The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  Back in London, June and July were filled with a delightful whirl of dances, dinners, theatres, nightclubs and country weekends for Elizabeth and her friends – including Prince Albert. For the Prince there were also foundation stones to be laid, war memorials to be unveiled and meetings of charitable organizations to attend. There were two royal weddings – the marriage of King Alexander of Yugoslavia to Princess Marie of Romania, for which the Prince travelled to Belgrade in early June to represent his father; and that of his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten to Edwina Ashley in mid-July. Then, on 25 July, he sailed to Dunkirk in a destroyer to lay the foundation stone of a memorial to the Dover Patrol.*

  On the return journey a curious incident occurred. John Campbell Davidson,† a member of the Parliamentary delegation which had attended the ceremony in Dunkirk, was introduced by Louis Greig to the Prince and was left with him in the wardroom of the ship. Davidson later wrote an account of the meeting.

  I had not been in the Duke’s presence more than a few minutes before I realised that he was not only worried, but genuinely unhappy. He seemed to have reached a crisis in his life, and wanted someone to whom he could unburden himself without reserve. He dwelt upon the difficulties which surrounded a King’s son in contrast with men like myself, who had always had greater freedom at school and University to make their own friends, and a wider circle to choose from. We discussed friendship, and the relative value of brains and character, and all the sort of things that young men do talk about in the abstract, when in reality they are very much concerned in the concrete.

  He told me that sometimes the discipline and formality of the Court proved irksome, and I sensed that he was working up to something important. I felt moved with a great desire to help him if I could. He was so simple and frank and forthcoming.

  Then, out it came. He declared that he was desperately in love, but that he was in despair for it seemed quite certain that he had lost the only woman he would ever marry. I told him that however black the situation looked, he must not give up hope; that my wife had refused me consistently before she finally said ‘yes’, and that like him, if she had persisted in her refusal, I would never have married anyone else.157

  Davidson’s personal experience probably explains why Greig had introduced him to the Prince and, perhaps, why the Prince confided in him. The conversation does seem to have helped embolden the Prince – he pursued his suit quietly and doggedly through the rest of 1922. He later described his tactic as ‘playing the waiting game’.158

  As it happened, the day after his conversation with Davidson, Elizabeth wrote to invite the Prince to Glamis. ‘How sick I am of London!’ she said. ‘It is a very depressing sort of end-of-everything feeling, isn’t it?’ He should let her know when he was coming, ‘so that I can collect a few charmers & Society Beauties for the same week’.159

  For herself she had unwittingly collected another admirer in London: Archibald Clark Kerr,* a diplomat eighteen years older than herself whom she met at a party given by Lady Islington that summer while he was on leave from his post as senior adviser to Lord Allenby in Egypt. He later wrote that he found her ‘wonderful, beautiful, and so gentle’, and his letters to his mother and to friends show that he hoped to marry her.160

  Elizabeth invited Clark Kerr to Glamis, but he felt that he had been ‘dull and inarticulate’ there. Nonetheless, ‘If anything can be perfect it must be the Lyon family. I had come to think that the type was extinct. Thank God it isn’t.’161 He wrote her long entertaining letters and she remained on cordial terms with him. Her friendliness shows that apart from the spirited young admirers of her own age, she was also drawn to older, cultivated and witty men. Arthur Penn was one such; another was Jasper Ridley, a barrister by training who became a banker, and who was a discriminating collector of contemporary art. He was to become an adviser on her own art collection.* A third was Francis Godolphin D’Arcy Osborne,† a cousin of the Duke of Leeds and thus also of Dorothy, the wife of Elizabeth’s eldest brother Patrick. Elizabeth seems to have met him first in 1919 or 1920, and they became lifelong friends, exchanging both jovial and serious letters. He remained one of the few people outside her family to whom she could express her feelings. In late October 1922 she wrote to him, ‘You seem to have spent rather a pleasant autumn – I spent the time entirely at Glamis, entertaining a series of guests, some were nice and some were NOT.’162‡

  The guests at Glamis had already included Lord Glenconner, George Gage, Prince Paul and Francis Doune, together with a succession of Elizabeth’s girl friends. Before Prince Albert arrived, Elizabeth wrote to warn him that the partridge shooting would be poor because of the wet weather, but she was looking forward to seeing him. ‘It is such ages since we met. I do hope you won’t be terribly bored here. I noticed some old chickens flying quite high down at the farm the other day, we might have a chicken drive to vary the monotony. Wouldn’t that be fun?’163 The ‘charmers’ and ‘Society Beauties’ she had assembled for him were ‘Fasty’ Doris, Bettine Malcolm,* and Rachel and Mary Cavendish.† Prince Paul returned for the week, and Chips Channon and Arthur Penn completed the party. Elizabeth’s brothers Michael and David were there. And there was an extra guest: Lady Airlie.

