The Spy Who Painted the Queen

by Phil Tomaselli

  The attorney general interrupted him to refer to a letter from Madame van Riemsdyk dated 2 September 1916 in which she said, ‘Do not start at the size of this envelope. I have received so many letters for you during the last days that I could not possibly send them all as they came in.’ She asked him to request that his family send fewer letters, but promised to continue sending his letters out that way. An excerpt from a letter from her, dated 7 May 1917, was read out, and it was pointed out that the letter was carrying a London stamp and postmark, proof that it had entered the country via the bag. When it was put to De László that he had been made aware that use of the bag was frowned upon on 3 August 1916, he said that he had not considered whether there was a problem with her continuing to use it, adding, ‘Both our consciences are clear. We did nothing wrong.’ When asked why, if there wasn’t a problem he had asked her not to use the bag herself, he said this was after his interview with the director of public prosecutions: ‘after I had all this complication and unpleasantness I must have asked my wife to write to Madame van Riemsdyk not to send because they do not like it here.’ When it was pointed out that in her evidence Madame van Riemsdyk had denied receiving any request to stop using the bag, De László was able to score one point – he told the attorney general that he had seen a copy of his wife’s letter requesting exactly that at his interview with Thomson!

  The attorney general then turned to the question of De László’s knowledge of the rights and wrongs of using the bag. Did censorship ever come to mind while he was doing it? De László denied this, but a letter he had written in October 1914 was produced in which he had referred clearly to censorship. He was then asked about an attempt to get a letter through to Sweden without going through censorship. This he declined to answer because it was, apparently, an effort made by his wife to use her maid as a courier that he had only recently found out about. He was reminded that he had communicated through Italy and through Switzerland, and admitted he had sent a postcard to Baron Mayendorff in Madrid via the American ambassador as well as having written to Mr Winthrop Bowen enquiring about using him as a means of forwarding letters. He was certainly well aware of the rules about censorship and use of the mail generally.

  They then turned to the Bath Police visit in 1915. De László denied point blank that he had been issued any warning by Inspector Marshfield (despite Marshfield’s statement). After many interruptions from ‘Soapy Simon’, the president said, ‘It was not a warning against sending money, but it might have been to some extent a warning. At any rate the policeman thought the means of communication improper.’

  De László was asked when he ceased sending remittance abroad, the answer being 2 June 1916, and he explained that it was because his brother-in-law had warned him that he should not be sending money out of the country during wartime. This, he said, was the first warning he had received. He denied that he had stopped sending it because Madame van Riemsdyk had warned him that things were becoming ‘rather complicated’, and had asked him to send it via Blydensteins; in fact he did send one remittance that way before stopping of his own accord. He hadn’t understood what she meant by becoming ‘rather complicated’, and had made up his mind on his own following his brother-in-law’s advice. When Baron Mayendorff had mentioned his family during a sitting and asked whether there was anything he could do to help, De László had explained that no money could leave the country and Mayendorff himself had offered to take a cheque he would pay into a British account he held and then transmit the amount from an account abroad. It was on receipt of a letter from his brother, complaining that the money had never arrived, that he had had a visit from the Metropolitan Police warning him about it. Six months later he had received another warning from the director of public prosecutions.

  After a brief reference to the Horn incident, the attorney general turned to what had been said to Basil Thomson about the letters to Hungary. Though the interview transcript said that he had only written to ‘my own people’, De László (who denied saying it) admitted he had also written to Baron Forster and sent a greeting to the bishop, and had forwarded a letter via Italy (which he had not mentioned in the interview when asked). He admitted having given a letter to Mayendorff to give to his wife to forward to Hungary from Switzerland, prompting the question, ‘Does it occur to you that you have shown no little persistence, ingenuity, and resource in making and receiving communications with Hungary throughout the war?’ He admitted that he knew now that it was wrong and regretted it very much; all his letters had been in good faith and he had not written anything about the war or mentioned anything that was not about family matters. His conscience was clear.

  Re-examination by Sir John Simon began with a simple question: ‘In whatever you have done, have you acted honestly?’ to which the answer came, ‘Honestly.’ Regarding the reason given for the naturalisation, Soapy Simon pointed out that the form of words used was actually a direct copy of the guide for completion and suggested that the form had simply been filled in by the solicitor’s clerk as a standard piece of work.

  He then turned to the letter in The Star, reproduced in November 1914, pointing out that Arthur Balfour was not a lord (he wasn’t ennobled until 1922) and that Guinness was not a member of Parliament. He also read out speeches that had been made in parliament by Asquith and Bonar Law, at about the date the letter was written, which praised Austria-Hungary and the emperor himself. The sentiment about Serbia, he said, was actually in keeping with the patriotic mood in Britain at the time. The letter was clearly an extract from a much longer one and, it was pointed out, De László’s German was not good (an expert had looked over some of his correspondence and pointed out that he did not know the spelling of common words and his sentence construction was peculiar). The implication was that the translation was, at best, highly debateable.

