by Siân Evans
She had failed utterly to charm the Prince of Wales while they were in India; he resented the constant scrutiny of one of his mother’s close friends. Undaunted, Mrs Greville nurtured his younger brother, taking a keen interest in every aspect of Bertie’s life; after all, she was planning to leave him a substantial sum and her home after she was gone. It was generally believed that Bertie was unsuited to any public role, as he was incapacitated by his stutter. However, he was much liked by his family, and he inspired strong friendships. In the summer of 1920 Bertie was smitten by a young Scottish lady called Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. She was small and pretty, with a radiant smile and fluffy hair, and was much in demand in London society. As a daughter of the fourteenth Earl of Strathmore, brought up at Glamis Castle, she could have her pick of suitors. They met at a dinner-dance in Grosvenor Square on 10 June 1920, and were introduced by Bertie’s equerry, James Stuart. James’s family, the Earls of Moray, were near neighbours of the Strathmores, so he and Elizabeth knew each other well, and there had been speculation that they might marry.
Bertie enlisted the help of his fairy godmother, Mrs Ronnie, to court Elizabeth. The first letter in the Royal Archives from Elizabeth to Bertie dates from December 1920; she says she is looking forward to Mrs Greville’s forthcoming dinner party in honour of his twenty-fifth birthday. Mrs Greville often invited Elizabeth to her parties, but still she seemed to prefer James Stuart. She turned down Bertie’s offer of marriage in the spring of 1921, so Sir Sidney Greville, consummate court fixer and old friend of Mrs Ronnie, made James Stuart an offer he couldn’t refuse: a lucrative posting to learn the oil industry in distant Oklahoma. The field was now clear for Bertie, but Elizabeth still said no. She was fond of him, but had no wish to marry into the royal family. King George remarked, ‘You’ll be a lucky man if she accepts you.’
On 13 December 1922 Mrs Greville held yet another dinner-dance at Charles Street for the couple, an event also attended by the Prince of Wales, and subsequently leaked a suggestion to the Daily Star that an engagement was imminent between Bertie and Elizabeth, claiming the credit for yet another ‘royal engagement’ along the lines of the Mountbattens’ nuptials. However, a further three weeks went by without a breakthrough. Desperate measures were now called for.
On 5 January 1923 the Daily News gossip column carried a startling headline: ‘Scottish Bride for Prince of Wales’. The article suggested that the heir to the throne was engaged to the daughter of an (unnamed) Scottish peer, who owned castles both north and south of the border. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was the obvious candidate, and the story’s source was unattributed. Bertie was unnerved – Elizabeth would make a very suitable wife for the Prince of Wales, his older brother, and he had seen them dancing together. Elizabeth had twice refused Bertie; did she secretly hope to marry his older brother, the future king? The marriage of Bertie’s own parents had only occurred because of the unexpected death of his uncle the Duke of Clarence, to whom the future Queen Mary had been engaged. A bride deemed suitable for one prince might well marry another if circumstances changed. There was a shortage of suitable candidates as a potential match for the Prince of Wales, and it was imperative in the minds of King George and Queen Mary that their eldest son should marry to ensure the royal line of succession. Faced with the appalling thought that his more glamorous elder brother might marry the love of his life, Bertie proposed to Elizabeth for the third time. She too had been unnerved by the erroneous press speculation, and on 13 January 1923 she finally said yes.
Their wedding took place on 26 April 1923 in Westminster Abbey, and the young couple went to stay at Polesden Lacey for the first part of their honeymoon. Only five years after the end of the Great War, many Britons were relieved that a royal prince was marrying a resoundingly Scottish aristocrat, rather than a German bride, as in the past. That arch matchmaker, Mrs Greville, was delighted. Elizabeth was Scottish, she was charming, and of course she would be the doyenne of Polesden in time, once Bertie had inherited the estate. The Duke and Duchess of York became frequent visitors both at Polesden and at her London house. In return Mrs Greville was invited to receptions and dinner parties at Buckingham Palace. She was now the ‘favourite aunt’ of virtually the whole royal family. It was all a very long way from helping to run a lodging house in Edinburgh.
