by John Matson
King George and Queen Mary took the wartime food shortages very seriously and rationed themselves and their Household like everyone else. Vegetables were planted and grown at Sandringham where once there had been flower-beds, and much of the produce was diverted to where it was most needed. Meals were always on the dot, and those who were late got nothing:
One was late if the clock sounded when one was on the stairs, even in a small house like York Cottage… The point was that there was just enough and no more for everyone; but as most people helped themselves too generously, there was nothing left for the person who came last. (Captain) Godfrey-Faussett was kept on the telephone one day and came into the dining-room after everyone else had sat down. He found nothing to eat and immediately rang the bell and asked for a boiled egg. The King accused him of being a slave to his inside, of unpatriotic behaviour, and even went so far as to hint that we should lose the war on account of his gluttony.204
At the instigation of Mr Lloyd George, the King announced that he and his Household would renounce alcohol for the duration of the war. ‘I hate doing it,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘but hope it will do good.’205 Later, he was to express his disappointment in the lack of public response to the real sacrifice he had made. But perhaps his abstinence was not total: years afterwards, the Duke of Windsor suggested that the ‘small matter of business’ the King attended to after dinner concerned a glass of port. Cider, however, was deemed non-alcoholic.
Some record of the peaceful occasions during those four years of horror was kept by Mrs Nora Wigram, wife of the King’s Assistant Private Secretary. Captain Clive Wigram of the Indian Army had been appointed an Extra Equerry to Prince George when, as Prince of Wales, he visited India in 1905. Four years later, Major Wigram became a member of the Household as an Equerry and Assistant Secretary, deputising for the Private Secretary, Lord Stamfordham, during the latter’s illness. The King reported to Lord Stamfordham, ‘Wigram has done quite splendidly: never made a mistake: is simply a glutton for work, besides being a charming fellow. I am indeed lucky in having found a man like him.’206 Mrs Wigram was a frequent visitor to Sandringham, staying at Park House. She herself possessed sterling qualities: such a position required a certain resilience of temperament, and her letters to her mother, Lady Chamberlain, reflect a pleased surprise as she learned that the King and Queen appreciated her on her own merits. ‘This is such a charming little house; it gets every ray of sun, and is so beautifully fresh and bright. You would love it,’ Mrs Wigram wrote to her mother.
It is just the sort of house I should love to have for my own. We continue to lead our homely existence. On Wednesday they asked me down to lunch at York Cottage. I rang the front door bell and who should come and open the door to me but the King! I little thought I should live to have the door opened to me by the King of England.
Clive wasn’t lunching. The usual homely meal followed. I sat by the King and the conversation was vy general – all the company had table napkin rings – the King said, ‘I quite refuse to use one, and I like a clean napkin every day.’ Whereupon the Queen remarked rather tartly from her end of the table, ‘You don’t encourage me at all in my war economies’ – Such a simple lunch only pheasant and chocolate soufflé. I shall never have any qualms at inviting T.M.s to any meal.
The Queen carried me off to a village concert with the children and herself, alone. Such a concert, I really think the Castle Knock ones used to be better. However, she was most happy and cheerful over it and was convulsed with joy over the efforts of the funny man – a fat sergt in the Black Watch.
We see the King and Queen every day, one way and another. On Thursday she came over to this house to inspect it all – I was out of doors and returned to find her here and she greeted me with – ‘My dear, we have been inspecting your rooms and I do apologise that you have no cushions on your sofa.’ Meanwhile, she had bounced into Carrie’s room and had a chat to her, sat in her chair and asked her if it was comfortable. Carrie’s face was pink with excitement which deepened later in the day when she received a box of chocolates with a little card attached on which was written by the Queen herself: ‘To Mrs Wigram’s maid from the Queen, wishing her a happy new year.’
