Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires
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“It is the draughtiest house in Spain, because it is made up of windows. But it can be had for a song,” he sallied.1261
So in June 1923, Zita settled her family into their permanent home at the Uribarren Palace, in the Basque region of northeastern Spain. Uribarren was a medieval palace complex in the fishing village of Lequeitio, on the sandy shores of the Bay of Biscay. Whenever they wanted, the children could run and play along the beach or go swimming. The three-story, thirty-room palace provided the empress with everything she needed. It was commodious enough to accommodate her entire family. There was a chapel for them to pray in and read from the Bible. Its location was warm enough that they did not have to worry about dampness or catching a chill. For the first time since she ascended the throne, Empress Zita could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Her children were safe. They could finally move on with their lives in peace and quiet.
The residents of Lequeitio quickly took the imperial family into their hearts. It was these local residents that came to the Habsburgs’ rescue in early 1923. Count Torregrossa, Uribarren’s first owner, arrived in Lequeitio without warning, saying he wanted his palace back and evicting Zita and her children. The family spent the winter at the nearby resort of San Sebastian. The townspeople were so outraged by Torregrossa’s actions that they formed a committee and convinced him to sell them the palace, which they promptly turned over to Zita, rent-free, for as long as she needed it. When they returned in early 1924, Lequeitio’s four thousand residents assembled in front of the palace, cheering as they welcomed them back. The entire town had been draped in the Habsburg flag with Zita’s portrait hanging in almost every window. This outpouring of affection was testimony to the strength and power of Empress Zita’s character.
In the postwar era, instability was not confined to Hungary or Spain. The 1920s was a decade of considerable unrest for Britain’s imperial interests, both domestically and abroad. Owing to its close ties to other royal families, the British monarchy found itself increasingly called upon to be the savior of unlucky royals throughout Europe. In 1922, King George’s cousin King Constantine I of Greece was overthrown in a coup d’état after fifteen thousand soldiers marched on Athens. Constantine told the people he was “happy that another opportunity has been given me to sacrifice myself once more for Greece.”1262 The rest of the Greek royal family was not immune from the political turmoil sweeping the nation. F. O. Lindley, the British ambassador to Greece, wrote on October 1, 1922, suggesting that “a British man-of-war be sent for since the lives of the Royal Family were in danger.”1263 The British Royal Navy cruiser HMS Calypso was sent on an emergency mission to Greece to evacuate Constantine’s brother Prince Andrew and his family, who were in danger from the antimonarchist military junta. Andrew’s mother, Queen Olga, wrote George a letter of gratitude for rescuing her son and his family: “Words fail me to express all my gratitude to you for all you did to save my beloved Andrea! I can only say ‘God bless you.’”1264 The rescue of Prince Andrew by the king of England would ultimately prove fortuitous, since Andrew’s son Philip would one day marry George’s granddaughter—Elizabeth II, the future queen of England.
At home, civil unrest threatened to destabilize all of Great Britain. At the same time as the Calypso was evacuating members of the Greek royal family, two events took place that, together, toppled the government of the wartime prime minister David Lloyd George. The first crisis revolved around Ireland. Though it had been part of the British Empire since 1704, the island nation had been striving to achieve its independence for decades. In July 1914, Britain came perilously close to civil war over this problem. The idea of creating an independent Ireland gained enough momentum that Dona’s son Joachim was considered for the kingship of the country in 1916. But the Irish independence controversy was overshadowed and soon forgotten by the outbreak of the First World War. Now, nearly ten years later, it came boiling to the surface again after Ireland held general elections, forming its own parliament. In response, Lloyd George ordered his administration to launch a guerilla warfare campaign against the Irish. The situation nearly exploded when English officers opened fire on Irish citizens, killing many. Only a direct appeal from the king stopped further violence. In the end, the country was partitioned into the Irish Free State, with the British-allied Northern Ireland acting autonomously from the rest of the country.