5
The Roaring Twenties
Politics were on the minds of many in the 1920s. One particular hostess, the Tory grande dame Lady Londonderry, found a new friend from the other side of the political divide. She had the magnificent setting of Park Lane, the highly experienced staff and the jewellery. All Edith’s efforts were in support of her husband, Charley, who viewed himself as destined for high political influence. She chose to deal with his philandering by excusing him on the grounds that other women found him as devastatingly attractive as she did, but, socially successful, intelligent and very good-looking, it was perhaps inevitable that eventually Edith would look outside her marriage for emotional involvement. She found it in the unlikely and substantially older figure of Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister.
Ramsay MacDonald’s story would be remarkable in any age. He had been born in Lossiemouth in 1866, the illegitimate son of a Scottish crofter. An early career as a teacher led him into politics, and by 1911 he was the leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He resigned in 1914 in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Great War, and attracted opprobrium for his stance as a pacifist, but by 1922 he was leader of his party again, and in January 1924 he was elected the first Labour Prime Minister, with support from the Liberals. This came as a profound shock to the Conservative elite. Mrs Ronnie Greville (very much a Scottish snob, though with plenty of skeletons in her own family’s closet) remarked, ‘My dear, one couldn’t be seen with Ramsay MacDonald!’ However, he was the Prime Minister, and the proprieties needed to be maintained.
King George V was determined to support MacDonald, and in an unprecedented move he invited the entire Cabinet to dine at Buckingham Palace. Lady Londonderry and Ramsay MacDonald were among the guests; she was asked whether she was willing to be ‘taken in’ to dine by the new premier, even though he was a member of the Labour Party. She replied that of course his position trumped any party loyalties. She was impressed by the personable gentleman who offered her his arm. He had been a widower since 1911; he was intelligent, courtly and excellent company; and they shared a love for Scotland, where both had been brought up. Their friendship started that night and lasted for more than a decade, despite political vicissitudes. The Londonderrys were the first guests he invited to stay with him at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s official weekend residence, and he was to become a frequent visitor at Edith and Charley’s magnificent homes. It is uncertain whether the pair were ever lovers in the physical sense, but their surviving letters are evidence of the ardent nature of their feelings for each other.
Mrs Greville also had an admirer in high-ranking political circles. For many years Sir John Simon was romantically interested in her. A barrister and career politician, he was widowed with three children, and was a frequent visitor to both Polesden Lacey and Charles Street. Sibyl Colefax claimed that Margaret was far too outspoken to make a politician’s wife. However, Mrs Greville insisted that in 1917 he had proposed to her, dropping to his knees on her drawing-room carpet to do so, but that she had refused because of his children. Leo Amery MP heard that after her refusal Sir John wrote to Mrs Greville saying he would now propose to the first woman who would accept him, and promptly married his children’s governess. Nevertheless, Sir John and Mrs Greville were great friends, and she wielded considerable influence over him as he held high office as, variously, the Attorney-General, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Years after Mrs Ronnie’s death, Osbert Sitwell discovered by chance that Sir John still visited her grave.