  The shooting was not good but Prince Albert reported to his mother, ‘Lady Strathmore is so much better and is much stronger than she was, and does everything again now. We were not a large party but a happy one. The Lyon family were all so kind to me.’164 He made no reference to Elizabeth. But his feelings for her were hard to disguise. Chips Channon later recalled, ‘One rainy afternoon we were sitting about and I pretended that I could read cards, and I told Elizabeth Lyon’s fortune and predicted a great and glamorous royal future. She laughed, for it was obvious that the Duke of York was much in love with her. As Queen she has several times reminded me of it. I remember the pipers playing in the candlelit dining-room, and the whole castle heavy with atmosphere, sinister, lugubrious, in spite of the gay young party.’165

  John Stirton, the minister at Crathie, commented in his diary that the Prince had wanted to marry Elizabeth, ‘but it is said (I do not believe this) she refuses to accept him as a husband. An understanding therefore has been made that he must not speak again on the subject. I am very sorry for him as Lady Elizabeth is the only girl the Duke has wished to marry. I do think he ought not to have gone to Glamis just now.’166

  But the Duke knew what he was doing. On his return to London he carried out a small commission for Elizabeth: buying her some new gramophone records. These, she wrote, ‘arrived in record time. (Oh, a joke, accident I promise).’ She posted him ‘two crackly sovereigns’ by way of payment, which he sent back. She was particularly enjoying ‘Stumbling’, ‘Limehouse Blues’ and ‘I’m Simply Mad about Harry’, she said. He also sent her a photograph of himself and she told him she had put it up in her room.167

  Prince Albert’s unhappiness in love had at least one good effect: it brought him and his mother closer, and she wrote him an affectionate letter of praise in early October. He protested that he did not deserve all the nice things she said. ‘But you have made me very happy telling me what you have, and I greatly appreciate it.’168

  The Prince continued with a busy programme of public engagements throughout the autumn of 1922, and although he and Elizabeth wrote to each other, it was some time before they met again. In early November she went to stay for the first time at Holwick Lodge in County Durham, a Strathmore property which was usually let for the shooting. She wrote to tell the Prince that ‘the family are amusing themselves by shooting at huge packs of grouse that fly over the butts at lightning speed! It is rather fun, and such lovely country … From the window where I am writing, I can see about 30 miles right down a wide valley – it is all nice & wild & lovely in the daytime. But nothing to do in the evenings, so I play the records you gave me.’ She added that she was longing to hear about what he had been doing. ‘So do come around one day.’169

  ‘I do so want to see you as
I have so much to tell you about what I have been doing & I am sure you have been doing a lot too,’170 he wrote, in a letter which crossed with hers. He came to lunch at Bruton Street on 11 November, and Lord Strathmore invited him to shoot at St Paul’s Walden for the weekend of 24 November. The Prince and Elizabeth had an enchanting time together. He wrote to her afterwards, ‘Wonderful day, wonderful shoot & wonderful time. Of all the days’ shooting I have ever had I can’t remember any I have enjoyed more than last Saturday … It was so nice of you to spend all the afternoon with me that day. I am sure it spurred me on to greater efforts.’171

  Elizabeth herself, however, was troubled that their friendship had given rise to gossip. She wrote to him of her concern, and he replied asking if he could come and see her to discuss it. ‘I do not think really that people will start talking about us again as they must know by now what friends we are. But of course it is just as you wish & we can talk it over tomorrow.’172 The weeks before Christmas were filled with invitations, and Elizabeth’s anxieties centred on a house party to which she and the Prince had both been invited for the Pytchley Hunt Ball in January. She asked him, ‘Do you think it will start all these horrible people talking again?’173

  Gossip or no, the two dined in a party at Claridge’s on 12 December before going to Lady Anne Cameron’s dance, and the next evening they were together again at a dinner and dance given by Mrs Greville. Afterwards the Prince wrote to thank Elizabeth for being ‘very kind to me … in giving me so many dances & all the rest of it. I have never enjoyed an evening more, & I rather think, at least I hope, that you did too. I only wished that we had sat next to each other at dinner. That was a slight mistake on our hostess’s part!! What do you think?’174 They met again on 21 December when the Prince took Elizabeth, her sister-in-law Fenella and her brother David to dinner and the theatre. Then they parted for Christmas, she to St Paul’s Walden and he to York Cottage at Sandringham.

