Matriarch

by Anne Edwards

  The Jubilee had been an unqualified success, and the new romance in the Royal Family added to the sense of well-being. The Jubilee, however, had one irreversible result. The Royal Family and the Ministers had been so distracted by the added responsibilities demanded by the Jubilee that no attention had been paid to the happenings in the life of the heir to the Throne, a terrible oversight, for King George was a dying monarch.

  During the Jubilee weeks, the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson became a formidable pair. She was madly anxious to storm society, and he, never having been so in love, was madly anxious that she succeed. During those six weeks, they became bolder and more public in their relationship. Mrs. Simpson’s influence grew so powerful that she banned all those who were friends of Mrs. Dudley Ward from both York House and the Fort. She was taking no chance that the Prince of Wales might be persuaded to return to Freda Dudley Ward’s arms, which, in view of his obvious infatuation, was most unlikely.

  While the King and Queen were visiting the East End of London on May 18, Wallis Simpson gave a cocktail party in her home. “The Prince was charm itself,” a guest reports. “He is boisterous, wrinkled and gay ... He shook and passed the cocktails very much the ‘jeune homme de la maison.’“

  To those close to him, David’s voice had become “more American than ever.” His speech had always veered away from the high-toned cadences of the upper classes and from the Germanic quality of the voices of most members of his family, and he had never made an effort to lose the slight Cockney twang he had picked up in Lala Bill’s care.

  On the evening of May 31, the Prince of Wales, with Wallis and her husband, attended Covent Garden to hear Lily Pons in the Barber of Seville, watching the opera from Emerald Cunard’s box.* Those in the party were somewhat taken aback when, during the interval, Mrs. Simpson told the Prince (in a slightly scolding voice) that he must hurry or he would be late in joining the Queen at the ball. (The King had been too indisposed to attend.) Then she had removed a cigar from his breast pocket. “It doesn’t look very pretty,” she said. He went, escorted his mother to the ball, made a few polite stabs at conversation, danced with no one, looked distracted, and then disappeared within an hour and returned to the opera, slipping in quietly beside Wallis.

  He retained his interest in politics and made an extraordinary speech to the British Legion on June 11, advocating friendship with Germany, a gesture that many thought could be taken seriously. The King and Queen were much discomfited by the speech and by the gossip going around the Court of David’s “alleged Nazi leanings.” He was thought to be influenced in this matter by Wallis. His father requested he attend the Court Ball on June 13 alone, and he did, but in a very bad temper. It was noticed that he did not have more than a few polite words with his mother and left early, as did the King. A moving moment occurred at this point when Queen Mary sent for the aging Begum Aga Khan and motioned her to the King’s Throne to sit beside her during the remainder of the evening.

  For Royal Ascot the following week, the Prince of Wales gave a party at the fort, inviting Emerald Cunard to act as hostess for him. (This was merely a façade, as Wallis Simpson—invited with her husband—supervised the arrangements.) Emerald Cunard was a friend of the German Ambassador to London, Leopold von Hoesch, and no matter how mindless the friendship might have been, the King and Queen were not pleased that the Prince of Wales might have sanctioned it. True, the British were not yet aware of the full evil of Naziism, but Hitler and Germany were considered distinct threats, and von Hoesch was being called “the arch-Hitler spy of Europe.” The Royal Family had purged themselves of all Germanic names and titles, but the fear persisted that their German ties would be used against them. For this reason, if for no other, the Prince of Wales’s speech and his continued friendship with Emerald Cunard was irresponsible.*

  At Ascot, the Prince of Wales made his boldest move. The Duke and Duchess of Kent had frequently been in Mrs. Simpson’s company, but he introduced her to all the members of his family in the Royal Enclosure. It should be added that the King (because of his continuing ill-health) and the Queen were not present.