Sir John was instrumental in bringing about a peaceful conclusion to the General Strike of May 1926. There was genuine fear of a Bolshevik-
style revolution. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin warned that the strike placed Britain closer to civil war than it had been in centuries, and he was concerned that it might end in carnage. Five days into the General Strike, with public transport at a standstill and an ugly mood abroad, Sir John Simon, the former Attorney-General, drew on his knowledge of the law to point out that the strike was illegal on the grounds that it did not comply with an act of twenty years previously, which allowed trade union funds to be immune from claims of damages caused by industrial disputes. Consequently, he stated, every trade union leader was ‘liable in damages to the uttermost farthing of his personal possessions’. It was a very British end to a political crisis. Relief at the end of the strike was palpable. As the Duchess of Westminster later breezily recalled:
The dark shadows were caused by labour problems, strikes and unemployment. From time to time I wrote cheerfully in my diary that we seemed to be on the brink of a bloody revolution, but it was a possibility which had been at the back of the minds of the upper classes since the days of Marie Antoinette and which they had got quite used to, so in the next sentence I went on to describe how I was trimming a hat or arranging a dinner party.1
While labour relations remained stormy and unemployment rose in manufacturing cities and provincial industries, the very wealthy were cocooned from the harsh realities of everyday life for many Britons. The upper classes were reliant on the dedication of their expert servants to provide everything they needed. The collapse of the General Strike reassured the elite that a British Bolshevik-style revolution had been averted, though the more politically astute were aware of the yawning divide between rich and poor. As the cynical MP Bob Boothby observed: ‘Those were the days of large houses in London and the country, butlers and footmen galore, gleaming silver, superlative food and drink, and the Embassy Club. Fortunately the unemployed were out of sight; and, I am afraid, out of mind.’2
Each of the Queen Bees was tended by people who ran her household, managed her social life, organised her estate, drove her to parties, helped her dress and undress and ministered to her guests. Servants were crucial to the career of any aspirational hostess because they ensured the smooth running of the household. By the late 1920s reliable staff were becoming hard to recruit and retain. Domestic service had lost much of its appeal since the turn of the century, and only the wealthier establishments could afford to maintain their workforce at the same level as when Edward VII was on the throne.
The best servants were dependable and loyal, but occasionally human foibles crept in. The imperturbable Bole was Mrs Greville’s butler for four decades, and he exuded Jeeves-like competency and discretion. His second-in-command, however, Bacon, was short, stout, red-faced and claimed to be a Communist. He also had a habit of shamelessly consuming food and drink intended for the guests. It was Bacon who, while bending low over his hostess with a serving dish of pommes gaufrettes, unexpectedly belched and liberally sprayed the hair of Mrs Ronnie and the lap of Princess Juliana of the Netherlands with pulverised potato. Mrs Greville was surprisingly tolerant of such personal lapses, but she was outraged when one of her American friends, Mrs Grace Vanderbilt, attempted to lure away her personal maid, Mademoiselle Liron. However, she was not above a spot of poaching herself; it is likely that she acquired her pretty and popular lady’s maid Gertie Hulton from her Charles Street neighbour the Countess of Waterford. As Beverley Nichols wrote:
The hostesses of the twenties were like great galleons, sailing the social seas with all flags flying and all guns manned, relentlessly pursuing their charted course – and not above indulging in a little piracy if the occasion demanded it. Those were days when women really did ensnare each other’s chefs and kidnap each other’s head gardeners, and offer the most shameless bribes to each other’s ‘treasures’3.
Nancy Astor was particularly ruthless in acquiring staff; in 1928 she shamelessly poached one of her friends’ maids, Rose Harrison, when she was staying at Cliveden and, having employed her to look after her daughter Wissie, coerced her into being her own lady’s maid, a role Rose fulfilled for more than three decades. The relationship was stormy; they even came to blows on one occasion, with Lady Astor lashing out at Rose with her foot, and Rose catching it to tip her over (Rose had been a keen footballer as a girl, and an impressive goalkeeper). Their rows became famous throughout the household; Waldorf Astor would eavesdrop from his dressing room, amused by the waspish exchanges. His valet offered the opinion that Waldorf was glad that Nancy was taking out her venom on someone other than him. Nevertheless, Rose and Nancy were good friends; Rose wrote admiringly of her employer that she was
short, five foot two, but slim. She had a good figure and carried herself well, though often she moved too fast for my liking. She was strong and had no time for illness or feminine weakness. She had adopted the faith of Christian Science at the beginning of the First World War. Before her conversion she had been a semi-invalid and spent a lot of time in bed, but while I was with her she was as strong as a horse. Although she was small she made no attempt to increase her height by wearing high heels […] either she was very fond of games or she believed in keeping fit, probably a bit of both, for she was always taking exercise. She swam nearly every day in the river at Cliveden, or the sea at Sandwich; she played squash at St James’s Square. She got His Lordship to build her a court for her own personal use. She played tennis and golf; there was a practice course at Cliveden. And she rode regularly until her later years. In the winter we always went abroad for sports; skiing and skating. It seemed there was nothing she couldn’t do, and do well.4
In later years, the formidable Lady Astor also took a shine to Charles Dean, who was butler to her niece Nancy Lancaster. She needed a butler for her London flat and offered him a job, but he politely declined; she drove over to see Charles’s octogenarian mother, taking with her a beautiful shawl as a gift for the old lady, and talked Mrs Dean round. Still Charles resisted; then he was phoned by Edwin Lee, the Cliveden butler, and talked into accepting the post.
