The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  There were not, in those days, many female members of the Royal Family able to undertake public duties. If the Duchess wished to play a significant role in the public life of the monarchy, there was much she could do. Before her marriage she had already undertaken more public activities than many of her age; she had been a commissioner in the local Girl Guides and she had often helped her mother in church and village functions. But she knew very little about life in the cities or about the industrial world.

  During her long life she was to become patron of a large array of charities and organizations. But she began this part of her career in an almost haphazard manner. The first charities she took over were those which Princess Christian, Queen Victoria’s third daughter, who had been much interested in nursing and other charities, had patronized until her death in June 1923. These included the North Islington Welfare Centre and Wards, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Mothercraft Training Society and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Another was the Royal Hospital and Home for Incurables at Putney. She took a keen interest in the work of the hospital over the decades that followed; at one stage she asked whether its name might not be changed, but the patients themselves wished it to continue as it was.103*

  As her gift for raising funds for charities was already clear, she was ideally suited to play a leading role in what later became known as the ‘welfare monarchy’.† In early November 1923 she and the Duke visited Manchester to help one of its hospitals raise money to clear a £70,000 debt; on 23 November she opened the bazaar at the Working Men’s College in St Pancras.

  On 29 November the Duke and Duchess visited the Queen’s Hospital for Children in Bethnal Green and that night they were the patrons of a ball at Claridge’s in aid of the hospital. The next day they visited the Royal Free Hospital in the Gray’s Inn Road on behalf of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals’ Association, of which the Duchess had recently become president. That same evening they attended the St Andrew’s Eve Ball (again at Claridge’s) in aid of the Royal Free Hospital’s Women’s and Babies’ Annexe. Writing to invite the Duchess to the ball, the Association’s secretary had been blunt about the ‘royal effect’ which helped charities so much: ‘The sale of tickets would be mere child’s play, if Her Royal Highness would graciously consent to this.’104

  She already possessed an enduring and deeply felt interest in the armed forces. This grew naturally from her childhood, from her brothers’ service, the death of Fergus and her experiences in caring for sick and wounded servicemen at Glamis. The war-wounded became a particular focus for her. At the time of her marriage there were still almost 19,000 wounded soldiers in hospital. In July 1924 she and her husband attended a garden party for a thousand disabled soldiers, sailors, airmen and their nurses in the grounds of Hampton Court. She talked with many people. A letter of thanks afterwards said, ‘Her Royal Highness was absolutely wonderful, you cannot imagine it without seeing it, the way the unfortunate, disabled men crowded round her gave one a lump in the throat, no wonder she is so popular.’105

  At the same time she became accustomed to the rituals of royal public life: laying foundation stones, opening new buildings, attending anniversaries – events by which the institutions involved set great store.

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  SATURDAY 26 APRIL was the Duke and Duchess’s first wedding anniversary, and the Duchess gave her husband a pair of cufflinks from Cartier. That afternoon they stood in for the King at the Cup Final at Wembley. Newcastle was playing Aston Villa before an enormous, enthusiastic crowd; the Duchess sat next to Ramsay MacDonald, who was very talkative, she recorded; and there was ‘terrific excitement’ when Newcastle won with two goals in the last five minutes.106

  Summer gaiety was breaking out and they spent many evenings at dinners and balls in great London houses, or at one of the many thriving clubs and grand hotels. They frequently went out dining and dancing with the Prince of Wales, to whom they were both very close, and his friends.

  By the beginning of June they had managed, to their relief, to move to Chesterfield House in Mayfair, loaned to them for the summer by Princess Mary and her husband Viscount Lascelles. On 3 June they gave a party for about seventy people and danced until the early hours. Among those who came were Fred Astaire and his sister Adèle, and sixty-five years later Queen Elizabeth could still recall the ‘thrill’ of dancing with Fred.107

  There were several royal visits to occupy them as well. On 12 May they formally welcomed the King and Queen of Romania at Victoria station at the start of their state visit, and attended the banquet in their honour that night. On 26 May it was King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena of Italy who came; the Yorks went to the Guildhall lunch in their honour the following day and took their children, Princess Mafalda and Crown Prince Umberto (‘Beppo’), to a polo match at Ranelagh.108 In July they were on duty again for the visit of the heir to the throne of Ethiopia, Ras Taffari (later Emperor Haile Selassie).