The flashpoint of the second crisis was the Chanak seaport in the Dardanelles, which was guarded by French and British troops against Turkish aggression. The fraying Ottoman Empire had been emboldened by a recent victory over Greek forces at Smyrna, leading to the abdication of King Constantine and the exile of Prince Andrew. This prompted them to launch an attack on Chanak. Britain threatened to declare war if Turkey did not withdraw, but public opinion was against the Lloyd George government. The people were not ready to face the hardships imposed by another costly war, and the empire’s territories were not willing to defend the motherland for a conflict on the other side of the world. Leading the chorus of voices crying out against war in the Dardanelles was Canada. Traditionally a vital organ of the British army, Canadian forces refused to participate. They rightly claimed that they were not directly involved in the conflict and therefore had no business going to war against Turkey. With Canada refusing to pledge her troops, support for an offensive at Chanak fell apart, and Britain withdrew its threat of war.
His government’s handling of the Irish and Chanak crises cost David Lloyd George his post as prime minister. His position had been undermined for years, ever since he nearly caused a revolution in Ireland during the war by introducing conscription there. His political opponents were able to discredit him further by going public with the news that he had been selling knighthoods and peerages—which could only be bestowed by the monarch—for money. With Great Britain’s reputation damaged and its empire suffering, David Lloyd George was defeated in the House of Commons in October 1922. He was replaced by Andrew Bonar Law, but even that was short lived. Over the next thirty years, Queen Mary would see the rise and fall of no less than eight prime ministers. The fall of Lloyd George had a significant impact on the future of the British monarchy, which had long been admired as one of the greatest imperial powers in history. Under Lloyd George’s government, the British Empire began to crumble. When Canada refused to support Chanak, it became Canada’s first step toward independence from Britain. Seeds of separatism had already been sown at the Paris Peace Conference when Britain’s imperial dominions—the colonies specifically populated by Caucasians and Europeans—were declared autonomous within a new Commonwealth of Nations. No British monarch could ever again declare war on behalf of the British Empire, whose many realms felt they had fought and won their right to autonomy. It also served as a rallying cry for the empire’s overseas territories. The sun began to set on the British Empire, and by the time Queen Mary’s son would ascend the throne, it would fade to a dim memory.
After weathering the crises at Chanak and in Ireland, the queen showed no signs of slowing down. During those turbulent events, she continued to greatly impress the British people with her “self-assured calm throughout all her public engagements.”1265 When she celebrated her fifty-fifth birthday in May 1922, it proved to be a memorable one. She and George made a state visit to Belgium, where they stayed as guests of King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth. It was the first state visit by a British sovereign in seventy years. Mary deeply enjoyed the visit, touring famous historic sites throughout the country, including the battlefield at Waterloo. She also visited the cemeteries of British soldiers who were killed in Belgium and laid a wreath at Edith Cavell’s tomb. An English nurse in Belgium during the war, Cavell evacuated two hundred Allied soldiers from the country when it came under German occupation. When she was discovered in 1915, Cavell was executed. Although the queen had looked forward to the trip, she was exhausted at the end of it. “Felt rather tired,” she wrote in her diary, but “I enjoyed my Belgian stay very much indeed.”1266
Belgium was followed that year by a state visit to Italy. Writing to her friend Emily Alcock, Mary could not contain her excitement at the prospect of returning to Italy, which she had not seen since her childhood: “We are looking forward to going to Rome in May, on our State visit to their Italian Majesties.… I have never been to Rome so I must try & see something of its beauties.”1267 The Italian state visit raised more than a few eyebrows, since by that time the country was firmly under the control of Fascism. Victor Emmanuel III, the king of Italy, had appointed the notorious Benito Mussolini as his prime minister, leading to an uneasy alliance between the monarchy and the government. Victor Emmanuel argued that if they left each other alone, the arrangement would be fine. Lord Curzon, the British foreign secretary, was adamant that George and Mary’s visit was devoid of any political underpinnings. The king and queen stayed in Rome during their visit. Despite the political instability—Mussolini had led his forces in a march on the city only the previous year—the visit went off without a hitch. George and Mary socialized well with the king and his wife, Queen Helen. The royal couple was also well received by the Italian people, who were in awe of Mary’s grace and dignity.
