Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe

by Leslie Carroll

  On April 2, 1916, at a tea party at Spencer House, Elizabeth and Bertie, who was then a twenty-year-old naval lieutenant home on sick leave, crossed paths once again. The event was so forgettable on both sides that four years later he would think they’d never met.

  Elizabeth Bowes Lyon made her society debut in 1919, a year after the armistice. She was immediately popular, although she was the very antithesis of a flapper. Lady Airlie, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary, who was also a friend of the Strathmores, described her as “very unlike the cocktail-drinking, chain-smoking girls who came to be regarded as typical of the nineteen-twenties. Her radiant vitality and a blending of gaiety, kindness and sincerity made her irresistible to men.”

  One of those men had no way of knowing she was already getting astral nudges toward Westminster Abbey.

  At Ascot in June 1919, as Elizabeth was walking toward the royal enclosure, Mrs. Donald Forbes, a clairvoyant who went by the nom de guerre of Gypsy Lee, stopped her and echoed the prediction of the Glamis palmist a decade earlier: “One day you will be Queen—and the mother of a queen.”

  That year, perhaps in an effort to emulate his brother, the Prince of Wales, Bertie became infatuated with a married woman, Lady Loughborough, née Sheila Chisholm, a gorgeous Australian unhappily wed to an alcoholic aristocrat. The monarchs were not amused, greatly displeased to now have two sons who were bounders and cads. In April 1920, the king cut a deal with Bertie: George V intended to provide him with his own establishment and make him Duke of York, but if this was an example of how he intended to conduct himself, then all bets were off. If he wanted his independence and his dukedom, he would have to dump his married paramour. Bertie obliged and was created Duke of York, as well as Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney, on June 5.

  In awarding his son the venerated dukedom, George V wrote, “…I feel that this splendid old title will be safe in your hands & that you will never do anything which could in any way tarnish it….”

  That year (historians can’t seem to agree as to whether the event was the May 20 or June 10 ball hosted by the king’s friend Lord Farquhar, or the July 8 Royal Air Force Ball), Bertie said to his equerry, the Honorable James Stuart, “That’s a lovely girl you’ve been dancing with. Who is she?”

  Soon, Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was in the arms of the Duke of York. “I danced with Prince Albert who I hadn’t known before. He is quite a nice youth,” Elizabeth wrote to her friend Beryl Poignand. But Lady Airlie wrote, “The Duke told me long afterwards that he had fallen in love that evening, although he did not realize it until later.”

  Bertie also didn’t realize that he had competition. James Stuart was a genuine contender for Elizabeth’s hand, and among her suitors was the only one she had feelings for.

  In August, Bertie’s sister, Princess Mary, visited Glamis. She and Elizabeth formed a warm friendship, and it provided an excuse for the duke to come a-courting, inviting himself up from Balmoral to join a house party. Elizabeth was nervous about being left alone with him, especially when their friends contrived to allow them a long stroll à deux, taking a break from the noisy hijinks—practical jokes and parlor games, and the frenetic dancing and loud piano music.

  By November, Bertie had begun to correspond with Elizabeth, and she always replied to his letters with charm and enthusiasm, yet kept him at arm’s length because she remained uncomfortable with his romantic interest in her. The duke sent her a box for Christmas in 1920, and by January he was cautiously courting her. Elizabeth invited him to lunch at St. Paul’s Walden Bury on January 17, but cautioned that her mother was very ill, and so the party would have to be small. Her epistolary style is full of animated, winsome self-deprecation, even as she gives Bertie driving directions.

  [K]eep to the right all the way, till you come to a tumbledown old white gate on the left. Then you go up a bumpy road full of holes, and eventually reach an even more tumbledown old house, and a tumbledown little person waiting on the doorstep—which will be ME!!!…I am Sir, Yours sincerely, Elizabeth Lyon.

  Bertie informed his parents that he intended to ask Elizabeth to marry him. “You’ll be a lucky fellow if she accepts you,” said his blunt-spoken father.

  Bertie proposed on February 27. And she didn’t accept him. “She was frankly doubtful, uncertain of her feelings, and afraid of the public life which would lie ahead of her as the King’s daughter-in-law,” recalled Lady Airlie.