  Mention was made of a conversation De László had had with an expert in international law in 1912 about the process of getting naturalised and of an article in Pall Mall in which his intention of making England his home was quite clearly spelt out. Quotes were given from a letter from his sister, written in 1915, in which she said she had found three old letters from before the war in which he had told the family ‘of being an Englishman’. De László agreed he had expressed this desire to a number of people, both British and Hungarian, long before the war ‘or rumour of war was ever heard of’.

  Sir John then mentioned various items of correspondence which he would like to have seen in court but which, unfortunately, were among those that had gone missing. Thomson had said he had sent the papers to MI5 and it had sent them either to the Treasury Solicitor or the Home Office, but now they couldn’t be found. The ‘precious postcard to your wife’s maid with the alarming letter “L” on it’, upon which De László had been questioned and had been unable to identify “L”, was dismissed, as De László said he was not in the habit of reading servants’ mail.

  As it was getting late and Sir John hoped to interview Mrs De László it was decided to adjourn for the day.

  Day Five

  Lucy De László gave evidence that their children had all been brought up to be loyal to the British Crown and no other country. She said her husband had discussed naturalisation before 1914, and it had been her idea to correspond with his family through a neutral country. She confirmed her husband’s evidence that she had written twice to Madame van Riemsdyk asking her to stop using the diplomatic bag for correspondence once she had discovered, from Mr Wyatt Williams, that it was an incorrect thing to do. The first letter had apparently not been received, so she had written again. She had written because her husband’s grasp of German was peculiar. On being cross-examined she admitted that in marrying she had lost her nationality. She said her husband had decided to become British when he was ennobled by the Austrian emperor in 1912, but had thought that there was no reason to rush. It was only when their son was approaching 14, the age that would give Austria-Hungary a future claim on him for military service, tha
t he decided to proceed. She said that the loss of British nationality would be a terrible disaster. She was unable to explain why Madame van Riemsdyk’s daughter had written to her on 25 March 1915 saying that her mother would see her brother about forwarding letters. The suggestion about the future use of the diplomatic bag had been made by Madame van Riemsdyk and had been used since February that year.

  Other witnesses spoke up for De László. Lord Lee said he was ‘a person of great and at times embarrassing candour and of great honesty, and he was incapable of treacherous conduct’. He said he had first arranged to become a sponsor for the naturalisation in April 1914 and had urged De László to press on with it in July as he was ill and might not be able to help him in future. Sir John Lavery, the artist, testified that as far as he knew, no other artist had done as much for charity during the war and that he had a high opinion of De László’s character and good faith. Mr John Hassall, who ran an art school in Earls Court, described him as a man of the highest honesty who wouldn’t hurt a living animal, and his sons as model British boys. Mrs Margaret Warrender, who had known him since 1900, said she had spoken to him about naturalisation before 1912. She said that, even though De László knew she had brothers in high public service, he had never asked her for information. Colonel Repington, former military correspondent of The Times, said the same. After three more witnesses gave similar evidence, the chairman said it was unnecessary to call any more character witnesses.

  After two more minor witnesses gave evidence and the two sides summarised their cases, the committee retired to consider. It was 3.37 p.m. They returned at 3.52 p.m. Their deliberations had taken fifteen minutes, less than that if you assume a couple of minutes at either end simply to get to and from the room in which they made them.

  Mr Justice Salter then gave a long statement regarding whether it was necessary in the public interest to revoke De László’s Certificate of Naturalisation. No man, he said, could give up his nationality of origin without severe mental conflict, so that was the letter to his brother dismissed. The sending of money to assist his family did not, in the circumstances, show that De László was disaffected or disloyal. The committee was satisfied that the sending of correspondence through the Dutch bag was only for safety and rapidity of transit, and that it was ‘impossible to imagine anything more innocent’. When it came to the Horn incident, it was clearly a breach of the law and a serious one. When it came to De László’s behaviour, ‘No justification can be found for his behaviour, but it is not difficult to find a certain amount of excuse.’ He had been taken unawares and ‘he had not sufficient decision to do the right thing at that time’, but, after consideration, he had gone to the police and it was through him that Horn had been arrested. When it came to deciding if his behaviour showed that he was disloyal or disaffected with the country or the king, it depended on whether he had acted as he did because Horn was an enemy of the country or whether he intended Horn should escape to join the Austrian army. The committee had decided that ‘his conduct was not actuated by any hostility to this country or in favour of enemies of this country … but solely because he was a fugitive in distress who threw himself upon his mercy and hospitality’.

  The Winthrop Bowen incident was dismissed because the committee decided that he had offered to send letters for De László, but that De László had neither asked him to do so nor taken up the offer. The author’s reading of, ‘Yes. By all means send me any letters you wish me to forward’ is that this is a response to a request, not an offer conjured out of thin air, but it is, I suppose, debateable.