  More testing was their trip to the most difficult part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, which was still riven with tensions between the Protestant Unionist majority and the Catholic nationalists. This was their most significant official visit to date, the first time any member of the Royal Family had been to Northern Ireland since the King had opened the new Ulster Parliament in June 1921.109 The formal invitation came in March 1924 from the Duke of Abercorn, the Governor of Northern Ireland, ‘on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland’.110

  They spent a week in the province, from 19 to 26 July, and were welcomed everywhere with great enthusiasm by Ulstermen fiercely loyal to the United Kingdom. The Duchess’s diary gives the flavour of a remarkable week. To avoid civic ceremonies before reaching Northern Ireland, they sailed from the small port of Stranraer rather than Liverpool, on the morning of Saturday 19 July. Even at Stranraer, official presentations and crowds were inescapable. ‘At 9.30 the Provost appeared with an Address of welcome & a huge crowd. At 10 we went on board HMS Wryneck & sailed for Bangor. Marvellous day. We sat on the bridge & drank champagne & had great fun.’ They landed some three hours later, to a ‘great reception – thousands of people’.111

  They then drove to the Governor’s official residence, Clandeboye,* near Bangor, where the fun continued. The Duke of Abercorn’s wife was ill, so his daughter, the Duchess’s old friend Katie Hamilton, acted as hostess. She had invited their mutual friend Helen Hardinge to help. Having her friends there made the stay much more enjoyable for the Duchess, and Helen wrote a lively account of it all in her diary. The Duchess asked her to sing ‘The Bells of Hell’, they played poker until the early hours and constantly gossiped together. At one point she recorded that the Duke, absorbed in looking at some jungle prints, did not come when his wife called him. ‘The corners of her mouth went down after the third attempt & putting both hands on his shoulders she said angelically: “Bertie do listen to me.” He kissed her and came at once. The wisdom of the serpent!’112

  On Monday 21 July, they set off for Belfast. Messrs Armstrong Siddeley had lent them two Landaulette convertibles in which they could be better seen. They were given honorary degrees at Queen’s University and then the Duke unveiled the University’s war memorial. After a luncheon ‘with speeches and much noise’, they moved on to the Ulster Hall, where the Duke received addresses and made a speech which his wife judged to have gone very well. That evening they attended a dinner and a reception at Stormont Castle.113 After the reception there was a supper, but according to Helen Hardinge’s diary the Duchess complained that it went on too long, preventing her from shaking hands with enough of the guests. ‘When I do a thing I like to do it well and feel people are satisfied.’114

  The following day was filled with engagements. The Duke laid the foundation stone of the new City Art Gallery, and they visited the York Street Spinning Mills. At a lunchtime banquet in City Hall the Lord Mayor, seated next to the Duchess, seems to have set light to himself with his cigar. According to her diary, he ‘
burst into flames! Very nice speeches & great excitement.’115 The Duke received the Freedom of the City, the Duchess a present of silver from the women of Belfast. Finally, in a last-minute addition to the schedule, they fitted in a crowded reception for about 2,000 people, before leaving on a special train. That night was spent with the Abercorns at their home, Barons Court; the Duchess was tired and went to bed at 10.30. A day of recuperation in the company of Katie and Helen followed; in her characteristic phrase, she ‘talked hard’ with Katie.116

  The Duchess was surprised by how warm the welcome was even in Londonderry, the heart of republicanism, where they went on 24 July. ‘Up by 9.30 in my grey cloak and hat. Rainy morning … Arrived Derry at 11. Considering that more than half are Nationalists, we had a marvellous welcome. Drove to Town Hall, & got the Freedom.’ They toured the City and County Infirmary, attended yet another civic luncheon and reception, and left by train for Belfast, stopping at Coleraine, Ballymoney and Ballymena, where the Duke laid the foundation stone of the new town hall. Arriving in Belfast in the evening, they were met by ‘more huge crowds, who shrieked & yelled’, before continuing on to Mount Stewart, the home of Lord and Lady Londonderry, where they were to spend the next two nights. It had been ‘a very long day!’ as the Duchess recorded; and the next day was spent quietly at Mount Stewart. On their last evening their hosts gave a dinner at which the Duchess sat between Lord Londonderry and the Primate of Ireland (the Most Rev. Charles D’Arcy, Archbishop of Armagh), and then ‘danced hard, until 2!’, with their host, her husband and others.117