  By now Queen Mary was becoming concerned by the rumours about a relationship she thought had ended. The confidence which had lately existed between mother and son seems to have disappeared, for she now used Lady Airlie as her intermediary even with him. The burden of the messages transmitted by Lady Airlie was that Elizabeth should not attend the Pytchley Ball. She told Lady Strathmore that she had been asked to ‘hint’ that Elizabeth should stay away ‘as it is perhaps wiser for the sake of the young man as your letter written early in this year made it clear that nothing further could come of the friendship, to the parents’ very deep regret’.175

  On Christmas Day Elizabeth wrote an unhappy letter to the Prince in which she said she understood his family’s point of view and would not attend the ball. She did not want to behave badly towards him – ‘you know that, don’t you? I think it is so nice of you to be such a wonderful friend to me, and I don’t want you to regret it ever … It is all very sad, and must be so annoying to you. We’ve had such fun these last few weeks. I do hope you don’t think I’ve behaved badly – I’m just beginning to wonder.’ She was sorry to bore him with ‘such a rambling and ill-expressed letter, but I felt I must tell you what I was going to do. Please tell me, have I done right? Yours in perplexity, Elizabeth.’ Across the top of the last page she wrote, ‘Perhaps you had better tear this up.’176

  They were able to meet and discuss such irritating problems at another ball, at Holkham Hall near Sandringham, on 28 December. At 3.30 a.m., as soon as he got home to York Cottage, the Prince sat down to write to her. ‘It is the limit the way other people mix themselves in things which do not concern them.’ He urged her to go and see Lady Airlie, who had just written them a letter which does not survive but which appears to have encouraged them to resolve the situation.177 He advised Elizabeth to be frank with Lady Airlie ‘and tell her exactly what great friends we are; & I will do the same.’178 He was angry and ready to confront his parents. Elizabeth however was cautious and anxious to avoid a fracas. She advised the Prince to do nothing until she had seen Lady Airlie.179

  Elizabeth had not written to Beryl, who was away in Germany, for some time. But now, thanking her friend for a Christmas present, she confided, ‘I don’t seem to be able to like anybody enough to marry them! Isn’t it odd? I love my friends but somehow can’t do more, I daresay I shall end my days a spinster, & probably be much happier! However, one can’t tell, can one?’180

  The Prince returned to London on 2 January 1923. The next day he took Elizabeth to dinner at Claridge’s and then to the theatre, with his equerry Captain Giles Sebright and Lady Anne Cameron. After the show they returned to Claridge’s to dance. It must have been a happy evening because the Prince seems to have been emboldened, perhaps on the dance floor, to ask Elizabeth once again to marry him. The following day Elizabeth went to talk to Lady Airlie and then wrote to the Prince at length about his proposal:

  It is so angelic of you to allow me plenty of time to think it over – I really do need it, as it takes so long to ponder these things, & this is so very important for us both. If in the end I come to the conclusion that it will be alright, well & good, but Prince Bertie, if I feel that I can’t (& I will not marry you unless I am quite certain, for your own sake) then I shall go away & try not to see you again. I feel there are only those two alternatives – either it will all come right, which I hope it will, or the other. I do hope you understand my feelings – I am more than grateful to you for not hurrying me, and I am determined not to spoil your life by just drifting on like this. You are so thoughtful for me always – oh I do want to do what is right for you. I have thought of nothing else all today – last night seems like a dream. Was it? It seems so now.

  Perhaps you had better not say anything just yet to anybody – what do you think? Do as you think best.181

  At this complicated, emotional moment of her life, she took up her diary again.* She wrote, ‘I went to see Lady Airlie – talked a long time & explained everything. She was so nice. I ma tsom dexelprep.’182 Elizabeth used mirror writing several times in her diaries at this time for her most private thoughts.