Once they returned from their visit to Rome, the queen and king were excited to announce a new addition to their family. In February 1923, they became grandparents when Princess Mary gave birth to a son, George, at her London home, Chesterfield House. The birth of Mary’s grandson was followed by the much-anticipated wedding of her second son, Bertie. The queen considered it a stroke of good fortune for her son, who was mild-mannered and suffered from a significant speech impediment. Bertie’s struggle with and overcoming of his speech impediment was so impacting that it inspired the critically acclaimed 2010 film The King’s Speech. In his shyness, Bertie took after his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, who, later in life, shuddered at the very notion of being out in public. It did not help Bertie’s shyness that he had knock-knees and was left-handed, a condition that was classified as a medical disorder at the time. In spite of his shortcomings, the Duke of York had earned a name for himself as an excellent soldier during the war, whose commitment to honor, duty, and tradition made his parents proud.
There could be no greater contrast than between David and Bertie. Though he was sociable and very charming, the Prince of Wales chafed under his parents’ influence, making them worry about his future as king. Bertie, on the other hand, greatly admired his brother and possessed a chronic awareness of his failings and no sense of his strengths. When Bertie fell in love with Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon1268, the king and queen were not so concerned that she was not a royal. They were happy their son had found someone he genuinely loved and who returned that love, meekness and all. They also saw the marriage as a sign of the times. With only a handful of monarchies left intact after the war, the British royal family had to accept that there were few royal candidates left for their children to pick from. Along with this realization, George and Mary accepted the fact that their children may have to marry British citizens out of necessity. Traditionally, royals were forbidden from marrying their own countrymen, since they could never be the same rank as their royal spouses. Evidence that the king and queen accepted this fact early on comes from one of George’s journal entries from during the war: “I also informed the [Privy] Council that May and I had decided some time ago that our children would be allowed to marry into British families. It was quite an historical decision.”1269
Bertie and Elizabeth courted for nearly two years before she accepted his proposal. It was a widely known fact that she was unwilling to give up her freedom for the duties of a royal life. But when she finally did accept, everyone was ecstatic. Queen Mary sent her the following note:
The King and I are delighted to welcome you as our future daughter in law and we send you our warmest congratulations. The news has come as a great surprise and we feel very much excited!… I hope you will look on me as a “second mother” and that we shall become great friends. May God bless you both, my beloved children, is the heartfelt prayer of your loving future mother in law, Mary R.1270
Bertie was the first British prince in several hundred years to marry a nonroyal with the consent of the monarch. On Saturday April 21, Elizabeth lunched with the king and queen, who bestowed upon their future daughter-in-law their gifts for the wedding. From the king, Elizabeth received a tiara and complete suite of diamonds. From the queen came a stunning sapphire necklace. The wedding took place at Westminster Abbey on April 26, 1923. An estimated one million people lined the procession route from the palace to the church. The choice of Westminster Abbey was significant, since it was only the third royal wedding to be held there since the union of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in 1382. For the ceremony, Elizabeth wore a dress of cream chiffon moiré, a long silk net train, and a point de Flandres lace veil, all of which were lent by the queen. Queen Mary looked radiant in a silver-and-blue-aquamarine dress. Accompanying the royal family to the wedding was the king’s seventy-eight-year-old mother, Queen Alexandra, and her sister Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna.
Although George and Mary responded quite differently to their sons’ marriages than they did their daughter’s, like any mother, the queen deeply missed her son once he moved out of Buckingham Palace. His new home with Elizabeth was at 17 Bruton Street in the central London area of Mayfair. “I hope you will not miss me very much,” the Duke of York wrote to his mother after the wedding, “though I believe you will as I have stayed with you so much longer really than the brothers.”1271 On June 6, the Duke and Duchess of York moved into the queen’s childhood home, White Lodge, which the queen decreed was “in excellent order.”1272 It was a difficult transition for Mary when her daughter-in-law began redecorating it, as the queen had such fond memories of the house. The queen also caused her son and daughter-in-law some frustration by insisting that she be in charge of the changes to the building. Of course, Mary knew that many of the changes Elizabeth was making were necessary upkeep, but she still had to put on a brave face at the sight of her beloved White Lodge being renovated. By 1923, White Lodge was not the same private country home it had been during Mary’s childhood. The estate had become notoriously expensive to maintain. It also became a tourist destination for thousands of eager spectators who arrived weekly to catch a glimpse of the Yorks.