  On Saturday, a lovely day, the Duchess went for a walk along the seashore with Dorothé Plunket. After lunch she changed into a grey crêpe de Chine dress with a pink hat, and she and the Duke then made their way by car and train through cheering crowds, stopping to be presented with bouquets, and ending eventually at Belfast Harbour. At 6.15 they set sail in HMS Wryneck once more. ‘The visit was a great success I think. We sat on the bridge & talked & drank champagne. Very nice people.’118

  The visit was indeed deemed a success. The Duke wrote afterwards to his father to say that their reception had been astounding. ‘Elizabeth has been marvellous as usual & the people simply love her already. I am very lucky indeed to have her to help me as she knows exactly what to do & say to all the people we meet.’119

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  ON 11 AUGUST their happy time at Chesterfield House came to an end. Reluctantly they had to move back to White Lodge. First, though, there was the pleasure of late summer in Scotland. They went north, stopping at Studley Royal near Ripon to stay with the Vyners and then on up to Edinburgh, where they saw the Duchess’s sister May Elphinstone and her children, of whom the Duchess was very fond.* Then it was further north to Glamis and Balmoral for the rest of August and September. It is clear from correspondence and diaries that they both found Glamis the more congenial and more restful home.

  The King’s regime at Balmoral had not relaxed. No cocktails were allowed, no card games either. The guest lists rarely changed and included a succession of ministers invited more for business than for pleasure, and two old friends of the King, Canon Dalton and Sister Agnes. Dalton, a formidable autocrat, had been George V’s tutor and was a canon of Windsor.* Now in his eighties, he was tall and stooped and some thought he looked as if he had been quarried from the same stone as the Castle. He was arrogant with his peers in the Chapter and his humour, though boisterous, was not always well considered. According to George V’s biographer, Kenneth Rose, he took to reading the lessons in a dramatic manner – ‘he endowed the Almighty with a thundering bass and Isaiah with a piping falsetto.’120

  Miss Agnes Keyser, known as Sister Agnes, was the founder and Matron of King Edward VII’s Hospital for Officers, which in those days was in Grosvenor Crescent off Hyde Park Corner. She had been a friend of King Edward and it was said that she had enabled him to meet his companion Mrs Keppel in her house. She liked to have patients from the Household Cavalry and the Brigade of Guards and she is reported to have been rather malicious. Harold Nicolson observed that she ‘enjoyed repeating to the King, not always with useful results, the talk of the town’.121 This talk often included the latest gossip about the adventures of the King’s sons, in particular the Prince of Wales. She was one of the few people privileged to have her own key to Buckingham Palace garden and so she had ample opportunity to repeat to the King whatever stories she had acquired about the Princes and ‘bad women’, a source of continual anxiety to the monarch. At Balmoral she cut a remarkable figure striding across the moors dressed in mauve and wearing an orange wig.122 But she and Canon Dalton were perhaps not ideal companions for young people who had driven many miles for dinner. When on one occasion the King asked the Labour minister J. H. Thomas, a former railwayman whose company he enjoyed, why his sons did not spend more time at Balmoral, Thomas was frank: ‘It’s a dull ’ouse, Sir, a bloody dull ’ouse.’123

  In September 1924 the Duchess wrote to her mother from Balmoral, saying that she had been meaning to write every day ‘but somehow it is so boring that I felt there was nothing to tell you!! However the King & Queen are in very good form, and we are both very popular!’ There were consolations. ‘There are one or two quite nice old men here, who only appear at meals.’ And there was about to be a ghillies’ ball – ‘the Queen is simply thrilled’, the Duchess commented – for Queen Mary loved dancing.124 The ‘old men’ were Lords Rawlinson and Revelstoke. Rawlinson was Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India and a much decorated First World War commander. John Baring, second Baron Revelstoke, was Receiver General of the Duchy of Cornwall and a director of the family bank. For all the boredom of Balmoral, both there and elsewhere it was part of her apprenticeship as the King’s daughter-in-law to meet men (and some women) of consequence, and such encounters no doubt helped form her abiding interest in the nation’s welfare, the Empire and the role of the monarchy.

