Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires

by Justin C. Vovk

  After nearly six years of fighting, Britain and her allies once again emerged victorious after Nazi Germany surrendered in 1945. Queen Mary, who had spent nearly all of that time at Badminton House, looked forward to returning to Marlborough House in London. To her own surprise, when the time came to take leave of Badminton and her niece the Duchess of Beaufort, Mary’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, I have been happy here,” she said as she handed gifts to the Badminton staff.1397 She had forged a bond with the tiny Gloucester town. They had seen each other through the darkest days of the war. Now, Mary was sad to be parted from them. This deep affection and bond that Queen Mary of England had with her people would be one of her most endearing legacies.

  With her return to London, Queen Mary once again lived at Marlborough House. Now entering her twilight years, she still insisted on making regular visits to hospitals, factories, and other public venues. Many of the people who saw or accompanied her on these visits “were impressed, sometimes embarrassed, by the thoroughness with which she undertook her tasks.” She made it very clear that “she was not there to be seen but to see, and she insisted on seeing everything. Her questions, the result of her habit of serious reading, especially of social history, showed that she understood the background.” But even at this point in her life, Mary still had a reputation for sometimes being “forbidding, and, on occasion, a stickler for etiquette. But this was all part of her rigid schooling and her Hanoverian ancestry.”1398

  With her life in London being much as it had been before World War II, Queen Mary found herself being able to spend more time with her grandchildren, whose numbers had multiplied. During the war, she became a grandmother twice more when the Duchess of Kent gave birth to a son, Michael, just weeks before his father was killed. The second birth was to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. Alice delivered a healthy son in 1944 who they named Richard.

  As time went on, it became clear that Mary’s granddaughter Elizabeth would inherit the throne one day, since the king and queen never had a son.1399 This meant that when she came of marriageable age, there was great excitement in London. As early as 1944, Queen Mary had “wondered if an Englishman, through and through, might not be more popular with the people of Britain.”1400 One frontrunner at the time was Hugh Euston, heir to the Duke of Grafton. In the end, Princess Elizabeth gave her heart to a man of her own choosing. In 1947, she married Prince Philip of Greece, a man she had been enamored with for more than ten years. It has been observed that theirs was truly an enduring love match. More than sixty years later, Elizabeth and Philip would be described as “one of the great love stories of the British monarchy.”1401 As a small child, Prince Philip had been invited to take tea with Queen Mary, whom she described as “a nice little boy with very blue eyes.”1402 The only son of King George V’s cousin Prince Andrew, Philip renounced his Greek titles as a young man. He opted instead for the surname Mountbatten and embarked upon a successful career in the Royal Navy. Unlike in previous generations, however, nearly 40 percent of the British people were against the marriage on the grounds that Philip was a foreigner. The fact that his deaf, mute mother had cloistered herself as a nun and his destitute father had died in exile did not endear Philip to his future subjects—and the fact that he had no wealth, and at least two of Philip’s sisters had married German princes who were devout Nazis, did not help. In the end, it was decided that none of Philip’s sisters should be invited to the wedding.

  The day before the wedding, King George made Philip an English prince, with the peerage Duke of Edinburgh. As a wedding gift—which was added to the twenty-five hundred the bridal couple received—Queen Mary gave Princess Elizabeth the diamonds that Queen Victoria had given at her wedding to George in 1893. One gift the princess received earned Queen Mary’s antipathy: a piece of cloth hand woven by Mohandas Gandhi. She resented Gandhi for his activism on behalf of Indian independence from Britain, declaring his present “an indelicate gift” and “a horrible thing.”1403 Elizabeth and Philip, however, respected Gandhi and were grateful for the gift.

  Despite the excitement for the wedding, it was still a difficult event to plan. As with any family, squabbling was unavoidable. The Princess Royal refused to attend, ostensibly for reasons of poor health. She later admitted it was a protest over the fact that her brother—the former Edward VIII—had not been invited. The wedding also had strong national implications. England was still struggling to recover from the war. As such, Elizabeth was forced to use ration coupons to buy the material for her dress. Nonetheless, Mary’s granddaughter looked every inch a royal bride in her white satin wedding dress adorned with garlands of orange blossoms, lilacs, and jasmine. The Westminster Abbey ceremony on November 20 was attended by two thousand people, including six kings and seven queens. The ceremony was broadcast by BBC Radio to two hundred million people worldwide. One witness at Westminster Abbey noted how “Queen Mary looked supremely happy … For the first time in many years I saw the old radiance in her smile.”1404 Winston Churchill described the wedding as a “bright ray of color on the hard gray road we have to travel.”1405 After the ceremony, only a small crowd of 150 were invited to attend a reception at Buckingham Palace. The highlight of the reception was a nine-foot-high wedding cake. However, guests were only served from one of its four tiers. The remaining three were given to schoolchildren who were required to live on food rations after the war.