  The question that was most posed during this stage of Wallis Simpson’s affair with the Prince of Wales was why he would choose as his mistress a twice-married American, verging on forty, who was no outstanding beauty when he could have had almost any woman in Britain, perhaps in the world. Mrs. Simpson had a sense of authority about her and a kind of reckless fearlessness that the Prince of Wales found especially exciting. His prestige and power did not stop her from speaking her mind to him. She stood up for what (and in whom) she believed and never changed her views or her friends according to fashion. Intelligent people and good conversation triggered her, and she was not a slave to convention or to the status quo.

  With Mrs. Simpson, the Prince of Wales felt he was being accepted and loved for himself and not for the external trappings of royalty. She had the American woman’s tendency to reform her man in small ways. Her treatment of Lady Furness and her determination to banish Freda Dudley Ward and every member of her “group” notwithstanding, she was never known to say an evil word—or speak a rude one—about or to either woman. Her style was far more peremptory, even regal.

  Would Wallis Simpson have loved the Prince of Wales as indefatigably if he had not been the Prince of Wales? Probably yes, given his money and a certain social position. She had gone after her first two husbands in the same determined fashion. Her marriage to Ernest Simpson had not been happy for some years. Simpson was a weak man controlled by a domineering father who had never wanted her as a daughter-in-law. They had been married for seven years and had no children. Simpson had a mistress about whom she knew. Little bound them except their social life. In the circumstances, Wallis’s infidelity was inevitable. However, it is doubtful that Simpson would have encouraged his wife in a liaison with any man but the Prince of Wales, for he was perhaps even more dazzled by the Royal presence than his wife.

  By the end of the Jubilee, Wallis Simpson and the Prince of Wales had the look of a couple mutually in love. He was completely at ease by her side, entertaining their guests. And if he was not mixing drinks at her flat or at the Fort, then she did the chore herself, using a small, low table and several shakers. There was not a cocktail asked for that she could not make, and without fuss, measuring the proportions with her eye and handing over a glassful that was the equal of any barman’s. She herself drank whisky and soda and smoked Turkish cigarettes, as did the Prince of Wales. They elicited a sense of tremendous togetherness, of domesticity, of mutual response.

  She had a love of antiques; “snuff boxes, eighteenth-century étuis with portraits on them, and the like;” and hated modern decor. He shared her tastes, and their need for each other was strong. If David was madly in love for the first time, Wallis was happier than any of her friends had ever known her to be. Unlike Mrs. Dudley Ward or Lady Furness, she was devotedly faithful to him, as he was to her. And their relationship appeared so unshakable that young women no longer threw themselves at him, nor did their mothers try to engineer meetings. Only one other woman was important to David—Queen Mary—for he still had unresolved feelings toward his mother.

  During Jubilee summer, Wallis Simpson made a few decorative changes at the Fort, an effort to erase Freda Dudley Ward’s mark. Many of the reds and dark colours in the rooms she replaced with yellows and creams and touches of mandarin orange, giving the house a brighter, more country look. Next, she removed the portrait of Queen Mary from the wall of the sitting room. The plan was that it should be returned to its original place in York House, St. James’s, but somehow it was never rehung.

  Harry became engaged to Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, the third daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, on August 30. “Don’t buy a lot of jewellry in a hurry,” Queen Mary wrote him, “because Cousin Frederica of Hanover left you some nice diamond things which can be converted & I have various ornaments which I have long ago selected for yr wife from my collec
tion.”

  Three days earlier, the Queen’s sister-in-law, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, wrote her, “This is indeed good news & I congratulate you on settling another son & upon getting what I know to be a really splendid daughter-in-law. If only David would follow suit. He seems to have missed his best chances. But never mind, one must look on the blessings one has & be thankful for them.”

  The last months of 1935 were taken with preparations for the Royal Wedding on November 6. His sister Toria’s death on December 3 was a shock that King George was not physically able to endure. For the first time he cancelled the state opening of Parliament, due that same afternoon, and remained in his bed at Sandringham just a few doors down the dark corridor from the bedroom in which his brother, Prince Eddy, had died forty-four years before.