The King and Princess Victoria joined us while C. and I were playing golf yesterday morning, and the King was most helpful in his efforts to find our lost golf balls. Clive thinks they are going to stay here until the end of the month… The Prince of Wales and Prince Albert arrived here last night… I have not seen them yet.207
Meanwhile, Queen Alexandra lived on in the Big House nearby in much the same style as before. Generous as ever, despite heavy taxation, she could see no necessity for economies in her establishment. As always, her rooms were filled with flowers but in the grounds, owing to the shortage of staff, some of the old horses, which it had given her great happiness to see retired in the park, had to be put down.
‘It breaks my heart that this cruel, wicked, beastly war should be the cause of so many of my precious old friends my horses being slaughtered after all these years,’ she declared. But the kennels were left unscathed. ‘My kennels and my dogs,’ she said firmly, ‘I will not have touched: I will rather keep them out of my own pocket.’208 It did not occur to her that she had always paid for their upkeep. Her generosity was proverbial, and often exploited. Her Controller, Sir Dighton Probyn once expressed a wish to retire but, on being pressed to remain, he agreed, hoping that once ‘the Blessed Lady’s’ affairs were in order the work would become lighter. Alas, he hoped for the impossible: like the Duchess of Teck, Queen Alexandra had no idea of the meaning of money: every applicant for alms was given £10 as a matter of course. Once, when it pointed out that the applicant was serving a prison sentence, her reply was, ‘Send the man £10; he will want it when he comes out.’209 During the war, she gave thousands of pounds to charities. Whenever an attempt was made to explain her financial situation, she feigned deafness. In her youth she had been accustomed to – comparative – poverty; as Princess of Wales she had been accustomed to every luxury, even extravagance, and her artless character rejoiced at what seemed to her a bottomless well of gold. She was uninterested in the acquisition of wealth; for her the sentimental value of an article was everything. It was far too late to try to change her ways.
Down at York Cottage members of the Royal family arrived whenever they could be spared from their war duties. At this new year of 1917 there were times when they were all together.
After lunch Clive and I walked down to York Cottage, and then the walking cavalcade set out – such a party. The King and Queen, Prince of Wales, Princess Mary and Princes Henry, Albert and George. The little P. of W. has filled out a good deal, I think. Nice looking boy and much more talkative, but such a Baby still – he and Prince Albert walking about arm in arm – singing comic songs, and most typically English. Clive says the little Prince thinks fit to use the most appalling language – the correct thing in the Guards, I suppose! Tomorrow we are to have a cinematograph show of the Battle of the Ancre, which ought to be interesting. It seems curious to know the Royal family on such intimate terms – they are always so pleasant and friendly.210
Such a horrid day here – series of snow showers – I don’t mean it in a blasé way, but really I got rather bored this afternoon! The King asked me to come for a walk with them…. and we all trooped forth – the whole party – and dawdled through the gardens and then on to the stables, and it was bitterly cold. Then the children got lost purposely: the King said they were always trying to evade him (quite true!) and then the dog got lost – then Godfrey-Faussett got lost looking for the dog!! By that time the King was awfully cross – and we were all shuffling around to keep warm – finally the King and Queen said goodbye – and Princess Mary and the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert all walked home with me. They were quite cheerful and entirely flippant! – writing their names in the snow. Poor boys – a very boring afternoon for them. We had rather an interesting man here last night; he is th
e confidential adviser to the King of Denmark; Mr Anderson. He comes and has long talks with the King about affairs in Germany and elsewhere, for he often goes to Berlin. One is inclined to wonder if he is quite ‘all right’. However, I fancy they are careful about what they let him see and hear… He was quite interesting about Russia… says the new Prime Minister is the worst possible selection – he belongs to the Reactionary class, who are all pro-German. He says anything may happen in Russia – a great deal depends on the Czar but he is undependable in that he is so superstitious. If the Empress comes to him and says, ‘I dreamt such and such a thing and it succeeded,’ the Czar is quite likely to go off and do it. He also said, ‘The Empress is mad.’211
In fact, Mr Anderson was a reliable source of information. He had built up large business interests in Denmark and had become acquainted with the Danish Royal Family. Through them he was introduced to King George, the German Emperor and the Czar and his business enabled him to travel widely through Europe in the midst of the war; he was thus well placed to assess the situation within Germany and Russia.
