The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  The wedding cake was cut in the Blue Drawing Room. It was nine feet high and weighed 800 pounds. It was the one that they had helped design on their visit to the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in March, and was a gift of the Chairman, Alexander Grant. Its three tiers were decorated with the coats of arms of the Strathmores and the Duke of York, and surmounted by an ornamental confection symbolizing love and peace. At the couple’s request, Grant arranged that slices of identical cake were distributed at the Duke’s expense to thousands of poor children at wedding tea parties arranged for them in London and other cities.119

  While the Duchess and her family, old and new, lunched at the Palace, other friends and guests at the Abbey were meeting and lunching all over London. Duff and Diana Cooper had ‘skipped out’ by the North Door of the Abbey and got an excellent view of the couple driving away. In the crowd they met Jasper Ridley, and drove him home. ‘In an outburst of confidence he told us that he had long been in love with Elizabeth Lyon and that he was miserable about her marriage. He had never believed she would do it and it had been a very sudden volte face on her part as she had refused the Duke of York several times.’120

  At the Palace, the Duchess changed into her going-away dress, a soft shade of dove-grey crěpe romain, over which she wore a travelling coat wrap. Her brown hat was small, with an upturned brim and a feather on the side. She chose it, apparently, so that the crowds would not find their view of her impeded.121 As they left for their honeymoon in an open landau, their friends and relations threw rose petals over them. The Duke’s brothers and the bridesmaids ran into the arch of the forecourt after the landau, throwing more petals, and were pushed against the wall of the arch as the escort of cavalry moved briskly after the carriage – ‘for an alarming moment they were caught between the stone wall and the quarters of the great black horses.’122

  Cheering crowds accompanied the couple to Waterloo where a special train awaited them. Their carriage was, according to The Times, ‘upholstered in old gold brocade and decorated with white roses, white heather, white carnations and lilies of the valley’. The train drew out at 4.35 p.m. and after a gentle ride through south London into the Surrey countryside arrived at Bookham at 5.10 p.m. There the newly-weds received bouquets and listened to an address of welcome before they were taken by car to Polesden Lacey, the home of Mrs Ronnie Greville, who had been delighted to offer it to them. One of the first things that the new Duchess did there was to send a telegram to her mother saying, ‘Arrived safely deliciously peaceful here hope you are not all too tired love Elizabeth’.123

  Her diary records her wedding day thus:

  Thur 26 Apr. Woke at 8.30. Up by 10. Put on my wedding dress, aided by Suzanne & Catherine. It looked lovely. All the family went off early, also mother. Miss Chard came & talked to me. At 11.12 the carriage came, & father & I started off for the Abbey. Lots of people in B St., & crowds in the streets. Did not feel very nervous. Bertie smiled at me when I got up to him – & it all went off well. We had a long drive home to B.P. Crowds very kind. We were photographed, & also went out on the balcony. Then luncheon. Sat between Bertie & the King. After lunch talked & cut cake etc. Went to change about 3.20. Mother & Anne* came – then May & Rosie, Mike & David & father. Awful saying goodbye. B & I drove off at 4.15 & had a special to Bookham. Very tired & happy. Bed 12.124

  * The Dundee Advertiser even claimed prior knowledge: ‘Today’s announcement of the betrothal of the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, youngest daughter of the Earl of Strathmore, will be received with great gratification throughout the Kingdom and with very special emotions of pleasure in Forfarshire. But, in Forfarshire, at any rate, the news will contain little of the element of surprise. Rumour, which does not always lie, has prepared the public to hear that a very charming romance was maturing which would link the Royal House with the ancient and historic family of romantic Glamis. It is just the kind of wedding which the British public would like – a wedding of free choice yet in every way charmingly right. The Duke, if nobody else, has reason to thank his stars that the war has been fought. Otherwise a dread convention of pre-war Royalty might have sent him to meet his fate in Germany instead of Strathmore.’ (16 January 1923)

  * One of these may have been from the Glasgow Herald, which published a well-informed article next day.