  She also recorded that George Gage had been to lunch with her, and had ‘bullied’ her into going down to Firle next day for the Lewes Hunt Ball. On Friday 5 January she woke feeling tired, and wrote in her diary, ‘Ma gnikniht oot hcum. I hsiw I wenk.’ Troubled, she set off for Firle. Someone brought evening papers from London and she noted in her diary that they reported ‘that I was engaged to the Prince of Wales – not mentioning my name, but quite obvious enough. Too stupid & unfounded.’183 The report in the Daily Star declared, ‘Scottish Bride for Prince of Wales; Heir to the throne to wed Peer’s daughter; an Official Announcement imminent … One of the closest friends of Princess Mary’. The paper’s description of the ‘young Scottish lady of noble birth … daughter of a well-known Scottish peer, who is owner of castles both north and south of the Tweed’ could fit no one else.184

  Chips Channon, a member of the house party, thought that she seemed perturbed. ‘The evening papers have announced her engagement to the Prince of Wales. So we all bowed and bobbed and teased her, calling her “Ma’am”: I am not sure that she enjoyed it. It couldn’t be true, but how delighted everyone would be! She certainly has something on her mind … She is more gentle, loving and exquisite than any woman alive, but this evening I thought her unhappy and distraite. I longed to tell her that I would die for her, though I am not in love with her.’185 Even so, according to her own account she enjoyed the evening. ‘Great fun. Danced with some very nice old friends – John Bevan, Tom Bevan, Ian Melville, Mr Wethered, besides our party. Danced till nearly 4! Home 4.30. Ate biscuits & sherry. Bed 5.’186

  A few hours later she arose, returned to London and drove down to St Paul’s Walden with her parents. After a quiet weekend, breakfast on Monday brought ‘a sheaf of cuttings about my rumoured engagement to the Prince of Wales. Too silly.’187 She wrote to Prince Albert to thank him for his latest letter; she repeated that the evening at Claridge’s seemed like a dream to her. �
��I think the great thing is to be with the person, or it all seems too unreal – do you feel that at all?’ She asked if he had seen the stories about her and the Prince of Wales. ‘It’s too extraordinary, why can’t they leave one alone? And in this case, it was so utterly absurd. I’m so sleepy, I must go to bed – thank you again so [underlined four times] much for your letter. God Bless you, Yours Elizabeth.’188

  She went to another ball, this time at Longleat, for her friend Lady Mary Thynne,* daughter of the Marquess of Bath. Back in London on 11 January, Doris Gordon-Lennox came to lunch and they had a long talk. The Prince then arrived for tea and they talked until 7.30, which led to another cryptic entry in her diary. ‘I ma yrev deirrow oot.’189

  By now the King and Queen had been made aware that their son was still pursuing Elizabeth and she was resisting him. They were not pleased. The Queen wrote to Lady Airlie on 9 January thanking her for her help ‘in this tiresome matter. The King & I quite understand from yr & Com: Greig’s letters what is going on. I confess now we hope nothing will come of it as we both feel ruffled at E’s behaviour!’190 Her own family was concerned too; she acknowledged later that one of her brothers said to her, ‘Look here. You know you must either say yes or no. It’s not fair.’ ‘I think he was right,’ she said. ‘It’s a good thing having brothers.’191

  The Prince felt that this was the moment to tell his parents what was really happening. On Friday 12 January he wrote to his mother at Sandringham, saying he hoped she and his father would not think badly of him for having left them with the impression that it was all over between him and Elizabeth. In the last two months ‘a distinct change’ had come over her and he had seen a good deal of her ‘in a quiet way’, and she had been charming to him ‘in every way’. He said that on his return from Sandringham at the New Year he had told Elizabeth how he felt and she had asked for time to think over what he had said. If her mother gave him permission, he was intending to go to St Paul’s Walden at once; Elizabeth had promised him ‘a definite answer one way or the other’ on Saturday. ‘This is all very difficult to write to you darling Mama, but I know that you and Papa will give me your blessing if this all comes right & I shall be very happy.’ He knew it had all taken a very long time but he was certain that he had been right ‘to play the waiting game’ because ‘I know she would have said no, had I pressed her for an answer before now.’