  The following day, Elizabeth wrote to her rejected suitor.

  Dear Prince Bertie, I must write one line to say how dreadfully sorry I am about yesterday. It makes me miserable to think of it—you have been so very nice about it all—please do forgive me. Also please don’t worry about it—, I do understand so well what you feel, and sympathise so much, & I hate to think that I am the cause of it. I honestly can’t explain to you how terribly sorry I am—, it worries me so much to think you may be unhappy—I do hope you won’t be. Anyway we can be good friends can’t we? Please do look on me as one. I shall never say anything about our talks I promise you—and nobody need ever know…. Yours very sincerely, Elizabeth.

  Bertie must have responded, but the letter doesn’t survive. Her reply, however, does.

  Dear Prince Bertie, Thank you so much for your letter, which much relieved my mind. I feel just the same as you do about it, and am so glad…. Yes, I feel I know you so much better this last few weeks—I think it is so much easier to get to know people in the country—even if it’s only for an hour or two—don’t you? One is more natural I expect.

  Bertie was inconsolable. The disappointed mother-in-law-who-might-have-been, Lady Strathmore, wrote to the matchmaking Lady Airlie,

  I have written to the young man as you advised—& told him how truly grieved we are that this little romance has come to an end….

  I do hope that the Queen is not very much annoyed with E. & me, altho’ it wd be quite natural that she shd be, but I shd be so unhappy to cause her (the Queen) any worry in her strenuous life. I hope “he” will find a very nice wife, who will make him happy—as between you & me, I feel he will be “made or marred” by his wife.

  Queen Mary herself arrived at Glamis on September 5. According to Mabell Airlie, “Lady Elizabeth filled her mother’s place as hostess so charmingly that the Queen was more than ever convinced that this was ‘the one girl who could make Bertie happy.’” Lady Airlie wrote, “I always felt that the visit…was inspired by her desire to help him, although she was much too tactful to let it be apparent.” But the queen herself insisted, “I shall say nothing to either of them. Mothers should never meddle in their children’s love affairs.”

  On September 24, Bertie told his mother, “It is delightful here and Elizabeth is very kind to me. The more I see her the more I like her.” She in turn appreciated his solicitousness when it came to her mother’s grave illness. “It is such a help to have the sympathy of one’s friends on these occasions,” Elizabeth wrote the duke. Recognizing that she could both count on and confide in Bertie was an important step in the development of their tentative relationship. So many royal unions, and myriad postwar romances, were rushed affairs, cemented for either dynastic or desperate reasons. It was a huge gamble for Elizabeth to take a step back and seek a friendship first; she risked losing the prince altogether, but she had to know for certain whether she wanted the man, his family, and their lifestyle before committing to him. She had too much integrity to break his heart and too much practicality to apply for a job with The Firm, as England’s royal family is known, a career she already knew she didn’t want.

  The courtship still remained lopsided at Christmas 1921, when Bertie gave Elizabeth a little clock—perhaps because she was perpetually tardy—along with a photo of himself. He received a charming thank-you note, with the apologetic “I wish I had got something to send you too.”

  Over the New Year holiday James Stuart came to say good-bye to Elizabeth, having accepted a job in America. Years later he would claim that Queen Mary intervened to re
move him as a rival for Elizabeth’s affections. There is nothing in the royal archives to substantiate this allegation—which doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true. Many years later when he was king, George VI told Princess Margaret that her mother had almost married Stuart, but he’d gone abroad. While there is no indication that Stuart ever proposed marriage to Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, by her own admission many years later, she viewed him as a “very serious” suitor.

  On February 28, 1922, Elizabeth had her first taste of what it was like to participate in an extravagant royal event when she was a bridesmaid at Princess Mary’s wedding. Unfortunately for Bertie, it didn’t change her mind about wanting to become a member of the family. However, he remained both optimistic and persistent, catching Elizabeth off guard when he popped the question again on March 7. As she had assumed that her first no, given the previous year, had sufficed, she refused the duke again, writing to Bertie the following day to apologize for rejecting him a second time.

