nothing more about Sheila & me!!!!’ wrote the Prince to his elder brother, now away on his second tour, to New Zealand and Australia.40 He felt trapped, for at twenty-four he longed for his independence. Although he privately railed against his father and declared to his brother that Sheila was ‘the one & only person in this world who means anything to me’, it is evident that his feelings were not as deep as his brother’s for Freda. He explained the situation to Sheila, who was understanding and promised to remain friends, and in May he accepted his father’s terms.41

  The King created him duke of York on 3 June, and wrote him a letter that, like many of his letters to his children, expressed the affection which his gruffness so often concealed from them in person: