That summer, Johnnie Buchan successfully applied to be an Assistant District Officer in Uganda, and left for Africa in July. In the autumn, Oliver Cromwell was published on the anniversary of the Lord Protector’s death, 3 September, having been first serialised in The Sunday Times. Montrose had concentrated JB’s mind on the War of the Three Kingdoms from the point of view of the King’s party, and it was now time to look at the story from the other side. This time he depended more heavily on secondary sources; it was a piece of reinterpretation rather than original research, Cromwell having attracted much more interest from historians than Montrose.
The story of how Oliver Cromwell went from fenland country squire and Member of Parliament to military commander and regicide is told with lucidity and great sympathy for Cromwell, a man whose reputation will ever divide people but who, like Montrose, was ahead of his time. JB was by this stage so steeped in the language of the seventeenth century, and at home with both the politics and the religious struggles of the period, that the story flows smoothly and the tale unfolds with all the inevitability – taking into account the character of the main protagonists – of a Greek tragedy. And the characterisation is perceptive and written in pellucid prose. This is JB on Charles I:
His gentleness and charm might attach his friends to him, but his public conduct had been in the highest degree fantastic, disingenuous, and uncertain. He had no gift of resolute purpose or single-hearted action; the prominent velvet eyes under the heavy lids were the eyes of an emotional intriguer. They were the eyes, too, of a fanatic, who would find in the last resort some curious knuckle of principle on which he would hear no argument … The old monarchy could only survive if its representative had those qualities of plain dealing and sturdy resolution which were dear to Englishmen; and it was the irony of fate that this king should be part woman, part priest, and part the bewildered delicate boy who had never quite grown up.66
And on Cromwell:
Paradox is in the fibre of his character and career … a devotee of law, he was forced to be often lawless; a civilian to the core, he had to maintain himself by the sword; with a passion to construct, his task was chiefly to destroy; the most scrupulous of men, he had to ride roughshod over his own scruples and those of others; the tenderest, he had continually to harden his heart; the most English of our greater figures, he spent his life in opposition to the majority of Englishmen; a realist, he was condemned to build that which could not last.67
And is there a shorter or clearer exposition of the constitutional dilemma inherent in the Protectorate than this? ‘He was to be a prince, but a prince who must remain standing, since he had no throne.’68
In November 1934 the Buchans sailed to New York, where JB had been invited to open the Harkness Library at Columbia University. He spoke to a large audience, and the speech was broadcast. While in New York, he met the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, for the first time, Ramsay MacDonald having ‘entrusted me with some very confidential things to say to the President of the USA’.69 We do not know what those were, but this was the beginning of a connection that bore fruit in later years.
They came home after ten days, enduring an extremely rough voyage on RMS Berengaria. Also on the ship were Hugh Walpole, J. B. Priestley and Beverley Nichols. Walpole was ill in bed, and his fellow writers kept him company, Walpole remarking to JB: ‘Do you realise that if this ship goes down tonight four of Britain’s best-selling writers will be lost, and that all the non-best-selling writers will probably have a party to celebrate the event?’70
In January 1935 the family went to Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd’s Bush to watch The 39 Steps being filmed. ‘They have altered the story in parts, but very cleverly, and they have got a first-class man for Hannay,’ JB told Johnnie.71 That first-class man was Robert Donat, the handsome English actor with the beautiful voice who had come to prominence the year before in the Hollywood film The Count of Monte Cristo.
In 1934, Gaumont-British had bought a seven-year option to film The Thirty-Nine Steps for a very modest £800 and it was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, at a cost of £60,000. Hitchcock owned copies of all JB’s novels and told François Truffaut that he had been ‘a strong influence [for] a long time’.72 (Hitchcock had originally thought of filming Greenmantle but concluded that The Thirty-Nine Steps would be easier, as it was on a smaller scale and usefully episodic.) The screenplay was mainly written by Charles Bennett, who thought the book ‘awful’.