  The royal wedding was followed by the birth of a son, Prince Charles, to the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace on Sunday, November 14, 1948. The duchess’s pregnancy and delivery were followed with excitement throughout Britain. When the baby arrived, the official notice of his birth was posted on the gates outside Buckingham Palace. Mary “was rather surprised” by how many people gathered outside the palace awaiting the news “with sandwiches, like a film queue!”1406 “I am delighted at being a great grandmother!” Mary declared. At Charles’s christening in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace on December 15, the elderly Queen Mary gave the infant a very special gift: “I gave the baby a silver gilt cup & cover which George III had given to a godson in 1780—so that I gave a present from my g[rea]t grandfather, to my great grandson 168 years later.”1407 After lunch on the day of the christening, Queen Mary invited everyone to sit down and study Queen Victoria’s old photo albums to see which of his ancestors Charles resembled the most. Mary decided it was Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert.

  The year 1947 also brought with it one of the most important colonial issues in British history: the independence of India. Since the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the British Empire had been in decline, especially once the former imperial body had been reformed into a Commonwealth of Nations that allowed each territory to have its own self-autonomy. Britain’s dwindling influence was evident to the new rising power of the twentieth century, the United States. Dean Acheson, the US secretary of state from 1949 to 1953, described the Middle East and Asia as “the last remaining bulwark of British solvency.”1408 The last jewel in the imperial crown, India, had been slowly slipping from British hands. The massacre at Amritsar gave rise to two major Indian independence movements: the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League.

  In Britain, Indian independence and the dismantling of the empire could not have taken place if not for the 1945 election of Clement Attlee and his Labour Party. When the Royal Indian Navy revolted in 1946, Attlee had no choice but to offer India its independence. The plan had been to transition to Indian autonomy by 1948, but the growing risk of an Indian civil war prompted the Labour Party to vote forward independence on August 15, 1947. With this act of Parliament, Britain’s imperial title over India came to an end; so too did its empire. The British Empire as an imperial power essentially came to an end after World War I, replaced instead with the Commonwealth. But over time, even the Commonwealth “was fractionalizing as more and more countries—Jamaica, Kenya, Fiji—gained real-world autonomy while remaining ‘loyal’ to the Crown. Others—South Africa, Pakistan,
Ceylon (which added to the indignity by changing its name to Sri Lanka)—chose, as had India, not to stay formally loyal, even if they remained friendly.”1409

  Although Queen Mary was allowed to retain her status as empress of India, King George VI was forced to surrender the title. He was allowed to continue using the courtesy title king of India for another three years. Technically, George’s wife, Elizabeth, was the last empress (and eventually queen) of that country, though she was never crowned in a durbar. Mary was the last empress to be invested with the crown in India and, unlike her daughter-in-law, she was allowed to keep the coveted imperial title for the rest of her life without being downgraded to queen of India. The loss of India from the British Empire was extremely difficult for Mary to accept. After receiving George’s first letter after India’s independence, Mary wrote on the back of the envelope, “The first time Bertie wrote me a letter with the I [imperator, Latin for emperor] for Emperor of India left out, very sad.”1410 Like Augusta Victoria of Germany, Alexandra of Russia, and Zita of Austria, Mary’s family was stripped of its imperial titles by independence movements within their empire. But unlike Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, the last days of the British Empire had not been marked by total revolution. And unlike her imperial counterparts, Mary was still a British queen who enjoyed the unparalleled affection of her people.

  For the first time since World War II ended, the lives of Queen Mary and her family seemed to be settling down. She was a doting grandmother who was excited with the birth of another great-grandchild. In 1950, the Duchess of Edinburgh gave birth to a daughter, Anne. The king and queen had emerged from the war more popular than ever. Winston Churchill had once written to the king that “Yr Majesties are more beloved by classes and conditions than any of all princes of the past. I am indeed proud that it [should] have fallen to my lot and duty to stand at Yr Majesty’s side as First Minister in such a climax of the British story.”1411

  Mary was the last of Europe’s queen-empresses who still enjoyed her position, having ruled on the same tier as Augusta Victoria, Alexandra, and Zita. It remains uncertain whether or not she thought of herself in those terms. What is certain, however, is that like these other women, her life was not devoid of heartache. At this stage of her life—she was now nearly eighty-five—she expected things to settle down to a measure of tranquility. She would not get her wish. In January 1952, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh embarked on a tour of Australia by traveling through Kenya. Queen Mary, the king, the queen, and the rest of the royal family all went down to Victoria Station to see the couple off. The king, who had undergone surgery the year before to treat lung cancer, was slowly returning to his duties, while Queen Mary returned to her hospital visits and audiences with old friends. At the end of January, George VI wrote his mother a touching letter that ended with “Best love to you, I remain, Ever, Your very devoted son, Bertie.” On the back of the envelope, she would later write in tiny letters, “Bertie’s last letter to me.”1412