During this period in her life, the queen of England spent much of her spare time redecorating her own homes, a habit she had enjoyed since her youth. She feverishly oversaw changes at Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Balmoral, and on rare occasions, Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. She took particular delight in creating interiors in the style of King George II, who ruled Britain from 1727 to 1760. The fruits of her labors were a tasteful mix of modern and traditional English styles. She also had a keen eye for minor details—a new painting here, some rearranged knickknacks there. One of the more unique objets d’art she owned was a handcrafted, custom-made dollhouse presented to her by George’s cousin Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Marie Louise had a professional architect draw up the plans, which included a Georgian facade and interior apartments modeled after those lived in by the king and queen. Mary, delighted with some changes she made to Buckingham Palace in 1925, wrote to her brother Dolly, “There are 2 or 3 things in the Palace I should like to show you, small alterations I think you will approve of.”1273 Her decorating at Buckingham Palace, along with her numerous official duties, were inspired in large part by a tremendous desire to remain active. It was also a means of keeping her from worrying too much over her playboy son David, who showed no signs of giving up his bachelor lifestyle.
That same year, Queen Alexandra’s health gave her family cause for concern. In March, she wrote to Queen Mary, “I feel completely collapsed—I shall soon go.” That year, the aging queen dowager had suffered a stroke, slurring her speech. Alexandra, who had long been plagued by deafness, stopped making any effort to lip read. Even Mary was forced to admit that “it is difficult to un
derstand what she says.”1274 George and Mary were with the queen dowager at Sandringham on the afternoon of November 19, 1925, when she passed away after suffering a heart attack. Queen Olga of Greece, George’s aunt, wrote a letter of sympathy to the king: “My heart aches for you and I only wish words could express all one feels … yr darling, beloved motherdear, how terribly you must be missing her!”1275 The day after Alexandra died, the royal family attended a small remembrance service before the state funeral. Mary wrote that her mother-in-law “looked so lovely & young with pink draperies & flowers round her.”1276 At the funeral in London, thousands stood in hushed silence outside Westminster Abbey. Mourning alongside the royal family were the king’s sister Queen Maud of Norway and her family, who looked dignified in black. Queen Alexandra was buried in the Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle. “Now darling Mama lies near Eddy,” Mary wrote.1277
As the 1920s moved forward, the queen of England was the undisputed matriarch of a rapidly growing royal dynasty, by now the most stable, most prominent royal house in the world. Shortly before Queen Alexandra’s death, the Windsors received an addition with the birth of Princess Mary’s second son, Gerald. The following year, public attention turned again to the monarchy when the Duchess of York gave birth. The infant, a daughter, was the first British royal to be born of a new generation. The queen recorded the happy event in her diary: “We were awakened at 4 a.m. by Reggie Seymour who informed us that darling Elizabeth had gotten a daughter at 2.40. Such relief and joy.”1278 This was the first granddaughter for the king and queen, who promptly arrived from Windsor by motorcar the next morning.
As the first princess of the next generation, the baby’s baptism on May 29 was carried out with stately dignity. Held in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace and performed by Cosmo Lang, the archbishop of York, the baby girl was baptized with water from the Jordan River while wearing a satin cream gown of Honiton lace that had been worn by Queen Victoria’s eldest child, Vicky, at her baptism in 1841. During the ceremony, at which the queen was asked to be the godmother, the infant was named Elizabeth Alexandra Mary for her mother, great-grandmother, and grandmother. The arrival of grandchildren was a source of deep joy for the queen. She was not an affectionate, tactile grandmother the way her mother-in-law, Queen Alexandra, had been to Mary’s own children. “We did not talk of love and affection and what we meant to each other,” said one of the queen’s grandsons, “but rather of duty and behaviour and what we ought to do.”1279