  * A journalist on the Daily Sketch wrote on 19 January 1923: ‘The interviews granted to the Press, for which, let me add, both Press and public are duly grateful, by Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon are surely without precedent. Never before has the bride-to-be of a prince of the blood-royal established such a link between the teeming millions and the private affairs of the exalted few. But I shouldn’t be at all surprised to find a complete cessation of these interviews in the very near future.’

  * Lance Corporal Norman Jepson had written a sixteen-verse ‘Ode to Glamis’ in Elizabeth’s autograph book, singing her praises as ‘a maiden, charming and rare’.

  * Many years later, in a letter to David Bowes Lyon, Clark Kerr asked him ‘to tell me how the devil you knew that I loved your sister so much. It is quite true. I did … I didn’t tell anyone and I am sure that she didn’t, for she was quite determined that I should not tell her either! I know that it took me seven years to get over it, if ever I really did.’ (10 February 1944, Bowes Lyon Papers, SPW)

  * Lieutenant Commander Clare George Vyner (1894–1989) of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal.

  † Major Robert Alexander Abercromby MC (1895–1972), later ninth Baronet.

  ‡ Horace, first Earl Farquhar (1844–1923), Master of the Household to Edward VII 1901–7; Lord Steward to George V 1915–22; friend of both Kings. He had a house in Grosvenor Square as well as White Lodge, and Castle Rising, near Sandringham, which King George V, who had leased the house and its shooting, sub-let to him.

  § The revue, originally devised by Davey Burnaby, ran for 500 performances from June 1921 at the Royalty Theatre in London. It included songs by Irving Berlin, and among the cast was Stanley Holloway.

  * John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) drew her in a single two-hour sitting on 17 February; she commented in her diary: ‘simply marvellous’. He did another charcoal portrait of her on 2 March. One of the two portraits, a profile, belonged to Lady Strathmore before passing into Queen Elizabeth’s collection. Sargent also drew Prince Albert’s portrait, commissioned by the American Ambassador, George Harvey, as his wedding present to the couple. (Susan Owens, Watercolours and Drawings from the Collection of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, pp. 66–9)

  † Louis Frederick Roslyn (1878–1940). The bust is now at Clarence House (RCIN 100975), and is illustrated in John Cornforth, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother at Clarence House, p. 118.

  ‡ This was for the Countess of Strathmore’s present to her future son-in-law, a miniature framed in diamonds (RCIN 422497). Mabel Hankey also painted a charming watercolour portrait of Lady Strathmore in 1923, which was given to Elizabeth as a wedding present (RCIN 453428). She had painted Elizabeth as a child in 1907 (RCIN 453421). (Owens, Watercolours and Drawings from the Collection of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, pp. 64, 62)

  * Frogmore House, set in the private Home Park at Windsor Castle, is famous for its beautiful landscaped garden and eighteenth-century lake. Queen Victoria loved Frogmore and built a mausoleum for herself and her husband, Prince Albert, in the grounds.

  * The Hon. Richard Molyneux (1873–1954), son of fourth Earl of Sefton, decorated for his services in the Tirah Campaign on the North-West Frontier of India in 1897–8, fought under Kitchener in the Sudan in 1898, badly wounded at the Battle of Omdurman. Served in the South African War 1899–1901 and in the First World War. Groom in waiting to King George V c. 1919–36. Extra equerry to Queen Mary 1936–53. He also acted as an unofficial artistic adviser on picture hangs and the arrangement of rooms, to Queen Mary and later to Queen Elizabeth.

  * A morganatic marriage is one between a man of exalted rank and a woman of lower rank in which the wife does
not acquire the status of her husband. Such marriages occasionally happened in European royal families but there was no provision for them in Britain.

  † Princess Louise (1848–1939), fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, married the Marquess of Lorne, later ninth Duke of Argyll, in 1871; Princess Louise of Wales (1867–1931), eldest daughter of King Edward VII, married the Earl (later first Duke) of Fife in 1889. Queen Victoria’s granddaughter Princess Patricia of Connaught had also married a commoner, the Hon. Alexander Ramsay, in 1919, and had taken the name Lady Patricia Ramsay.

  ‡ They were married secretly at Breda in 1659 but publicly in England the following year, after the Restoration. Two of King George Ill’s brothers secretly married commoners of whom the King did not approve (this led to the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, under which the sovereign’s approval of marriages of members of the Royal Family, whether or not to commoners, has to be secured). His son (the Duke of Sussex) and grandson (the second Duke of Cambridge) subsequently also married commoners.