  As New Year’s 1936 approached, Queen Mary walked in the gardens of Sandringham, light snow covering the bare garden beds and dusting the giant dark evergreens. Her husband had suffered irreparable damage to his lungs and heart; his life was ebbing away, her days as Queen dwindling, too. Added to her husband’s grave illness was the shadow of war that darkened everything. She was less concerned about David than she had been earlier in the year. Perhaps his father’s impending death (and in December 1935, those close to the King knew his time was short) would save him from the unhappy years as an aging Prince of Wales that his grandfather had suffered. It would have to end such unsuitable relationships as the one he now had with this American woman, Mrs. Simpson. The responsibilities of the Throne, especially during what looked like difficult times ahead, would work as no prodding from her could. David was her son, born to the Blood Royal, fated to be King. He would do as she had always done—carry out with integrity and honour any duty expected of him.

  Footnotes

  *The twelve English monarchs who reigned more than twenty-five years were: Henry I (1100-1135); Henry II (1154-1189); Henry III (1216-1272); Edward I (1272-1307); Edward III (1327-1377); Henry VI (1422-1461); Henry VIII (1509-1547); Elizabeth I (1558-1603); Charles II (1660-1685); George II (1727-1760; George III (1760-1820; Victoria (1837-1901). Of these, only Henry III, Edward III, George III, and Victoria reigned for more than fifty years.

  *Sir Henry (“Chips”) Channon (1897-1958) was born in Chicago. Illinois. He moved to England in 1918 and married Lady Honor Guinness.

  †Sir Frederick Ponsonby died three months later.

  ‡Marina, Duchess of Kent, was pregnant at this time.

  *King George broadcast his first radio message at Christmas Day 1932, and had been issuing yearly messages since that time.

  *Chips Channon writes in his diary for May 18, 1935, “London Society is now divided between the old gang, who support Freda Dudley Ward, whom the Prince now ignores, and Emerald Cunard, who is rallying to the new regime.”

  *Emerald Cunard was most certainly being used by Leopold von Hoesch. She was not generally a silly woman, but she was attracted to von Hoesch and his rather courtly manners and good looks. It is highly unlikely that Emerald Cunard owed any allegiance to either von Hoesch or the Nazi Party.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The general election in November 1935 returned to power the Conservative Party, led by Stanley Baldwin and with Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary, just one week after Harry’s marriage to Lady Alice Scott in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace. Plans for a wedding on a grander scale in Westminster Abbey had been cancelled because of the recent death of the bride’s father. The King attended the wedding and afterward wrote in his diary, “Now all the children are married but David.” It was to be his last appearance at any occasion, either social or governmental.

  As the King’s health declined and Queen Mary remained with him at Sandringham to prepare for a family gathering at Christmas, the country was absorbed in the growing world crisis. Italian legions had pressed forward into Abyssinia, and the problems of sanctions had soured relations between Italy and Britain. At the end of November, Mr. Baldwin had an audience with the King at Sandringham. After discussing Abyssinia, the King expressed his concern about the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson, and asked the Prime Minister for his advice. Mr. Baldwin had nothing specific to offer; the King’s face clouded with emotion and his hand trembled dramatically as he said, “After I am dead the boy will ruin himself in twelve months.”

  The King’s anxiety over his eldest son must be attributed to something more than the Prince of Wales’s slavish devotion to Mrs. Simpson. After all, Wallis Simpson was married, and his son, though reckless in his open admiration of her, could not expect Parliamentary approval of a marriage should she divorce Mr. Simpson. Nor could the King suspect that David might forfeit all his rights to the succession. During the autumn of 1935, his feelings toward the Prince of Wales had grown quite bitter. A week after Baldwin’s visit, he exclaimed to a close friend,* “I pray to God that my eldest son will never marry and have children and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the Throne.”