The 39 Steps (replacing words with numbers must have made things easier for the poster artist) was one of the first ‘man-on-the-run’ thrillers ever filmed and it made Alfred Hitchcock famous in America for the first time, breaking box-office records there. Much of the plot was changed to reflect the different international situation, twenty years on from 1915, as well as the fact that the book’s plot turned on the clever disguise of the Black Stone gang, something very difficult to film successfully back then. Hitchcock retained the suspense produced by the twin pressures of pursuit by both police and foriegn agents, but played up the comedy, especially at the political meeting. And he famously introduced a love interest. In the film, the nationality of the international spies is not specified – since the Foreign Office had told film-makers in the mid-1930s not to be beastly about the Germans. So ‘The 39 Steps’ becomes a foreign organisation trying to steal the details of an aircraft’s production. Richard Hannay, now a Canadian, acquires a reluctant female companion, Pamela, played by the beautiful Madeleine Carroll; she initially tries to deliver him into the hands of the police but comes to believe his story. The scene when they have to share a room in a Scottish inn and she removes her stocking, while handcuffed to him, still gives off an erotic spark, and is one of the most famous romantic scenes in pre-war British cinema.
In early 1935, JB finished The King’s Grace 1910–1935, telling Johnnie in Uganda that ‘It was a most ticklish piece of work, but I could not get out of it.’73 In 1934, Hodder and Stoughton had asked him to write a book to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of King George V, due the following year. JB did not feel he could refuse (he was also to write the House of Commons welcome speech for the King in 1935), but the task had to be done at high speed.
Although King George V is not a completely remote figure in the book, and something of the affection that JB felt for him comes through, The King’s Grace is really a potted history of the preceding quarter-century. It is also a digest of his war books, and it gave him the opportunity to revise some of his judgements from A History of the Great War. For example, he was more magnanimous to David Lloyd George than the latter had been to him the year before, reserving some mildly waspish comments about him for his reminiscences, Memory Hold-the-Door.
He had had time to reflect, in tranquillity, on what the Great War had been, and what it had led to, and his sympathy encompassed much of the world:
Little farms in Touraine, in the Scottish Highlands, in the Apennines, were untilled because there were no men; Armenia had lost half her people; the folk of North Syria were dying of famine; Indian villages and African tribes had been blotted out by plague; whole countries had ceased for the moment to exist, except as geographical terms. Such were but a few of the consequences of the kindling of war in a world grown too expert in destruction, a world where all nations were part one of another.74
The book was rushed through production, appearing on 4 April. At the Elsfield Silver Jubilee party, held in the Manor gardens that June, every child in the village was given a copy as a souvenir of this historic occasion.
One day in March 1935, JB wrote to Johnnie in Uganda:
I am in the throes of a great decision, and I won’t be able to wait for your views. I was sent for to Buckingham Palace to-day and given a private letter from the King. Both Bennett, the Prime Minister of Canada, and Mackenzie King, his probable successor, have asked for me as the new Governor-General, and the King adds that it would give him very great pleasure if I would accept…
I told the Court people* tha
t I would much prefer either the Washington Embassy or South Africa. About the latter there is the difficulty that they may very likely want a South African,** and about the former that the Foreign Office will fight for a recognised diplomat. Anyhow, I can scarcely refuse Canada on the chance of these other things.75
The year before, discussions had begun in exalted circles in Canada as to who should follow the Earl of Bessborough as Governor-General. That July the President of the University of Toronto, Dr Cody, had told JB at a dinner in London that everybody in Canada was hoping he would succeed Bessborough, prompting JB to tell his wife ‘Not for me!’76
As a result of the constitutional changes brought about by the Statute of Westminster of 1931, the choice of Governor-General was now made, not by the British government but by the Canadian Prime Minister, having consulted widely, with the King informed of the conclusions, which he would then ‘rubber stamp’. In 1934 the Prime Minister was R. B. Bennett, leader of the Conservative Party, but he was tired and sometimes ill and, after sustaining a series of by-election losses, was almost certain to lose his majority at the next election that autumn and be replaced by the Liberal Party, with Mackenzie King becoming Prime Minister. Mackenzie King ideally wanted the decision to wait until after the election but, since Bessborough was anxious to be gone, he and Bennett put their heads together. A number of candidates were canvassed but they agreed finally on JB. His name was put forward to the King and accepted.