  * Audrey Coats, née James (1902–68), sister of Edward James of West Dean, well known for his patronage of surrealist art. One of Elizabeth’s good friends, Audrey had married Dudley Coats in 1922.

  * The dresses made by Madame Handley Seymour for the trousseau were shown to the press on 20 April. The Times listed twelve, and remarked on their simplicity; more striking for those remembering their wearer in her later years are the colours: black, navy, beige, very little blue or green and no yellow, although mauve, pink, silver and white appear. Full details of her wedding dress and going-away outfit – which was of a grey/beige tint – were also given to the press in advance. (The Times and Morning Post, 23 April 1923)

  * Later HMS Collingwood became the name of the Royal Navy’s training establishment at Fareham, Hampshire, and in June 1968 Queen Elizabeth presented the ensign to the new HMS Collingwood at a ceremony attended by 3,000 sailors. She said, ‘Today I hand you this flag for safe keeping; guard it well, for this White Ensign is a symbol of the loyalty and courage of those who served in the Collingwood during that great battle.’ It was an emotional moment for her. (RA QEQMH/PS/ENGT/1968/11 June)

  * Sovereigns since King George IV have followed the practice of presenting Family Orders, consisting of a portrait of the sovereign set in diamonds and suspended from a ribbon, to female members of the Royal Family.

  * The Illuminated Address from the County of Angus contained watercolours by the renowned painter David Waterson from Brechin in Angus and a poem specially composed by J. M. Barrie. It remained among her possessions; after her death in 2002, it was sent back from Clarence House to Glamis.

  * Stanley Owen, Baron Buckmaster of Cheddington, later first Viscount Buckmaster (1861–1934), Lord Chancellor 1915–16.

  † Sir John Simon, later first Viscount Simon (1873–1954). Home Secretary 1915–16. Successively Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1931–40, and Lord Chancellor 1940–5.

  * Duff Cooper, later first Viscount Norwich (1890–1954), Conservative politician, diplomat and author. In 1935 he was appointed secretary of state for war, and in 1937 first lord of the Admiralty. He publicly opposed Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement and resigned over the Munich Agreement in 1938. In 1940 he became minister of information in Churchill’s War Cabinet; in 1944 he was appointed British ambassador to France, a post which he held with great success until 1947. He had married in 1919 Lady Diana Manners (1892–1986), one of the most beautiful women of her time, a vivid personality who was in her element as ambassadress in Paris.

  † Sir Oswald Mosley, sixth Baronet (1896–1980), and his wife Lady Cynthia, daughter of the statesman Lord Curzon. Mosley was distantly related to the Strathmores through Frances Dora Smith, wife of the thirteenth Earl, who was the great-granddaughter of Sir John Mosley, first Baronet. Although chiefly known as the founder of the British Union of Fascists, in 1923 he was an independent Conservative MP. He joined both the Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party in 1924; he developed his fascist sympathies in the 1930s. In 1936, after the death of Lady Cynthia, he married Diana Guinness, née Mitford.

  ‡ One of the film companies, Gaumont Graphic, used the wedding as a test for a new developing and printing plant, and boasted that by 9 o’clock that night they had produced 25 million feet of film. (Nigel Arch and Joanna Marschner, Royal Wedding Dresses, exhibition catalogue, Historic Royal Palaces, 2003, p. 21)

  * The tomb contains the body of an unidentified British soldier from a European battlefield which was buried in Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1920, the second anniversary of the end of the war.

  * Elizabeth’s five-year-old niece, daughter of Jock and Fenella.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  1923–1924

  ‘Bertie do listen to me’

  ON THE FIRST day of her married life the Duchess of York awoke at 11, had breakfast in bed and looked at all the papers. She still felt exhausted and did not get up until lunchtime. She dressed herself comfortably in an old blue tweed suit – to the dismay of her maid. ‘Poor Catherine is miserable,’ she wrote to her mother, ‘because I won’t wear anything new – I hate new things!’1 That afternoon the Duke and Duchess sat together in the sun, strolled around Mrs Greville’s garden and sat down to write to their parents and friends.