  The general tenor of all the correspondence examined, both to and from his relatives, was purely of a family nature and neither side expressed any disloyalty to its side nor any hostility to the other (though it was pointed out that the Austrian censor would not allow such material through anyway).

  Lastly:

  Mr László has been vouched as an honourable man and a loyal man by a considerable body of respectable witnesses, nearly all of whom have had good opportunity of forming an opinion, and several of whom, at any rate, are people who would not be likely to be easily deceived.

  The various matters on which De László had been brought before the committee were gone over again, before, with some comments about the efficiency of the authorities in identifying a possibly serious matter during the course of the war and acting upon it, Mr Justice Salter concluded:

  We have enquired into this matter at considerable length. We have had every possible material and every possible assistance from Counsel on both sides, and we are satisfied that we have probed this matter to the bottom. We find it to be free from difficulty, and we have arrived at the conclusion, first, as I have already said, that no disloyalty or disaffection has been proved; next, that although there have been breaches of the law in regard to the money, and the carriage of letters, they were inadvertent and stopped when discovered; and with regard to the Horn incident, and to the case generally, we are satisfied that there has not been on the part of Mr László any conduct which would merit or justify the withdrawal from him of the British citizenship which he enjoys.

  De László was cleared on all counts, after less than fifteen minutes’ deliberation.

  De László: Preferential Treatment

  It’s worth comparing the result of De László’s hearing with that of Caroline Hanemann. There was no question raised at her hearing of her having broken any laws or regulations. There had been rumours about her but they had been investigated by MI5 and found to be unproven. She had written to her family in Germany during the war but her letters had all gone through Thomas Cook, the recognised intermediary. She had done her bit in a small way for the war by making things for distressed folk and soldiers, but obviously hadn’t had the kind of money that would have allowed her to make substantial investments in war bonds. In her own way she had produced good men and women to testify for her in her naturalisation – local worthies and officials – and her mistress’s doctor had written to the committee commending her for the medical help she gave her. Her reason for not naturalising earlier was simply because she had never considered the possibility of war. She was stripped of her British nationality.

  De László had broken the rules on trading with the enemy; he clearly knew more about the censorship rules than he admitted and went out of his way to avoid them. He had, whatever he said, given aid to an escaped prisoner of war in the form of money and had taken over twenty-four hours to report it to the police, which would have given Horn plenty of time to escape had he thought about it. De László, too, had been investigated by MI5 and, though it was unable to prove anything in a court of law, it had certainly had good reason to suspect him. It had taken the committee two-and-a-half months to let Caroline know that she was to be stripped of her naturalisation. It took less than fifteen minutes to decide that De László was not to be, and to tell him as much. It couldn’t even be argued that the armistice had taken place in the meantime; Caroline’s interview had been before the armistice but the decision was clearly taken afterwards. In both cases the country was still technically at war.

  If the Hanemann verdict was fair, then the De László verdict was a disgrace, and vice versa.

  Despite the result, MI5 was clearly not ashamed of the case. On 28 June 1919 (the day after the hearing concluded), Major Anson wrote a paragraph for the Report on Cable Censorship in which he said:

  A good instance of the value of Cable Censorship from our point of view, even when there is no ultimate conviction for espionage, is the well-known case of Philip de László. In this case our attention was first drawn to László by a suspicious telegram to Holland in February 1915, submitted by your section.

  De László – John Bull

  There was, the press reported, an excited buzz of conversation around the court following the verdict, and members of the audience pressed their congratulations upon De László and his wife. Most of the papers reported the matter in a straightforward manner, but ther
e were popular periodicals that turned on him with a vengeance. Right-wing MP Horatio Bottomley, editor of John Bull, returned to the attack. An article headed ‘The Peace That Passeth Understanding – Whitewashing De László’ launched a scathing blast, accusing the people in high places of scurrying to defend one of their own. He quite flatly stated, ‘László played the traitor, defied the laws made to safeguard and protect us in the war with the despicable Hun’, and, ‘The verdict of the Naturalisation (Revocation) Committee is a scandalous miscarriage of justice.’

  The article went on to remind readers that De László had not been interned in a hurry, that he had been committing his offences for months before the police took action, that the committee had considered his case over many days, that the home secretary had confirmed the internment, and that a subsequent review in December 1917 had continued to keep De László a prisoner.

  Bottomley pointed out that De László was ‘rich, with influential friends’, and lamented the appearance of one member of the government (the attorney general) eloquently setting out his offences while another, the chancellor of the exchequer, stood in the witness box ‘with his hand on his heart, if not tears in his eyes, proclaiming his integrity and honour’. He questioned why Mrs Max Muller had not been called to give her evidence, the same point applying to Mr Henry Vincent Higgins MVO who had also promised to reveal conversations he had had with De László. He demanded an explanation from the attorney general. He also berated Sir John Simon for describing De László ‘as one of the greatest artists the world has ever seen’, and the director of public prosecutions who ‘thought it consistent with his position and duty to the state to declare that De László had erred from “noble motives”’.