Other events during the four years of war disturbed the tranquillity of life at York Cottage. As it was, the King spent little enough time there, but after Christmas in 1915 he broke his holiday to return to London to preside over a crisis within the Government; the issue was concerned with the Military Service Bill under which single men aged between eighteen and forty-one would be compelled to attest their willingness to serve with the colours. The King strongly supported the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, and the threat of massive resignations of Ministers receded. The following year David Lloyd-George, the War Minister, convinced that the war was not being conducted with sufficient determination – a feeling shared by the general public, who were confused by the terrible losses on the Somme – proposed to establish a War Council over which he would preside. This was unacceptable to the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith who, with several of his Liberal colleagues, tendered their resignation. The King was anxious to avoid a general election in wartime and asked Lloyd-George to form a Government to ensure the survival of the coalition. Shortly after he had come into office, Germany sent a Peace Note to the American Embassy in London, which was a gesture designed to cloak plans for unrestricted submarine warfare to defeat the Allied blockade on Germany. The King, briefed by Mr Anderson and with first-hand knowledge of the effects of this blockade, urged caution in the wording of the reply. In the result, though, the Allies made such demands as to preclude any possibility of a meaningful interchange of views.
Thus the King found himself constantly at the centre of problems of critical national importance, exercising his right, defined by Walter Bagehot, ‘to be consulted, to encourage and to warn’. Whether his judgment was always right is arguable. Certainly he supported Sir Douglas Haig, the British Commander-in-Chief replacing Sir John French, when questions of policy or command arose. Haig enjoyed the King’s confidence: his wife, Dorothy, had been a Maid of Honour to Queen Alexandra and he had been a visitor to Sandringham for nearly twenty years. When public confidence in his policy of a ‘war of attrition’ wavered after the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), where a third of a million casualties were suffered for a gain of 4 miles of shell-crater and mud, his conviction that he received ‘divine inspiration’ was strengthened by the King’s support. Detached from political argument and free to travel to mine and munitions factories and service units at home and abroad, together with briefings from war committees, the King was in a unique position to make a personal assessment of public sentiment, rather than military strategy.
Meanwhile, visits, and visiting, continued at Sandringham:
York Cottage, Jan 21, 1917. We have a clergyman staying here today, Mr Temple – of St. James’, Piccadilly. He had travelled in Germany a lot previous to the war… on one occasion he was talking to some eminent German scholar, and was saying to him how much better he thought it would be if more powers were delegated to the Reichstag and taken out of the hands of the Emperor. The German said, ‘Good gracious! You do not know what you are talking about. Why! more than 2/3 of the members of the Reichstag are Roman Catholics, and we would far rather have an autocratic sovereign than give the government of the country over to the Church of Rome.’ It is curious how the Religious question always crops up in every country.
We had quite an interesting experience on Friday. Princess Victoria invited us to come over to Sandringham (the Big House) to see her rooms. All the rooms with the exception of the big Hall and her suite of rooms are shut up. A fine Hall but very early Victorian in the mixture of things; a chandelier which would give one the ‘vertigo’ – blatant brass, with about 30 electric globes, all covered with bright yellow silk, and on the walls some fine Landseer prints… We went upstairs to her rooms – oh! such a collection of things – a real maiden lady’s room. The tables covered with things: little boxes, china rabbits, pigs, penguins, cats – anything you please – photographs galore – all the Royal family and her friends. In her bedroom there is a screen about 5ft high and 4 panels, consisting of nothing but framed photographs let into a white wooden frame. I am sure I have never seen such crowded rooms but she is so proud of them all, showing us everything. She was most affectionate, calling me ‘dear’ all the time.212
‘Here I am in regal surroundings once more,’ wrote Mrs Wigram blithely in September, 1917:
The King and Queen welcomed me so very kindly at the station, and then Clive and I walked up, had a cup of tea, and then played six holes of golf. I was rather disturbed when going to bed to hear that there was a heavy air ‘raid’ in progress over London… I am afraid they will come again, this lovely clear evening, the dirty brutes.