  This shocking statement discounts Mrs. Simpson as the basis of the King’s fears, for at this time neither he—nor the Queen nor any member of the Government—seriously thought the Prince of Wales would marry Wallis Simpson. In December 1935, with Germany rearming and stronger by the month, King George’s greatest anxiety was that the son who had been born to be King might not have the wisdom and judgement to reign. His statement, which shows a strong preference for the accession of his second son, can only be interpreted as an indication that he did not want the Prince of Wales to succeed him.

  Taken on the surface, the King’s antipathy to the Heir-Apparent at this time was inordinate. Certainly, the Prince of Wales had idiosyncrasies and was obstinate in his refusal to follow the accepted conventions set down by his parents. But he was extraordinarily popular and well loved throughout the Empire. His frequent and demanding foreign tours and his accessibility to the people had added much devotion to the Crown. His charm and personableness had contributed greatly to the magic of monarchy. King George was an exception in the line of Britain’s male monarchs who had had controversial mistresses. But not one King could be said to have had a disastrous reign because of a Royal favourite, or because of a shrewish or demanding wife.

  A month before the Jubilee, the Prince of Wales met with Leopold von Hoesch, the German Ambassador, and discussed with him in great detail Anglo-German relations. Von Hoesch reported to the Reich Chancellery that the Prince of Wales had shown his “complete understanding of Germany’s position and aspirations,” adding that he was also critical of the “too one-sided attitude of the [British] Foreign Office.”

  The Prince of Wales’s firsthand wartime experience had convinced him that wars, quite apart from their destruction, were no longer a means of solving political problems. Also, he had never believed in the right of a victorious state to subjugate a vanquished nation and was of the strong opinion that such a situation could only bring about new causes for future conflicts. All this he told von Hoesch, who at the end of his report to his superior stated:

  “He fully understood that Germany wished to face the other nations squarely, her head high, relying on her strength and conscious that Germany’s word counted as much in the world as that of other nations.

  “I told the Prince in reply that what he had just said corresponded as it were, word for word, with the opinion of our Führer and Chancellor, such as I had heard it myself from his lips.”

  Then in June 1935, the Prince of Wales made his much-criticised pro-German speech at the annual conference of the British Legion. In it, he suggested that “a deputation or a visit might be paid by representative members of the Legion to Germany at some future time.”

  Father and son had their first and perhaps only confrontation immediately following this “indiscretion.” The King crossly reminded the Prince of Wales that he was never again to speak on controversial matters such as politics and foreign affairs without consulting the Government.

  In direct defiance of his father’s orders, a
fortnight later the Prince of Wales made a speech at Berkhamsted School, decrying a ban by the London County Council on the use of guns by boys in the cadet corps of schools within their jurisdiction.

  The Prince of Wales was now under the constant surveillance of the security service. Wallis Simpson had a few German acquaintances within her social circle, and Mrs. Simpson and the Prince of Wales were together so frequently, any investigation of the former had to extend to the latter. Soon it became obvious that Mrs. Simpson was no security risk and had no German links. Beyond her need to be informed and to be a good conversationalist, Mrs. Simpson showed little interest in politics and was never associated with any cause. She did endorse the Prince of Wales’s idealistic and pacifistic ideas much in the way millions of women support their men’s opinions, simply by not contradicting these views when spoken.

  In all fairness to the Prince of Wales, his desire to avoid a war was greater than his “warm sympathy for Germany,” which, von Hoesch reported to his superiors, was “deep-rooted and strong enough to withstand the contrary influences to which they are seldom exposed.” The Prince of Wales saw himself as a rebel in both his private and his public life. He was striking out for those rights that other Englishmen took for granted: freedom of opinion and speech. For a private citizen to advocate pacifistic views, even to stand up at Hyde Park Corner and shout them, would not have been considered untoward. The Prince of Wales never gave any evidence of approving the Nazi regime (nor of disapproving it). What he was against was any interference that would bring Britain and Germany into another war; and what he refused to accept was that in a constitutional monarchy he could not publicly express views that were not in accordance with government policies.