  Dear Prince Bertie,

  I am so terribly sorry about what happened yesterday, & feel it is all my fault, as I ought to have known [that he still felt the same way about her as before]. Will you please forgive me? You are one of my best & most faithful friends, & have always been so nice to me—that makes it doubly worse…. If you ever feel you want a talk about things in general—I hope you will come and see me, as I understand you know. I do wish this hadn’t happened. Yours, Elizabeth.

  Bertie replied that afternoon, informing Elizabeth that her note had depressed him.

  I have been thinking over what happened yesterday all today & I feel that you must think so badly of me…. I was entirely in the wrong to bring up the question in the way I did without giving you any warning as to my intentions. Ever since last year I have always been hoping to get to know you better & to let you know my thoughts, but I see that I failed to enlighten you. How were you to guess what they were when we never really had any good talks like we did yesterday? I see it all now and blame myself entirely for what happened.

  …When shall I have a hope of seeing you again as I feel we cannot leave things in this uncertain state. It is so bad & unsettling for us both, & whatever you decide will I know be best for both.

  The pair of them were falling over themselves to accept the blame for misunderstanding each other’s intentions and level of affection, but their frank discussions about it and the fact that they were able to take the time to get to know each other at all depicts one of the first modern royal romances developing in real time. Theirs was hardly an arranged union, and Elizabeth was not a foreign princess, the traditional go-to gals for the British royal family. Most important of all, it was a love match, even if, in the spring of 1922, it was primarily one-sided.

  A few days after she received Bertie’s letter, Elizabeth told him that she was heading up to Scotland. “So we shall not meet for several weeks I expect. Please do try & forget about this,” she urged him.

  He worried that she was fleeing because he was urging his suit once more.

  I do hope I was not the cause…but I feel I must tell you that I have always cared for you & had the hope that you would one day care for me…. But I know you will keep it a secret from everyone else in this world as I shall. This letter as you may imagine is one which I have found very difficult to write & I only hope that you will always look upon me as more than an ordinary friend. If you will do this I shall feel much happier after what has happened. Ever, Yours very sincerely, Albert.

  Elizabeth had confided in her mother, but Bertie had not told his parents about the second proposal. The queen managed to learn of it nonetheless, writing in May 1922 to Lady Strathmore to tell her that both she and the king were

  …much disappointed that the little “romance” has come to an end as we should so much have liked the connection with your family. My son feels very sad about it but he is quite good and sensible and they are to remain friends. I hope you and E. will not reproach yourselves in any way, no one can help their feelings & it was far better to be honest…. With my love to you and E. and many regrets.

  By the middle of the year, much to Bertie’s consternation, while he hadn’t entirely given up courting Elizabeth, hoping that her invitation to discuss the matter still might mean “maybe,” he heard that she had received no fewer than five other marriage proposals, some from highly eligible prospects. The only comfort he could derive from this news was that she had rejected these suitors as well. On July 22, he sailed for Dunkirk to perform a royal naval duty and was introduced by his friend the naval doctor Louis Greig to John Campbell Davidson, a member of the Parliamentary delegation to Dunkirk.

  The future Viscount Davidson noticed how unhappy the duke appeared. “He seemed to have reached a crisis in his life and wanted someone to whom he could unburden himself without reserve.” After discussing with Davidson his distaste for the stuffiness and formality at court (both parents were tremendous sticklers), the prince finally came to the point. “He declared that he was desperately in love, but…it seemed quite certain that he had lost the only woman he would ever marry. I told him that however black the situation looked, he must not give up hope; that my wife had refused me consistently before she finally said ‘yes,’ and that like him, if she had persisted in her refusal, I would never have married anyone else.”

  Davidson despaired for his friend. “The question was, what was he to do? He could not live without her, and certainly he would never marry anyone else.”

  Bertie kept himself busy with royal engagements throughout the autumn of 1922, but he spent time with Elizabeth during the weekend of November 24, when her father invited the duke to come shooting at St. Paul’s Walden Bury. The young couple had a marvelous time, but Elizabeth grew concerned that their continued friendship might give rise to gossip of something more between them, even though she had quashed that possibility. Elizabeth and Bertie crossed paths a few times that December at parties and dances and continued to correspond, which concerned the queen. Her Majesty worried that all this togetherness only set her son up for further heartbreak.