  The Duchess told her mother she was worried that she had been exhausted by the events of the last three months. ‘I could not say anything to you about how utterly miserable I was at leaving you and Mike & David & father. I could not ever have said it to you – but you know I love you more than anybody in the world mother, and you do know it, don’t you? Bertie adores you too, & he is being too marvellous to me, & so thoughtful. He really is a darling – I hope you all like him.’2 Lady Strathmore replied at once, thanking her for her ‘darling’ letter – ‘I just love it & shall always keep it.’ She continued in a way which exposed the depth of her feelings. ‘I won’t say what it means to me to give you up to Bertie – but I think you know that you are by far the most precious of all my children, & always will be. I do love Bertie – & think very highly of his character, but above everything I love his really worshipping you, & I go on telling myself that when I get low about you. However I do wish he was not a Royalty – but his own dear plain self, (I don’t mean plain in looks.)’ She ended by saying that she liked the Prince of Wales immensely, ‘but he is not a patch on Bertie!’3

  The Duke wrote also to ‘Darling Lady Strathmore’ thanking her and Lord Strathmore for letting him marry Elizabeth. ‘You know how I love her & will always take care of her, & I do hope you will not look upon me as a thief in having taken her from you. I know only too well what Elizabeth is to you, & to me she is everything.’4 Lady Strathmore’s reply was reassuring, saying she felt ‘very much at peace about you & my darling Elizth who I know is so very happy with you’.5

  Letters were dispatched to the Duke’s parents too. The Duke told the King what happiness it had brought him to be allowed to marry Elizabeth, and thanked him for all his kindness since their engagement. He hoped that his parents had been satisfied with the wedding arrangements ‘as I was so anxious that everybody would be pleased & of course especially you & Mama. I am afraid you must both have been very tired after it all.’6 To his mother, the Duke wrote, ‘I do hope you will not miss me very much, though I believe you will as I have stayed with you so much longer really than the brothers. I am very very happy now with my little darling so perhaps our parting yesterday was made easier for me but still I did feel a pang at leaving my home.’7

  Queen Mary replied that she and his father would indeed miss him, as ‘you have always been such a good son,’ and ‘we always turned to you in difficulties, knowing how reliable you always are.’ But their sadness was softened by the knowledge that Elizabeth ‘will make you such a perfect little wife’, and they were already devoted to her.8 Similarly the King wrote to ‘Dearest Bertie’ to congratulate him once more on having ‘s
uch a charming and delightful wife as Elizabeth’. ‘I am sure you will both be very happy together … I miss you very much & regret your having left us, but now you will have your own home which I hope will be as happy as the one you have left.’ He went on to make a pointed contrast between Prince Albert and his eldest son, the Prince of Wales. ‘You have always been so sensible & easy to work with & you have always been ready to listen to any advice & to agree with my opinions about people & things, that I feel we have always got on very well together (very different to dear David).’ He was quite certain that ‘Elizabeth will be a splendid partner in your work & share with you & help you in all you have to do.’9

  Many years later, King George VI’s biographer John Wheeler-Bennett commented, ‘No prophecy could have been more completely fulfilled, no expression of confidence more entirely justified. The Duchess was not only to be the partner of his happiness but his inspiration of encouragement in the face of adversity, his enduring source of strength in joy and sadness.’10

  *

  THEY WERE comfortable at Polesden Lacey.* A large mansion near Dorking in Surrey, it was built in 1821 to designs by Thomas Cubitt, and the exterior retained some of its Regency flavour. After the Grevilles bought it in 1906, however, the interior was redesigned to Mrs Greville’s taste by Mewes and Davis, the architects of the Ritz hotels in London and Paris. One of her additions was a grandiose saloon fitted with elaborate carved and gilded panelling dating from the early eighteenth century, and richly furnished with large mirrors and Persian carpets. The atmosphere she created was one of opulence and comfort. There were extensive gardens, tennis courts and a golf course, and the house was well supplied with all kinds of produce from the estate, on which there were cattle and sheep, vegetable gardens, orchards and hothouses. Mrs Greville was generous with staff, food and everything else her guests needed.