The offer of Governor-General made more sense than it had nine years before. JB now had experience in politics, he appeared frequently in the newspapers, had been a model Lord High Commissioner, was now a Companion of Honour, and had been given a number of honorary degrees (an LLD, Doctor of Laws, from St Andrews in 1930 and the DCL, Doctor of Civil Law, from Oxford in 1934, to go with the LLD from Glasgow). He was known to be an excellent public speaker, as well as hard-working and discreet, and both he and his wife spoke French, important because of the presence in Canada of the substantial minority of French Canadians, mainly in Quebec. He had a reputation for solid, although not spectacular, public work, and there had never been a whiff of scandal attached either to his private or financial life. King George V had known him since the Great War, enjoyed reading his fiction, and called him by his first name.
He was by no stretch of the imagination aristocratic, as most earlier incumbents – the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl Grey, the Marquess of Lansdowne, the Duke of Connaught and so on – had been. His appointment would be a real departure. However, JB knew rather more about Canadians than most British politicians and, what is more, was not tempted to patronise them. As a young man in South Africa, he had bothered to read the Durham Report on Canada, and as early as 1901 had written that ‘Canada is essentially a country of the larger air, where men can face the old primeval forces of Nature and be braced into vigour, and withal so beautiful that it can readily inspire that romantic patriotism which is one of the most priceless assets of a people.’77 In 1908 he had helped raise money for the Montcalm/Wolfe memorial in Quebec City and later wrote a biography of Lord Minto, who was Governor-General at the turn of the century. He had both friends and relations in Canada.
Although it was no longer the British government’s decision, Stanley Baldwin had already come to the conclusion that JB’s future did not lie in Parliament (which is why he told a colleague that he was not going to give him a Ministry because he was ‘saving him for Canada’).78 He watched him closely at Holyrood, when JB was Lord High Commissioner, in 1933, and remarked that his face was ‘fine-drawn, sensitive to every emotion, full of pride in his own country and his own people, and happy that the lot had fallen to him to be the King’s representative in his own home…’ He had, according to Baldwin, ‘the face of one who has heard the Word on the hillside’.79 No doubt Baldwin communicated his conclusions to Bennett.
The day of his visit to Buckingham Palace, JB wrote to his wife:
Let me put the Canadian problem in writing.
Against –
1. Too easy a job for a comparatively young man.
2. A week further away from Mother.
3. A country and a people without much glamour.
For –
1. A very easy life for J.B.
2. The possibility of doing good work – redressing Bessborough’s mistakes [unspecified] – closer contact with Washington – the fact that I have been paid the enormous honour by both Bennett and M.K.
3. Only five days from England, so that the boys [meaning William and Alastair] could come out for all their holidays.
4. The right to return when we wanted, so that we could be in England when Johnnie was there. We could also bring him out to Canada and give him a hunting trip.
5. Apart from special clothes and uniforms, we could do it on our salary, and the rest of my income would mount up.
An immediate peerage might revive Mother. All the same, my heart is in my boots. I hate having to make these decisions.80
One important aspect missing from the minus side was his health and that of his wife. The list does not address the problems likely to occur as a result of a life led in public, when so often in pain or discomfort: giving speeches to large audiences, travelling long distances, the general stress and strain of office, being pressured into eating both enormous formal banquets in Ottawa or Quebec City and homely tray-bakes in the Prairies.