  Poor Lady Airlie was deputized as a go-between once more, pointedly asking Elizabeth to stay away from the upcoming Pytchley Ball because her presence would only upset the duke—though the request was expressed so tactfully and discreetly that Elizabeth wondered what she had done to upset him. So she wrote to Bertie and the couple commiserated about how the older generation just didn’t understand that not only could they still socialize as friends, but they enjoyed doing so.

  At the end of the year, writing to her friend Beryl Poignand, Elizabeth conceded, “I don’t seem to be able to like anybody enough to marry them! Isn’t it odd? I love my friends but somehow can’t do more….”

  The Prince of Wales urged her to accept Bertie. David, as he was known inside the royal family, told Elizabeth that “she had better go ahead and marry him, and eventually ‘go to Buck House,’” referring to Buckingham Palace. This comment from the heir to the throne as early as 1922, when his father, George V, was still very much alive, and a good dozen years before he fell madly in love with Wallis Simpson, offers a telling insight into David’s frame of mind regarding the succession. Although it was his birthright, the playboy bon vivant never wanted the responsibilities and burdens of kingship.

  On January 3, 1923, Bertie took Elizabeth on a lovely date: dinner at Claridge’s, followed by the theater, then a return to the hotel for a bit of dancing, during which, having taken to heart John Campbell Davidson’s advice on persistence, he proposed marriage for a third time. The following day, Elizabeth discussed the matter with Lady Airlie, then wrote to the prince, explaining why she continued to remain so ambivalent. For most women, an offer of marriage from a handsome prince, and the married life of a duchess, with crowns and castles, would be a dream come true. But it was not a decision to be taken lightly, even if Elizabeth were madly in love with Bertie, for she would not be getting the man alone, but a lifetime in the public eye: all privacy a
nd spontaneity forever sacrificed to a schedule of never-ending obligations and responsibilities. She wrote to the duke:

  It is so angelic of you to allow me plenty of time to think it over—I really do need it, as it takes so long to ponder these things, & this is so very [she double underscored] important for us both. If in the end I come to the conclusion that it will be alright, well & good, but Prince Bertie, if I feel that I can’t (& I will not marry you unless I am quite certain, for your own sake) then I shall go away & try not to see you again…. I do hope you understand my feelings—I am more than grateful to you for not hurrying me, and I am determined not to spoil your life by just drifting on like this. You are so thoughtful for me always—oh I do want to do what is right for you. I have thought of nothing else all today—last night seems like a dream. Was it?…

  Perhaps you had better not say anything just yet to anybody—what do you think? Do as you think best.

  Intriguingly, although she kept a diary, even within it, she spelled her most private thoughts backward. After airing her reasons for refusing Bertie yet again to Lady Airlie, Elizabeth wrote in her diary, “I ma tsom dexelprep”—“I am most perplexed.” And on Friday January 5, awakening already tired and overwhelmed, she penned, “Ma gnikniht oot hcum. I hsiw I wenk.”—“Am thinking too much. I wish I knew.”

  That day, London’s Daily News printed the announcement of her engagement. But they had the wrong prince! SCOTTISH BRIDE FOR PRINCE OF WALES, read the headline. The Star followed suit that evening, blasting, LOVE MATCH FOR THE PRINCE. The next day the palace issued a denial.

  On the afternoon of January 11, Bertie and Elizabeth spent a few hours deep in conversation—from tea time until seven thirty. But their discussion seemed to raise more issues than it resolved. “I ma yrev deirrow oot”—“I am very worried too”—Elizabeth wrote in her diary. By now their respective families were losing patience with what they viewed as Elizabeth’s dithering. On January 9, Her Majesty had penned an apologetic note to the poor, harried Mabell Airlie, thanking her for her assistance “in this tiresome matter. The King & I quite understand from yr & [Bertie’s aide-de-camp] Com: Greig’s letters what is going on. I confess now we hope nothing will come of it as we both feel ruffled at E.’s behaviour!”