The Astors were notoriously careless with valuables. In the 1920s Lady Astor lent the famous Sancy diamond to her sister Mrs Nora Phipps, who was attending a ball at St James’s Square. In the early hours of the morning Lady Astor told Mr Lee that the diamond was missing and suspected it had been stolen by one of the staff or the orchestra who had played that evening. Fortunately one of the under-housemaids spotted a lump under a carpet the following morning, and the diamond was returned. On a previous occasion, in 1919, Lady Astor was sure that her new lady’s maid, a Miss Samson, had stolen the pearls she had worn the night before, during a party at Elliott Terrace in Plymouth. The police were summoned, and the unfortunate maid was interrogated in the library by an officer who tried to make her sign a pre-prepared confession. When she refused, he forcibly searched her. Meanwhile, Lady Astor’s pearls were spotted in a waste-paper basket in the drawing room – she had forgotten she had taken them off there the previous night, and they had slipped from view.
But if Nancy’s treatment of her staff was occasionally cavalier, they were capable of repaying her in kind. Gordon Grimmett, the footman, was adept at ‘acquiring’ clothing from the guests for whom he was valeting. Edwin Lee, seeing Gordon’s personal laundry hanging on a line to dry when he paid an unexpected visit to Gordon’s bedroom, wryly observed that if the footman ever ended up unconscious in hospital, those responsible for his care would have to refer to a copy of Debrett’s to try to identify the patient by the many coronets and high-ranking coats of arms to be found on his underwear.
Butler Lee sagely remarked, ‘Never judge a sausage by its skin’. He was courteous to the numerous beggars who called at the London house, and Nancy would often give them a sizeable sum, on one occasion handing over £5 to a tramp who turned up at the door, infuriating Rose, who had fought long and hard for an annual pay rise of the same amount. But her employer’s generosity was quixotic. Nancy once bought a large number of hats as Christmas presents for all
her maids – they were identical in shape, but in different sizes and colours. They were also extremely cheap, each one costing a modest 2 shillings and 11 pence, as was discovered from the labels. Underwhelmed by their extremely wealthy mistress’s generosity, the maids customised their hats, the footmen tried them on, and theatrical Arthur Bushell, Lord Astor’s valet, donned one and imitated Lady Astor to great effect. Amid general hilarity, a free-for-all broke out, the hats came to grief and they were all incinerated in the stove.
Between the hostesses there was often intense rivalry. They were aware of each other’s activities through stories in the press. There were also personality clashes; Mrs Greville resolutely ignored Laura Corrigan’s invitations, announcing loftily, ‘I am never hungry enough.’ When asked why, she replied: ‘To be known in the States as an English woman who doesn’t go to Mrs Corrigan’s parties is to be placed on a pedestal’, adding after a pause, ‘I like pedestals’. Eventually their paths crossed in Paris, when both ladies were the dinner guests of society hostess Lady Mendl (formerly Elsie de Wolfe), the American-born interior decorator. Laura Corrigan attempted to ‘cut’ Mrs Greville, who subsequently crowed about it all over London. Mrs Greville resented competition; on one occasion she and Mrs Arthur James, another wealthy hostess, attended the same ball, both wearing lovely sets of pearls. When Mrs Greville realised that Mrs James was showing four rows of pearls, compared with her own three, she reached under the neckline of her own dress and revealed another three rows of pearls, making six altogether.