True, in the past, he had had quite long periods of remission, which can be a feature of digestive illnesses. There were times when he felt quite well and capable of doing anything. Then something would happen – a period of overwork, a long journey or an ill-advised meal – that would cause the problem to flare up once more. This unpredictability made planning difficult. In Britain, he frequently accepted invitations to speak at school prize days, Burns Night dinners, conferences on the Empire or Conservative education, knowing that sometimes they might have to be cancelled. In Canada, where engagements were inked into diaries months in advance, and some of which – like the opening of Parliament every January – had an iron immutability to them, there would probably be moments of acute anxiety.
It is therefore permissible to ask what he thought he was doing, even considering taking on such a public role as the Governor-Generalship in such circumstances? Moreover, with Susie suffering occasional bouts of depression, doing his duty also risked jeopardising her well-being, when detached from the sheet anchor that was Elsfield. She would inevitably be miserable at the thought of leaving England, her mother, her children, and the most pleasant, useful life she enjoyed at home. The trip they had planned for that winter in Africa, visiting Johnnie in Uganda, would have to go by the board, as would Susie’s work for Oxford House in Risca as well as the Women’s Institute, both of which she valued greatly. ‘[Mummy] is in tremendous form and practically running Oxfordshire,’81 JB had told Johnnie in February.
He was also quite unrealistic about the money. He would not be able to do any journalism, accept film deals or write books that had a political flavour to them, without bringing down the wrath of Buckingham Palace on his head. Just the month before, he had told Johnnie: ‘I am besieged by film magnates just now. The purity crusade in America has driven them all to my books, which combine the decent with the dramatic! I ought to make a certain amount of money before I am done.’82 Indeed, two days later he lunched with Alexander Korda, who was keen to film Prester John in Ruwenzori.
JB consulted with his wife and family, by telephone, as well as with Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald, both of whom encouraged him. Badly hustled for an answer by the Palace, he accepted the job in only two days, knowing that his wife did not think it an unqualified good idea for him or, probably, for herself. That said, it is inconceivable that Susie would have stood in his way, however much her own comfort was compromised in the process. And, although he would have agreed with his creation, Sir Walter Bullivant, that Duty was ‘a damned task-mistress’,83 there was probably not much doubt in his mind that She had to b
e obeyed.
At least his mother was thrilled, since finally her son was appreciated at what she considered his true worth. Characteristically, she wrote, ‘I am sure you are right to go – you are not young and there may not be more chances. I am sure the King is fortunate to get you. Walter is afraid you do not mention a Peerage but surely the King cannot go back on that for this appointment … I must say I would like to live to see you a Peer. I wonder at myself being so vain.’84
He took the job at least partly because of his growing disillusionment with British politics, and especially with the mediocrities that the National Government seemed to have fostered rather than avoided. This disillusionment can be traced from the early 1930s in his articles in The Graphic, his speeches and his novels; he was distressed that he could discern no great man to protect democracy at such a crucial moment, for it was hard at that moment for him (or indeed many people) to see the quality in Winston Churchill. A Prince of the Captivity (1933) is, in part, about the search for a leader who could see the way in the fog, without succumbing to the destructive egotism exhibited by the Dictators. JB needed a fresh start, somewhere where the air was, as he would put it, ‘tonic’, and where he might have a chance to make a difference.
Canada would bring together two of his main preoccupations in foreign affairs: the evolution of the imperial possessions into dominions, autonomous and equal in status to each other and Britain, but all under the sheltering umbrella of the British monarchy; and his conviction that the United States was, and would continue to be, the leader of the democratic world, with whom it was strikingly in the Commonwealth’s interest to connect. If he were to situate himself just across the border from the United States, and with the advantage of speaking the same language, there might well be an important behind-the-scenes role for him to play as a link between the British government and those in Washington and Ottawa. It is indicative that such a perspicacious politician as Lord Robert Cecil [now Viscount Cecil of Chelwood] should write to say that he thought the post would satisfy JB’s long-standing ‘hankering after Transatlantic work’, and that Ottawa was ‘a much more interesting and important job than Washington’.85
Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps Page 38