We went off to church this morning… and a nice simple service. A quiet lunch which was followed by a strenuously Royal afternoon. Finally we all sat down to a merry tea party in the garden, where light badinage was exchanged all round, both Queens smoking hard. At last we broke up and shortly we are to go and dine at York Cottage. They are very nice and kind to me. Queen Alexandra is just like a child, isn’t she – there was one terrible moment when she presented a carrot to the groom who was holding one of the race horses, for him to bite! – she warmly invited me to come to see all over Sandringham House.213
At the end of the year Mrs Wigram was again at Sandringham, having recently recovered from chicken-pox. On 26 December she wrote:
I am so glad I managed to struggle down to tea on Christmas Eve to York Cottage for it was quite an experience. We had a select little tea in the drawing room – Their Majesties, Lady Katy, Reggie Seymour and ourselves; the Queen in a very diaphanous green dress with a pretty necklace. I wore my black and blue dress. Toast, biscuits, potato scones, jam and sponge cakes was the fare provided. After tea the Queen rang the bell and when the Page came in she said, ‘Tell the children we are ready, please,’ whereupon there was an avalanche from all directions. The whole party was marshalled, consisting of P. Mary, Princes Albert, Henry and George – Dr Grey, Mlle Dussau and Mr Watts (the boys’ tutor), and we all proceeded into the Billiard Room, where everybody’s presents were collected in little heaps. Lady Katy was the first to be given hers: a very nice pair of sauceboats and a quaint jade paper-cutter. Then to my amazement the Queen called me and they gave me a most charming brooch – too kind of them – it is about 1” square. The groundwork blue-grey enamel surrounded with white enamel and little pearls and then in the middle a diamond ‘GM’ surmounted by a diamond crown; a delightful thing to have and besides that they gave Clive yet another present; a charming coloured reproduction of their picture and that of the Prince of Wales – by Cuye – very nice. Dr Grey and Reggie both received cigarette cases – Mr Watts framed photo of themselves. Mlle. Dussan a gold brooch with enamel decoration and seal coney muff –
Then having bestowed all their generous gifts they opened their own which they were so excited over. The Queen gave him a fine set of sporting books illustrated and a set of black pearl stud
s, and he got – from Princess Victoria, I think, a sort of china goblet and from Queen Alexandra 2 horrid little boxes with her and King Edward’s picture on the lids. The Queen had some delightful things. I was so amused with her. Like every good wife she said, ‘I saw this little box which pleased me and I asked the King to give it to me as his Christmas present.’ All her things were objets d’art; little lacquer boxes, jade ornaments and an old Stuart snuff-box. She had carefully chosen her mother-in-law’s present to herself – a nice little Chinese ornament. Princess Mary had some nice things – a pair of blonde tortoiseshell and diamond hairpins, an ermine muff and stole, and a pretty little hair wreath – a dreadful brilliant blue inkstand from Queen Alexandra – one or two nice little ornaments including a fascinating little George III work box with the most dainty fittings. The boys all got little articles of jewellery – a little pearl and diamond pin for Prince Henry – besides which they always give them silver so that when they marry they may be suitably equipped. It seemed so funny to see Princes Henry and George staggering off with silver toast-racks, salvers, tea-strainers, etc! – They were a very happy little party and I am so glad I did not miss it all.214
For the King and Queen these visits to York Cottage were only brief respites from the growing pressures of the war. Unrest among munitions workers called for tours of industrial areas by members of the Royal family to improve morale; the King visited the Fleet at Scapa Flow; the Queen interested herself especially in the development of artificial limbs at Roehampton for war casualties. The Prince of Wales was begging to be allowed to be of more use on the Western Front, and his disregard for personal safety caused his parents some anxiety. Prince Albert had qualified as a pilot – the first member of the Royal family to do so – and had served in a gun turret in HMS Collingwood during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 despite recurring health problems which ultimately necessitated an operation.