  On the morning of February 6, 1952, Mary was working at her papers in her sitting room at Marlborough House when Lady Cynthia Colville, her Mistress of the Bedchamber, arrived, visibly shaken. The unenviable task had fallen to her of telling Mary that King George VI died suddenly during the night at Sandringham from a coronary thrombosis. He was only fifty-two. Queen Mary recorded in her diary that night, “I got the dreadful shock when Cynthia asked to see me at 9.30, after breakfast, to tell me that darling Bertie had died in his sleep early today … The news came out about 10.30. Later letters kept arriving & flowers from kind friends.”1413 That same day, Mary sent her newly widowed daughter-in-law Elizabeth a touching letter, in which she wrote “about the great affection between our darling Bertie and us all. I cannot get over the fearful shock you must have had when you realised that he had died in his sleep. You have been such a wonderful wife to him in ‘weal & woe’ & such a prop when things were a little difficult and he was upset, this must be a comfort to you in your great grief and I feel this very much indeed.”1414

  Mary’s twenty-five-year-old granddaughter was now Queen Elizabeth II, who immediately rushed back from Nairobi to London at 4:00 p.m. For the first time in more than fifty years, Great Britain was once again ruled by a queen, the same as during Mary’s childhood. The afternoon that Elizabeth II arrived, Queen Mary insisted on hurrying to Clarence House to pay homage to her as the new sovereign. “Her old Grannie and subject must be the first to kiss her hand,” she said.1415 When Queen Mary entered the room at Clarence House where her granddaughter was waiting, Elizabeth gently rose to her feet and extended her hand for Mary to kiss. With simple gestures, she kissed the new queen’s hand and declared loudly, “God save the Queen.”1416 One witness noticed that “Elizabeth’s eyes pricked with tears as she accepted her grandmother’s obeisance.”1417 The new queen looked dignified and regal in a slim, simple black dress accented by a single row of pearls. Although Elizabeth II was young, Mary praised her for having “a fine steadfast character, & will I know always do her best for our beloved country and her people all over the world – and dear Philip will be a great help.”1418

  Grief in Britain at the king’s death was deep and sincere. Theaters across the country were closed, and the BBC cancelled all their television programming except for the news. The immediate mourning that was ordered was deemed proper by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “We cannot at this moment do more than record the spontaneous expression of grief,” he said. Outpourings of grief were not limited to Great Britain. The United States Congress adjourned out of respect for the king. President Harry Truman eloquently described where this deep grief was coming from: “He shared to the end of his reign all the hardships and austerities which evil days imposed on the brave British people. In return, he received from the people of the whole Commonwealth a love and devotion which went beyond the usual relationship of a king and his subjects.”1419 Some three hundred thousand people filed past the king’s coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall. At the rain-soaked funeral for King George VI on Friday, February 15 Queen Mary, accompanied by her daughter-in-law and Queen Elizabeth II, was dressed all in black, with a full-length veil covering her face. Chips Channon recorded the poignancy of the king’s funeral and lying in state.

  The Great Hall was cold, splendid and impressive … a few paces behind [George VI’s coffin] the royal family followed, walking in measured paces like figures in a Greek tragedy. First walked the young Queen, all in black but wearing fresh-coloured stockings; behind her, to the right, was the Queen Mother—unmistakable with her curious side-ways lilting walk. On her left, was Queen Mary, frail and fragile, I thought, with her veil and her black umbrella and steel-coloured stockings. I was very sorry for her as she must have known and realised that she is next.1420

  After lying in state at Westminster for three days, the king’s body was buried at Windsor Castle, along with his brothers Johnnie and George. On the day of the funeral, her old friend the Countess of Airlie wrote of her impressions as she observed Mary watching the procession of the king’s body on the gun carriage: “As the cortège wound slowly along, the Queen whispered in a broken voice, ‘Here he is,’ and I knew that her dry eyes were seeing beyond the coffin a little boy in a sailor suit. She was past weeping, wrapped in the ineffable solitude of grief. I could not speak comfort to her. My tears choked me. The words I wanted to say would not come. We held each other’s hands in silence.”1421

  The funeral was significant for many reasons. It was the first time that a royal event was ever broadcast over live television. It was the first time in modern history that three English queens were alive at the same time. It also was the third time that Mary had outlived one of her children. Queen Mary never recovered from the loss of her son George VI, and she was never fully reconciled to the Duke of Windsor, whose abdication she blamed for bringing on the king’s premature death. Mary’s life has often been looked upon as a royal triumph, which to many it was, but it was also marked by tragedy and
loss. The deaths of her husband and three sons were insidious distinctions that neither Dona, Alexandra, nor Zita were forced to endure to such a degree. Fate, it seemed, was exacting a high price for Mary’s successful life.

  The king’s death was a crushing blow to his mother’s spirits. Within a matter of months, the eighty-five-year-old queen dowager’s health began to collapse. In the winter of 1952/53, she began suffering breathing problems and chest pain. She was diagnosed with high blood pressure accompanied by a hardening of her arteries. For the first real time in her life, she took to her bed and for nearly five weeks. It was also the first time that pages in her diary, which she had kept meticulously since youth, were left blank.

  Speaking to her old friend Lady Shaftesbury, she asked poignantly, “I suppose one must force oneself to go on until the end?”