  They returned to the more convivial circumstances of Glamis in the second half of September. When the Duke drove back up to Balmoral at the end of the month for more stalking, they exchanged affectionate letters across the hills. In one he told the Duchess how much he missed her and was thinking of her. ‘Don’t get frightened at night sleeping all alone darling in that enormous bed,’ he wrote.125 She replied at once: ‘I miss you dreadfully and am longing for Monday, when I hope you will arrive here sunburnt, manly & bronzed, bearing in your arms a haunch of venaison rôti as a love offering to your spouse … Goodbye darling, it seems all wrong that we shouldn’t be together, doesn’t it – from your very, very loving Elizabeth.’ She added a PS asking if ‘Mama’, the Queen, might have any trifle for a bazaar in Dundee in aid of a charity she would cherish all her life. This was the Lord Roberts Workshops, which offered training and employment to disabled servicemen and became for many decades part of the fabric of British society.* They were raising funds to help some 300 disabled men, she wrote. ‘It’s not so much a matter of money to keep them alive, it’s a matter of money to keep their self respect alive by giving them work & saving them from the street corners. I am very keen about it.’126 He responded with equal affection, saying that it was too cold to enjoy stalking and that he was bored at Balmoral. He was longing for Monday – and would be back at Glamis in time for lunch.127

  On Thursday 9 October they went to the bazaar together, and were met by officials at the Dundee City Boundary. They drove in an open car to the Caird Hall, where the Duchess opened the bazaar with a short speech. Then she and the Duke fought their way through the crowd who had come to see them and spent some time selling goods at the Forfarshire stall. Afterwards, the Duke wrote to his mother that the items she had sent fetched £20 and altogether they made a good deal of money ‘as everybody wanted to buy things from Elizabeth’.128 The sale easily sped past its goal of £10,000, raising twice as much.

  The Dundee bazaar coincided with another political crisis which had the King hurrying down by night train from Balmoral to London. Ramsay MacDonald had called a
vote of confidence on his handling (or mishandling) of a charge of sedition first brought and then dropped against the acting editor of a communist paper which had incited troops to disobey orders to move against strikers. MacDonald lost the vote and went to the Palace on 9 October to ask the King to dissolve Parliament. King George V was reluctant, fearing the harmful impact of a third election within two years. But there was no alternative.

  The resultant election in November 1924 was dominated by dubious allegations about the Labour government’s closeness to the Bolshevik government in Russia. MacDonald lost and the Conservatives were returned to power under Baldwin. The King showed no pleasure in Labour’s defeat and warned Baldwin against humiliating the socialists; he was concerned above all about the danger of class war. The Conservatives, he thought, should at once get to grips with the problems of housing, unemployment and the cost of food and education. The Duchess greeted the change of government with more enthusiasm. In her diary she exclaimed, ‘The election news wonderful, already great Conservative majority. Everybody relieved – hopes for a year or two of comparative peace.’129 To her mother she wrote, ‘wasn’t the election marvellous especially in Scotland. One feels so much safer.’130

  In the next few weeks the Duchess made her final preparations for what would be a defining experience. She and the Duke were to visit East Africa. King George VI’s official biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett, wrote of the origins of the tour only that the Duke had long wanted to ‘see something of the British Empire at first hand’ and that, an exhausting year and a half after their marriage, he and his wife badly needed a holiday. The Duchess’s biographer Dorothy Laird speculated that the Duke also hoped to help his wife avoid the winter bouts of tonsillitis with which she had been repeatedly afflicted. There is probably truth in both explanations. It was a joy for them to get away together and the four-and-a-half-month journey was unforgettable – both for the thrill of discovering Africa and for the freedom which they could never enjoy at home.